As we are getting ready to move and packing we are also going through everything I own. EVERYTHING. The other night I found some old papers that I had written in High School that I held onto and i found this one. It is called “The Way She Feels.”. It is a story I had to write. The feelings are all mine…but I didn’t live in San Franscisco. That part was made up so teachers didn’t know it was about me. ;)
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Dark night, dark blood carrying with it a river of rage that had brought her to this point. And the horror of it suddenly shone with the clarity of her face in the mirror as she reached down for the razor blade. She always kept a constant supply of loose blades for when the rage took over. The cutting helps relieve the tension, she says to herself in a reassuring voice. I’m not addicted, I don’t have to do it, I just do.
She lives on the street in San Franscisco, it gets cold at night. She doesn’t know where her home is, she doesn’t have a home. Every passing day she is more mad at herself for where he life is, or isn’t in her case. She holds so much rage and pain in her sixteen year old being. People say singing or writing is their therapy but it is really their “release” from a “free” world where everything is dictated. She sees drugs, alcohol and citing as her way out of a life she dreams of leaving everyday.
The blade is bone chilling as she drags it across her stomach as she does each time. She stops and sits in silence for a minute or so, and waits. She is waiting for the pride inside of her to die and the courage to rage so she can have the guts to push hard enough to break the skin. You would think after two years of cutting it would e no problem, not for her, it’s more like a ritual. In this ritual she is waiting for the pride to die so she can humble herself before her “god” an refuge of cutting. She places cutting before anything, before life, love and herself. The pain that is carried with cutting, pain on the outside is no match for the pain that she feels inside, the void of something she has never felt for herself.
She never cuts deep enough to do more than hurt the skin, she is too afraid. She doesn’t know that cutting the outside is killing her on the inside. So many people care that she doesn’t know about. Since she left home when she was thirteen she has thought parents have no care in the world. They only think about themselves.
As she presses the blade a surge of pain jets through her body giving her a “supernatural” feeling, if she even believes in anything spiritual. It feels so good. How could other people not get how good it feels? The blood trickles down her stomach and pools into her bellybutton. It’s like she has left her body. Like she is sitting on the stairs, watching herself. She knows that it hurts but not knowing what else to do. Cutting is her way out of a boring life into a life less ordinary. A life not too many sixteen year olds lead. Cutting to the world is wrong, it’s morbid and people that do it deserve to be locked up and need only counseling.
But to her cutting is all she has to survive the nothingness her life is.
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As I read this I was taken back to when I was 16. And when all of those feelings and emotions were true to me. I was a little girl trying so hard to get caught. To be found out so I wouldn’t have to live in silence.
well, the process has begun. We are leaving Birmingham in 3 weeks from today…so we have started packing and getting ready for the move. As we were taking apart our bookshelves i had the thought that we are making our home back into a house.
When we moved in it was a house….well, actually apartment, but regardless…it had white walls, plain everything…nothing on the walls, no decoration. But it was the first 2 years of our life together. and over those 2 years it became a home. the refuge. it became comfortable. the place we wanted to go at the end of a long and frustrating day.
but as we take things off the walls and the character of our home gets packed into cardboard boxes it becomes a house.
see, this is what i mean…
This was taken like 2 weeks ago…
and this was last night….
the process has begun…
how long did it take for your house to become a home?
well, we have almost been married for 2 years and i have realized that i have not shared any of our pictures….
so, for those of you who want to see them here is a video. The pictures were done by the incredible Zach and Jody Gray with Gray Photography. If you are looking for a wedding photographer i would highly recommend them. They made this nifty little video for us. And almost 2 years after the wedding i am still glad i went with them…and i love my pics. (sorry for the promo)
So here it is….
Today, as i sit at Starbucks. Just off of a 5 hour shift i feel so content.
I dont know that i have felt this full on the inside in a very long time. it is like a beautiful collision of the music in my ears, the smells and people around me but i am totally satisfied in life at this point in time.
I have a best friend that i get to live with and spend the rest of my life with. i have an incredible manager and fellow partners alongside me at Starbucks. I have a dog that loves me no matter if i had a good or bad day…he is happy to see me. my best friend and i are about to embark on the biggest journey of our lives together…and we are together.
It took a huge step to resign from my other job….one that was hard…but one that i dont think i will ever regret.
You may think i am “just serving coffee” or “working in food service” but for me it makes me happy. my legs on the other hand arent as “happy.”
i am satisfied and content. right now.
Are you? if not what would it take?
So like i posted here one of the things i wanted to do more of in 2010 was cook.
Now, i dont really know how to cook or bake. Most times i stumble my way through a recipe…but i am convinced that the more i do it the better i will get.
Friday when i went to pick Chad up from work he introduced me to one of the parents of a child he hangs with at the Y (he works at the YMCA…nothing creepy) and she writes for Southern Living and does this. She told me that her major goals was to come up with things that have minimal ingredients and that can be done quickly and the kicker….VERY LITTLE CLEAN UP. Which i am all about.
She gave me a quick crock pot recipe for Pulled Pork…you know, like if you go to a BBQ restaurant and get a pulled pork sandwich…ya, i can now do that. And if you know me well you know that i love BBQ and crave it and Mexican pretty much weekly.
This recipe is super easy….
1. a pork tenderloin
2. a can of chicken broth
3. one onion sliced
4. salt and pepper
This is what mine looked like going in….
here is when it started smelling so good and i wanted it right then…but it was not done….
put all that in a crock pot on high for 4-6 hrs. Then take it out and with two forks begin shredding….SUPER EASY! it practically falls apart.
once shredded you can put it on a salad, baked potato or a bun…or alone, and enjoy! (oh, and for the record, no, my arms are not that hairy…that is Chad helping me.)
people…it was so easy and so good. maybe i can do this whole cooking thing…seems easy enough…follow the directions.
Do you cook? What is your easiest favourite recipe?
