i'm ill, not sick.

"this is bullshit" i thought to myself. i'd been lying in bed for three or four day, only getting up to make the occasional peanut butter and jelly or when i thought i was going crazy and needed air. i'd been sick, but i'd been wondering if maybe i was on the downhill roll toward being depressed.

bullshit.

i don't have time to be sick OR depressed.

it's hard to explain of you haven't really experienced it. being depressed i mean. it's like any other illness, it comes out of nowhere and sort of sucks you dry. it's exhausting being in it but it's exhausting trying to pull yourself out of it, and even though people say "just snap out of it"... you.... can't. either way, i didn't have time for any of it, i had a shit ton of deadlines to make and i didn't have time to be sick. or depressed.

dammit.

i walked to school a few times just to pretend i was okay. do you ever do that? just try and pretend you're fine even though it's obvious nothing's alright? i could feel my eyes bloodshot from allergies and sinus infections, my nose was running and raw from blowing it every other minute, my whole body ached.

"i'll just pretend i'm fine," i told myself. who the hell doesn't do that, right? i got dressed, put on make up, packed my backpack and went to emerald city smoothie. perfect. energy boost, vitamin c, and some protein: just what i need. i'd be fine in no time!

"i'm great! i'm doing fantastic! i'm terrific!" i kept telling myself, "i'll just trick myself into feeling better! this is gonna be easy!" after i finished my smoothie i realized drinking it had worn me out. always stubborn to admit when anything's wrong, i kept trying to remind myself everything would be okay soon. "i'm great! i'm doing fantastic! i'm going to make all my deadlines for homework! i can do this!"

i finally made it to the school library and got to the stairwell- i ALWAYS take the stairs over the elevator. i looked at all of them and all of a sudden i felt like i was in one of those really bad dreams where you're trapped running up or down stairs forever, and it's really a pain-in-the-ass sort of nightmare.

they all are.

"this is bullshit. i'm sick and there's nothing i can do to pretend i'm not."

soup&salad

since i'd moved out, we'd made a point to have dinner together at least once a week, but she'd been gone down to the city i'd left pieces of my heart all over, and so it'd become less frequent than either of us had hoped.

we were splitting something pretty normal: salad and chicken noodle soup. neither of us really had the energy for much creativity, and we were more focused on just existing off of each other. it's been pretty rough for all of us.

"those girls were always so condescending, weren't they..." she said, more an observation than a question. it was true. i'd been mulling over a friend's birthday this weekend and was bouncing my thoughts off of her. i love my friend dearly, but i'd always got the impression a friend of hers looked down at me because i never treated high school like a grand competition. pettiness aside, my friend was the most important thing, so i'd decided to go. screw what other people think.

"yeah, kinda. i don't know. they liked to compare grades in high school and this person was always really shocked when i did well." it was true. how can high school girls be so mean? it's been ages since high school, but i was more than certain some things wouldn't change... why do people hold on to bullshit things like that? life's not a competition, and as the great words of baz luhrmann, "in the end it's only with yourself."

"you know..." i started, "...theres a kid in my theology class that seems pretty shocked when i turn in homework."

"why? you're pretty smart, you just always put yourself down." truth. when i was younger i was shipped around the state so i could take tests and be tested for my "intelligence". i blew everyone out of the goddamned water every time, but it just never seemed important if i wasn't doing anything with it... like helping people or changing the world or something.

"it's my attitude."

"what do you mean? i mean i know, but..."

"i just.... i'd rather people think i don't give a shit than know that there's things in my life i can't handle that are a million times more important." another truth - my life has always been like this. i basically sabotaged my grades my senior year of high school when my best friend was raped... how do you help someone through that? that was the first time i realized life can be (and often is) more important than a gpa. when a friend took his life two years ago..... even though we'd only recently made amends i still dropped out of school for a while to figure out how to deal and be the support for our best friend (there's never a way to "deal" with these things by the way).

and now.... now things are really bad, and i'd really rather everyone just think i have an attitude than know my world is falling apart.

she knew exactly what i was talking about.

more later.

jcs

i love this. i mean seriously, someone looked at this and said "dammit, if there is a heaven it's going to be full of dancing women and judas". i know it's corny but in a lot of regards i think jesus christ superstar is a pretty theologically sound movie.
happy easter:

love,
your favorite theology student

her voice///i die every time.

open letter

oh, you know who you are,

you promised me you wouldn't. do you remember those car rides? there were two of them. the first one was when we were driving home from fred meyers to the tree house. we were behind a school bus and i missed the turn (like i always did). you told me about him, you grew up with him, and then you lost him. i was young and i didn't know much about anything but i made you promise me you would never do that. the second one was in the parking lot of fred meyers a year and a half later. all i could say was "i remember you told me about him" and you promised me you wouldn't do it.

i'm not going to say you're the reason i don't trust anyone who holds promises: there's plenty better candidates for that. no. not you. hardly. we got along so well, we just didn't work. it's funny because i do the same damn thing now that i used to accuse you of doing. i fall off the face of the planet when i'm batshit terrified of the world. it's exhausting isn't it?

we had a lot in common.

we love her.

you see what i did there? you were always good at picking up on my subtleties because i dropped them so infrequently and deliberately. but you see what i did with that? that statement is intentionally remaining in the present.

the action of loving from both of us continues.

i don't know if talking to a ghost makes me batshit crazy, but i don't think there's any way to deal with this. i hardly knew you as well as she did and this is fucking tearing me up. i can't imagine how she's doing. i'm not writing this to push any blame on you, i'm just saying. i can't imagine. i guess i don't know where any of the three of us are with this, hardly either of you.

you know the funny thing? you're still alive with the glory of love.

love preserves everything.

this is not the end...

-me

speak easy

don't get too excited, i won't vlog much i just felt like talking instead of writing today. i don't particularly like listening to myself talk, but i needed to keep some sort of consistency with my thoughts/writing/creative outlet.

cheers!

more later.

simple questions

"hey! how have you been?"

when has a simple question ever received a simple answer?

"alive with the glory of love"

quoted from one of my favorite song writers, max bemis.

there's even a video to go along:

still writers block.

tons of hw.

more later, i promise i promise.

i feel like i've been all over the place

trying to capture all the words i let go

running around like they've been cast into the wind

before i set them all free.

to whom do i belong?

"who do you talk to?"

the words cut through everything and hit the floor deliberately. he always spoke with intention, even the times he wasn't sure what he was getting to. i'd spent the last three months working with him to try and put a talk together, and i'd taken pride in orchestrating a lot of the event... i wasn't about to answer, answering would mean that i was asking for help, and how much sense would that make if i'm the one who's supposed to be giving the help? then again, i hear pride's a sin.

"who do you talk to?"

he asked again. i was a mess. i had been for about the last two weeks, and i'd done a damn good job keeping it from everyone.... because honestly? i wasn't there for me, and nobody needed to hear what i was going through. as far as i've been concerned, a good leader is strong even when they feel they're breaking. i wasn't about to give in to my weaknesses, especially in front of my team.

who do i talk to? the question hit me hard. i can't even remember if i answered it.... chances are good i didn't. it hit me in the gut. it was too close to home. i don't talk to anyone anymore.

oh.

sure.

i talk a lot, and i talk a lot about things that aren't extremely important, and hell when i'm two or three down at a bar i can talk theology all night. but who do i talk to? the only answer i had was a brutal reality check:

i only "talk" to my therapist these days. more specifically, every other week on wednesday mornings. it's easier. for now.

i get into the most intimate details of my life, and over the last six months i've had them all twisted and thrown back at me. humiliating. when did people stop thinking logically or with care? i have nothing left to give in speaking, family and friends alike. everything's been used. i'm spent.

that's not to say that life is any less beautiful, and i've run out of love, but the very precious words that carry my thoughts have been torn up and cast out and..... if i can't keep anything lovely for myself, what then will my words hold? if my words are taken from me, then to whom do they belong? to whom do i belong?

2323232323

happy birthday to me :)

so damn fabulous

brushin my teeth.

small towns

I'll preface this post by noting that a lot has been going on. Most of the days I'm left feeling emotionally exhausted, a little scared, and in a roundabout way... content. I've moved to Seattle... out of the small town I've grown up in, thirty-something miles north-ish of what I'm used to. In the two weeks I've been back up here I've noticed something backwards. When I was down in the south end I was better known to belong to Seattle: I go to school in Seattle, I go out in Seattle, and I generally hang out and kill time in Seattle. Now that I'm back here again I catch myself absentmindedly talking about the south end. Ask me my favorite bands of the moment: Big Sur, Goldfinch, Elk and Boar... Tacoma bands. My favorite venues? I'm in love with the art gallery I started hanging out at on weekends, and even though the Liberty Theater's closed it will forever be my favorite Puyallup venue. The five mile drive around Owen's beach is no longer a drive away since I don't have a car... but I left part of my heart on the beach so I won't miss it as much when I'm away.

It's not that I'm sad or that I think that I'm missing out... it just makes me wonder.... to whom do I belong? I'm waking up in Seattle wondering when the city's going to eat me alive, but I'd wake up in my small town trying to get away before it did the same thing. I feel like I'm stretched between one city and the other, like my heart's skipping beats between cities wondering and wandering along the water.

I know I've chosen to be here, and for me it was for the best. I don't feel like I've given anything up... maybe some conveniences... but at the end of the day I'm still left wondering... where do I belong?