Sunshine and Light Bulbs

He was sunshine in the purest form.

All smiles and glowing and brightness pouring from every inch of his skin.

He was radiant.

Glorious.

Warm and inviting like a cloudless day on the water.

Every time she looked at him, she was blinded by his incandescence.

She couldn't stare directly into his face, not the way the knots in her stomach begged her to.

Instead, she glanced around the edges, where it was just bright enough for her to warm up a bit.

She thought she was good at faking it, her own light.

He set a good example that she tried her hardest to emulate.

In her mind, she was just a star, a little farther away, and only a little less bright.

But he could see through her glare.

He did what she couldn't and looked at her dead on.

And to him, she was a light bulb.

When she was on, you could hardly look at her for the brilliance.

But when she was off, all you could see was fragile glass and wires.

He knew if she was handled too roughly, she'd break apart and the glow would die forever.

She wanted so desperately to hide the glass.

But to him, she was beautiful when she was off; all glass and wires and exposed.

Her delicacy was what made her different.

In a world of rocks who despised the light entirely, and flowers who needed it to live, she could create her own.

But the wires made him fearful too, for he knew that if she kept it up too long, she just might burn herself out. 

Social Media Exile

About four days ago, I decided I was sick of the toxic ideals, vocabulary, and morals of pop culture and America in general.  I'm sick of seeing the words "bae" and "goals" and "selfie".  I'm sick of hearing about how "thigh gaps" are life goals for different people.  I'm sick of hearing about the Kardashians and Bruce/Caitlin and how make up can change your life.  I'm sick of hearing about how pastel hair is the new "thing".

I needed a break from main stream America and Pop Culture and trends and fads.  I needed to take a moment and come back to what I believe, what I know is right, and what is important to me.
So, I signed out of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Kik, and Twitter (all the social media platforms I use) and I turned off the notifications for all five.  Yes, you read that right.  I turned off the notifications.  And the result was shocking.

What did I find? you might ask.  Well, here it is.

Day 1 was torture.  I checked my phone every ten minutes, on the dot, like an addict going through withdrawals in desperate need for their drug of choice.  I couldn't focus, I couldn't sit still.  I was restless, I was bored, I was irritable.  It was terrifying.  Technology and Social Media have weaseled themselves into our lives, convincing us we need the newest, biggest, touch screen.  Or that we NEED to know who wore it best, or what tragic fashion mistake Kim Kardashian made or who the latest celebrities to get divorced are.  We need it like we need air in our lungs.  We HAVE to know what that cute guy from high school is up to or what that crazy girl turned out to be or we'll just die.
But guess what: I'm still living.  I'm right here sucking in oxygen like I have every other day of my life.  And I'm not dead.

Day 2 was a whole new world.  I checked my phone every few hours, but it wasn't nearly as heartbreaking to remember I logged out of everything.  I could focus on chores and laundry and doing the dishes.  I found things that needed to be done and GET THIS: I actually had a good time.

By day 3, my IPod was missing almost 24/7 and I didn't really care where it was.  I only picked up my phone the two times it rang.  I got to spend an entire day enjoying the REAL company of my family, not obsessed with the virtual and insignificant lives of people I will never ever meet.

Today is day 4 and the benefits are really hitting me hard.  Not only is it perfectly okay not being tied to Facebook, or Instagram, but my mood has improved.  I'm not looking at photo shopped or even real pictures of girls who are naturally thin and thinking "man I really need to work out" or looking at filtered versions of selfies that took seventy takes to get perfect and thinking "man I'm never going to be as pretty as her".  I'm not looking at other peoples stomachs and thinking "I wish mine was that small" or looking at other people's relationships and thinking "gosh I'm so alone".
I've stopped comparing myself to everyone else.  I can look in the mirror, or into my heart, and think "hey, God made me beautiful and smart and talented and funny and outgoing and I rock it."  I think "man I'm blessed to have this life."

Without the constant shove of media trying to tell me who I should act like or what I should look like or what "pretty" is, I can find myself and become confident in the things God gave me.

I guess the point I'm trying to make in all of this, is that we don't realize how attached we are to our Faceboook profiles, or how many likes we get on Instagram or how many Snapchat friends we have.  We don't see the negative effect that Social Media is having on our emotions and our mentalities.  It is only when we chose to take two steps back that the real world and the reality of the nature of mass media can hit us square in the chest.  And folks, that isn't a good feeling.  It's scary, and unnerving.  It's like someone's had a hold on your mind and your heart that you never even knew about.

So I challenge you to become a Social Media Exile, try for just a week.  Sign out of all Social Media platforms; Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Periscope, Vine, Tumblr.  Sign out, and don't sign back in for an entire week.  Fight through the urge to check your notifications, turn them off completely.  If someone really needs you, they'll call or text or email.  You'll be amazed at the results and the mindset you find yourself in.  If you don't believe me, just try it,

Rain and Proverbs and Noah Oh My!

Could there be any more rain in Texas?
I feel like all we've done this summer is drown in wave after wave of pouring rain.
First, it was just a little rain.  And then we got this whole Tropical Storm Bill thing going on.  I'm so sick of rain, I can't stand it anymore.  The sky changes in an instant from blue and gorgeous with fluffy, cotton ball clouds, to entirely dismal and grey, dumping tons of water all over creation.

Poor Noah.  If we're sick of rain, can you imagine forty days and forty nights of it?  Enough to flood the entire world?  I wouldn't have done well on his ark.
But every time I think there's no end to the rain in sight, I manage to see a rainbow.  Like God is promising me, it's going to stop eventually.  He always keeps his promises, and I guess that's what's keeping me sane in this downpour.  Noah had enough faith to build an ark.  He had enough faith to trust God when he said it was going to rain enough to cover the entire earth.  All of Noah's neighbors thought he was crazy to do what he was doing and to listen to God.  But he never slowed down.  He did as God lead him, no matter how crazy it sounded.

In the wake of all this rain, and thinking of Noah, I'm reminded of what my own Christian walk should look like.  If God leads me somewhere, or to do something, I should go, no questions asked.  Even if my family, or my friends, or my neighbors, call me crazy and think I've lost my mind.  God knows what's going on.  He knows the future and the past and the present, and he wants the best for us.  So even when things seem crazy, even when we have those moments where we're asking "God, how is this even going to work?" we should do as he asks.

So as I listen to the thunder, and watch rain coat my window, and hear my dog's nails clack as he paces the floor outside my room, I want to encourage all of you to think like Noah.  To be faithful, no matter the circumstance,  to trust God even when our human minds can't comprehend the process.

Proverbs 3:5-6 tell us "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thineown understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."
We may not always understand what's happening, or what we feel He's leading us to, but if we trust him and put our faith in him, he will lead us.

Deafening Rain

The rain fell in deafening sheets as she stared out the window.  Such depressing weather.  How fitting.  It was like the sky was mimicking the turbulent emotions in her chest.

It was one of those days where she was dying to do something too tired to actually find pleasure in doing anything at all.  She had opened and closed Facebook six times.  Why she thought something life changing would have happened in the last ten minutes, she didn't know.  But she looked anyway.  Deep down, she was hoping the little green light would pop up next to his name.
Not that she would initiate a conversation.  It was just comforting to know they were doing the same thing when they were so far away from each other.  Well, comforting and simultaneously tremendously horrid.
With a sigh, she flopped back on her pillows and opened the little blue app again.  Nothing had changed.  All of her friends were either happily married, engaged, or pregnant.  People she used to know seemed like strangers.  His light was still off.  And she was still alone.

She signed off again and let the phone fall on her chest as she stared into the darkness.  She hadn't felt like turning the light on when she had closed the door behind her.  The cool darkness was comforting.  She felt like she blended in.  Like she belonged here, without light, without people.  That isn't fair.  she thought.  Why should I have to be alone?  Surrounded by people who have someone. 
That was the way her life seemed to go.  She was always just shy of being enough for someone.  People came together and fell apart all around her, but she never got the choice.  Someone might get close enough to brush her cheek, but they never stayed long enough for it to matter.

She tried to tell herself there was a purpose behind it.  That she was only going to be alone for a little while longer, and then her prince charming would come.  Maybe he got stuck in traffic.  But a month had turned into a year which somehow had flown into four.  Four years.  She'd had one date, a disaster.  She's been on the verge of something once or twice, but it fell through both times.  But it was enough to make it hurt.  It was enough to make her second guess herself.  It was enough to make her wonder if she was the problem.  Maybe she was too tall, too sarcastic.  Maybe she wasn't pretty enough, or smart enough, or funny enough.

But every negative thought shied away when she thought of him.  So maybe they hadn't been a "thing", and maybe they hadn't even been on the verge of a "thing", but they had something... right?  He hadn't shied away.  He had bowed up.  He fought back and made her laugh and made her feel like she mattered.  He gave her back years of confidence that had been stripped away.  So what happened?  He was there, inches from her one day, and the next he literally walked away without a word.

She liked to tell herself he had to, because goodbye would have hurt too much.  But her head knew better than her heart wanted to believe.  As she replayed their conversations over in her head, she pulled her knees up to her aching chest.  He would know what to say right now.  She thought as a tear slipped onto her jeans,  He always did.  And somehow, she let him get away.

The Life. The Guardian Angel. The Memory.

He was tall, well dressed, handsome.

He was witty, smart, funny.

He could talk to anyone, about anything, at any time.

 

She was tall...somewhat. She prayed she dressed appropriately.

She was witty as well, but awkward and nervous.

She hated strangers, and conversation, and especially hated conversation with strangers.

He came along and swept her up in his sarcastic, swaggering world.
Something in him was toxic to her walls, and they fell like silken curtains and gathered around her feet.  The destruction was a beautiful, glimmering, hopeful sight to see.  He put her insecurities down for a deep sleep, and banished her fears with a smile.  He made from this awkward slump of a girl, a gliding, beautiful, goddess, simply keen on being herself.

It was amazing, the transformation he set ablaze in her.  Insecurity faded to carelessness and then blazed in a flame of confidence.  Her heart shrank away in fear, and then grew and grew, parts melting that had previously been iced over.  In the mirror, she no longer saw tawny, tangled locks but strands of woven gold.  Suddenly, her laugh was signature, and unique, not embarrassing as before.

Every sideways grin, every quiet compliment, every silent look helped shatter her fears and blow them away.  He was a hurricane of life and renewal.  He washed away the ashen dust of her past and planted seeds of life in her chest.  Even with distance, he was a gentle sprinkle of faith when she needed it most.  And just like that, with a handful of moments gathered up and stuck in her back pocket, she was new.  She ran with life, instead of hiding, and every step she took, she credited to him.
He was everything to her;
The rain in the drought.
The sun in the storm.
The rainbow in the dusty skies.
The life after death.
The guardian angel who saved her then.
And he would always be the memory she never got tired of replaying in her head.

Click. Click. Ring.

I got a typewriter for Christmas this past year.
You'd think that hunk of rusted, dirty, grey metal was a shiny new car.
I was in love the moment my eyes slid across it's keys.
Today I realized the ancient ribbon still had a little ink left in it so I threaded some paper in and began clacking away.

The sound of those letters slamming into the ribbon and flinging ink onto the page is honestly music to my ears.  I want to write like that forever.
The clicking keys, the ticking roll as I move the paper up and down, the classic "ring" when I reach the end of the line.

Something in the antiquity, in the out datedness is beautiful.
Im in love with it's effect.

Dispicable Time

I hate time.  That stupid, despicable master clock that just keeps ticking along.  Unfeeling, unrelenting, uncaring.  It just keeps going and never lets me catch up.  It constantly confounds me.

How can people I used to snuggle up to on couches in their living rooms become people who glare from a distance?
How can people I used to text incessantly and have inside jokes with hardly recognize me and then walk on without another thought?
How can people I loved become people I loathe?

I'm by no means innocent.  I walk past people I used to know and hardly remember their name.  I am not without blame.  But today, this time, my heart is aching in my chest. 

Change over time spurs so much.

It spurs that feeling where your chest constricts and you can't get a full breath.  It spurs the clenching of fists and the thinning of lips.  It spurs the kind of pain that won't go unnoticed.  It rushes over you and floods out without consent and is impossible to stop.
You can fight it and fail or you can let it in and pray it passes.  You open your heart and let out the misery, the hurt, the unjustness of it all.  You drown in the pain and the aching in your chest and it radiates until your entire body hurts.  You let your eyes sting and your cheeks flood.  And if you're lucky, it might pass.

See Me

I want someone to see me.
I want someone to know when I'm joking and when I'm being serious.
I want someone to see when I'm trying to be funny and when I'm silently crying out for help.
I want someone to recognize my genuine smile.
I want someone to hear me say "I'm fine" but hug me because they know im not.
I want someone to realize when I need cheering up.
When I'm falling apart.
When I need support.

I'm tired of the faces.
I'm tired of pretending.
I'm tired of everyone thinking things are perfect.

I want someone to see me.

The Last Time

It was amazing, the way they set each other on fire the last time they met.

Really, if she had to blame it on anyone, it was his fault.  With all his deep looks and that perfect grin, how could it be her fault at all?  They made quite a team, when they weren't fighting each other.  But they could rarely stop arguing to let anyone else in.

It was a sweet kind of arguing.  He would point out something about her and she would be too cynical to take it seriously.  Endless giggling would ensue and they were off to the races.

He liked to flirt.  But not with her.  With her, it was different.  There was no hair touching or space invasion, no matter how badly she craved his closeness.  There were no compliments, no winks, nothing like what she watched transpire with other girls.  There was only good natured arguing and a hell of a lot of laughter.

She smarted off, hardly letting the thought of her words touch her mind before they came spinning off her tongue.  At first, she panicked.  But then he laughed.  He really laughed, and the smile that came to his face was radiant like nothing she'd ever seen.  And the knowledge that she put that smile on his face?  That was the best part.  His low, rumbling laugh sent a shiver down her arms and turned her cheeks bright red.  But she didn't care.  She made him laugh and at that moment, that was all that mattered.

He caught her off guard, reading into her in a way no one was ever able too, seeing through her like she was made of glass.  It was scary, but oddly invigorating.  He could see her.  For as long as she could remember, no one could see her like he did, and now there he was reading through her like a children's book.

At the height of their interaction, when he reached out, she rolled her eyes but her heart was pounding.  Their knuckles touched, and she felt a literal, physical, spark.  The act was simple, trivial really, but it seemed to solidify something between them.  Something that made her acutely aware of his location relative to her.  Something that held his eyes to her face.  Something unspoken between them that changed the waves in the air from friendly fire to something more.  Something with underlying meanings and a depth neither of them could hope to reach the bottom of.

Her only regret was how late in the season the moment had fallen.  Their season was coming to an end, the leaves of their trees all fallen to the ground now, ready for the next period of time.  But neither of them could guess whether they would move into the same season, or if one would move backward as the other slid forward.  There was no telling what would happen next, but whatever happened they knew for sure the air between them would never be the same.

What They Saw

She was a walking nervous habit.
Her knuckles begged her to stop popping them every five seconds.
The inside of her lip was constantly sore from incessant chewing.
The bounce of her knee made her thigh muscles ache for relief.
But there was no stopping it.
Nothing could keep her from clicking her pen.
Or from popping her neck.
Or from twisting her earrings.
Or from shaking out her bangs with her fingers.
Or from twisting sections of hair around her fingers.
They made her look fidgety, her nervous habits.
They didn't convey the nausea in her stomach.
Or the weight settled on her chest that made it hard to breathe.
She just seemed to have a lot of energy.
She seemed incapable of sitting still.
Which was another problem she absolutely faced, but it had nothing to do with the nerves.
They were two separate problems that seemed to manifest themselves in similar ways.
She could deal with excess energy.
She could laugh louder.
Talk more.
Hum.
But the nerves, the anxiety, that was a different story.
It was hard to control.
Hard to stop.
Hard to let out without looking crazy.
So she let them think she was overly energetic.
That she liked to fuss with her hair.
That the wide-eyed look on her face was normal and she was surprised by everything.
She didn't show them it was terror.
She didn't let on that her body was reacting without her consent.
Reacting to an emotion she didn't condone.
So she became the fidgety girl, the girl who laughed too loud and talked too much and played with her hair all the time.
As long as they didn't see the panic, that was okay with her.

Watching Her Walk

He stepped back into the shadows when he saw her across the grass.  He stood in solitude watching her walk.  She seemed so different than the girl he thought he knew.  Her eyes darted up from the ground for the briefest of seconds before snapping back down.  She seemed to be trying to shrink as she moved.  She wrung the raincoat in her hands nervously. 
That was it, she was nervous.  She wrapped the grey material up only to unravel it and fold it up again.  She switched if from her left arm to her right and back again.  He had never seen her this way, so fidgety and timid.  He sighed as she passed him still several yards away, turning to follow her with his eyes. 
Who was this girl?  What happened to her?  What happened to his girl?  He wasn't used to this side of her.  To seeing her look fragile, like an anxious baby deer.  He was accustomed to her rough edges, not her softness.  He was used to a sharp tongue and bright, questioning eyes, not silence and wide eyed fear.  Something in the way she moved intrigued him, so much so that he nearly called out to her.  But indecision took it's toll.  He hesitated one moment too long, wondering if she would smile at seeing him or weather her lips would turn down.  He wouldn't want that.  No, he wouldn't want that at all.  She fell out of his view but stayed at the forefront of his mind.  Why were the two girls so different?  Which one was authentic?  Where had her sass and sarcasm been just then?  And where was her doe-eyed innocence when he was around her?

Fragile Stitches

She spent years sewing herself back together.

 

All the words and all the lies, tearing out the fragile stitches.

 

She found stronger thread in creativity and confidence, but while the former was authentic, the later was entirely feigned.

 

No one would have know how frail the stitches were, except for her as they ripped.

 

But jealous gestures frayed the ropes and she began to fall apart again. 

3, 2, 1

I count down the minutes.
30. 29. 28.
Please be here.
27. 26. 25.
I'll get to see you, for just a moment.
24. 23. 22.
Will your eye catch mine?
21. 20. 19.
It never does, why should this be different?
18. 17. 16.
And yet I let myself hope.
15. 14. 13.
It's closer now and the ball of anxiety is my stomach is tight.
12. 11. 10.
The nerves threaten to take over.
9. 8. 7.
I'm in my place.
6. 5. 4.
I'm waiting. Waiting. Please come.
3. 2. 1.

A Representative of Prince Charming

Through a haze of tawny, sun-bleached hair, she watched him without his knowledge as she laughed.  He was watching her and her friend inconspicuously.  The gentle smile on his face suggested that the light-hearted, tinkling laugh bubbling from her mouth was the source of his quiet smile; her laugh pulling at the edge of his own.  With a frantic pounding in her chest, she looked away, afraid of being caught.  The room grew more and more quiet, the test began, but the look on his face stayed in her mind.

His hazel eyes crinkling at the corners, the arch of his eyebrow, the gentle smile that dared to stretch into something like a mischievous grin.  She was sure it was meant for her.  For her snorting, chuckling laugh.  For her happiness.  Despite her inclination to doubt, she let herself dream that her laughter elicited the same nervous tingle in his chest as his rumbling voice did in hers.  He was exactly what she wanted.  Exactly what she needed.  Exactly what she didn't expect to find.  His clean cut suits and sweaters along with his dazzling smile made her weak at the knee.  But what really held her captive, what really made her mind wander back to him every few minutes, was his sarcastic wit.
She had been told she wasn't gentle enough as a girl.  That her sarcasm and cynicism were intimidating.  But he didn't seem to notice.  For every action of hers, he had a remark and she had a witty reply.  The shot meaningless insults and wily retorts back and forth like bottle rockets.
For every stray though she let slip from her lips, he had a joke to which she was ready to respond.  He initiated most of their repertoire, but some days she felt brave enough to start it herself.  Their energy was, to her at least, magnetic.  When they were on a roll arguing or invalidating one another the rest of the world ceased to exist.  She never knew that friendly fire could rekindle that feeling that she had thus far attributed to inevitable heartbreak.

Through everything, the grief, the ache in her chest, the jaded mindset, she swore she wouldn't fall so easily.  One look would never change her future, she vowed.
What she didn't plan for though, fell into her lap without her consent.  Like-minded friendship, easy conversation, laughter, the unfamiliar feeling of acceptance, all descended on her in one large wave.  It all came down, drowning her in refreshing, blissful waves of exhilaration.  That was how things needed to be.  And with all the new, he snuck in quietly with a friendly challenge of intellect and a look.

Lord, that look.  That look tore her apart.  It was like he was trying to see through her and into her soul, into the inside of her mind.  Like he was slowly, gently taking her apart just to see how all the pieces fit back together.  It was a feeling that terrified her and intrigued her at the same time.  She was scared that he might actually see through her and find the betrayal, the heartache and the loss and the fear that created her cocktail of bitterness and sarcasm.  But at the same time, she was flattered he bothered to look at her at all.

For as "intimidating" as they said she was, he showed no signs of backing down from her challenge.  When their eyes locked, he never looked away first.  He met her embarrassed gaze with a steady stare.  Neither could be blamed as the habitual starter of their staring contests, for both of them started in equal parts.  It hardly seemed though that their interactions which were so glaringly obvious to her even registered in the minds of those around them.  Is it all imagined then?  She wondered quietly.

No little princess, keep fighting.  I think you've finally found prince charming, and if not him, then a representative of his court, coming to guide you home to his arms.

Dripping Drops

She'd never been on this side of it before.

The first time, she was the one dripping drops of sunshine in between the cracks of someone's blacked, broken soul.
He hadn't wanted it, but she didn't realize that.
All she knew was that her heart ached for how dark he had become.
All she wanted was to help.
But where she saw herself descending like an angel to rescue him, he saw a pesky mosquito and tried to swat her out of his smoggy sky.

She dodged the blows, misreading them as emotional defense, not legitimate dismissal.
But when he connected, it was a devastating blow.
She came crashing out of the sky and shattered like a porcelain doll on the solid rock of reality.
She tried so hard to pretend there weren't huge chunks of her missing, but she could only fake so long before she started emulating him.
She grew her own dark cloud.
It wasn't black and impenetrable like his, just a light grey that deepened quickly to charcoal through the trials of life.

She was tinting on black when he found her.
A different "he" than the one who broke her.
A "he" that was destined to fix a broken heart.
He swept in abruptly, distracting her long enough for the cloud to fade a few shades.
The look he gave her, that questioning, puzzled gaze that made her heart speed up and color rush to her cheeks, was unsettling.
She could tell that he could see the cracks.
One quick witted retort at a time, sarcastic comment by sarcastic comment, he began dripping drops of sunshine in between the cracks, like she had done for a doomed soul once before.

But she was different.
She didn't swat him out of her sky.
She craved ardently the shining liquid of hope that he seemed to be drenched in.
Slowly, as the drops he gave her began to add up, her cloud faded, until it dissipated entirely.
When that day came, she tested out her feet.
They were shaky after being on her knees for so long, but he slid his arm around her and held her up.
And when she was strong enough, she tested out her wings without a fear of falling, because he never left her side.