Pre-Siders House Classic: 2006

I wrote this right after Jeremy told me he didn’t want to date me.  I was smitten; he was not. There was nothing I could do to keep him around. It felt so heartbreakingly familiar. It seemed that all my beauty and cooking and patience were, again, not enough for a man who had won my affections. Thankfully, God weaseled His way into the mess, and made good of it.  A lot of good. It was only five months from this post when I would begin dating Josh. And only a handful of months later, we married. Yes, that is beauty from my breakdown. So enjoy a classic from the pre-Siders days.

Fall in the Flint Hills, taken today during the drive home

"Let go, let go, jump in, oh, it's so amazing here.  It's alright, cause there's beauty in the breakdown." (Frou Frou)

I recently discovered some beauty in myself, drawn out by a man who no longer feels affection for me.  It's strange.  He's gone, but the gift I have, the gift he noticed in me, is still there.  I knew I had the gift before I met him, but it felt like a duty somehow.  Then he asked me to use my gift for no reason at all except just because.  After that, it seemed lovely to me.

I'm grateful for the serendipity of knowing him, even though it seems quite apparent we're moving separate ways.  It hurt at first, seeing that we were not going to be what I'd hoped.  The cynical voice came over my brain intercom and announced that I shouldn't have believed that someone I was mad about would actually be mad about me in return.  After all, they never had been before.   The cynical voice made me cry because for a few minutes, I believed it.  I should've known better.  I'm a romantic though, so after the tears left, hope moved back in.  I can't help it - my heart, although fragile, is sort of boomerangy, and I guess I never would've known that without the pain.  I like that line about "beauty in the breakdown" because that kind of deep heart pain made me feel strangely alive. 

I've been thinking a lot about truth lately.  And how so much of what I believe about myself isn't really that true at all.  I'm not depressed about it though.  It's actually a little comforting.  I ask myself, what if my sad, dark thoughts aren't really true after all, and what if what is true is beautiful and pregnant with breathtaking potential, practically about to explode with majesty?  What if things like love and goodness are the realities, the ones that will last, and the dirty, ugly things are only temporary?  Could this be possible?  What if I am complete?  Alone, but not missing a thing.  In a room with just me, yet somehow full, not empty.  What if I already have all I need?  What if there is no one who can complete me because I am already whole?  I want to believe these kinds of things.

I'll admit, it's scary to believe things like this because I might be wrong.  But I was just telling my friend, I'm quite good at being wrong, a professional, really.  So if I'm wrong, if beauty and love really aren't the ultimate realities, and it's all just a fairy tale to make pain seem valuable, then it's okay because I've been wrong before.  I'm kind of used to it.  But Someone I'm learning to trust has said thousands of times that love is the biggest thing, the trump card, and nothing else stands a chance.  That sounds wonderful.  I think I'll try to believe that.  Besides, I'm 25 and, I'm in a risk-taking kind of mood.