itnerary...

For as long as I can remember I've been leaving home. When I was a little girl I would lay in the grass and look at the clouds trying to find a way to get one of them to take me away.  They never seemed to listen.  I made big plans with incredible detail about how I would leave. In college I planned to apply to Oxford for my masters degree. I constructed the greatest ex-pat life for myself. But life didn't seem to listen. I never even applied.

I remember having a United Nations ambassador come to my school as a girl, he spoke seven langauges fluently and I was in awe. I dreamed of growing up to join the UN or work in foreign service. And every country I've ever traveled to I searched out the ambassador's house I dreamt of the life I could have there.

I would spend my summer days going on bike rides as a girl to farthest boudaries of the surrounding neigborhoods making up stories about the houses, traveling to distant lands with each street I passed.

For as long as I can remember I have been leaving. Never putting down solid roots, always waiting for my great adventure. I suppose life is full of compromises. And I've made many.

I officially made it 108 miles from my childhood house. Not quite my ideal itinerary. Sometimes I start to itch as if I've become allergic to this place I cannot call home. I wonder how long it will take before the city swallows me whole. Or before I break the walls down and never look back. I wonder which part of myself I will give into.

I wonder at the madness of it all. Of a little girl who has spent her life with eyes addicted to the horizon. 

He is

You could live a thousand lifetimes and never meet a man like him. He is the kind of man that people write stories about. The kind of man that women want to love and men want to be. He is the strongest man I have ever seen. He has the kind of strength the runs not from a possessed source or an obsessed following, but from an inner reserve - steady and endless. The kind of strength the builds and multiplies; the kind of strength the forges landscapes.

Simply to see him is to know these things. And to know him is to be inspired by these things. There is a grace and nobility in his movement and demeanor. A sort of unmentioned benevolence. I suppose most people would call it charisma or charm. But it is more than that. It is a pure authenticity of person. Not the kind of self important personage found in many of his kind - but rather a trueness to his self and others that cannot be defined. 

He is intoxicating, thought provoking, inspiring, and motivating. He has my truest admiration and deepest respect. Two things I don't often bestow on anyone and never both on the same person. There are some people that alter you - not because they control you or manipulate you, but because who they are resonates with you. And when you've met them you cannot see the world or yourself as you once did. He is one of those people. 

I will write stories about him. They will take many forms. Some will be for the world to read, some of them will be only whispers in the night, and some will be silent even - kept safely inside of me. But there isn't a way I would rather spend my words than on him. On the many ways you can string words together to create his likeness.

He is the most perfect symmetry.

we little fools

How foolish are we. We judge one man by the sins of another. We look disparagingly at others for the faults in ourselves. We speak and act from our own fear and pain in an attempt to protect that which by doing so we will only break. We have none in life to truly blame but ourselves yet we seldom accept any responsibility for the outcome of our lives. We live in despair when we have little to ever lement. We are short sighted - even those of us who find pride in our acuitY. We turn heroes into villains and villains into heroes for our gain and vanity. We look to future and view only the past. we are mortal but fancy ourselves divinely inspired in all that we do and yet accept not destiny or retribution unless it be of our own making. We return to our folly time and time again yet regard it as character. We are but little fools. We count pride above appreciation and delicacy above integrity. We think cold and unyielding force will turn an advantage and forget that the greater motivation of warmth and love drives all of us. We abandon encouragement in favor of punishment. We expect much yet give very little. And at the end of each day we count our measure in what surrounds instead of what is within us. We are but little fools.

the kingmaker's daughter

I am the kingmaker's daughter. For me life is found in the solutions. Life is simply a series of solutions - how do I pay my bills, how do I feed my family, how do I get along with the people I meet. These are all solutions that make up life.

Problems are no more than air for me - I breathe them, they are my fuel, my life source. I am the kingmaker's daughter - a tool built to solve even the most difficult problems. Bold in the face of the impossible, ready for the challenge. It should make for a life without fear but I would be lying if I said it is so.

The reality is that I am a tool and people are people. People are usually quite fond of my abilities happy to utilize me and I am always willing and ready. I suppose this should make me highly valuable and sought after, fir for a purpose. The problem with tools is that they are easily disposed of and replaced when they break, as all tools do - as all people do. I am not so arrogant as to think that I am the most elaborate or well suited or unbreakable tool of my kind. And thus my only fear is that I will one day break and be discarded of for will no longer be suitable. it seems an inevitable fate - a problem without a solution.

Its a problem I have drilled through and worked over in my mind even now as the odd hours of the morning fade into sunlight. And seems to me that the only resolution to my problem, the only thing capable of unraveling my fear, is love.

Love chooses to mend instead of discard. When we love we do so accepting all faults, all imperfections, all broken pieces and dedicate ourselves without condition. At least this is how I love.

But people are not consistent. Even the best people are up against their own fears, insecurities and imperfections - their own struggles. It seems unfair to expect someone else to carry my burden as well.

In the end I suppose what I fear is human nature - the tendancy of people to discard what they do not care for, what they cannot tolerate, what taxes or stresses them. And how can another person ease a fear that is based in human nature? The only way to combat human nature is qith understanding and that requires highest level of intimacy and compassion. But mostly people hide from these things trying to protect their dark spots their vulnerabilities from view.

You see I fear human nature not because I see it in others but because I see it's tendencies in myself - in my compulsion to find solutions. I know sometimes the best solution is to discard what does not work. And if such things are in me I suppose I believe they are in everyone. Maybe my fear is that everyone is like me but more reckless and less compassionate. Maybe I just want to proven wrong. Oh how I do hope the rest of the world is far better than I am.

But I am still the kingmaker's daughter and the day is risen so I must put my fear away.

rabbit holes and knots

there's not much else i could be - for better or worse, i am utterly myself. at times i  know that is simply not enough - at times i am so utterly aware of every tiny, malformed fold, crack, crevasse and the like that come from that self. and at times i know that it is just too much - flooding over the brim of my container. i have tried to be different - to hold back, to abide, to follow a set order, to be more of somethings and less of others. i cannot bear it. so from the moment you know me i am that i am. i have nothing to give but authenticity and quite honestly i am content that way.

i know myself too well - i've spent years locked inside my own head - unwinding knots and wandering down rabbit holes. you see in there has always been the closest thing to home that i know. inside i never have to explain myself to break my theories, discoveries, connections, and work down into pieces for others to have. inside i can sit down surround by the data and watch the patterns unfold. i see them take shape one by one, overlay and move on, pairing and splitting like an elegant dance. inside everything just is, and that is comfortable.

but inside i am alone.

and people weren't meant to be alone.

i ventured back amongst the living. my days fill with noise and chatter - so. much. information. a constant flow of stimuli that never shuts down. and thus i  never shut down. i hardly sleep sometimes usually when i am avoiding analyzing something, because if i sleep i will unwind the knot and be forced to deal with the reality. perhaps i knew this was there. i also knew it would be uncomfortable to integrate. there is no poetry for failure. there is no crescendo dancing on a sheet of music filled with staccato. there is only punctuation.

i missed it. i chose the wrong frame of reference. i assumed what made the pattern fit. that is everyone's fatal mistake. i forgot to question the assumptions. i glanced at the pattern and it fit. i assumed consistency where it had always been. that is not a mistake i make. i question everything. i notice everything whether i want to or not - whether it matters or not. maybe i let it go because i wasn't equipped to change it. maybe i let it go because otherwise i would have to realize that the one thing i have always been able to do right regardless of circumstance would have to be examined. you see there is only one result to that examination - i am not enough. it is a simple reality and one i know all too well of myself. it is impossible to be everything - we are limited, we are human. but i have worked tireless for 11 years to prove that i could be enough - that i could rework the assumptions; that i could give 1000 times as much; that i could find a solution; that i could do the impossible; be the impossible. i always knew it was a fruitless endeavor but it had become therapeutic to me - a kind of rebalancing.

and now everything goes under the microscope.

and sleep will escape me for another day.

but tomorrow is a new day and i am sure it will be one to put my melancholy self-disappointment to rest. the sun will rise and the day will be filled with noise and will be as it always is. i will adapt and normalize and be none the worse for the wear.

you know: curiosity killed the cat.

the reality of an introvert

Somedays flow more naturally than others. It's like I have a maximum capacity for social interaction before I have to retreat into the sanctuary of my own thoughts away from the outer chaos. I watch other people and it seems like they don't register the same level of chaos in the outer world that I do. Perhaps they are oblivious or I am over thinking. I'm not sure if there's a balance between those or if one extreme is correct. What I do know is that I cannot always be engaged.

There is so much to process when I am engaget in what's going on in social settings. I automatically become incredibly aware of my environment and the state of the people in it and my concern is engaged and I cannot help but feel responsible on some level for those around me.  Typically I feel that my reservoir for pain is incredibly large - perhaps unusually - and thus I am capable of taking on the pain and discomfort of others to help relieve the burden. But at some point I become exhausted by the social engagement and just want to hide away in a cave with just my thoughts.

I live so much inside my head that most of my reality is mainly found there. Maybe that's hard for the people around me. They feel they don't know me and that I am elusive. I am not really I just forget to let myself out of my thoughts - i forget that others are not inside of my inner world with me. And I assume they are comfortable.

I am working on this. But it's a process far from refinement. 

Root Cause

It amazes me that inner complexities can boil down to absolute simplicity - that all the levels and layers and intricately woven webs that make up a person, their motivations, their thoughts attitudes and perspectives grow out of one root. The more people I come across in life and the more of myself I get to know and examine the more I realize that there are these tiny little defining moments which all of these complexities grow out of. So many of these moments are so small that they seem at first to escape recollection - just pieces of something not even worth mentioning - but they shape so much of how we interact with the world around us.

I never cared much for people's praise - at times I actually dislike it, especially when it's at the cost of another's self-esteem. I know exactly where this comes from. When I was ten years old my brother and sister and I went to visit my grandfather and his wife in Florida. The entire trip was full of these little moments in which it was clear that my grandfather was placing me above my siblings. It enraged me - for all our difference they are my siblings and we were all children and deserved equal outpourings of love. It's not that I don't want to be told I am good or pretty or smart - it's that I don't want to be held publicly as a measure of those things - no one is less because I am whatever it is that I am. It always seemed unjust and still in those moments I'm a ten year old girl with no recourse against the injustice.

On the other side of that I find my vanity - the only place from which I am ever truly offended. And I also know well the root of that uprising. I was twelve and I had started a new school and my mother came to pick me up late in the afternoon. I was on the field and we were all playing soccer, she called my name and everyone turned to look at her and then they looked back at me slightly confused wondering who this olive complected woman as round as she was tall could possible be. We were a stark contrast that I noticed for the first time as I walked toward her. I was slim and pale, my blonde hair falling straight down my back and she was heavy and dark with short curls framing her face. Her pants were tan and creased in the front under her tummy from sitting and I thought they made her look lazy and disheveled. I was twelve and embarrassed by her lack of care and I promised myself quite sternly that I would never let myself look like that. It pains me now to think back on that memory how callused and selfish I was - completely blind to the reality of beauty and life. But that promise took hold of me nonetheless and I chased healthy eating and fitness, beauty products and fashion - always trying to outrun the image of my mother on that day. So although I generally dislike an abundance of praise from the moments with my grandfather, I also want my vanity to be appeased from that moment with my mother - creating a seemingly disparate complexity of extremes both seeking to be simultaneously satisfied - at first glance looking inconsistent and contradictory at best.

In reality both of these boil down to the same place - a desire for congruency. I wanted to be congruent with my siblings - to share an identifiable likeness that meant we belonged together and deserved equality in treatment. I wanted my mother to be congruent with me so that I felt like we belonged together - that there was some noticeable purpose to our ties that couldn't be denied by human eyes. These moments lead to unconscious patterned behaviors that never actually satisfy the desire they are aimed at, and thus continue on it perpetuity. And where does this need for congruency stem? From a need for identity - a frame of reference from which to build my understanding of who I am and what that means. To find congruency within my family meant that my identity was linked to them creating a sense of security in its ability to persist and purposefulness to my being. Now looking at all of this scribbled out across this page, the silly degradation of these needs and desires into behaviors creating the opposite effect seems nonsensical - but then again the evolution of the self is a peculiar thing.

The Battlefront

I spend a great deal of my time managing conflict and mitigating losses. Knowing when to fight and when to walk away is one of the most important things I've learned in life. You cannot engage in every battlefront you're presented with. Sometimes there is simply more to be gained by walking away. It's not a retreat out of fear or cowardice it's a cognitive choice. If you cannot win, why waste your time engaging? Or if you can win but at the cost of something else, why waste your resources? I think a lot of people approach conflict as a proving ground of might - If I stand here long enough and loud enough someone will be impressed with my presence. And perhaps that is true, but anyone impressed by such simplistic and brute measures probably isn't someone that you needed to impress anyway. And in this case what we are really looking for is recognition - we want to know that we have value and sometimes as people it seems much easier to lessen an opponents value than to raise our own, especially when it seems no one is listening.

Conflict should teach us about ourselves - our capabilities, our limitations, and most importantly our ability to truly be aware of our fears and desires. Most people fight for one of two reasons - they fear something or they want something. Unfortunately we often get swept away in the ebb and flow of emotions during a conflict and lose sight of the reasons behind our conviction to fight. This is where I stop. Sure the rage flushes over me and my thoughts spin in a flurry of outrage, but I don't act in this moment. I stop and ask myself what it is a really want and am I going to accomplish it by flying off the handle or raining down destruction. Typically the answer is no. And the more often these moments rise up in me the more I learn about myself, and the less I feel the need to fight. There are far better, easier, more lucrative, and more mutually beneficial ways to get what you want. A little critical examination and a lot of creativity can go much farther than a burst of sharp words or elaborate schemes.

Anymore when someone tries to start a conflict with me I immediately look for the problem that has driven them to those means. The problem is seldom found directly in the person someone starts conflict with. Other people instead facilitate an exercise of might over something greater - I can beat a person but I might not be able to beat an injustice. If I can identify someone's problem and help them solve it, or at least relieve some of the burden then I have at best created an ally and at worst silenced an enemy. Either way my position is better than it was before the conflict arose.

And so it begins

I've had a lifelong love affair with words drawn by their form and function, their ability and limitation, the immense joy and astounding pain they deliver so effortlessly. As this affair has progressed I have come to realize that what I love most is that words become something real to those that hear them. Reality thus is spoken into existence controlled by so many, often unaccounted for variables that are delivered by people with little awareness of what exactly it is that they are doing. It is through words that we create our reality and the reality of so many others that we touch. Yet so often we neglect our words, lose our voices in the noise of daily life or manipulate them to ease our pain through the verbal blows we throw at an unsuspecting world. There is a power in words that cannot be met by any other medium. Words have incited nations, fueled rebellions, created unity, established peace, and so much more. The outcome of one simple word, taking mere seconds to utter, can be a reality spanning epochs. The power lies with directing the dialogue, the choice between progress and destruction is no more than a word. Let us spend our words with purpose.

I place my words here with no real intention attributed to their delivery. I suppose I write just to write anymore. It lends clarity to the foggy places in my mind, fleshes out ideas that one day will become a reality for me. More than anything I suppose I seek to refine my understanding of my own perspective, taking it out of my mind and creating a tangible rendition of it allows a critical process to begin. In the end I suppose I am always looking for something, for a connection or an understanding perhaps. Most often it is something that I cannot even begin to identify, let alone ascertain the driving force behind it - perhaps it is merely an insatiable curiosity about the inner workings of both my mind and the world around me. What I do know is that on this blank space I find whatever it is I am looking for and it drives me onward. It provides an unrelenting motivation that brings peace and satisfaction to the otherwise mundane rigor of daily reality.