Stop This Train

ANNOUNCEMENT: Time, if you could just stop for a minute and let me make an illustration. 

Ok, thank you.

That feels better.

This is a nice feeling. I will take out my speech book and compile some amazing study notes until they are finished. After that, I will play guitar until I am done.  Hmm... what else? My clothes need folding, I'll do that.  I'm going to sit around and think until I can finally clear my head at least a little bit. I'll stretch out on my floor and meditate while simultaneously doing some yoga poses. When I'm finished with that, I'll probably go to sleep until I am sufficiently rested.

I have forgotten all about time by now. 

And what is time, other than a label we have made? I strive to live in the present. Too often I live in the past or the future. But how can one live in the present when there are deadlines to meet? Clasees to attend? Birthdays to plan for? Is it possible to fully live in the present?

Matthew 6:34 says, "Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Ok, that makes sense, do not live in the future. Live today. But how to we differentiate between worrying and being responsible? 

I can't even begin to count how many times a day I wish for more time. I have actually spoken the words "JUST SLOW DOWN!". I'm not the only one. John Mayer sings, "Stop this train. . . I can't take the speed it's moving in . . . honestly, won't someone stop this train?" I have had countless conversations about this very topic.

And what really gets me is that after all these THOUSANDS of years living in time, we STILL haven't gotten used to it. We've adapted, yes. But we are still perpetually surprised by how time works. 

It's going to fast. If we could just slow it down a little. If only there were more hours in the day. We are always late. We don't finish things on time. 

It's going too slow. I wish I could just skip ahead until I am happier, or have more money. I don't like the place I'm in, I'd like to fast forward to next fall. I  "can't wait" until I am married and have a family (Ok, I don't particularly get excited about the soccer mom fanstasy). 

It seems we are never content with the here and now. We always want less or more. I guess this is why Buddhist monks make it their life's goal to be content and at peace and to live in the present. There is something to be said for that, and I think it is very Biblical too. I'm not condoning procrastination, but rather, happiness in our surroundings. There is always room for improvement, and ambition for the future. And there is a time and a place to remember happy times and fond memories of the past. 

But maybe if we lived in THIS moment as if there WERE no future, and as if all we have is now, then our lives would not only be happier, they would be so much more meaningful.

.... just food for thought.

Power

Music has the ability to take me to the heights of emotion. 

Tonight, I feel so desperate, that I am allowing myself to be carried away and moved to the point of tears by a song.

What I realize is that my words will never be adequate to convey the deepest feelings of my heart. I think that music, using the power of words combined with the power of tone, volume, rhyme, instrument, and other elements does a better job of expressing emotion. And even then, it feels limited. In fact, no method of communication is fully capable of expressing what's inside. 

My heart is full and spilling over with love. I am at my breaking point I think. I am so hungry and yearning. I have been pushing and pushing for my entire adult life to become close to God, to no avail. There is this place in my heart that was filled by the love for and from someone else... and now that place has been drained.  And I feel like a new love is trying to rush in, to fill the gap.  I want that love to be God's love. I want that to be love for God and love from God. I want that specific area, at this point, to be filled only with that. 

I have been confronted multiple times this week on how I am serving. I want to serve. More than anything I want to LOVE. I desperately want to do something to make someone else's life a little less painful, and I believe that starts with love. 

This verse, doesn't exactly deal with serving, but I think it expresses the volume of love that I feel right now in my heart. 

Song of Solomon 8:7

Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away. If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned.

Sometimes

Sometimes my head is in so many places at once that it wares me out. 

is that how you spell ware? or is it wear?

Tonight is one of those nights.

I am so happy.

I am so sad.

Sometimes I think that I live a double life:

One life is spent at home, talking to no one for days, reading and writing constantly.

The other is spent amongst good friends and acquaintances being loud and laughing uncontrollably. 

Sometimes I wonder which person is the real me?

Is it the introverted, anti-social, "I'm turning my phone off for three days", overly-analytical, contemplating my life, deeply emotional, head stuck in a book or journal, speed scrabble playing person?

Or is it the carefree, flying kites at the park, staying out until 4 am, bubbly, smiling, rock-climbing, belting music out in my car, dancing in the parking lot, joke telling, try to make people feel awkward, straightforward person?

Because :

Sometimes I feel like I don't even know.

But I'm OK with that. It keeps life interesting, and I can live with or without a lot of people.

I prefer being alone, but I become overly methodical and melancholy.

And I like being with people, but they tend to wear me out.

This is probably the worst entry I've ever written. This and my last entry. I just can' t seem to nail my thoughts down lately, and I end up being all over the place, trying to explain things that don't make sense to me.  And it kills me. I almost don't want to post this because of embarrassment, but I feel like I should. 

I feel like I am writing something akin to what a 16 year old girl in 10th grade would be writing. 

A Lot of Random Thoughts

Tonight is one of those nights where I have so much to say, but I can't put any of it into words that sound sufficient. The catch is though, that I don't think I'll be able to sleep unless I get some of this out of my head.

I am cursed with what the Chinese call the "monkey mind". Keith told me this one day while sitting on his table with needles protruding from my back. "Great", I thought, "this isn't just a phase." I guess I thought that once I was over all of this crap in my life, then my head would go back to normal. Back to the way it was before my life took a sharp turn. I wouldn't constantly overanalyze situations and mull over decisions. I wouldn't be so emotionally wrapped up in everything that it made my head spin.

If I'm honest though, the greatest cause of agony in my life is my conscious, or my sensitivity. If I haven't always had the "monkey mind", I've most assuredly always had the curse of sensitivity. I can remember being somewhere around 4 years old and looking my dad in the eyes when he was scolding me. I can vividly remember the chair he was sitting in, and the words that he said;  "Madeline? Do you want a spanking?!" Sure, these words were common enough. I'm sure my parents uttered them multiple times a day, being the parents of 5 rambunctious daughters. But they were so rare for me, and when my dad said them, I burst into tears. I remember feeling so guilty for whatever it was I had done, and just sobbing and sobbing. My dad took me into his arms. I had learned my lesson. There would be no spanking. In fact, I could probably count the number to spankings I have ever had on one hand.

Flash forward about 7 years to 5th grade. There I am sitting on the couch of our living room, crying my eyes out because I had a boyfriend in my class. I called a meeting in that seldom used living room to confess to my parents, and I couldn't even get the words out I was crying so hard.

3 years later, in 8th grade, I am crying in the hallway of school in front of my Latin teacher because she called me out of class for talking too much.

Other than the uncontrollable crying, my heart hasn't really become very much stronger. I am grown now, and I know when to take something to heart and when to let it slide off. I can stand up for myself now, and usually don't get into situations worthy of being scolded. But when someone cuts me in my core, or slashes me where I am most vulnerable, I break. I still come home crying. 

I don't think that will ever change. It's part of what makes me who I am. It's something that I was born with. At it's best it causes me to have sincere empathy and compassion and at it's worst it causes me wounds and pain that many people can avoid. 

*This is why it is so hard for me to let go of people. This is why it is so hard for me to let people in. Because once they are in, I can't let them go. Because I am a feeler. I feel deeply and intensely. The few people in life that crawl their away into my heart, will not be easily given back. Once you have my love, you will have it forever. But my greatest fear is that I will hold my heart out with an open hand for someone else to take, and they will look at it and say "it's not good enough." or that they will slowly give it up. That's the thing about being so damn sensitive, not everyone else is that way. So the defense mechanism I have built up is a wall, to protect myself and protect others. I am slowly learning to break it down. I have the capacity to love so deeply, so I am trying to teach myself to love selflessly, and not be so afraid of what will happen to ME. Because in the end, it is not about ME. It's about THEM and it's about shining light and giving love to THEM, not about what I'm getting. It's about asking myself what can I do to help them in their situation? How can I be a friend? What do they need? This takes so much work, but in the end,

If I love people a little bit everyday, selflessly, then I have accomplished what I have set out to accomplish.

(so much for my planned blog on the monkey mind)

The beginning

Dr. Arular,

I tried to tell Jonas that drinking soda through his nose was no way for a proper young boy to behave, but he was never fond of listening to me. He would always respond with the same blank stare and continue with his childish antics. 

"Jonas, I am your sister. And I have lived exactly 3 years and 37 days longer than you have. You see, once you turn 10 years old, you are double-digits... and also doubly as smart."

Still, mom and dad would find him stumbling around the house most nights acting like Uncle George after he came home from Iraq. 

The doctors told us that Jonas suffered from some serious psychological disorders. I could never remember the names of them, so I now carry around a pad of post-it's with all 3 disorders written on every page. This way I can peel one off and hand it to anyone inquiring about my brother's recent expulsion from school.

They look something like this:

Jonas Breuer has:

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Social Phobia

Trichotillomania

I know that trichotillomania is what makes him pull his hair out, but I'm not exactly sure what the others mean. I don't know which one causes him to make clicking noises almost constantly, or which one makes him want to stay inside of a box all day.  Really though, I just wish he would stop drinking soda through his nose. It's embarrassing. 

My parents blocked me from using the internet anymore. They told me that sending one hundred e-mails to you every day would not help the situation.  So I am writing you what Mallory calls "snail mail". 

I have to go to Tae Kwon Do class now, so I'll write more tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Sophie Breuer 

not quite poetry.

Moments fixed

will always be there

in my memory then.

A dash of western hope

too soon dissipated.

The dark, steep descent

into uncharted territory

"We'll be back home soon

...if we can just get a light."

My glass eyes;

like the ocean

reflect the sparkle

of your pearly white paint.

Analyzing

Over-analyzing

All in search of the tantalizing

connections and essences.

too much to bear

yet too little to act.

Stop!

Who are we kidding?

Immature notions of intellect

cloud the reality that is.

The Ocean

I love the ocean. I always have. But today I find myself, like a rekindled romance, falling in love all over again. When you are away from something for so long, you forget why it is that you love it so much. I knew that I loved the beach, I just couldn't remember why.

I love the way the sand makes my toes look all scratchy, like a little child who has been building a masterpiece sandcastle for hours. I love the feeling of my long jersey dress pressed up against the back of my legs by the breeze. I also particularly love the beach at this time of year. It's the earliest time of the year you can come, be warm, and not be bombarded by massive groups of spring breakers. In fact, as I looked up and down the beach today, there was not a person in sight.

I'm reading "Eat, Pray, Love" right now. I avoided this book for a long time, because of popular demand.... but I finally caved. It's brilliant. Not profound. But real. And these days, I like real. She talks about experiencing pure pleasure, and how as Americans, its often difficult to do this guilt free. The Italians, she says, are "the masters of il bel far niente" or "the beauty of doing nothing". And today, as I lay on the beach, I found myself completely wrapped up in the present, and enjoying the pure pleasure of doing nothing. As I lay there, completely motionless on my beach towel, I felt enveloped in a blanket of utter contentment. The waves were singings a sweet duet with Sufjan. And I found myself completely connecting with the words that were being sung in my ears.

"And I am throwing all my thoughts away.
And I'm destroying every bet I've made.
And I am joining all my thoughts to you.
And I'm preparing every part for you"

... those are the words of my soul. This is my hearts greatest desire.

That song hit me in a way that I can't describe. I sat there on the beach, alone, and began weeping. Weeping and smiling simultaneously... because it finally clicked into place. In such an ordinary moment, I was beginning to realize something so huge. I heard the voice inside of me say "Mad, it's ok. It's okay for you to feel content. Enjoy this. Don't worry, you can put everything behind you now, because there is a new joy." I have finally found, as Thomas Chalmers said, "The expulsive power of a new affection."