Merry Christmas

A year ago, one of my brothers expressed surprise that I still celebrated Christmas. Without Jesus, he thought, there would be no point, no reason, as it were, for the season. I just wanted to point out, to friends, families, and everybody else...I do have a reason to celebrate the Christmas season. And that reason is you. You are the ones that give me hope and comfort, you are the ones in whose love I find peace. So, thank you.

Happy belated Thanksgiving!

Marcus (unfinished)

Her lungs burned. Her vision blurred. She could not keep this up much longer. Already her legs were refusing to keep running, her feet starting to stumble. Fear and adrenaline had kept her on her feet this long, but she was fast coming to the end of their assistance.

She tripped, stumbled, and unable to catch herself, fell to her knees. This was the end. It had only been a few steps behind her, and now she could feet breath on the back of her neck. Then, darkness.

...

Marcus caught the girl as she started to fall. He grunted as he swung her over his shoulder and started the trek back to his cave. His lair, the villagers called it, and he the beast the lurked within. Many times they had come, armed with pitchforks and torches, to drive him out. Their friends always found them the next day, unharmed, peacefully asleep in the sunshine. He was no master kelok, but he did know some small magics, more than enough to protect himself from a few angry villagers.

He shifted the girl to his other shoulder. How had she gotten free? It was hard enough figuring out what to do with these girls they kept staking out for him without being led on a merry chase through the forest for hours. His anger burned as the thought of the first girl they had chained to a stake in the little clearing outside the village. He had no use for girls, virgin or otherwise. He had left her there, assuming the villagers would come in the morning and be overjoyed at finding her alive.

They had come, certainly. But they reacted with anger instead of joy. They blamed the girl, saying she must not have been a virgin, that she had failed, that she had put their entire village in jeopardy. Then they... He shook his head vigorously. Suffice it to say that the girl died there and the villagers went back to the village bearing the brands of murderers and rapists. It had been one of the few times he had wished himself actually able to take human life. The brands he had set on them ensured them their punishment at the hands of their fellow men, at least. Such marks could only be set upon the guilty. But since then he had been careful to collect the virgin offerings left for him.

Marcus ducked through the opening to his cave, careful to avoid hitting both his head and the girl's on the ceiling or walls. It was small, and strewn with bones and other grisly trophies. It truly looked a beast's lair. Two strides took him across to the opposite wall, where he laid his hand on the wall and whispered "open."

For Better Things

I wrote this several months ago. I did not publish it because she did not want people to know that she was dating us. So I will post it now, a record of things that were.

For life's freedom now to start
For the fear of starting new
For the love within my heart
For what I hid yet always knew

For the breaking of love's chains
For heart's opening once more
For its joys as well as pains
For the wealth no longer poor

For the recklessness of joy
For the doors no longer locked
For heart though not a toy
For the hours that run unclocked

For a love not one but two
For a strength that runs threefold
For caresses old and new
For more arms to rock and hold

For refusing to look back
For rejoicing in our song
For a trust that never lacks
For a love that is not wrong

For all these I hold love fast
For all these I look past pain
For all these I leave the past
For all these I live again

Molithe: Sunstrider Isle

I awoke to unfamiliar surroundings, uncertain as to how I had gotten there. My pet dragonhawk, Dragon, nuzzled my face...and judging from the drool all over me, had been doing so for quite a while.

"Dragon! Stop that, boy!" I pushed him away as I sprung gracefully to my feet. I am a blood elf, after all. We do everything gracefully. I looked around more closely. This must be Sunstrider Isle! I had heard stories of the place of course, but I had never visited. Few did. A nearby Magister beckoned me closer.

"Molithe! Your training awaits you!" she stated firmly. "You see all those mana wyrms over there? They've broken free of our control and need to be dealt with. I need you to kill a few for me." Without waiting for a reply, she turned to the young priest next to me, tossing "For the glory of the Sin'dorei!" over her shoulder. "Death to our enemies," I replied absently, my eyes already on a mana wyrm nearby, and my mind on how to best perform what would be my first kill. I was a little nervous, but if ever I was to make something of myself in this world of warcraft, adventure, and danger, I had to start somewhere!

After killing six of the wyrms, I returned to the Magister, eager to claim my reward. She gave me a sweet new belt and told me to check the mailbox. After buckling my new belt on, I pulled a giant package out of the mailbox and opened it excitedly. Inside was a note signed "Good luck! Mom" and several pieces of high quality armor! This was even better than a new belt! This armor would last me forever if I took good care of it, just as it had lasted my mother and probably her mother before her. After buckling on this new armor as well, I looked around for something to do. Remembering the Magister had told me to visit the experienced Ranger Sallina inside, I ran inside eagerly. Sallina wanted me to gain more experience killing the different creatures around the Isle, then practice my skills on the training dummies she had set up outside. It seemed several different people now had tasks for me to perform...an older elf wanted me to gather some of his property he had left carelessly sitting all over, the Magister wanted me to kill some lynxes that had gone feral and reclaim their leather collars, and an arcanist wanted to teach me how to suck the magic out of the area immediately around me. That last one gave me the shivers. I suffered from magic addiction, as did all blood elves, but stealing it from a living creature, even one I was going to kill anyway, just made me sick. I resolved to use this ability sparingly.

I retrieved the older gentlemen's belongings while crying over killing the baby lynx cubs and their mothers all over the isle. Did we really have kill them, just because they were feral? It wasn't like they were hurting anybody. I did as I was asked, however, and gathered collars from all of them to return to the Magister. She praised me and sent me on to her apprentice a bit down the path. He too wanted me to kill things, which made me a bit sad. I'd gone quickly from being all excited about my first kill to being tired of killing, already. I suspected I would see quite a bit more before I was through, though! At least this guy wanted me to kill tenders, which are just animated sticks, basically. These tenders had slipped out of their makers' control and essentially started running in circles. They weren't really dangerous, but they were annoying. After killing several, I returned to the apprentice, who gave me my first really important job: executing a leader of the Wretched. I despised the Wretched with that burning hatred one only feels for that which they truly fear. I knew that if I didn't control my addiction to magic, I too would end up a slave to it. So I killed the guy. I almost felt like I was putting him out of his misery. What kind of life is it to be so totally controlled by something that you would kill even those dear to you for just a taste of mana? I brought his head back to the apprentice guy as proof that I had completed my task. Ugh. I tell you what, a few coppers are NOT enough for me to go carrying bloody heads around in my pack. At least the self-cleaning magic my mother put on the pack is holding up well. I hardly notice it is there, but come to think of it, that might be why random blood elves keep glancing at me hungrily. And here I thought it was my stunning good looks and stellar personality. Oh well, a girl can dream, right?

Having delivered the head to what's-his-name the apprentice, he sent me to an outrunner at the edge of the Isle for further instructions. I don't even know what the guy is going to do with a head. Especially a Wretched head. If there's anything uglier than a wretched I don't know what it is! Maybe Forsaken. They look somewhat similar. Anyway, the outrunner sent me in search of a second outrunner that was supposed to be on her way to Falconwing Square with a package but never made it. I found her body a short ways down the road. Life is so short and easily snuffed out. I grabbed the package and ran back to the first outrunner, but she just gestured for me to continue down the road to Falconwing Square myself. Fair enough! I was happy to leave Sunstrider Isle. It was probably all the loose mana floating around, but the place made me feel very unsettled. I would be glad to get to Falconwing and take a nice nap in the inn.

The Story of Molithe

Molithe is a word I recently came up with and became enamored with very quickly. I'm not really sure why, but for some reason the word appeals to me, especially as a name. So my current goal for this blog is to write out the story of Molithe the Hunter as if she were actually there, experiencing it for the first time. I plan to use minimal add-ons and avoid group content as much as possible. My goal for Molithe is to make her feel as if her story is one of the epic adventurer who grew in power until she saves the world, some day. So I've just started her story tonight, and I'm hoping to write a new chapter every few levels. Wish me luck and perseverance!

Molithe

Molithe. The name both terrified and attracted her. Molithe. Slayer of a thousand dreams. Yet she had seen a glimpse of something else in those shadowed eyes, something more than death or dreams.

She was probably just lying to herself. After all, people tried to get close to Molithe all the time. She had seen one such person at the market just last week, babbling by turns of death and demons and angels and light. Nobody was quite sure what to do with these broken-minded wretches. Once a vengeance-crazed mother had found one wandering in an open field beside her house. The mere whisper of Molithe was enough to send her into a frenzy and she bashed his head in with her household god. She awoke the next morning to find her village in flames and her neighbors slaughtered. They fished her body out of the river a week later. After that, Molithe's cast-off lovers were treated with care, if not respect.

Yet still they came, once or twice a month, from every corner of the world. With Molithe's name on their lips and dreams in their eyes, they trudged straight up the temple steps. The great golden gates would swing open to receive them, and them alone. Some had mates or children trying to drag them back, yet still they strode forward.

Molithe. She shivered. What was it that brought men and women of every race to the Temple of Dreams? What could draw them so strongly? And why were they always found mindless, weeks or months or even years later?

Nobody knew what went on in the presence of Molithe. Those who went willingly, not drawn by dreams, found the gates closed to them. If they managed to climb the wall, they were found later missing both eyes and tongue.

Except her. She had seen Molithe. She had waylaid a dreamer and convinced him to smuggle her through the gates in his pack. She was small and he had been a large barbarian from the North. It had been easy to convince him, but then, dreamers would agree to anything so long as it didn't keep them from Molithe.

So far as she knew she was the first mortal to see Molithe and still retain all her sense. She wondered if she would start going slowly mad, or perhaps if this growing obsession with Molithe was how it started for dreamers. She almost thought it would be worth losing her mind to see Molithe just once more, this time without the hood and veils, face to face with the Keeper of Dreams.

So it was that she found herself striding up the long staircase to the great golden gates of the Temple of Dreams. The people gathered to watch her go by, muttering the same words of condolence and regret they always bestowed on a dreamer. "I'm not a dreamer!" she wanted to yell at them. "I just want to see Molithe!" But she held her peace. To her surprise and slight dismay, the gates swung open at her approach. She hesitated, then strode boldly through them before falling to her knees in front of Molithe. As her eyes met the eyes of the Keeper of Dreams, she felt a sense of peace. This was where she was meant to be. This is what she had been dreaming of all her life.

Happy fucking birthday to me.

For Slappy And Haz

The sound of sage advice I hear
Wisdom of friends both far and near
"Forget the past, move on," they say
"Love you will find again someday."
Their words ring loud and true, yet still
My heart declines to follow my will
A hope misplaced still longs to gain
The love of those who caused me pain

Yet I cannot live within the past
Slave to love which did not last
I cannot stay in bondage to
A love that proved itself untrue
And if for this my heart a stone
Becomes, to continue on its own
Then so it must be, unstained
By love or hate or joy or pain

But one sweet day true love will make
The heart-stone crack, and finally break
And arms will hold, and lips will say
"Your love is here, and here will stay."
And though I never will forget
And love's first pain may pain me yet
What is past is forever gone
And love will paint a bright new dawn

Why Do I Not Bleed?

I think maybe I've figured out at least part of why, despite all desire and expectation, I have not started cutting again. Because I just thought about doing it, and immediately two thoughts came to mind. One, that cutting is too much work, and two, that I don't want to be that alone. The two are related in some ways. By "too much work" I don't mean that I'm too lazy to walk across the room and pick up a razor blade. That's the easy part of cutting. It's what comes afterward that is so difficult and so isolating. Because you have to monitor everything. It's pretty warm in this state, so I have to carefully consider placement, and then wardrobe, and if I inadvertently pick the wrong clothes, I spend the day worrying that people might see. And cutting makes for sudden mood swings as you go from depression to euphoria, so you want to make sure this isn't this obvious sequence of depression - closed door - happiness, which doesn't happen as much for me because I'm usually hiding the depression part anyway. And then there's the choices of who to tell (if anyone), who can you trust, who must you hide from. And if you do decide to tell someone, then you have to stop and weigh your motives. Are you telling them because you want sympathy? Attention? Help? And those you decide to hide from, you try to hide just the cutting...but then you have to hide the depression, too...and eventually you just start avoiding them altogether, which just makes you feel isolated. Especially since in general the friends you might be honest with are a very tiny number of people. Of course feeling isolated makes you want to cut more, which adds to the whole mess, which makes it more stressful, which makes you want to cut more, which isolates you more...get the idea?
But that's really only part of the reasons, I would say. I hardly know myself well enough to know them all. Another one is that I do have friends that I can talk to to ease the pain before I take that last bloody step. And for the most part, I do. Although I fear relying on them too much. I have this tendency to go from distrust to deep friendship rather quickly sometimes (although I'm picky about who with) and I think it overwhelms people. Being my friend is not easy. I know that. I'm trying to make it easier, but it is still difficult. I want to be loved, and in opening my heart to give and receive that love I think I tend to give out more of myself than people are prepared to handle. Anyway. Bit of a rabbit trail there.
I did try cutting recently. The stress was just too much for me to handle alone. And, you know, it was just as good as I remember. Better even. It gave me such a high that I had to stop much sooner than I expected. And for some bizarre reason it did not hurt at all, not even while it was healing. But I realized when I did it that this is not who I am anymore. Sure, I still want to cut, almost all the time. But I've come too far to return to being the cutter I once was.
And I don't want to be alone. I don't want to tense when someone gives me a hug for fear they might bump unhealed cuts. I don't want to be unable to be active or do things because a sleeve or shorts leg might ride up. Cutting saved my life once, or many times, but now I have outgrown it. Now it would hinder my life, not help it.
Life is too short to add fear on top of pain.

"Where has my heart gone?
Trapped in the eyes
Of a stranger...
I want to go back to
Believing in everything
And knowing nothing
At all"
~"Field of Innocence"

The worst thing is not to be speechless, nor is it to be unheard. The worst thing is to know that your words are heard...and dismissed.

Thoughts From Church

An omnipotent God who refuses to act is in all practicality no better than an impotent God who cannot act.
If God had not created hell nobody would ever go there.
Non Christians find fulfilment in those very things that Christians say they found unsatisfying. Perhaps it is not a fundamental of human nature that cannot find fulfilment in everyday life, but a fundamental of those natures that are drawn to the idea of a supernatural.
I hear so many people applauded in these churches because they left promising careers in the world to devote their time and energy to the small circle of people that is American fundamentalism. But if they truly wished to minister to people, an opera singer at the New York Metropolitan Opera can reach far, far more people than a traveling pair of Christian singers or even a pair of voice teachers at a Christian college. They did what made them happy, and threw God's will on it to make them look spiritual.
 I think perhaps the one thing that Christians simply cannot understand about me is that it is the supposed sovereignty of God that forever drives me from following him. If God existed and was sovereign, he would be no God I would want to serve.
 It is one of Christianity's biggest sins that it keeps its followers content in this life with promises of the next that it has never and cannot ever prove that it can deliver.
Visiting my home church is like watching the blind following the blind and shouting "hallelujah" and "amen" as they fall into the ditch.
 I used to get really caught up in the whole Covenant/dispensationalism argument. Now it just makes me shake my head and chuckle.

Music

I know the words to that song
Though the harmony's wrong
And the instruments all play out of key

Come to think of it too
The melody's not true
And the dance not what it used to be

One of those times when a few phrases start banging at your head demanding you make them into something.

Choices

The last time I stayed in this room was shortly after I made an offer that would change my life. I knew that then, of course, thought if I had been aware of exactly how my life would change I would have been more hesitant to make such an offer. But I did. That was, if I had to put a number on it, the first choice I made that contributed to this tragedy. Others made their own choices of course, but I do not bear responsibility for theirs, only mine. My next choice was to allow myself to fall in love. I do not regret this because I fell in love with a wonderful person - smart, beautiful, trustworthy, dependable, a person who loved me in spite of all my flaws, for I had not hidden them from her. And my husband and I both saw these things, and together we invited her into our hearts and our home. That was the third choice, and though it was shared it was my own choice. In many ways I do not regret it, even now. It was an unwise choice, yes. But I risked much in hopes of gaining much, and I thought, and still do think, that what we all stood to gain was more than worth the risk.
The fourth choice was less conscious than the first three, born of pain and confusion. In the wake of unexpected and unintended betrayal I allowed myself to withdraw. Without intending to I pushed my two Loves away from me. It was this choice, I think, that most of the tragedy rests with, this choice and the next. Because the next choice was the stupidest of all, the most idiotic choice I have ever made. Ignoring all I knew of myself and of them, I chose to leave ("but wait," you say, "you said you were kicked out!" Patience. I'm getting there). I talked of finding a lover who loved all of me. I never spoke of breaking up with my Loves because I did not intend to. But I spoke of moving out. I searched for apartments. I almost managed to get one. But then I stopped, and remembered who I am, and who I loved, and what was really important in life, and I realized the stupidity of what I had nearly done. And I chose again, this time to stay, and to rebuild whatever damage I had caused because of the last two choices.
There is much I could say at this point. I will sum it up this way: there was pain and anger and sorrow had by all, and it was too late. And so I made the final choice. I did not want to make it. I made it slowly, begrudgingly, against my will. I made it kicking and screaming and throwing things. I could have stayed where I was unwanted and unloved, where I had been asked to leave and told my presence caused only pain. My name was on the lease, I had just as much right to remain there in my home as they did. I could have stayed there, yes, causing people I did and still do love misery until they left or found a way to truly force me to leave. So in a sense you could say I was not kicked out, and that would be true. But though I left, I did not want to, and would still have been willing to work things out, so in a sense the opposite is true as well. Foolishly I would still be willing to work things out, because in spite of everything I still love them. But in the end, rather than perpetuating a situation that made all our lives nearly unbearable, I made the unwilling choice to leave.
These are my choices. I bear the joys and regrets, the pride and shame of them myself, for I made them all. In the same way, I do not and refuse to bear the shame or regret of your choices. You made them, not I, and you must bear their weight yourself.

Reality

I live in a reality where being honest is manipulation, where if I acknowledge I need change I am lying, if I change I am not sincere, and if I am content with being who I am I am selfish. Nothing I say is interpreted in a positive light, no matter what it is.

And you know what? I'm starting not to care. I should never have cared. I should have stopped caring at the very first inkling that love might be conditional. It doesn't matter your side of the story, it doesn't matter if you feel a victim, it matters not to me in the least. Because it is your choice to remove me from your life, and therefore your opinions ought have not one bit of power over me.

So if you think me selfish, go ahead. If you think sharing my heart with you and trusting you for years is manipulation, go ahead. If you think me not sincere or a liar, go ahead. I hope it makes you feel better.

I have been holding off on saying this because of the love I still held for you, but that love is fast becoming buried by reality. So I will say this: I hope your life is everything it ought to be, and I hope you live the life you have given me. But whatever life you do live, I am not responsible, I am not to blame. When you move past your honeymoon phase and discover each others' true selves I hope you still love each other, though I would not guarantee it. As you continue to feel overwhelmed by parenthood I hope you remember how you judged me for being the same. I hope you learn the truth about yourselves, and I hope that when you do, you will believe it.

It's weird. There is no pain. I have new red lines and yet...absolutely no pain. Everything else is the same as or better than I remember. I suppose then when people ask why I would willingly inflict physical pain on myself when I have enough emotional pain floating around to drown anybody, I can just say...it does not hurt. Then again, even if it did, it would not be nearly as much as anything else I am going through.

Let's see how this goes

I wanted my words to be audible, for once. Sorry it's like twenty minutes long. Just pop some popcorn, and maybe I'll get around to a transcript for those of you unable or unwilling to listen.

Love kept me from so many things. Now I have no reason not to do them.

"It's getting hard to breathe
Darkness in my head frightens me
I don't need this anymore
I've tied myself down to the floor
I need you to sing!
Sing for me my love
Sing the right from wrong
Here inside my mind
Truth is hard to find..."
-Sing For Me, Tarja

T

The letter T is my upper left arm again. It really is a mess there. From the top, sections one and two are both endless circles (told you there was a lot of those). Section three is backwards love or love going the wrong direction or misplaced love. Section four is a bad spiral going nowhere.

A

A is again skin, this time my upper right arm. From left to right, section one means nothing. Section two is twisting and turning but ultimately going nowhere. It also kind of looks like a vagina, but I'm going to leave that part alone. Section three is fragments of a whole. Section four is a jagged endless circles. There are a lot of endless circles, just to warn you.

K

So for a while at work I've been doodling with the letters of my name. Partway through I decided to make them mean something, something about me. First is K. The letter's design is a representation of skin (all the letters are). This particular one is my upper left arm. The first and second segments mean nothing. The third one stands for endless circles, which is what my life feels like. The third is an illusion of height or depth. Both are true in their own way.

It is just when I think I've locked all the shattered pieces of my heart away that another pops up to stab fresh pain into my soul. A look here, a word there, a small gesture of love that I used to be able to give...or receive. In the end it isn't the big things that hurt the most. It's all the little things, the ways I never knew they had touched my life until they no longer do.
And I don't know where to take my life from here. Up until I met him I didn't really have much of a purpose in my life. I wanted to graduate college and then...I had no plans, no goals, no nothing. And then I met him and suddenly my life had meaning! As I try to cut all the little bits of him out of my heart and lock them away, I wonder what I will be left with. I remember the person I was before I met him, before his love changed me in so many ways. That person is both too far away to reach and too close for comfort. One word defines her, a word familiar to this blog...darkness. And I don't want that again. And so I am reaching out for anchors, for stability, for familiarity, and I find myself reaching to the past far too often. Because those things existed in the past...but the person for whom they existed no longer exists. And I fear, and desire, and fear, that one of those things my searching hand will grasp once more is the blade. Because I remember who I was with a blade in my hand. The blood fed my mask, but yet, who I was inside was broken, and though I am by no means whole, I know that taking up a blade would only build an illusion of strength, and send me back into that darkness farther than before.
I have reached out for old friends, though I know that they were not the best friends for me, as I was not a good friend for them. Can a new relationship be built that is true friendship, that builds us both up? Time will tell. I have reached out for old counsel, though I knew it would be less than useless for me now. Still, sometimes an ear to listen is all that is truly needed. I am reaching forward, too, but in this my lovers' words have more than hit their mark. Lovers' words and old friends' as well. "In a multitude of counselors there is wisdom," the proverb says, and though it is Scripture that does not mean it is false. When people I deeply respect and love, people to whom I have shown the deepest parts of myself, seem to reach the same conclusions, I cannot help but give their words some weight.
And what have their words taught me? That I take and do not give. That I am broken. That I do not really know how to love. That loving me causes them much pain and no joy. That I am selfish. And their actions have taught me that I am unlovable, that I am fit only to be cast aside. I am the damsel in distress the white knight could not rescue and left behind in search of less broken maidens.
And so I'm reaching forward, but I realize I am nothing, I have nothing to give to anyone, friend or lover, that I might find. I would give my heart, but...I know now that that is not remotely enough.

They try to salve their own consciences, they hold out empty hopes. "You can find someone else," they say. "This is a fresh start for you." No. He taught me to trust. He taught me to open my heart. And now they are reminding me why I never trusted, and what it feels like to be betrayed. Now they remind me why I had walls and masks and kept my heart tight shut. Do they think I will calmly go out and give my heart away now? Two years I've spent learning how to trust, and in a few weeks they've wasted it all.
Because I trusted him. I trusted him unreservedly. I gave him the most, the only precious thing I owned...my heart. My love. And perhaps it wasn't much, perhaps it was hardly anything but it was all I had. It was everything I had, everything I am, and I gave it to him. I held nothing back. But it wasn't enough. I am not enough. And now that they've convinced me of this, they expect me to just find someone else? It took me eight years to find someone to open the doors to my heart last time, and that was an entirely different hurt. The one person in all the world that I loved unconditionally, unreservedly, forever...took the heart that I placed into his safekeeping and threw it away. And then he stomped all over it, saying he still loved me, that I would find someone else, that this would be a fresh start for me. A fresh start for what? For me to realize that I can trust nobody? For me to build fresh new walls about my heart? For me to realize that love, like all else, ends? For me to realize that maybe it isn't better "to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all"? Perhaps they are right. Maybe it is a fresh start...just not the one they mean.

So listen to me, now. I've learned a lot the last few weeks. I've learned never to give my heart away. I've learned never to let love in to the innermost parts of my heart ever again, for if they are never warmed by its presence, neither will they be shattered by its departure. I've learned to trust neither love nor kindness. And if love is offered to me, I will never reject it, but it is unlikely that I will ever fully trust it either. This is what you have taught me, my Loves, Lovers, Beloveds...that I am only good enough to love when there is nobody else around. You both loved me once, until you had each other. And while a small, sad smile touches my lips at what a fine matchmaker I am, I realize I should have known better. i should have known that I am enough to love only when there is no one else to compare me to. Now I know. And given what you have taught me...how could I ever love again? I could not trust that I was actually loved, that I would not be cast aside the moment someone better came along. Relationships are not built without trust, and you have stolen that from me.
This is what you have done to me, O my Loves. You have made much of my faults, but tell me...what are my sins compared to yours?

Fettered Freedom

With each tear unshed
And each cry smothered
I place another brick in the wall
Around my heart

I am my own captor
And my own salvation
My walls my own prison
And my own fortification

Deep, Dark, Broken

Deep words, dark words,
Broken words, they drift
Hither and yon through
The corners of my heart

Deep corners, dark corners,
Broken corners, are filled
With the sighs of sorrow
The tears of my heart

Deep tears, dark tears,
Broken tears, they flood
The never-ending void
The silence of my heart

Deep silence, dark silence,
Broken silence, is lost
Amidst the cacophony
The musics of my heart

Deep musics, dark musics,
Broken musics, they sing
An empty, formless song
In memory of my heart

It feels like silence, like the end of all things. Yet there cannot be silence, for while I still breathe there will always be words. And yet again they are silent words, too rarely spoken aloud. They flow from my fingers, not my lips. Does anyone hear my silent words? Do their eyes listen for the anguish written there? I know they see them, but are they listening?
It is silence then, and perhaps then it is the end. It could be a beginning as well...but I dare not hope for that. The things I hope for have a habit of coming true...and disappearing. It is crueler, I think, than never coming true at all. My deepest hope, my dearest dream, my only wish, was to be loved. And so it came to pass that I loved and was loved. But now...the void, having once been filled, feels all the more desolate for being emptied once more.

I am Alive.

Today is an anniversary. It isn't really a happy or exciting anniversary. Although it is, in some ways. It just isn't one that people would ever really want to celebrate with me. It's a personal anniversary, a time when I usually engage in some pretty intense introspection.
You can look at it two different ways, if you like. The first way is the more depressing way, and honestly the way I usually look at it. Three years ago today I tried to kill myself. Every year I look back and wonder and analyze and try to figure out why, and if I really wanted to die, and if I should have done this or that differently. I understand why most people don't want to celebrate this day with me (not that I've ever really asked). "Hi, wanna help me celebrate the day I almost killed myself?" "No, no, not really so much, no."
But there is another way to look at it, and this is the way I am struggling to see it this year. Three years ago today I tried to kill myself...and I didn't die. Three years ago today...I lived. This...this is something to celebrate. I am alive! And given what my life has been, before and after that day, and especially right now, that is something exciting. That is something extraordinary. I am alive. But no one really seems that interested in celebrating this with me, either. In fact, most people seem to think that I should forget about this day altogether.
Speaking of people, there are two people that I always think about a lot on this anniversary. One carries the honor of being one of the few people I have ever hated, though I think I do not hate him anymore. Certainly I cannot hate him on this day. Bradley Menne saved my life by calling the police on me. I can imagine how hard it is to do that; I myself have been in a position of talking to a friend and wondering if they are truly suicidal...and if I should call the police on them, and live with them being saved and hating me if I was right...or hating me for the false alarm if I was wrong. In the end, I've always done nothing. So I can imagine a little of what he went through. The other person is Officer Mike Hoyt of the Watertown Police Department. Officer Hoyt saved my life by sending me to hell...I mean, by sending me to Mendota. I know it wasn't an easy decision for him, either. And I thank them both for doing what they did. I thank them both for my life.
And now, I am going to celebrate being alive. I will celebrate alone, but it will be a celebration nonetheless.

Happy anniversary, Life.

Today has just been one of those days. I've been getting steadily more depressed as the time goes by but today has just been a haze of sadness. And then I tend to get angry at the littlest things when I'm depressed, which makes me feel guilty, which makes me more depressed...it's a cycle that never stops spiraling down.

Hyanda Ar' Agar

It has been a long time since i blogged here. But right now no other place is the right home for my words. Now indeed i feel the darkness everpressing. Now indeed i find myself trapped again on a downward spiral with no way and increasingly no desire to escape.

Hyanda ar' agar, i once called this blog. Few cared what it meant. Fewer asked. But one does not stop having favorite things when one sinks into depression (though perhaps the enjoyment of those things dims), and when i sought a name for my writings, i chose one that said much about me, i thought: Tolkien's Elvish for the language, "Blade and Blood" for the words.

It is Blade and Blood that i long for once more. It is that release, that feeling, that fierce second of joy that i crave, that i need. And how or why should i deny myself?

Excuses, Excuses

I feel like I've dropped a big bomb shell on my blog readers and then walked away. Sorry about that. I've been busy. We're preparing to move shortly, and I've been busy packing and stuff. Or more honestly, I ought to have been busy doing that but I've really been busy getting distracted by various things. The result is that I haven't done much packing and I haven't done any blogging. Sorry.
I'll try to get something up soonish, because I know how much you all look forward to reading my posts. </sarcasm> Peace out.

Lies: The Biggest Mask

Before I take off this mask, I'd like to point out a few things. I grew up Baptist. Honestly that is probably all that is needed to emphasize what a huge deal removing this mask is. But there is more. I am married to a wonderful man that I am still madly, spectacularly in love with. We have an adorable son. I wouldn't give either of them up for the world.
And now you are wondering, what do those things have to do with a mask I am wearing? I was a Baptist forever (it seems), I've been married for over two years, and I've been a mother for nearly that long. What recent mask could have anything to do with that? Well, I will tell you. Slowly. And with backstory.
I didn't exactly have a normal adolescence. At the age when most girls were discovering that boys were kind of cute, I had already been having direct contact with male genitalia for years. Indeed, it was during that time of early adolescence that I vowed I would never date or get married. So when my peers were talking about boys or makeup or dating I had zero interest. Occasionally I would find my eyes caught by a naked woman or too-tight clothing, but I always marked it down as being over-sensitive to sexual things as a result of being abused (though I did not, then or for many years, call it abuse). Being Baptist, of course, tends to heighten that sensitivity - bare shoulders can be as risque as cleavage for a normal person or ankles for a Muslim.
Much later, in college, when I finally found a counselor I trusted, that assumption was reinforced. I struggled with porn (etc) because I had become "sexualized" at too young an age. Eventually my then-fiance and I got kicked out of Maranatha because we couldn't keep our hands off of each other. Between then and when we got married over a year later, we had sex nearly every time we were together. In fact, our son was born just over six months after our marriage. It was pretty obvious that we both greatly enjoyed sex.
Except that we didn't. Or to be more accurate, I didn't. I enjoyed the intimacy of it. I enjoyed making my beloved happy, hearing the catch of his breath when I did something especially pleasurable. I enjoyed being pleasured, sometimes. But as time passed I became less and less involved in the act of lovemaking, more and more passive, more and more just waiting for it to be over. At first I put it down to memories of abuse, and to be sure those memories did pop up and ruin many an intimate moment. But I put those memories behind me and still I did not enjoy sex with my husband. Then I thought that perhaps this was just the way things turned out; after all, it was pretty commonly taught growing up that girls just weren't that interested in sex. And of course a lot of guys tend to joke about how hard it is to get their wives to have sex with them. But I knew that wasn't really that accurate for me at least because I was still incredibly horny all the time. I still visited porn/erotica sites almost daily. It wasn't sex itself that I wasn't interested in, it was sex with my husband for some reason.
I began toying with the idea of bisexuality. I knew of course by then that being gay or straight wasn't a choice, although I thought maybe it was sometimes. I thought of having sex with a woman and the idea was not repulsive to me. On the contrary, I found the idea quite arousing. Not being one to hide things from my husband, I talked to him about it. (I also had a blog post up about it briefly. I took it down pending further thought.) A few days later he sent me an email that has changed our lives completely.
It wasn't a very  long email, just a few words and a link. The link was to an article by a truly sweet lady ( I emailed her a few days later) about her journey of sexual discovery. Her story was eerily similar to my own. She had married her husband several years ago, enjoying for a time a thriving sex life. They even had one child as we do, a boy. Eventually, after working through massive amounts of depressions (sound familiar) and other issues, she became less and less thrilled about sex with her husband. Long story short, she came to the realization that she was not bisexual, as she'd identified herself for years, but lesbian. I couldn't ignore the similarities in our stories, not after all the other thinking I'd been doing. They were too striking, from our opinions on penises (fun to play with on our husbands but overall pretty meh, could do without) to our thoughts on sperm (yucky yucky yucky bleh).
Perhaps I should have realized it sooner. But then, our minds have an impressive ability to lie to us, as we've discussed already. But here is the big moment. I'm about to take off this mask I've been wearing only a few months and yet my whole life...
I am gay.

This is the final part, Part Four, of the series "Lies."

Lies: My Lies

I have told a lot of lies. I have lied to strangers, loved ones, enemies, and myself. I am a very good liar. Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? It is hard to say. I have survived when I might have died. But I have scars (in and out) that I did not need to gain.
For many years I told myself I was guilty of being abused. I told myself I had not been abused, that it had not been violent so it must have been consensual. These were lies, and I should have known better, but I was willing, for whatever reason, to believe that I was a horrible pervert. I believed that for some reason I deserved to be abused.
For many years I lied to everyone around me. I made a persona of a perfect little Baptist girl, one who participated in ministry extensively, who counseled her peers, who was strong and confident in her faith. My persona won Christian character awards, She was held up as a standard of Christian excellence. She never doubted, never struggled with her salvation, never spent the night in tears of agony. But she was a mask, nothing more. The real me was nearly her opposite. I was a Christian, to be sure, but I was by no means as confident or assured or good in that Christianity as outward Threnody let on. I struggled with depression. I had no real friends, no one I could even think of confiding in. By turns I hated and adored my God; by turns I served him and turned my back on him. Yet outwardly, my persona was a friendly, perfect, somewhat introverted Christian girl.
When I went to college I made a new mask, but I wore it just as well as the last one. College Threnody was no longer introverted; she had realized introverts are very lonely. So she became a bubbly person. She became the joker, the class clown, the prankster, always good for a laugh. And college Threnody gathered to herself friends. For the first time she was part of a group of friends, and that felt spectacular. Except...college Threnody was just as much a mask as high school Threnody, and the friends that college Threnody had gathered were friends with a lie, with someone who didn't exist. Meanwhile, I was still lonely, I still had no one to confide in. But who could I trust? And who would trust me? Confiding in someone was essentially the same as admitting I had been lying to everyone for a very long time. I tried counseling, but as I was unable or unwilling to ever completely drop the masks I wore, it didn't really go anywhere. I never lied to a counselor (save once) overtly, yet they did not see beyond the mask of passive lies I always wore. Sometime in there I began accumulating scars. College Threnody of course gave no sign of these; she could sit and joke and laugh and hold punching wars with her friends and never let on that I had been bleeding minutes before. If she wore boots and long sleeves long past what would have been normal, well, no one remarked on it or found it strange.
I talk much of masks, for that is how I have always referred to the myriad lies I told and acted. I am proud of my masks; they held up to the scrutiny of many people for many years. Of course that is not hard to do; people see what they wish to see. I need only set their minds on the track I wish them to take and their own preconceived ideas do most of the work. A few people saw through my masks, or at least parts of them. And yet, given a glimpse of the troubled, hurting soul inside, it was still easy to weave a new mask of their discovered truth and new lies. People do not know what to do with other people's pain, and so if given a chance, they are more than willing to ignore or discount that pain.
I fear I have drifted off track a little. I apologize. The point is that I am very familiar with lies and lying. Nowadays I try to do less of it, but sometimes I still must, both for my own sake and the sake of those I love. Even now I am wearing a mask. I have told very few people what is is. It is a fairly recent mask, in some ways. In others, it is as old as I am. Thankfully I will not be wearing it much longer. For all its brevity, it is probably the biggest mask I have ever worn. Deciding to take it off is perhaps the hardest thing I have ever done. That is saying something, as those of you who know even a little of my life should know. What is it? I will tell you soon.

This is Part Three of the series "Lies." Part Four, "The Biggest Mask," can be found here.

Lies: Big Lies

Everyone tells lies; we've established this. White lies, we call them, the little lies that we tell each other that make society run smoothly. But there are other, bigger lies. Some of them are good, some of them are bad. We tell them not to easy our way, but to manipulate the way the world around us operates.
Institutions like the Baptist college I went to tell lies to both their students and their supporters. They seek to present an appearance of holiness and conformity and will tolerate nothing that might tarnish that appearance, or "testimony" as they like to call it. This would be an example of a bad big lie, not necessarily because of the lie itself but because of the lengths they will go to in order to protect the lie.
Politicians lie. It has become so prevalent that we expect our government officials to lie to us. A "campaign promise" is nothing more than a lie. Yet not only do we expect these lies, we demand them. A politician who told only the truth would never be elected, because we demand to hear what we want to hear, even when we know we are only being placated. Of course we would prefer to hear the truth, or so we say...but we too are lying, if only to ourselves.
Speaking of lying to ourselves, we often tell huge lies to ourselves, damaging our own lives and selves much more than any external influence could. And it doesn't even make any sense, half the time. We tell ourselves we are fat or ugly or stupid or clumsy or untalented...or we tell ourselves that we are skinny or beautiful or brilliant or graceful or artistic. Of course these things are not always lies, but sometimes they are. Often, too, we are merely repeating the lies that we believed when someone else told them to us. But why do we continue to lie to ourselves? Why do we seek to convince ourselves that we are one thing when we are truly another? Why do we believes ourselves so inherently invaluable that we must be something other than what we are?
Religions lie. Whether you call yourself Christian or Buddhist or Hindu or Muslim or anything else, your religion has lied. Does that make your actual beliefs false? No, of course not. But religion, as an organized or semi-organized body of humans, is possibly one of the worst propagators of lies ever to exist. Religion's lies have been both good and bad. To some, they have granted peace and contentment in this life; others, they have sent forcibly out of this life altogether. Whichever, good or bad, I think we can all agree that religion's lies have had a tremendous impact on the lives of billions of people throughout history.
The point here is that lies, like all other words, have consequences. It is cause and effect, and you cannot always know exactly what the effect will be.

This is Part Two of the series "Lies." Part Three, "My Lies," can be found here.

Lies: Small Lies

We all lie. The reasons are many and varied, but we have all lied and continue to do so daily. I am not saying it is a bad thing, nor am I saying it is a good thing. But it is something we all do.
Now I would guess some of you don't believe me right now. Some of you probably think of yourselves as honest people. I dare say, however, that even you lie, and lie frequently. Have you ever said "I'm fine" when you weren't? I think that is the biggest and most frequent lie people tell. I know it is for me. Have you ever found yourself rushing around the house cleaning frantically before a guest arrives? I know that seems a little weird in this list but why do you do that? In general it is because you want your guest to think of you as a neat, clean person...even though in reality you're not. Have you ever given an insincere compliment? Have you ever told someone you're too busy to do something with or for them even when you have absolutely nothing planned? Online, have you ever said "afk" or "brb" when you aren't actually going anywhere or have no intention of coming back, you just don't feel like talking anymore? I am sure you have done one or more of these things, just as I have. We are all liars.
Are these bad things to say or do? I think it depends. Society or culture or maybe just human nature punishes us for telling the truth in many of those cases. Most people really couldn't care less how you're actually doing when they ask (a form of lying in itself), and telling them the truth only drives them away. Everyone knows that nobody keeps a clean house all the time, yet we make character judgments if we visit a messy house. Insincere compliments are in general your own fault, as you aren't punished for not giving them. However, you are sometimes rewarded if you do. The last two essentially go together. We would like to tell the truth sometimes in those cases...but we can't, not without causing pain or offense to the person we are interacting with (or trying not to interact with).
So essentially, you see, we are all liars. We all lie. Even without pressure from society in certain ways, we would still be liars, I think. It is part of our nature. We all want to be accepted by those around us, and we all do our best to fit in. Invariably that means telling at least a few lies.

This is Part One of the series "Lies." Part Two, "Big Lies," can be found here.

A Few Thoughts On Depression

Depression is a devious and cunning master. It sneaks up and overtakes you without warning. Having emotions is normal, usually caused by some normal occurrence of life. So when you feel sad one day, you start trying to figure out why you're sad. By the time you realize there is no reason, it's too late, depression already has you in a death grip.

It teaches you that of all people in the world, it is yourself you can trust the least. There is not a thought process nor an emotion depression does not sink its shadowy claws into. Nothing is sacred, nothing is exempt. You can depend on nothing your brain tells you.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live without depression. I find it impossible to imagine. I have lived with this for a decade. There have been brief periods of respite, true, but somehow I've always known it would return again.

I wonder if I would be a better mother if not for this depression. 'Tis why I wanted to wait...it is difficult enough trying to take care of myself. Taking care of my son forces me past my limits over and over. It drains me completely and gives me no time to recharge before the next round.

Depression is master and lord whether it currently has you in its dark depths or not. For you spend the days of freedom dreading the return of those chains of shadow. Or if not, you spend those too-brief days or hours trying to pick up the pieces of the things you let slip from your weakened grasp as the darkness tormented you. There is never enough time to feel free, to feel truly, unreservedly happy. Or perhaps that is merely what the depression wants you to think.

Depression is the father of lies. It will tell you that your life is over. It will convince you that you are a curse to your loved ones, not a blessing. It whispers that you are alone - unwanted and unloved. And you will believe it. No matter how forewarned you are, no matter how deeply you know the truth, some part of you still listens to and believe that maybe, just maybe, it is right. For depression does not make up outrageous claims to control your mind, no...it takes all your hidden fears and doubts and magnifies them so they become more believable than the truth. After all, you already half believed them, so what chance do you have against the darkness now?

Cherish, Accept

Cherish sunlight
Though it lasteth
But a little time

Accept darkness
Though thou fearest
That which it imparts

Cherish friendship
Give all your heart
Hold thou nothing back

Accept betrayal
Though it pain thee
Learn thou from thy grief

I Survive

I am a survivor.

A little over a year ago I stopped making a secret of that fact. I stopped adhering to the law of "we will never speak of this again" laid down by my parents a decade ago. I published my story, on Facebook, and on two of my blogs. It did not go well. Two of my brothers have just this month started talking to each other again. The one who abused me does his best to convince everyone that I over-exaggerated and that I was at the age of 9 essentially a slut...based on the fact that I'd been abused twice already. My parents still blame me for the fact that my eldest brother will no longer speak to them.

I have spent the last year blaming myself for the problems within my family. I have spent the last year feeling guilt that I ought not be feeling. Although I suppose realistically I spent the last decade doing those two things. I talked to my mother over this weekend; she reiterated for the millionth time that the fact that they did not know what to do and so I ought not blame them for how they treated me during that decade. I accepted that excuse for a while, but it no longer holds weight. You see, my parents know people. My dad was a Baptist pastor for many years; even now I cannot visit a Baptist church without running into a mutual acquaintance. There were many people they could have asked if they did not know what to do, but they refused to.

I am not responsible for the fact that my eldest brother took what I told his wife and twisted it into an offense against his family. I am not responsible for the the fact that he does not talk to my parents nor allow them to see their grandchildren. I am not responsible for the fact that he and another brother did not talk for a year. I am not responsible for being abused when I was four, or when I was seven, or when I was nine, ten, eleven, twelve.

Abuse is horrible in and of itself. It causes intense mental and emotional issues that, even if discovered and dealt with early can still take years to fully overcome. It does not especially matter how often the abuse occurred, or how long, or how "consensual" it was, or if it was violent or not. All of these things of course contribute to future problems in their own way, but abuse can be a one-time, five-minute, non-violent occurrence and still cause immense trouble in the life of its victim. I say this because the one who abused me the longest (four years) does not see himself as an abuser. He was never violent, he never forced me to do anything, indeed he even stopped (for a while) several times when I asked him to. We did not even "have sex," so far as the strictest definition (vaginal penetration) goes. Does that mean that I was not abused? Does it mean I ought not carry emotional or mental scars to this day? Does it mean that, as my parents and the counselor I "confessed" to believed, I bore equal guilt for something I never asked for or desired? No.

It is hard for parents to know what to do when one of their children is abused. I understand that. It is even harder when the abuser is within the same family and indeed only a few years older than the victim. But as I said already, they had resources. They had people they could have turned to for help, if they had so desired. They certainly had more opportunity to seek help than I did at the tender age of twelve. Instead, not knowing what to do, and not willing to sacrifice their precious testimony in order to seek help, they banned the subject altogether. They thought if nobody mentioned it, it would simply go away. Everything would be as if it never happened. Except for the fact that even in their minds it never went away. They could not refrain from mentioning it every time I did something wrong. "We know we can't trust you because of what you did before" was a phrase I heard more than once. For you see they blamed me. Even more, I think, than they blamed the one who abused me. I think it was because I was the one who told, who turned their lovely little Baptist home upside down. That is merely conjecture, of course; I do not know for certain. However, it is true that they believed I had sinned just as much as he had. Browsing through old emails the other day, I found one from my father counseling me that the problems with my thought life I'd been having (which are now easily explainable by the fact that I was 17 and horny, thank you very much) were a consequence of my sin. This attitude of my parents, that I was not a victim but equally complicit in my own abuse, had its own consequences. One of them was the fact that I believed them. I believed that I was dirty, broken, worthless. I believed that many of the problems in my family were my fault (for many of them started after I broke the silence the first time). I believed that as a young girl I had been guilty of sexual perversions that are not even talked about in polite society. It was not until nearly eight years had gone by that I realized, for the first time, that it wasn't my fault.

I realized then that I was a survivor, a survivor of sexual abuse. And I was angry. I still am, though the anger confines itself to moments like these when I feel I must say something. It is not constant. But for years I was abused, and then for more years I was taught that that abuse was sin that I was guilty for. As of this moment more than half the years of my life I spent believing those lies, lies many of those who ought to be closest to me still believe. But I have survived. Though I still feel the pain of those years, and still carry scars, emotional, physical, and mental...I still survive.

The Amazing Dancing Bear Conga Line

I think the title says it all there.

Just a Shadow Before the Sun

I'm Watching You...

The poor bird was terribly suspicious of the human-who-is-a-puppy-and-also-a-kitty's intentions. She probably should have cleaned the egg off her whiskers better.

Horses Need Advil Too

Hey look it's a human who is also a puppy and undead riding a foal. Poor foal. Undead smell terrible.

We Fear

We fear being known
So we hide ourselves in lies
We fear being unknown
So we reveal our deepest secrets

We fear being hurt (again)
So we kill our feelings one by one
We fear being numb
So we hurt ourselves to feel once more

We fear relationships
So we drive away those we love
We fear being alone
So we give our hearts away too quickly

Dance Baby Dance

The next few days (which means either until I get bored or forget about it) I shall be posting screenshots from around Azeroth. Here's the first.

Because hey, who wouldn't want to dance with adorable yet murderous baby naga?

Language

A trend I find disturbing and heart-wrenching is a habit of WoW players, and probably gamers in general, to use words outside of their normal usage. Does that sound nit-picky? It's not, just a little ill-defined. Allow me to clarify. I'm talking about using the word "gay" as a pejorative. And of course the usual gamut of curse words that find their way into the public channels and voice chat. Now to be fair, I have no problem with a 'wtf" or a "shit!" once in a while, but if you start going off and throwing names at people I draw a line.
Those aren't really what most disturb me, however. No, the word that most disturbs me is not a pejorative, nor is it used to tear someone down (at least not intentionally). It is usually used in a self-congratulatory or self-deprecatory manner. So, what do I have against it? And what is this mysterious and offensive word?
The word is "rape." Usually I hear it used in a context of "we totally raped that boss" or "man that boss just raped us." Using this word in this manner is not okay. Let me repeat that. It is NOT OKAY. I realize a lot of gamers are guys, and they don't know the feelings that word can provoke even in those women who have no first-hand experience with rape (although I realize not all women are affected this way, don't get me wrong). For those of us who have suffered from rape or even non-violent abuse, hearing the word is akin to dousing our psyche in gasoline and throwing a match on it. Since when is okay to trivialize trauma? Since when is the suffering of others become a joke?
I guess I've written this whole post to say this: stop. Think before you allow words to come pouring from your mouth. And if you don't, and someone else politely asks you to stop, don't turn your vitriol on them. Grow up, and make the world a better place.

Catching Up

I haven't written a wrap-up post in quite nearly forever, it seems. So here are all the posts I've written since the last time.

• Untwisting the Tangled Web
• The "Sanctity of Marriage" According to the Bible (one response to this was "Well people weren't meant to die so women weren't really supposed to be forced to marry their brother-in-law." The only problem with this argument is that Levitical law was written after the fall, so at that point, people were dying all the time. That was really one of the more ridiculous things I've ever read responding to me.)
• The Shame of Salvation
• Arrogance
• Humanity's Link
• Strong Through Life
• Allow Me to Vent My Frustration. I don't actually remember what I was so angry about. I think it had something to do with a Christian saying poor behavior due to mental illness was "sin."
• Comment Review
• A Ramble that Turned Into Love. By Lalaith's request, this one is also posted on Untwisting.
• Vigilance
• Memories

Memories

Last night memories were pushing at my mind and wouldn't let me rest until I had released them. Memories of course never end, but last night I seemed overwhelmed by them. And just as life is both good and bad, so too are these memories, some sorrowful, some joyful.

Voice raised in song, perfect harmony. United for one purpose, in praise of a God I served with all my shattered heart and soul. For one moment, perfect, complete.

A younger, unscarred me, running to and fro amidst the docile animals of a live nativity scene. Hot cocoa, raisin-filled Christmas cookies. Cold nose and fingers, bright heart. Laughter, carefree.

Terror at having told the secret. Shame I claimed for my own. Waiting as a camp director and my father spoke words I could not hear. Knowing my life was forever changed, knowing and fearing.

Stinging hands, the thrill of a perfect block, volleyball down, a point for the Warriors! The crowd's applause, but from my teammates, my Christian classmates, the same scorn as always.

Disconnect. Peers discussing boys and clothes whilst my mind replays yet again the memory of my shame. A night spent once again crying into my pillow, a day spent longing for the end of a life already too long at fifteen years.

Horses and cows. My hands holding the reins but Little Cinnamon knows what to do better than I, and together we start the steers back to the corral for the night. A roughened cowboy treating a grubby little girl like one of the hands.

Running away. Twenty-five miles on my bike, but that car is familiar and now the escape ends. Tears and promises, not from me, that things will change. Familiar words, familiarly broken. Nothing ever changes.

Another visit to the youth pastor. A later time I realize how much he avoided me, how much he shirked his duty. For now, as I climbed the stairs from basement to second floor, I only sought help for my problems. Problems, though I did not know it then, that stemmed from the shame I bore for so long.

Tears. The realization that eight years of shame was not my burden to bear. Finally knowing that I was not complicit in my own abuse. And anger, for I was not the only one who judged me for another's sin.

Blood running down freely, shed for those tears I could not. Scars, line upon line, leaf upon leaf. Freedom, however brief, from constant pain or constant numbness. Hiding them in shame or showing them in defiance, outcast from those who were supposed to love and accept above all others.

A friendship broken once, twice, thrice. Promises to love forever, broken. Once a life saved, then death desired. My soul, my innermost being, given freely. Love given and received, closer than all save my Beloved. But then coldness, demands, arrogance, ultimatums. Whispers in ears, other friends disappear one by one. Fair words to face, knife twisted in the back. Trust, only newly forged, in a shattered mess upon the floor. Words twisted, always sub par, always unequal.

A life of faith, wasted. Perfection, never. Sincerity, unparalleled. Desire, unmatched. A life spent waiting for the answer that never came. Waiting for the everlasting arms that never enfolded. Waiting for forgiveness never granted. Waiting for peace that never soothed. A faith shattered. Realization that life will never be the same. Freedom obtained.

A wave of love for the first time, for the son born nearly a year before. Nearly having thrown something so precious away. Love with shame.

Red rocks. Vedauwoo. Church picnic, before shame, before packing up and fleeing from old memories. Monkey-like, scampering up and down the leftovers of some forgotten upheaval. On the way home, the best kind of tired, singing along to Pensacola and Patch the Pirate.

Running across hot sand to the cool water of the Reservoir, not fast enough, burned soles. No sympathy. Blowing up the inner-tubes by mouth in the back of the station wagon on the way there. Holding our breath through the tunnels, pointing out Chimney rock to each other for the hundredth time.

Far, far back, perhaps the earliest of all. Neighbors with German Shepherds and a go-kart track. Two boys, older than me, persuading me to pull my swimsuit down. A blank spot in my memories, then pulling up my swimsuit from around my ankles and running for home. Telling no one. How old? Four, I think. Why a blank spot? I wish I knew.

Family visiting. Waking up in the middle of the night, heading to the bathroom, meeting much older cousin coming out. Cousin inviting me back in with him. Standing on top of toilet naked, while his hands and mouth visit places usually reserved for one's Beloved. Asked if I wanted to do the same to him, No. Shrug. My first experience with male genitalia, at the tender age of seven.

No cartoons for us, but we devoured old Westerns and black-and-white serial shows. Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Gene Autry, young John Wayne, many more. Dick Tracy, Zorro. Violence that never felt violent. Good versus evil, good always winning.

New Jersey beach. Swimming, cold waves. The boardwalk, two-seater bikes, salt-water taffy, Johnson's caramel corn. The houses we stayed in, a condo and the mysterious attic house. Watching Dukes of Hazard while parents try to extract a "splinter" nearly the size of a dime from the bottom of my foot. Later the hospital visit to finally get it out. A little keyboard I played "Twinkled Twinkle Little Star" on over and over. Ocean City sweatshirt printed with the logo I chose.

Mulberries. Handcuffed to the mulberry tree by a brother in toy handcuffs with no safety tab. Eating mulberries with cream. Raising caterpillars off the tree. Crying, when my mother paid my brother a quarter each to squish caterpillars and mine were the first to go. Catching jars full of fireflies among its branches.

Vigilance

The toy slips from my fingers
And caring not, I watch it fall
My son continues play, on and
Around me (though rarely with)
He feels not this sense of doom
Impending

I gather him in my arms
And hold his growing body tight
As he squirms and says
"Momma, no!" and grunts
His efforts to escape my arms
Restraining

He feels no sense of doom
No nameless dread or formless
Fear. He wishes only to be fed
And tickled and talked to
And (if I'm lucky) held
Adoringly

Perhaps he has it better than I
Perhaps there is nothing to fear
But after almost throwing this away once
And once having it nearly ripped
From my grasp, I remain
Vigilant

A Ramble that Turned into Love

Life used to be a lot simpler. I had constants: constant pain, constant darkness, constant fear. I constantly longed for escape.

My favorite kind of book to read growing up was...well, I don't know the correct name for it. I personally would have named it "escapist," for that was the common theme: a young protagonist is whisked away from his (or her, but let's just use generic male pronouns) dull, boring, or miserable life by something (whether war, or good fortune, or tragedy, or a misunderstanding) and into a new and exciting (or perhaps just different) life. You know the books of which I speak: Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, Narnia, books by Mercedes Lackey, Tamora Pierce, Garth Nix, Anne McCaffrey, Robin McKinley, Brandon Sanderson, Brian Jacques...it's a pretty common young adult fiction theme. I dreamed that one day I too would be whisked away.

And you know what? Those dreams I dreamed? They came true. I "escaped." I started a new and exciting (or maybe just different) life. And though I would not have, did not dare, dream who would rescue me, I could not be happier. Most girls dream of a white knight, there to rescue them and save the day and then live "happily ever after." I did not. After what had happened in my childhood, I did not deserve a white knight, or so I thought. But I got one anyway...my own "Prince Charming" swept me off my feet...and so far, "happily ever after" is as good a description as any. What sorrows my life still knows, what melancholy fits and black moods still come upon me, they are bearable because of this: I have found my own true love, and I am his and he is mine forever.

My life isn't very constant anymore. Although there is still pain and darkness and fear, they no longer persist constantly. I no longer desire to escape the life I have, for I am living the life I longed to escape to.

True love isn't like the movies, you know. Happily ever doesn't just happen. It takes work, and tears, and misunderstandings, and all kinds of not very "happy" things. But in the end, you are left with something so much better than the movies could ever hope to portray, something better than I have words to express: not a perfect kiss in the moonlight (though moonlit kisses are amazing), not just knowing "he's the one" (though he may very well be), not a foot that pops or eyes that meet or hands that tingle when they touch: true love may include these, but it is so very much more, so very much better than all of them. Don't be afraid to work for it, to cry for it...or even to let it go if it comes to that.

Because sometimes true love involves letting go. Sometimes it recognizes that the greatest love it can show is letting the other person go on without it. And this too is unlike the movies, for if they portray such a thing, it is always in such a way that it is still a happy ending: misunderstandings put to rest, all differences set aside, "happily ever after." But it doesn't always end that way. Sometimes, when you let love go...it goes, and does not come back. That is the price of true love: it may lead to "happily ever after" and all you've always dreamed of (as it did for me)...or it may lead to sorrow and heartbreak. There is risk involved with love, but for those of us who have loved or been loved...it is worth it.

Before I stop this ramble, there is one more thing the movies get wrong: true love isn't limited. It may only be possible to love one person "with all your heart" at once (or perhaps not...maybe true love isn't exclusive, either), but that doesn't mean after you have loved and lost you are forever doomed to wait the rest of your life alone with your lost love. You can love, truly love, more than once per lifetime...because here's the biggest lie the movies tell you: "true love just happens." Or possibly "if it isn't love at first sight it isn't true love." That is utterly and completely a lie.True love is a choice...sure it may start with just a look, but that's puppy love - cute and endearing and emotional...and bound to be grown out of. At some time, consciously or not, you make a choice that you will love this person "no matter what"...and then you do. And if that love is not returned or one day walks away, it's okay to consciously stop making that choice. It doesn't mean your love was any less true while it lasted. It doesn't mean you were foolish to love at all...it just means that you are taking your heart back from where you had offered it and moving on. Someday, you will offer it again. Someday, your true love will love you truly too. And even if, for you, that never happens...if you never find your soulmate...don't give up. Don't be discouraged. As the poet said..."It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all."

You know those posts that you start and somehow they turn into something completely different from what you intended? Yeah, this is one of those posts. I'm aware that it is very rambling and might not make a lot of sense at first glance...but rather than coldly editing it I will let my heart speak for itself. Take it or leave it as you will.

Comment Review

I read this article today. Not that interesting, fairly unbiased. I know absolutely nothing about the website that published the article. What I would like to point out is the comments, which I shall be copying here. For your information, this is not an "anti-Christian" post, it's an "anti-idiot" post.

Must have killed him to quit voting “ present” on this issue.

He’s not a flip flopper. This has always been his real opinion. He merely lied about his position during the 2008 election when a clear majority of the public was still against same-sex marriage.

I agree with Chet. Obama is now withholding the fact that he is an international Marxist because a clear majority of Americans is still against Marxism/ Communism / Socialism !

 Maybe in your “Gay” world most people would like it to be legal, but at least 30 times that it has been on a ballot for “the people” it has been overwhelmingly voted down. What’s that , oh yeah we’re not supposed to let those nasty facts out. Wanna be gay and marry your partner…. move to a country that allows it. LEAVE MINE ALONE!!!! Just because 1/10th of a percent wants it, no matter how many times you repeat it, it’s just not right. You folks that want to compare this to the civil rights movement need to remember who was fighting against civil rights, even fillibustered it in senate. Why are blacks allowing the dems to keep them on the dem plantation. I guess now that their prez is pro-gay then i’m going to assume all blacks are pro-gay also…. he did get 98% of the black vote…right? Every interview with a black should now start with…”so since you support gay marriage……”

Panderer, liar, deceitful, evil, nonChristian. This is Obama.

Oh come now .. how can you tell he isn’t lying now? .. or was he lying then? .. you must be a die hard Obamavombie .. is you believe anything he says. Or know he is lying if his lips are moving.

You godless blasphemer. Jesus destroyed the sodomites of Sodom and Gomorrah. Marriage is a picture of God’s relationship to His church. I am now convinced this man is dedicated on the destruction of the U.S. as a super power. I will never recognize sodomite “marriage”! 

BIGAL don’t insult my intelligence. The steady campaign by the homosexual lobby in our schools is responsible for the 50/50 national numbers on homosexual marriage. As soon as that campaign (with idiocies like “bullying”) is put to an end…then that little gambit is stopped. It begins with getting rid of Obama’s Czar of safe schools, Kevin Jennings. He’s the mind behind this “bullying” campaign in schools. He’s also the founder of GLSEN a group that advocates teaching extreme sex acts to school age children. Of course I’m not talking about ultra-liberal states like California or Oregon. They will always be lost. This “inevitablity” you cite hinges on how quickly our schools can be taken away from stleath pedophiles like Kevin Jennings and his ilk and how quickly liberalism can be shown to be the failure it is. It begins in November. 

It’s a Trojan horse that would give power to the radicals in LGBT movement to force, by Federal law, any and all institutions of faith, schools, private organization etc…..to marry gay couples, teach homosexuality in schools (as an acceptable lifestyle choice, gay rights activism or Gay History Month) whether you want you children to sit through it or not or admit gay members to a private club. This would effectively trample freedom of religion, our even your simple rights if you believe homosexuality to be improper on your own moral terms.

What I don’t understand is why the liberals and gays want marriage for gays in the first place. Why are they fighting so hard for something that for years they have been saying is antiquated, stifling, misogynistic, unnecessary, and so not cool? I thought couples didn’t HAVE to be married to be in loving, committed relationships. Isn‘t that what the feminists and other liberals have been bleating about since the 60’s? Why is it all of a sudden soooooooo vital for them to get married? Hmmm…….

I'm stopping now before I throw up or hurt somebody. I didn't get through the first page of comments, out of seventeen. While of course it isn't always true that you can judge a man based on his opponents, I think in this case that concept bears a lot of weight.

In case anyone was wondering my political views: I'm not Democrat. But I increasingly find myself rejecting every Republican ideal I once believed in. I suppose therefore I am independent, I vote for whoever I agree with the most. But honestly...shouldn't that be what we all do?

Allow Me to Vent My Frustration

Goddamn fracking know-it-all Christians! Yes, I said, "goddamn!" Even your own fracking god would rise up and fracking condemn you for the idiocy and ignorance you spew out every time you open your fracking mouth! Why don't you just shut the frack up and realize that you don't know everything and that your fracking religion doesn't have a fracking answer for everything? Hmm?

Now that I've released the vulgarity from my system, I feel much better. Thank you for listening.

P.S. I am nearly 100% certain that the particular Christians I'm spouting about will never ever see this. So if you think it's about you, it isn't. Unless of course you're feeling guilty.

the one weekly thing that i do

These are all from Untwisting this week. Lalaith has also written some awesome posts that you should read.

• Just Because I Can
• Causing Pain
• Ta-Dah

Writing this Week

Scroll down.

When the Prairie Sun Climbs Out of the Hay

Every childhood should include the Sons of the Pioneers. No exceptions.

Masochism, Anger, Feeling

Masochism (in part): purposefully reading something you know will make you angry. Even after you've promised not to.

Of course you can also add things like cutting to this list. That one is rather obvious. But why? Why did I, today, go to a blog, knowing that I would disagree with the author's very worldview, let alone any specific posts, knowing that I would be frustrated, knowing that likely I would get angry?

Because...I wanted to feel angry. Or perhaps more accurately and more simply: I wanted to feel. Anger is perhaps the most easily obtainable emotion. We all have things that make us upset. For most people, however, we shy away from those things. We don't want to get angry; we don't like the way it makes us feel guilty; it isn't socially acceptable. But when I'm trapped in a haze...when I feel empty, when I feel grey, when I feel nothing...then I want to feel anything, even anger.

And so I am angry. Angry at being misunderstood. Angry at being maligned. Angry at the chains that bind so many of my friends in slavery. Angry at a myth that has been propagated as ultimate truth for far too long. Angry at so many things in the world I cannot change. Perhaps...angry at life itself.

I will pay a price, for the anger. I start to pay it now, in guilt. What anger is not accompanied by guilt? We are living, thinking beings, we do not let these negative emotions drive us. I will perhaps pay more, who knows? But for a little while, the goal is accomplished:

I feel.

*Cough Cough*

property of bizarro.com

Character Death

Some day I'm going to make a character on some game. And I'm going to name it "darkness" or "depression" or "shadows," something along those lines. And I'll tell myself, I'm only allowed to be depressed when I'm playing that toon. And then...I'll never touch it again.

One More For Old Time's Sake

Deanna Durbin

I hear people talking about the cartoons they grew up with...well, I wasn't allowed to watch those things. I got in trouble for Bananas in Pajamas. This is the kind of thing I grew up on...

Week Blah Blah Blah

• Untwisting
• You Would Have Me Believe
• Markers
• A little something
• Strong
• The Music of my Childhood
• You Think You Understand?
• WoW
• I Went Fire on my Mage
• I Want to KILL Things

Blah blah blah nobody reads this anymore anyway.