alive!

that's me. rejoining the land o' the living one toenail at a time.

and i'm eating cake. right now, actually. and puffed wheat.

i have this funny spring-ish type stirring in my soul these days. i'm feeling quite romantic, thinking of skirts and green grass, and wishing it were warmer and sunnier.

and lately, it seems that i'm feeling more romantic in other ways too. i was, until very recently, quite content with my station in life. happy with sweet brothers and generally settled in my singleness. but i've been thinking about these ideas. sneaky ideas, conspiring to infiltrate my consciousness. the idea of holding someone's hand. the idea of sitting across from someone in the grass by the river, staring into his eyes, and being unable to see anyone else or think of anything else. the idea of someone singing to me. the idea of liking these ideas.

more than anything, i've been wishing lately that someone thought i was amazing. and not just, wow, she's a good leader/good teacher/excellent friend amazing. i wish someone thought i was so amazing that they were intrigued by me, unable to stop thinking about me, in awe of the things that make me beautiful and different.

and for all this, i blame valentine's day. darn pink hearts.

today.

i almost died.

i got dizzy. fever. dehydrated.

i fell down and hit my head.

then they wanted $1000 to scan my brain.

no way man. rapid onset flu, they said. possible concussion.

now people are brianna sitting.

i don't like being taken care of.

love is...

different.

i don't think it ever really goes away. it just changes. like remembering when you wanted to marry someone. and then hearing yourself tell the lady who is borrowing your phone in brahms that this person is your brother and these beautiful, intelligent, articulate boys aren't your kids.

and love is hard. like trying to forget someone who helped you become who you are.

but love is also worth it. seeing love in the eyes and the face of someone looking only at you. even after all the crud and gunk that's passed between you, time apart, and cruel words.

it's hard to accept. like god's love. unwarrented. undeserved. largely underappreciated.

but it was still there. just different.

huh.

stressful, much?

okay, so i'm a little behind. my friends are amazing at this blogging every day thing. but me...well you know how it is.

i'm frustrated beyond my ability to put it into words. painful. life is friggin painful.

timothy says my blogging is more vague the closer something is to me. the less important it is, the more specific i am. today i'm feeling... unable to control the pain. i want to talk to someone. something. so, you want specific? you got it.

a while ago i wrote about a relationship in my life that had become quite a bit idolatrous in my own heart, and how i had to cut it off. unfortunately, the party of the second part wasn't cooperative or supportive of this decision. i keep thinking eventually he'll give up and leave me alone. but instead he's become increasingly more...well, clingy and obsessed with the idea that everything has to be okay and "go back to normal". and all the while his actions and decisions hurt more and more. and i fall farther and farther into this pit of mean ugliness, becoming this person who looks and acts nothing like me.

and i can't control it! garbh.

but i promised to try. so yesterday came, and everything else fell apart. without going into great depths of gore, i will say that the things i usually lean on, my family, my friends, my church. they all left me. they fell apart. i was holding them together. with my own broken insides, with my barely-able-to-function heart, i was taking care of them all the best i could. and no one was there to take care of me. because i sent them away.

my defense is to shut everything out. which is mean, particularly in the above-mentioned case. if i'm hardly able to move, 3 seconds away from crying, the last thing i can do is look into the eyes of the one person who has been such a rock for me. who shielded me, held my hand, sat with me, listened. the last thing i can do is look into his eyes and see nothing for me. i can't stand up under that. so i didn't. i hid. and i hurt him yet again. i'm still doing it. today. probably tomorrow. all week.

but i wonder, what else can i do?

i don't feel like there's any other choice.

and as for the rest of this business, i just need to keep taking it. like punches to the face. eventually they'll stop.

squeaker

soooo....

did you know that people are more beautiful, exponentially when they smile? you even feel more beautiful when you smile, or at least i do. kind of like convincing the inside to come to the outside for a little while.

funny thing. when people fall off the edge or jump into a hole on super mario brothers, i always catch my breath and my heart races a little bit. people run into things, no big deal. get eaten by turtle-ducks. no sweat. but falling, almost falling, jumping from mushroom to mushroom, spanning caverns and gaping holes. NERVE WRACKING.

and the wii is the new bane of my existence. takes up much mental energy. woot.

garhbhfff

have you ever tried to love someone through a disagreement. a terrible difficulty. tried with all your might. and in the end, your love never reached them through the mess they'd built up and scattered between the two of you?

it's futile. it's frustrating. it's painful and exhausting.

but sometimes people just can't hear things. i mean, i've been that person before.

i might be a little short on patience today anyway, really. it might be a little easier to get to me. i'm already vulnerable. i'm already frustrated.

i'm already feigning a positive outlook.

this guy was scary today. he called me every name in the book. cussed me up one side and down the other. but i suppose i'll have a little patience with him.

i suppose some days at least the inside of me looks a lot like that anyway.

the coolest ever.

i was walking down the street this afternoon in delano, heading back to my car after a totally unnecessary shopping (ad)venture. that's when this idea hit me. i stopped and evaluated myself for a moment.

eeeeeiiirch. just a helpful hint, don't evaluate yourself in the middle of the street, even if you are in a crosswalk. burnt rubber. mmm. brake smell. add that to the evaluation.
check.

weird army-green athletic type jacket from a ski trip on which i never skied.
check.
hot pink vinyl loafers.
check.
recently procured orange wool gloves from the hat store.
check.
mmmmm. lemon grass lip balm from the nice lady at the red store.
check, and double check.
hair that never really dried quite right, no make up, and black plastic rimmed glasses.
check.

it occurred to me that i probably look like someone incredibly mysterious and inspiringly cool...intriguing and endearingly quirky.

then again i may look more like crazy mike's girlfriend.

it's possible that my mumbling/humming, and excessive applications of lip balm made out of foliage might point observers in the direction of the latter. also standing in a crosswalk looking up at the sky tends to encourage doubts about a person's mental faculties.

but i suppose today i'll go with mysterious and endearing.