DEFINITELY been a while!

Since I originally started this blog, I started two others.  One is a much more vague "I want to change and this is my journal about it"  and the latest is my journey with WLS.

Since this is my personal writing blog, I am happy to report that since my last post I retook Dr. Roper's creative short fiction class, wrote several short stories, came up with a couple of actual novel ideas, and most importantly, I submitted a story for competition.  I find that a little ironic since I have yet to submit a story for publication, let alone a competition!  I know that there will be thousands of submissions.  There are varying levels of rewards for the top 35 applicants.  I know that my chance of placing is so very small, but I truly loved my story.  There is a teeny tiny part of me that hopes that it places.  It would be so fantastic and I know that I would be elated beyond measure.

But even if it doesn't, I am so stinking proud of myself for submitting anything at all.  It was very exciting.  I learn next month what the results are.  Here's to crossed fingers and hoping, and to not having despair even if I don't place.  But I *did* it.  That is the best part of all.

It is a new year and there are many changes on the horizon for my family.  I am hoping that with all of these changes I wil continue to write and explore this inner self.  I am going to make a goal of submitting three short stories this year.  I think that three is an easy and manageable number, but enough so that I am encouraged to keep writing.  Also, I figure that I need to submit 2-3 stories per submission to increase chances of publication.

So there.  2015 goals, here I come!

Perfect

(but I’m imperfect)

Try

(but that seems impossible)

Change

(even more impossible)

Grief

(for many things)

Hate

(for more things)

 

I sit and struggle for words, new words, words that will combat my feelings.  I sit and contemplate all the changes I want to make and I am burdened.  Very burdened.  I cannot see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.  I don’t even know which tunnel I am in.  I do know that I want out.  I know that my fault lies in wanting the easy, wanting immediate gratification, and wanting change for everything all at once.  I have started and stopped so many times that just to start again feels like failing.  But there is a fighter in me.  Somewhere.  I am still searching for Beth, even now.  Today’s mantra will be “one more time, one more step.”  This in regard to much more than writing but as this is the point of this blog, I will recommit to exploring my creative side.  This is a pledge to try and write more even if it is not perfect, even if it is hard to try, even while I grieve the many losses in my life, and most importantly even as I battle my rage and hate.

Been a while.

This blog is only for me, really, so this is more a statement and contract to myself.  I haven't written in so long that it sometimes seems pointless to write at all.  But, I think I am at a place where my pen will flow again, and I feel nervously excited about it.

Having said that, here is a poem I wrote last week.  The first I have written in AGES.  Here's to hoping there is more, regardless of how "good" it is, or worrying what others will think, or whether or not that I feel all I ever write is darkness.  Maybe I do.  And maybe that is where I need to be.  Maybe that is good.

I hated you that summer

Dry, cracked and unforgiving

Like the season suggested

You used me for your needs

An escape that couldn’t be sated

No regard that I needed, too

You thought you were wild and free

Never once looking back

To see if I could keep up

You thought the sun was beneath you

The moon inconsequential

Little baubles to decorate your world

But like the sun and its fire

And the moon with its glow

You burned out

I hated the look in your eyes

Haunted and vacant and unseeing

Much like the soul underneath

I hate that you were part of the journey

A piece I can’t take nor give away

But I am glad I don’t see you

When I look in the mirror now

 

BK 4/24/13

Comfort

This image has circulated the web but today is the first day that I saw it.  This image takes my breath away.  I am not one to turn to the Word for my comfort.  I want to turn to C, or Mimi, or even my little ones.  And there are always those freinds who you can count on to support you and love you; except for when they can't.  I had a wise freind tell me once that our freinds can sometimes be God-in-skin for us, in the sense that they are or have been placed in our life to give us what we need, but they are not nor can be a replacement for The One.  I struggle in this area.  if I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times: I am the proverbial fence sitter.  But this image gives me hope.  It clicks in my mind like little has done before.  I hope it resonates with you.

 

Peace, freinds.  May you have comfort and Love.

Wanting

I want.  I want.  I want.

 Doesn’t sound like much of a quote, but it is.  I read Carson McCuller’s The Heart is A Lonely Hunter and I loved it.  The particular paragraph where this was found has never left me.  It reads:

 

"She thought a long time and kept hitting her thighs with her fists. Her face felt like it was scattered in pieces and she could not keep it straight. The feeling was a whole lot worse than being hungry for any dinner, yet it was like that. I want-I want-I want was all she could think about--but just what this real want was she did not know."

 

This particular passage does not alter the story itself.  It is proof of McCuller’s beautiful writing, but again, this moment in this book is just that.  And yet, this moment in her book has lasted a lifetime for me.  Not literally, of course, but certainly since I first read the words.

For so long, I have not ever known what I wanted.  I could tell you what I didn’t want: Where would you like to eat?  I don’t know, but not McDonalds, etc.  Somewhere along the way I stopped giving myself permission to dream.

For the first time in a long time, I know something that I want.  Something big.  Something that I will have to really work hard for.  Something that I will have to wait for.  Something that I will have to prove that I really do want by not giving up.  Even if I work really hard and even if I do not give up, there is still a chance that this dream will not happen.  I understand that.  I think it will be worth trying for.

 Today I have a dream.  Want with me.  I want, I want, I want…



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I Accidentally Said I Love You

I pray with my children every night to a God I am unsure of.  I was raised on church and prayers and revivals.  I want my children to have roots in God, in faith.  But I don’t want them to have the doubts that have plagued me my entire life.  So I pray with them every night.

“Dear God, thank you for everything that you have done for us.  Thank you for letting us have a good day.  Please let us rest well tonight so that we may have a good day tomorrow.  Give the boys a pair of angels to watch over their dreams.  Let them know how much you love them and how much I love them and how very safe they are.  Amen.”

This simple prayer is part of our bedtime routine and I have found that I receive as much comfort from it as the boys do.  Some days there are more additions – prayer requests or gratitude.  One night as I prayed I accidentally told God I loved him.  In my mind, I immediately apologized, “No, no!  I didn’t mean to say that!”  I think there was shame.  How can I love a God I don’t know?  How can God love me if I don’t know him, or love me at all?

I remember one time in college where I “accidentally” told someone I loved them.  It was a guy I had liked in high school and we had recently reconnected.  We were chatting on the phone one day and as we were hanging up, I ended the conversation with “I love you.”  I was mortified – I immediately hung up the phone.  He immediately called me back and at first I refused to pick up the phone.  What could I possibly say to him?  I hadn’t meant to say that at all!  I finally picked the phone up and he asked, “What did you say?”  I mumbled “nothing.”  He said, no, that isn’t true.  He persuaded me to not be embarrassed and he said that he thought that was the truest kind of love there was; the kind where you accidentally say I love you.

We never dated, didn’t stay in touch, but I have never forgotten his words.  What if, just what if, it were true?  What if accidentally saying I love you to God was the truest kind of love?  An unknown love finding its way to the surface, snuggled among good night kisses and prayers?

What if?

Where Is My Red

Where is my red?

I am wounded and I have lost my color
When did life leave me?
Why did red turn to grey?
I found red once
Stray, lost in wintery innocence
I was surprised
And I wanted to hide-
From red, or from myself
I am unsure
Sometimes I see this life-color
And it challenges me to be free
I think I will try
To remember
Where I last saw her
With smiles and love and beauty
A heart full of red
A world full of color