And I feel as if this is the answer to a lot of my recent battles with myself. I haven't talking to myself. I am not the kind of person who goes to someone and confides in them what I am going through. I hold everything in, shut everyone out. I will deal with it myself. I don't let people in because that causes a greater risk of...everything. Judgement, rejection, isolation, pain, the list goes on. So for years I have journaled everything to myself as my main outlet. For months now I have been going crazy with high and lows. I know now it's because I haven't been expressing myself, truly expressing myself.
Time for that to change. Tonight amidst Man vs Food and a high calorie dinner, I have started back. It feels so good to have a pen in my hand, paper against my skin, and a constant stream of all the words and emotion that are usually swimming around in my head.
I spent my day off running errands in the rain; and the unexpected cold. The bright side: I got to wear my yellow rain boots and splash in every puddle I came across. Mostly it was mundane daily tasks: grocery shopping, run by the bank, pick up the strawberries I left at work, go by the thrift store and look for a nice vintage lamp to replace my lamp that I have had since I was 13yrs old that finally felt apart, pick up Mallory from school, then I just drove around in the rain for a while. It felt nice to be alone and the sound of the rain to calm my thoughts, my fear, my endless noise. I focused on the important things with an easy way of thinking about them instead of letting them cause me to panic. The wedding, the reception, apartment hunting, Kasey's job prospects, finding a new car, laundry, the culinary program I desperately want to get in to...Katie's 21st birthday is tomorrow, which I remembered on this drive. I pulled into Food Lion to buy the necessary cake materials. I am making her five layered rainbow cake with fluffy white icing and rainbow sprinkles. As I began to pick out the food dye I discovered this was the most excited I have been over anything in a while. Something simple: making a wonderfully joyous childlike cake for a great friend. Then I started thinking about this past Sunday when Kasey and I visited the church Katie is going to and she sang with Pastor Nole. I started thinking of how I cried, how the words she was singing gave me my answer:
"And He is jealous from me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy, when all of the sudden I am aware of these afflictions, eclipsed by glory, and I realize just how beautiful You are, and how great Your affection are for me. Oh how He loves us, yeah, He loves us."
I just want to be loved. Doesn't that sound contrite? But it's true. I want to be loved, and it's me that chooses, chooses, to let everything get in the way of those who do love me. I don't believe they love me, won't them love me, because I don't always love me. So I stood with a bottle of sprinkles in my hands on the cake isle letting all of this sink in before heading home, which brings us to the journals, the Travel channel, and the cookies.
I know most of this emotion was brought on by the many experiences of the weekend. The horrible and the wonderful. Now I will eat my last animal cookie, wait for Kasey's call, be the first to wish Katie a happy birthday, and see where my pen takes me tonight.
