A New List

100 things that make me more than an act

1. I am Mormon
2. I have gotten all dolled up in the middle of the night just to take a picture of myself
3. I have been so happy that I thought my chest would collapse
4. I have been the same amount of sad
5. I have fallen head over heels for a tiny orange kitten named Henry
6. I saved a dog's life, and she saved mine.
7. I have burst into tears in the middle of a massage
8. I have had a phone conversation that has lasted more than 8 hours
9. I have smoked an entire pack of cigarettes in the course of one night
10. I have successfully quit smoking cold turkey
11. I have been moved to tears by a piece of music
12. I have survived an abusive relationship
13. I have been so unhappy with myself that I have shaved off all my hair
14. I've managed to interrupt myself in the middle of a sentence
15. I've searched for God in all the wrong places
16. I have repeatedly trusted the wrong people
17. I have been loved and adored in spite of my shortcomings to the point where it disarmed me completely
18. I have had moments in which I thought I would die, and moments in which I think I did
19. I have been incredibly naive and realized that it is okay sometimes
20. I have thought I was in love with my high school teacher
21. I have ridden on the back of a motorcycle
22. I have been the lead in a crappy play
23. I have slept in my car
24. I have hated my parents and I am pretty sure they have hated me back
25. I have now come to love and appreciate my family
26. I've sung karaoke
27. I've physically harmed myself because I was incapable of any other emotional outlet at the time
28. I have pierced my own ears, nose and lip on different occasions
29. I buy cards before I have people to give them to
30. I often see someone else when I look in the mirror
31. I have made best friends with a girl with down's syndrome
32. I have felt unbearably lonely
33. I've found amazing things in thrift stores
34. I've sobbed during a broadway production of Rent
35. I jump in as many rain puddles as I possibly can
36. I have seen my bank balance hit $4.10
37. I have taped down my boobs
38. I have vowed to do one nice thing every day for someone else
39. I've designed my own tattoo
40. I am kind of obsessed with loving people
41. I have accepted that I am pretty good at art
42. I have been the person that people call for comfort (not advice)
43. I've dyed my hair pink
44. I've written so many letters because I am afraid to verbalize my emotions
45. I have been called "sunshine"
46. I have slept in a silly set of bear ears (and gained the nickname sugarbear) because I was afraid of earwigs
47. I have participated in embarrassing girl's camp rituals (see above)
48. I have read all 7 harry Potter books in the space of two weeks
49. I have been in an awful car accident and realized how very lucky I am
50. I have been whistled at while walking down the street
51. I've laid in the grass to watch the clouds pass
52. I have met very few people that i truly cannot stand
53. I have made a list already of what I want to name my children when I have them
54. I have had eye surgery twice in my life
55. I've discovered that my eyes turn turquoise when i cry and steely gray-green when i'm angry
56. I'm hardly ever angry anymore
57. I've watched an entire season of Gilmore Girls in one day
58. I was once asked for directions on the streets of manhattan twice in one day
59. I gave both people wrong directions
60. I have overmedicated to shut out life
61. I've laughed at wildly inappropriate moments
62. I've hugged complete strangers
63. I've danced in the rain
64. I've jumped out of a second story window
65. I know many people's darkest secrets
66. I am clumsy
67. Little things make me happy (licking stamps, dying my hair, the smell of brown rice cooking)
68. I pick up hitch hikers
69. watching the news gives me nightmares
70. I can almost always feel when it is about to rain.
71. My goal in life is to make other people happy
72. I crave affection. All the time.
73. Usually from people who are unable, uncomfortable, or unwilling to give it
74. I have countless bad habits, most of which I am working on, and some of which I have learned to embrace
75. I have slept most every night of my life with a security blanket
76. I have gone for days on end without feeling hungry
77. I drop my cell phone on the ground pretty much every time I get out of the car
78. I constantly second guess myself
79. I am an organ donor
80. I once bought an entire pound of pear flavored jelly-bellies and ate them all in one day
81. I have had recurring nightmares/dreams for as long as I can remember
82. I have actually fallen on the floor laughing
83. I have been called a little duck
84. I have named a pair of my shoes (Beatrice and Edgar)
85. I have forgotten many birthdays
86. I have rocked a crying baby to sleep
87. I often wonder what it feels like to be a woman not emotionally underdeveloped or broken
88. I have wanted to "be an artist when i grow up" from the time I could hold a crayon. I still do not know what that means
89. I draw portraits of people in the meantime
90. I've sewn myself a blanket
91. I've burned myself with a curling iron. on my leg
92. I've talked someone out of committing suicide
93. I've been talked out of committing suicide
94. I am codependent and needy most of the time
95. I have declared my undying love for multiple people
96. I snort when I laugh
97. I have stepped in cow crap
98. I have used shopping as catharsis
99. I have learned to crack cheesy smiles at people when I am frustrated to get people to smile at me
100. I am almost always hot.

are you here looking for honesty?

If you're here today looking for art, you won't find any. Today is one of those days where I can't swallow the truth inside me any longer. I feel like I am choking to death on the reality that is, that I can't say out loud. Because let's be honest, who wants to hear it?

My life thus far, as short as it's been, has been kind of sucky. My experiences with love, with sex, with all those wonderful firsts that you're supposed to anticipate with twirling whirling butterflies, and experience in their own time, were ruined. Those firsts were stolen from me.

And now... let's just say that some days are harder than others.

Today is a hard one. Not because I'm feeling sorry for myself, longing for a life that is normal, or easier. Not tonight. Tonight I sit here with determination on my fingertips. I plan to share with you something that I have not wanted to share with anyone, something no one should ever have to share.

I have experience with abuse. This is not my secret, not anymore, but part of a necessary explanation that needs to come first. In the past year and a half or so, I have been slowly, steadily recovering memories of that past that for a time I knew nothing of. They are becoming a part of me again, these memories, and sometimes, for a while, I allow them to control me, rather than controlling them. Well tonight dear readers, I am taking control.

I recovered a memory some months ago of being drowned. Tortured actually, the technical term for what happened to me is called water-boarding. I was held under water in a bathtub until I lost consciousness and then I was revived. Over. And over. And over.

Now for my secret: I have not been able to step foot in a bathtub since I discovered this memory. That was months ago. I wash my hair in the sink, painfully. I put on deodorant, I apply lotion, but I have not been able to bring myself to bathe. I cannot stand the way it feels to touch my skin. Part of me feels like I don't deserve to be clean. And then there is the part of me that wants to faint at the sound of running water, the part of me that swims through a dark cloud of haze when she feels water on her arms. My feet are filthy. I stink. My clothes stink. My skin is one giant blotch of acne. I am disgusting. I am terrified.

Tonight, I am taking back my body. I am taking back my memory. I am taking back my dignity. I will no longer allow this memory to control me. I will get in the bathtub and wash every ounce of crud off of my skin. I will stay in the bathtub, until the water goes cold, and then I will drain the water and run new water and do it again. I will stay in the water until I am no longer afraid, just bored. And then I will do it again tomorrow. And the next day. And every day until I am whole again.

I can beat this. I will beat this. I WIN.

Today is a day for introspection.

The time stamp on these posts is always, always wrong.

I had little patience today for unkind people. My sweet egg friend said to me "you're interesting tonight." I wasn't sure what that meant, and she pointed out that when people had barely started to annoy me (speaking unkindly of others, talking to me like i was a child and making me feel stupid) I was done with them immediately. I don't get this way often, I am non-confrontational, but I think it's because all day today, as I ironed, cut, and sewed, ironed, cut and sewed, ironed, cut and sewed, I was thinking about people.

In high school, there was an extremely small number of people that I trusted with my truth. (I say it was "my truth" rather than THE truth because it was the truth as best as I understood it inside my little soul, a truth that was not as accurate as it should have been.)

It started with one friend, Kate. she was wonderful and accepting, and she believed me. In a moment of desperation, overwhelmed with the feeling of letting go of my deep, dark secret, I told a group of her friends - kids I barely knew - during a game of truth or dare what had happened to me. I then immediately got scared, and took it all back. I told these few people that was I had told them was a lie. After all, better to be a liar than a victim, and everyone already thought I was a liar, so no big right?

I cannot even imagine the pain I caused these people, not to mention the pain I inflicted upon myself burying the truth deeper and deeper into the infected wound that was my body and soul.

I have been searching for some words, some kind of... salve to apply to this metaphorical wound, some apology to offer these people, some way of coming to terms with the trust that I (for lack of a better word) abused. I have been searching for a way to pay restitution, and finding neither the courage, nor the magic words, the best I can do is an attempt from now on at complete honesty.

If this ends up being a letter to myself, that's fine. If any, or all of those young people who took me into their circle of truth or dare, somehow happen to read this, that's okay too. No more lies. No more hiding. What happened, happened. There is no taking it back this time, no pretending it didn't.

1. I was abused by some of my classmates. 2. I reached out to people for help and then I pushed them away.

I can't change these facts. What i CAN change is where i go from here. I can use what I've experienced to motivate myself to go forward with kindness. I choose to be honest. I choose to look for the good in every situation, and I choose to have no patience for the unkind. That is all I can manage today.

She'll Be A Morning Shadow

As I am starting this entry, it is 11:11 pm on October the 22nd. When I finish it (more than likely) it will be October 23rd. October the 23rd, 2010. In 49 minutes it will have been one year since I was raped in a grocery store bathroom by someone I knew.

My life took a sharp swerve that night. In some ways, the girl I was that day, and the girl I am today are not so different. Our faces are the same, our core beliefs, our hidden talents are shared, but she had something that I can no longer afford, and that is the luxury of denial.

This one incident brought up more painful memories than I can share in good conscience here and now. I haven't taken a picture of myself once this year. Making art is painful now. There are some days when I can't bring myself to get out of bed. The nightmares kill me. Last night, I didn't sleep at all. I tossed and turned all night, my mind filled with visions of violence, black and white, and slow, with mouths moving, trying to yell, scream, cry, argue, but no sound coming out. Like an old silent movie.

I often wonder if people notice that because of this, I walk around in a fog. Sometimes I feel like they must be able to see that my nightmares walk beside me, but no one says anything. In fact, the people closest to me have noticed a steady change in me from that night, and not for the poorer. It's hard for me to see sometimes how relatively normal I am when I feel such a wreck, but as a line from one of my favorite songs goes "you've come far, and though you're far from the end, you don't mind where you are, cuz you know where you've been."

Today I stand as a woman who has taken only the first few steps in a lifelong journey, but I go forward with the knowledge that, although there may be no real end to this story, there is something better to look forward to. I also press on with the knowledge that I no longer have to walk alone.

I am extraordinarily lucky

Today I met my Girl Scout leader from when I was like ten. It was weird...and Happymaking. I remember being a brownie, and what's better, SHE remembers me being a brownie. How many little girls has she taken to Savannah? How many girls has she pinned little rainbow pins on, or had to help with mundane projects or stood outside with on chilly spring Saturdays selling Girl Scout Cookies? And she remembers me. I was a silly little girl scout then, and today, I donated a box of lemonade cookies to Walter Reed.

Also today, I drove with the windows down and my music blasting. I know it's a little sacreligious to blast Ray Lamontagne, since he is so chill and deserves to be listened to in quiet meaningful moments with headphones in, but all the same, I blasted Mr. Ray with the windows down and the sun shining on my skin, and it made me smile.

1. bathroom accessories in green and yellow and blue to match a splatter painting done by a nine year old (when he was 8.) a toothbrush holder, a soap dispenser, a trashcan, a shower curtain, and a "cotton container" (which actually ends up being filled with bobby pins and ponytail holders and barrettes)
2. clothes that have not been worn in months coming out of the dryer smelling like Happy and Clean.
3. spring is coming



Would it be bragging to call myself richly blessed?