Ponderings...

Wanna know what I've prayed for most since I left Seattle?
I know the correct answer is safety...but no, I find myself on my knees asking God to make me 'simple minded,' easily pleased....ok with half truths, satisfied with the answer, 'that's just the way things are.'
My mind and my heart, they never stop.
answers only lead to more questions.

It's a beautiful thing, it makes my world poetically awful and haunted. It challenges me to do more, be more, say more, love more. It brings me to my knees. It motivates me to move. It surrounds every relationship I have with this invisible shield of authenticity.

but it's exhausting.
and often...unrealistic.

My friend, whom shall not be named (although the story of our friendship is one of my favorites to tell..one of those unlikey cat/dog type things) well anyways, he's quite literally the most opposite person I know from myself...from how we look, to how we talk to how we think. He's a realist. He's not into the having or sharing of feelings. And while we often get into heated arguments, that (lets be real) stem from me thinking there is a better way (mine) of doing things, the truth is, I often envy him. He doesn't live in a dream world like I do where everything is possible and you can achieve your dreams if you just try hard enough...where jerk drug dealers can be best friends, a world where the gaps between people, no matter how big, can always be bridged, a world where I look pretty when I cry. I romanticize EVERYTHING. I believe it's what makes me me.

I was reading Anne Lamott's newest publish "stitches" (confession: I couldn't afford to buy the book so I visited Barnes and Noble periodically to read it piece by piece) Other than the fact that she's my idol, I also believe she's a kindred spirit. Everything she writes to describe herself I find myself thinking "me too!" I wrote this excerpt down in my journal:

"I had to learn to be present with out paying quite so much attention to my own poor old over ramped mind because this was the source of most of my unhappiness. And it still is."
holy shit...she's got it. that's me! She found a way to articulate it in 2 sentences, something I've been trying to pinpoint for years now. It's helpful to read the whole chapter, in fact the whole book, otherwise that passage just sounds morbid (and doesn't actually make a ton of sense), but basically she's figured out, like me, that you can't un-see or un-experience anything. And  that pieces of you stay with the people, places and times you fall in love with (even if it's the hate kinda love). In this sense maybe it's better to experience and see less...maybe ignorance really is bliss.

I have to learn that sometimes its OK to just let things be what they are..that often it's the only way they can be. What I've been challenged with most on this trip is how do you let go of some of those nearly impossible, unrealistic goals and still remain true to the spirit that burns within you?
Good god, I have no idea.
I feel I will continue to be challenged with this for the rest of my life.