On Roosters and Revelations

Revelations usually come to me while walking the dog, and usually in the form of Haiku. Today was no different.

Learned from the rooster
No matter how loud you scream
Dawn won't come sooner

The Itch

Where do you even begin on a night like this?

Flames are burning. There is fire in these fingertips.
You can put it to bed but you'll scratch 'til you bleed. Wake up itching (skin picking, clock ticking) for a day that just can't wait. Why so impatient, morning? What are you trying to prove? That yesterday wasn't good enough? That I am not good enough? Tomorrow will come as it will, but tonight I will burn. Each burn an itch, and each itch a memory.

Like maybe the Maybes, where it all began. Maybe the stranger who shook my hand. Or maybe the blonde boy, kind and shy. Or I'll remember how you encouraged me, then hung me out to dry. I remember a bruise and a faded scar. I remember a friend who was her own war. Remember the pages left to read, left to write. Remember the way we can laugh while we fight. (This silly rhyming game could go on all night.)

But back to the itch. Doctors call it eczema, I call it insanity. Or sometimes my muse. Regardless, I itch 'til I scratch and scratch 'til I bleed and bleed 'til I wake and wake and wake. There's something funny about insomnia - you feel like you should be getting something done, but are completely incapable of thinking straight enough to carry out even the most mundane task. I'm tired all day, every day. I say stupid things. I do stupid things. I feel plain old stupid. Even as I type this I know I've switched styles about three different times already. Normally this would bother me, but tonight I don't seem to care...

Thus, the paradox:
The more I crave perfection, the further I slide into mediocrity
The more I accomplish, the less successful I feel
The more I get finished, the more guilty I feel about not finishing more
The more I learn, the less I seem to know

How can this be? Is this how life is, how it's going to be from now on? Am I growing up or just growing tired? I would love to go to sleep and not wake up disappointed.

Life Is Beautiful

I'm listening to Explosions In The Sky, and this chord is all wrong. But somehow it makes the rest of the world feel right.

I haven't been sleeping lately, and for nearly a week now I've been attributing my insomnia to stress. But as I sit in my room now, thoroughly enjoying the sounds of silence, I realized that I'm awake not because I am stressed but because life is too beautiful to sleep away.

I can't be convinced that perfection does not exist, because I'm experiencing it right now. Here in my room, alone with my thoughts and my words, ambient guitar - devoid of rhythm but full of purpose - playing through my speakers, and the rest of the world falling into peaceful Saturday night sleep. There is peace in this moment, and there is perfection in this peace.

I fold my hands and I am aware of each nerve ending in my fingers as they intertwine with one another. There is a certain sense of awe that comes with being aware that you are aware of such a thing. How many things do my fingers touch throughout the day, yet I'm never aware of the sensation of actually feeling something? Countless times. How many times do I speak, yet am completely unaware of what I am saying? Far too many. And how many noises enter my ears, yet I am too distracted to take the time to hear the beauty of a phrase or the rhythm of a voice? Many times, unfortunately. But as I spend this time with no one but myself, I become blissfully aware of what an awesome creature God has made me to be. And I say that with no sense of pride or inflation - we have all been made in His image, and we are all awesome. We can smell, see, hear, touch, taste, listen, understand, comprehend, analyze, create. But so often we're too distracted to realize just how much we are capable of.

I may have told a bit of a lie. I said that my insomnia was not due to stress, but this is only true now. The past two weeks have been stressful and tiresome and I've stayed up worrying about anything I could find to worry about. But today I was reminded of a beautiful truth. That worry and stress are by-products of not trusting in God. If I truly believe as I say I do, then I should trust that God created my life and will work everything out in His own perfect time if only I will let him. Worry and stress have no place in the Christian life. In fact, they are reflections of "practical atheism".

So I am finished with worry and doubt. I'm letting my stress drift away with each note of the melody - present only for a moment, then lost into nothing, never to be repeated. Where does sound go when it leaves our ears? The same place that stress goes when it leaves our minds. Can it just disappear into nothingness? Is it possible that in music (and in stress) we have created something from nothing, and then we can turn this something into nothing once more? I have to believe so.

There are explosions in the sky. Do you see them, the sun and the stars? (You were right about the stars, each one is a setting sun.)

Springtime

Let me set the scene for you. It is the first warm evening of the year, the one where everything sticks to you. You step out of the shower and suddenly the air is too thick. Hair clinging to you neck feels like tiny kisses. You become faintly aware of the sound of frogs outside, the sun melting into syrup as it fights for its final moments of glory, and the creek of well worn floor boards as they greet a family's footsteps. Your whole world is sticky. The night sticks to your skin and your senses as it wraps you in its warmth.

It's the beginning of Spring, and sometimes I feel like this whole season belongs to me. It whispers in my ear and blows playfully on my hair, making me laugh and smile despite my best efforts to remain focused. Summer is a far way off but Spring is Summer's long outstretched arm saying, "Come! Follow me. You're going to love this!" I am an April baby so maybe I'm biased. But when I fall asleep at night with the fan humming softly I can't help but to think that the day was a gift just for me, and that tomorrow it is my responsibility to give a gift of my own.

I really don't know how to paint the colors on the cheeks of laughing children. I can't be the warm breeze that blows through your open window at a stoplight. And I will never be as wise as the moon. But I can be myself, a child of Spring, a lover of light, a bright eyed wink to make you smile. If I can do just that - create more smiles to decorate the earth for Spring - then I will have given back the gifts of all these beautifully sticky days.

The Moon and I

There was no reason for the light. No sun, no stars. Clouds and whispers were all the dusk held. But one spot of light danced, unashamed. The light stood triumphant, clinging to the hope of minutes in a day that had already passed. Light with no source, beaming through the night sky. It made no sense. And it was beautiful.

It passed as fast as a yawn in the morning. Like the final deep breath before you wake, the sky shuttered and stretched and the light was gone. Then the moon slipped in like a secret. A light with source, something sensible to guide the night. The stars were invited too but they lingered back to make a grand entrance in the darkest sky. So for that moment it was just me and the moon. I looked at him and he stared back at me. I asked him where the light came from and he just laughed.

Don't you know? It's the Light of the world. God is light.
But it must come from somewhere?
God creates light from darkness. Something from nothing. He can do it, you don't have to understand.
But it makes no sense.
There is no sense in beauty.

We Matter, Too.

My job is interesting because I get to meet and work with new people every single day. Along with that comes the little small-talk, getting to know you questions. Or, more accurately, the people who have "real" jobs trying to size up the temporary person to see where exactly in life they failed so epically to not have a "real" job. The questions are generally always the same - where'd you go to school, do you have your degree, have you applied for any other jobs, do you know so-and-so with your same last name... etc. But I was caught off guard by a line of questioning the other day, one that confirmed for me some thoughts I've been playing with for quite a while.

She said, "So Lauren what's your story? Are you married?"
Stop right there. Exhibit A. The way she asked the question made it clear that my "story" really had nothing at all to do with what I was doing or had accomplished, but whether or not I was married. Ok, moving on.

I replied, "Oh, no not married. Uh, just..." (and I was going to tell her about my actual story, until she interrupted me) She sort of crinkled up her nose and snarled her lip a bit when she heard I wasn't married, and as soon as she regained her composure she fired back, "Oh. Well do you even have a degree?"

Even have a degree. As if a girl who can't land a full time job and is obviously not even good enough to convince a man to keep her could not possibly be intelligent enough to earn a degree! Of course I know that this is not the mind set that most people have, but it might surprise you to know how many people I've talked to that do think this way. And I am not here to get on my high horse about women's rights and how we need to stand up and fight to get out from under this oppression and expectation of relying on men and blah blah blah. In fact that's not what I think at all, I think that God made women as man's companion but that's a whole different blog.

Let's move on to Exhibit B. I was talking at work with a group of women whom I knew fairly well. But really by "talking" I mean listening to a conversation about them and their husbands and families, which I was completely left out of since they all knew I didn't have a husband. (So apparently I know absolutely nothing about being a part of a family.) However, somewhere in this conversation engagements came up and I mentioned that I had been engaged to be married a few years ago. And then - boom! - magic. All of a sudden they were including me, asking me questions about my beliefs on families and relationships and kids. Suddenly, I could be included just by the fact that - at one time - someone thought I might be marriage potential. If that hadn't been the case then my opinions and beliefs really wouldn't have been worth hearing.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm sick of people not taking me seriously because I'm not married. I know this seems crazy, but I think other single girls my age would vouch for me here. We're treated like we're incapable and it's just not fair. It is sad to me that in 2011, the world's definition of success for a girl still has so much to do with whatever guy is standing (or not standing) by her side and so little to do with what she has actually worked to accomplish.

The two most common questions I get asked even by close family friends are: Do you have a job? and Do you have a boyfriend? Is this all that matters? Are those the only two things that make me important? I speak for all the single girls out there when I say that there is a lot more to me than this, and I challenge you to find out what it is.

No More Excuses

What this world needs is not more scape goats. No more punching bags. Your dog did not eat your homework. Your phone was not dead all day. And "It's not you, it's me" can only be used on the same person so many times before they realize it's a lie - that they really are inadequate. 

What this world needs is for someone to stand up. Someone who will take the fall. Someone who will risk it all to win it all. 

I won't be shut up or locked down, taken out or turned in. I came to play the game and I intend to fight it out. When will you learn that you're all the same? Your excuses have been heard before. You've used them so much that you don't even realize they are lies. 

But in the end that is what we are all doing, aren't we? 
Lying. Denying. Trying. Relying.
Who can you trust, if not yourself? The truth is that we don't know what we want, so we don't settle for anything. We use excuses so we don't have to commit. Keep it vague, and you'll never hurt anyone. But guess what? I'm on to you. I'm on to the whole entire world. I'm hearing excuses and taking a tally. Game over.