Catching Up

I saw a T-shirt the other day that said-I'm Dark and Mysterious and Pissed Off.  And I thought, "Man, what is that kid doing in my shirt?"
I noticed that it's been a year since I've blogged.  A year that, for all intents and purposes, I was fairly silent to the world.  A year that just about broke me.  I'm still not healed.  I don't know if I ever will be completely.
Therapy.  More therapy.  Therapy with a side order of therapy.
I've been rather pensive. Petulant.  Moody.  Irascible.  Impulsive.  Unruly.  Outspoken.  Opinionated.  I get my feelings hurt too easily.  And I'm angry.  My therapist says that its Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  I can't help but wonder if it's just being a 17 year old girl.  Or both.
These are my observations for today:
1)  I wish that I weren't so thin skinned.  I wish that I could shrug off hurtful words.  But I can't.  I let them soak through my skin and into my heart, my soul, my head.  I wish that what people thought of me didn't mean so much.  I wish that I didn't crave love so much that I'll settle for less.  
2)  Sometimes, you can't simply shut a door.  You have to slam it hard.  And then brace yourself on the other side to keep it from opening again.  Unfortunately, there is usually someone ON the other side kicking, screaming obscenities, trying to break the door down.  It's hard to hear words flung at you out of anger.  There is always some truth to them that you wish you didn't hear. 
3)  There is a feeling of goofy happiness when a handsome man flirts with you.  For a moment, it's like floating.  You grin stupidly.  You feel giddy.  
4)  There is a feeling of horrible despair when you find out it is only because they're trying to help you feel good about yourself.  It's a nice thought.  Really, it is.  But it's like finding out there is no Santa.  The magic is gone.  And what is it about you that people say they have to 'try' as in "I'm trying to be nice...".  Like caring for me can't just come naturally?  People have to make the effort?
5)  Music saves me.  All the time.  When I have moments--and shit do I have them frequently--music is what keeps me from shriveling away.  From completely dying inside.  From dying.....period.  There is a song that reminds me of my brother--The World I Know.  When I was having a 'moment' today.....and a really good cry.....it came on.  I love how that always happens when I need it most.  It's like getting a hug from Mitch.  Like he's telling me that he's there and everything is going to be fine.  
6)  Prayer saves me, too.  I pray.  You probably wouldn't know it, but I do pray.  All the freaking time.  It's more like, "God, you made me.  And other folks have to deal with me. But I have to deal with me, too.  And I'm not doing a very good job of it, so if you could help me out in any way, I'd really appreciate it."  I pray for other people.  I pray for the world.  I pray about the little things and the big things.  But, mostly I pray for sanity.  And clarity.  Realizing that God doesn't actually GRANT you these things.  He gives you little life lessons in order to learn them.  Most of the time, I'm failing.  
7) Hit me.  Punch me.  Grab me.  Twist my arms.  Shove me.  I would prefer ANY of this to your words that cut me.  
8)  When I'm upset, I want to go get my hair cut or colored or something.  And I want to shop.  Why is that?
9)  It's hard feeling like I'm an old soul in a young, hormonal teenage body.  I wonder how many of us are diagnosed as PTSD, ADD/ADHD, depressed, bipolar....yet all we really are is a soul that is currently in congruent with our bodies.  
10)  I wish I had some sort of humorous anecdote or some more toilet humor blog, but alas, I don't.  I'm a wreck.  But I'm not a nobody.  Regardless of what anyone thinks.

Good night, John Boy.

Hate

Someone sent me the following quote the other day, just before they unfriended me.  I have to say, I've been disliked.  I've been bullied.  But this might take the prize on loathing.

"HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR [you] AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. HATE. HATE."


I look at it everyday.  I'm afraid I've taken it to heart.  And soul.  And mind.
I can't process it really.  I just need to put it somewhere out of my head so that I can analyze it later.  But not right now.  I'll leave it here for now. 

Thanksgiving 2011

I was re-reading my post from last year's Thanksgiving.  How very different my life is now.  And thankfully so.  I can sum up my gratitude in one small sentence:  I survived.  

• I survived the removal of not just a person, but an entire family from my life.  
• I survived the death of a grandmother that couldn't stand me.  But in the end, I sat with her, helped her move on, held her hand as she passed from this life.
• I survived the loss of a dear friend.  Not to death, but to a disagreement when the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the one.  
• I survived surgery.  Am still surviving surgery.
• I survived a relationship that I couldn't commit to, yet still took an emotional beating over.
• I survived betrayal by two people I thought were friends.  And the betrayal of someone we took into our home. 

When I stopped focusing on all the things that were going wrong, I realized that so many more things had gone right.  Did a friend betray me?  Yes, but she brought a new, beautiful friend into my life.  Did I lose a grandparent with whom I'll never be able to make amends?  Yes, but now we are finally the family we were meant to be.  Close, loving and happy.
A year.  What a difference a year can make.  I start college in January.  I've found purpose through serving in the community.  I have true friends.  I'm still searching in my faith, but I've met other seekers who have made the journey so beautiful.
Would I want to endure this year again?  No, not really.  But am I thankful for how it's shaped me?  Yes.
One last thing....If you pray for things like wisdom or for God to mold you and shape you, be prepared.  He likes 'hands on' lessons.  


Isaiah 64:8 Yet, O LORD, You are our Father. We are the clay, You are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.clay, you are the potter; we

are all the work of your hand.

Life lessons.....If it's not one damn thing....

I've spent half a year, living half a life with half a heart.  His last words were 'wait'.
I was so foolish.  I'm going now.  A lady knows when to leave a dance.  Apparently, I'm not one.  I've stayed too long.  One last thing, though....please tell her that I didn't leave those notes under the chair.  That you lied to cover your ass.  I've lost enough.  Allow me that one last bit.  So she'll know I didn't betray her in that way.  Only in loving you.

Dear Mr. Hawking...

Dear Mr. Hawking,

First, let me say I love your writings.  I love your mind.  I follow you as closely as a young teenage boy follows Playboy.  Let me also say, I consider myself a ‘seeker’.  I am a Christian in the tightest definition of the word.  I love Christ.  But by definition, I’m also a Buddhist, Gandhi-ist and a Lennon-ist.  John Lennon, that is.  I practice pagan and Native American faiths as well.  I’m not trying to cover all the bases.  I just think there are many paths to God, the Goddess, the Is, the divine Spirits of the Universe, etc.

So, please understand it is with the greatest love and admiration that I want to respond to a statement you made: "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

Oh my....I certainly believe that you are correct in stating that the brain is a computer.  And certainly, when it fails, the keyboard and monitor know as our bodies will certain fail to be of any use.  However, have you considered the soul/spirit of the body?  Surely you must concede that they exist?  Because you exist.  Your computer is par excellence.  You keyboard is a little wonky.  But what has driven you and enabled you to survive long past expectation?  Is it not your spirit?   You say you have lived with the prospect of an early death for 49 years, and yet you are still here.  Is that your brain/computer?  I would have certainly thought it was your spirit.  Something greater in you than the sum of your parts.

As for broken down computers, I take that to be our brain and our physical body.  You are correct.  Even Christians believe ‘ashes to ashes and dust to dust’.  And while one’s ‘computer’ might be breaking down, their spirit has passed to a different place.  There is a ‘fairy tale ending’....or beginning if you please.  There’s not much hope for the body after the brain ceases to function.  However, I truly believe that our spirit-our soul-passes on to another place.  Where?  I have no idea.  But, Mr. Hawking, you need to sit with someone while they die.  Hold their hand, help them through the fear and give them permission to leave.  I’ve had two such opportunities.  While the brain is shutting down, the spirit is preparing to take flight.   Souls reach out to other souls to help on the journey.  Some leave as a ball of white light.  Some leave so quietly that you wonder if they ever existed at all.  I’ve shared this with others and it seems universally the same.  The ‘computer’ passes.  But the spirit moves beyond our realm of knowledge.  Even yours.

Lastly, if we are computers, there has to be power.  A computer doesn’t just plunk itself down and start operating.  It must be plugged into a power source.  That is the universe you are trying to define.  And trying to limit.  I don’t claim to understand it.  Any of it.  But, “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

I believe you are wrong, Mr. Hawking.  Because I’d hate to see such a spirit die with the computer.  And I would love for you to have a happily ever after.

Sincerely,
Abbie Lyons

Can I Get a Witness?

In our church youth group, there is always a spring retreat.  It's an amazing time for fellowship and the seniors of the group share with others-they share their 'testimony'...their walk with God...their 'story'.  That would be a couple of year away for me, but it did start me thinking.  What would I say?  What in the world could I offer?

"Hi, I'm Abbie.  I'm a seeker.  I question my faith daily.  I fail on a monumental level."

When I was a little girl, I had a huge crush on Jesus.  Big.  The only other person that came close was Mr. Rogers, but that's a story for another day.  In the Catholic church, when you take first communion and have first confession, you dress as a bride since you are becoming the bride of Christ.  I wrote him love letters.  I wrote our initials together in my notebook-AL + JC.  I would sit in this this big chair we had and pretend I was sitting in his lap, my head on his shoulder and his arms wrapped around me.  And I would tell him everything that was in my head and my heart.  I talked to him every single day, knowing that at some point, he would magically appear and we would finally be together.  You have no idea the disappointment I felt when I first realized that I couldn't actually marry Christ.  It was truly heart breaking. 

My heart for Christ hasn't changed.  I am a Jesus junkie.  Whether he is the son of God and the head of the Christian church, or as other faiths believe, only a prophet.  I don't care.  I love him.  I'll follow him anywhere.  I'm the Mary at his feet.  I will wash them with my tears.  

I've studied many faiths in the past few years.  I was searching for peace.  Peace-inner peace-is a beautiful thing to me.  I've learned discipline and the power of positive thoughts.  But as far as I travel from Christ, I keep coming back because of one thing: hope.  Jesus uses the most unlikely people to do the most amazing things.  Twelve rough, scruffy or shunned men, the woman at the well, Lazarus.  He didn't just use ordinary people, but people you would never imagine could do his work.  I mean, really?  Who uses a dead guy in their act?  Maybe one day, he can use me.  And that is hope.

And perhaps that is what I have to offer as well.  I can't offer perfection.  Or be a role model of any kind.
So here is hope.  Hope in knowing that you can struggle and fail and question and screw up and he will still love you no matter what.  And that kind of love brings great peace.

Lessons from Dying

January 3 started like most Mondays.  Wake up.  Shower.  I was still on holiday break which meant long hours of video games interspersed with junk food and Christmas candy. Dad was working and his usual routine involved stopping by the hospital to visit his mom, a quick trip home for dinner and back to the hospital.
Only this time, as he walked through the door to grab dinner, the call came.  His mom was worse.  He'd just left her, but she'd taken a swift, downward spiral.
Suddenly, we all out the door and on our way.  The hospital is just a few short blocks, so there isn't a lot of time to decide what to do.  How do I react?  How do I feel about this? This is the woman who has made my life a living hell for many years.  The woman that is so despicably mean to me.  The woman, who admits in her final days, that she did try to ruin my parents marriage.
Am I glad?  Sad?  Resigned?  Four blocks to the hospital.  Four million thoughts on the way.
You can never really prepare for moments like those.  I try to keep two thoughts with me constantly: 1) Harm none & 2) How others treat you is their karma.  How you react is yours.
Once I reached Fran's room, I could see that she was dying.  The light around her was gray and dim.  I could feel other presences in the room.  I sat next to her and held her hand.  She was weak and could barely speak.  She wanted to say she was sorry.  Her lips could only mouth the words.  My dad sat on the other side and together we went through the business of helping my grandmother die.  How odd to have such a strangely intimate experience with someone who is almost a stranger to me.  But I did.  I told her that everything was okay.  That I loved her.  That things were well between us.  I told her that her family would be waiting for her and then she pointed to something/someone(s) that I could only feel.  And I knew that there was truth in that.  Eventually, words completely failed and our only contact was that of still holding hands.  It seemed to be enough.  I told her it was okay to go.  And to go in peace.
I sat there counting the seconds between breaths after that.  Six for a while, then eight.  Fifteen and then I realized that I had just kept counting and I was on 315.  I looked for the tiny pulse at her neck, but it was gone.  So very quietly, she slipped away.  How very unlike her. 
Fran has taught me many lessons.  Mostly by example of 'what not to do'. Don't be selfish.  Don't leave your 'I'm sorry's' until the end.  Don't leave telling people what you think of them (the good stuff, that is) until it's too late.  Let your children grow up to be happy.  Let them 'leave and cleave'.  Be diplomatic about what you say.  Don't hold grudges. Don't call people names.  Don't force your faith on anyone.  Don't live your life in misery.
Fran's biggest fear was hell or purgatory.  Live so that this isn't an option or concern.
Lastly, forgive.  And be compassionate.