life is just a series of moments
live this one
enjoy it
drink it in with all its juices
roll them on your tongue
taste their sweetness
don't spend all your moments
waiting for the next
you'll miss this one darling

For as long as I can remember back now,....its never felt like that.

All the missed notes in the world didn't matter, bad counting, no formality of style. None of it, I simply no longer cared. What came from my fingertips was music, free, unfettered by discipline adn training, unfettered by fears of what others would say upon hearing, no judgements. Just freedom.

I played for nearly an hour, a volume hugely longer than I've played in years. I just let it trickle from my fingers. And for a moment...I was free.

If you look at something for long enough, really look. You will find that no matter how much it may have looked like a perfect circle to begin with, you find, upon closer examination a wide variety of angles. These things not appreciated or considered on first glance. Its along the same lines of not judging a book by its cover. If you look at something or someone too fast you will fail to see something, you will often fail to see what it might do you a lot of good to see.

There's a lot of that going around in my life right now. For example being sick like I am. Now on the surface the whole thing just sucks. I'm tired of having this constant headache that's been throbbing along making me irritable and frustrated for months. Its cost me money in medical bills, its severely complicated school and work and even friendships which I once thought were strong. That's just an angle though. I can definately focus on it like that, but I'm trying to see some of the other sides.

Its a learning experience. Though I wouldn't wish to go through this, with each increasing frustration, each new test, each bump in the road, does my capacity for compassion not increase? Is this possibly not the worst and yet best, training for my nursing career? Maybe the next person presenting in front of me as a patient will get more understanding and compassionate treatment from me since I've been through this. Maybe I'll have better words to say to someone when they need comfort. Walking a mile in someone else's shoes certainly improves ones ability to act with a new understanding.

Beyond that...what a host of blessings have been shown in my life through this. Old friends, new friends, family all coming to my support. Sure, some get it more than others and there are pit falls here too, but I'm trying not to linger on the down side. My parents have been astoundingly supportive and helpful, even my dad tries, though his emotional stunting makes it difficult. I've renewed or tried to open some links with my brother. I've tried to be more mindful of the family that i'm likely to soon move away from again. I get some time with my mother, though we all prefer that it was under different circumstances, but still its connection, its support, its love and its all here, blessing me and helping me right now.

And then there's that special person, who shows his strength and his amazing capacity to love me and support me and care through this difficult time. We grow together through this, I becoming assured that his love is not for the good only. He gives me so much and he never stops, he shows me how much he cares, he puts up with me when I'm crazy frustrated, he holds me tight even when his arms can't reach across the globe to hold me physically.

So its not all bad. :) Its a lot of good....with a headache in the middle.

There are other things I'm examining more closely, aspects of things and people that i'm seeing for a first time but I think they're part of a separate entry. I feel pretty good right now about things...I think I'll leave it at that.

I have transcended beyond what i once was into a new being, freed from the shell that bound me eternally to a world i failed to understand. Here new life has taken hold, i am something free, as free as the wind. The laws that governed a world i once knew hold no relevance, no truth here. Welcome to this world, travel with me and i'll show you the depths of what grows here, what thrives here, what makes my very heart pound here. Take my hand, its alright, i'll be at your side......come with me...

The difficult thing about life is that you don't get the answer to the why's any other way but waiting for time to show you the lesson you have to learn.

So something bad or difficult happens and you have to wait a lot of times for the revelation...the greater meaning behind the suffering you must go through. Sometimes this wait makes you want to pull your hair out, sometimes it makes you want to give up.

I've been there, hell somedays i think i live in that place of existence where the why's are just too consuming. Where it would be easier to forsake so many things to ease the pain and difficulty of life.

Sometimes life gives you little answers to these questions that seem to only bring up more questions. In a time i'm trying to let go of the longing for my grandmother here on this physical plane i have to wonder why the reminders of her life have to be so plentiful. And then it comes down to looking at the glass half full or half empty. Do i cry because i don't want to remember and hurt or do i smile because her memory remains so strong beside me, her spirit so vibrant in my life?

In the middle of a horrendous shift there sits a person who sees my name tag and asks, are you Bill's Grand-daughter. And suddenly there it is again, the memories or my grandparents dearly departed dancing around in my head. Why now? Why do i meet all these people now coming forth with memories i've cried for all my life? Why now when she's no longer here to prod her for more. I don't know. I don't know how to process this sometimes, there's such a mixture of feelings within me about the fact that this has happened numerous times over the past few weeks.

Truth is i don't want to be sad anymore at the memories, longing for corporeal things that are no longer but I'm just not ready to let go of all the grief. But i suspect the answer to this why which will someday come is that these things, these moments were gifted to me specifically so that i might learn to keep the memories close, realize their spirits within me, know that from wherever they exist away from this earth, they know i will make them proud.

There are other questions, the whys that run through my head in every day. I guess the trick becomes to accept a quiet patience, that the answers come in time and that is the journey of life, amazing as it is.

After all, there are questions that have been answered with amazing amazing things lately....that gives hope for future answers

Life is a journey, there's no escaping it, no getting off the bus when things get too hard, there's no real hiding even.

Sometimes you're just ready to curl up for awhile, wishing you were a catapillar and the day had come for you to take refuge in your cocoon in hopes of emerging in the future as something more beautiful.

But there's no such reality in our lives. We don't get to cocoon, what is there must be faced and there's little room around it, and if you find your way around it....you won't emerge as a butterfly.

butterflies...

faeries.....

the little girl dreams i've held flutter from my hands. It makes me sad, it makes me want to curl up and hide.

I feel like i walk through life on the other side of a mirror, watching in horror at some of the things happening right now, but i cannot reach through, i cannot effect change. As if my life is lived by another beyond my reach and i cannot even scream to stop it, for no one hears.

Its strange...it hurts...its confusing. I don't particularly care for the feeling to be honest. There are some things that are going really well, perfect, like a dream. I have the best friends now that i've had in years and thank god for that. I have a person i can depend on no matter what, who i can trust beyond what i'd ever thought i'd trust again. So why all the tears? Why all the fear? Why all the confusion? I don't know

Sometimes there are parts of us we cannot control. Sometimes emotions can't so much be reigned in. Sometimes we simply have to hurt and live with it

2004-05-14 - 5:44 p.m.

So 5am tomorrow will mark the beginning of my 26th year wandering this earth. Its just another day, so why is it obvious to anyone around me that i'm struggling with something?

Its not the age - hell if i start fretting over my age at 26 i'll have to just off myself by 40. Nah that's just a number. Maybe i have a few less claims to the innocence of youth in dismissing my mistakes, but oh well, you have to grow up sometime.

The real issue...what is gripping at my heart beyond all rationalization i've tried to produce. For the first year of my life she won't be there.

Its been over a month now i've had to grieve, to understand and get used to the idea that she won't be here, she isn't here, not physically. So why on this stupid little day does it hurt so badly?