Lost

 My childhood was spent plugging the holes in my father’s soul.

I used my hands to fill in the gaping openings. 

But the blood gushed out of the holes onto my hands. The acidity and bitterness wearing my tools to fix down to a numb. 

 

Without anything to plug the holes in his soul, his words bit away at me. Ripping easily through my weak and fragile skin. Leaving jagged edges and my own wounds. His blood filling me. His pain, my inheritance. 

 

Now I can’t tell the difference between what was once his and what is now mine. It all overflows and the ebb that used to be slow is bursting. Busting away any seams that once held me together. It seems  that this is now the everyday scene. I no longer know what a serene soul looks like or feels like. 

 

Now the acidity and bitterness spills over onto you. My inability to sustain washes over you like a stain. You spend all your time washing away the waves of rage. And my worn down hands, can’t heal that which my father set out to steal and my broken down numb nubs can’t scoop the bloods from those holes set on eroding. So it all falls on you. But what can you do. You stood in front of me and said I do. Were you the fool? Or was I? Thinking that being with me would make us free? Hoping that the jagged edges wouldn’t hurt you. Believing that it could be true to start something new with you.

 

On most days I am numb. On worst days I am mean. I don’t remember the last time I felt joy. I hold onto memories from past years, knowing that at one point, at one time I went to sleep satisfied and soundly and excited for the next day, the next conversation, the next person. Now I wonder if I will sleep. I try to put off waking. As soon as I open my eyes, knowing I have already failed. And will fail again. 

 

I never plugged the holes in my father’s soul. The blood flowed freely out of those wounds and created me. Now I can’t plug the holes in my soul. I just don’t know how to rewrite a story that has been written in red ink over generations. Tattooed on the body and traced over. Used as the mold to create the next one. 

 

 

I would rather not write, if my muse is always moments when we fight. 

 

I left my five year old sister. Then she lived darkness that has marked her. I do not call her. 

            I am an absent sister.

I berated and bullied my middle sister. She sought refuge in a boyfriend. Now I overwhelm and distance myself from her. 

            I am a lacking sister. 

I cannot carry my pain and the pain of my mother. 

            I am a weak daughter. 

I have always hated my father. 

            That one is on him. 

I gave up on my brother. I feel so little for my brother.

            I’m not even a sister. 

I lost friendships with two roommates who knew me in and out. I walked away and never reached out. Neither did they. 

            I am a coward. 

I left a vocation that was everything I was. I have not returned.

            I am ashamed. 

I married a man. Then fought and fought. 

            I don’t know how to find the light again. 

God I don’t know you. And don’t know how to be. I think I hate you too. I think Im done with you. I think you might not be real. I think I was trapped by you. Then it turned sour. But now I don’t know who I am. This was the best part of me. And with you gone, I’m left with the other parts. And those parts are defective. And there is no way out.

            I am stuck.

 

There is too much and too little of me all at once. Too many thoughts, too chatty, too anxious, too stressed. Not aware enough, not in control enough, not patient enough. I walk into rooms and can’t hold a conversation. I feel the awkwardness of the silence. The other person feeling it too. 

 

Bacon

 When you make bacon the smell lingers in the air for the rest of the day. Clinging onto every fabric of clothing, every strand of the rug, becoming the air itself. But when we make love, the love does not linger. The stains on the sheets do not feel like love, they feel like laundry undone. The intimacy of the moment gets swept up by the resentments of the daily. The love is lost before it is done being made. The fear wraps around our bodies tighter than our arms wrap around each other. How is it that the smell of bacon in the air outlasts the love we make?

Garden of Deception

 It's when I feel my satisfaction in my self, it's when I feel confidence in this corner of my life, it's when I am calmly walking - not rushing that the sulfur raindrops of doubt fall. Burning rapidly through the budding seeds of hope. The constrictions start in my chest. My shoulders tighten, and my breath shallows. In the span of minutes the lightness I had just been walking in gives way to the familiar trudge. My brow furrows and my lips tighten. How do you time it so well? How do you make sure that just as the first petal was unfurling, just as it was tasting sun, and just as it was dreaming of grow, just then, at that very moment you come home late, you evade questions, you close off. And the sulfur rain burns holes through the new growth. And the old roots, the rotting roots, the doubting roots, the angry roots do their due diligence of feeding that plant that chokes and stifles and that plant continues to sprout a new leaf.

The Elephant in the Room

There is an elephant in the room.
But the room is conversation.
And the elephant is my mom.
Or rather what my mom isn't.
Which is a mom.
The elephant has always been there, growing as I grow, settling in. Wrapping its' trunk around our family history roots, until it is just a part of who we are, of who we have always been.
But we all know elephants don't belong in the room. They belong somewhere in the wide open.
So now we all sit in the room. Moving around the elephant. Wishing the elephant weren't there.

Academia is Arrogant

You can only learn if you already know what you are learning; if you do not know what you are learning, you cannot learn it. Learn is for those that do not need to learn. 

I have paused an assigned reading to record what I have learned - which is not what I was intending to learn. I have read each sentence in this assigned reading a minimum of three times. Each sentence. Three times. Once I have finished reading and re-reading the sentence, it clicks and the concepts are easy to grasp. So if the concept is easy to grasp - why does it take so long to uncover those concepts? It is because the writing is harder to comprehend than the concept itself. Sentences are longer than they should be, descriptions are detailed - but of no significance to the actual subject, and the author is wielding his intelligence by using words like wielding (but harder).

There is a concept that has become very clear - people who know things, forget what it's like to not know things.

So they write as if everyone knows what they know. Also, there is another concept that I am making up (probably out of frustration), people who know things want to prove that they know things and as a result they make it harder for other people to know things.

Academic writing is like treasure. There are ideas hidden and buried in words and elongated sentences. If you work hard and bring a shovel - you will find those ideas, but it won't be easy. This means that people who are discovering these ideas need to have basic equipment - basic knowledge about the subject at hand, which knocks out a large chunk of people from being able to learn.

Is education for smart people? 

It shouldn't be, but it seems to be. I'm reading an introduction article on a subject I do not know anything about. However, in order to be able to understand this introduction, I need fairly substantial prior knowledge. I also need to be able to pick out information that is significant from information that is filler and not necessary. I am tasked with the role of picking information that is relevant to a topic that I am learning for the first time.

I enjoy learning. I do not enjoy the presumptuous attitude that in order to learn I must be an academic elite. 

Someone once told me that they prefer to read small books. I assumed that it was because they are short. That person told me that they like to read small books because small books cut the fluff and leave only the important stuff. This person told me that they have rarely ever read a long book that doesn't have unnecessary fluff. Give me the information that I need without the ego of the academic.

At our core, we should desire for those around us to have access to information. The process of being presented with something, grasping, understanding, and applying is truly joyful. When you finally understand a math equation or a literary concept or how to change the oil in your car - there is pride, there is success and there comes a hunger to continue. If we make this process of learning harder to attain, people will stop trying. No one wants to seek out failure. Academia, please stop being arrogant, eventually those who hunger to learn will be whittled down to those related to the ones teaching and there will be no one left to teach. No one left to learn.

Church I Need You

Today I spent a large part of my day on twitter finding comfort from words of people that I will never meet because I didn't feel like I could find them in my own community.

Today I sat across from a pastor and just desired for him to unabashedly tell me that I am valued, significant, and not pushed aside.

Today during church community group I shared that this election is hard. That I feel like the whole nation has given up and washed their hands of entire people groups. Today I asked to be listened to.

Church, I need you. I need you to ask how I am feeling and doing instead of me fighting to be heard.

Church, I need you. I need you to see the darkness and the pain. And I need you to step into it.

Church, I need you to stop being politically correct. Your brothers and sisters are in pain, they are hurting and afraid. I need you to get in the trenches and fight this with them, with me.

Church, I need you to care. To say that you care. To stop being silent. Tell me you care about me, about my family, about the hundreds of students I work with.

Church, today I needed you to fight for me. Because I felt so alone, exhausted, and abandoned. Today I needed arms around me.

Church, stop using the fact that God is in control as an excuse to ignore a dialogue that we need to have about racial reconciliation.

Church, stop telling me to put my trust in God. I have. I do. This is still hard. And this is not God. Hatred. Hateful statements. This is not God. Church I need you to start living out God.

Church I need you. Please. I need you to love. Me. My family. My friends. Our community. Our country. Our people. Church I need you to take Jesus commands to love one another seriously.

Who Are You With?

Who are you with? I heard a woman ask Eleanor, my roommate's sister. I was visiting my roommate and her family in North Carolina. I heard Eleanor say - these are my sisters, but not mention anything about me. But I knew what the woman was asking. She was asking - who is the brown girl in the pool playing with your kids? She wasn't being malicious or rude. She was just pointing out that I don't belong. Because I'm different. Because I'm brown. So I stayed in the pool, but the exchange lingered. And I felt uneasy. This isn't my family, this isn't my town, this isn't my group. So I got out of the pool and sat at a table by myself. I am 24 years old and I still feel incredibly small and out of place when someone questions my belonging because of traits I do or don't have. This was such an unintentional, innocent question - 'who are you with?' Not directed at me, not an attack, not meant to blatantly single out. This should not have such a rattling effect on me. This should not make me acutely aware of my 'browness.'I shouldn't feel uncomfortable in my skin - thinking that this is all everyone could see or talk about.