Moonshine & Wanderlust

... a cosmopolitan view from a southern perspective

Landslide

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Almost 3 months to the day, I wrote a post called “bridges”… I wrote it after an evening spent with my past. In that moment of early daylight, I saw everything I thought I wanted. I had it… it was brief. But, it was tangible in some way.

“It’s a rollercoaster. It’s unpredictable. It’s not certain. It’s an exhaustive trek… to where? Maybe nowhere. Maybe to the best place you have ever imagined. You see, that’s part of the gamble when you find that perfect fit… there is a chance you will only be privy to what could be. But, there’s the chance that someday the timing of your life and the life you know you are destined for come together to change everything.”

Timing is a funny thing. I’ve always believed in timing. God’s timing, human timing – it’s significant in our life stories. I have found my life to have either really bad timing or really good timing. Unfortunately, timing is just a pinpoint on the map… it’s not the whole story.

This year started after two years of a timing ball… Sometimes things just feel right, even if they scare the living daylights out of you. I don’t normally take chances on those types of things, but I will tell you now… the story of taking a chance is always better than the “what if?” It can hurt you like hell and rip your heart open or it can be a new chapter, but it lets you know you’re alive. You’re human. You have the capacity to love, to hurt, to want, to be needed, to need… the things we’re not “supposed” to do because they make you vulnerable.

I’m not good at being vulnerable – for all the same reasons no one is “good” at being vulnerable. You lay yourself open. I’ve only done it a couple of times and it has hurt every time. It’s like that old scar story I told you all about waaay back at the beginning? Except it’s not a scar, it’s an open wound. Scars don’t hurt after awhile. They’re meant to remind you of where you came from and where you don’t want to go back to again. Wounds can heal, but being vulnerable doesn’t allow you to heal. Because, to be vulnerable you must be open. You must take the chance to be hurt, to hurt… to be bare. Would I take being open back? Not a chance.

The last paragraph of “bridges” says it all…

“So, until then… you wait. You work. You think. You persevere. You pray to God that you have another fiber to endure. You breathe. And, hope. For even if it is lost forever… oh, how lucky you were to have it for even just a moment.”

Ruin

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… Sitting in the airport in New York City after getting up at 4:30am to catch my shuttle. 

I went to the lobby this morning and I was standing in front of the big picture window when I heard, “Ma’am. Psst. Come here.” 

I turned around and the gentleman at the front desk motioned for me to come over and put his finger to his lips. I walked over him pointing to the counter next to him. I peered down into two boxes of pastries. They were beautiful. And, I could have my pick. 

Honestly, the last thing I want to do is be eating right now. But, it was a really sweet gesture and I figured I would need a little nourishment for the long day. What to pick? There were Bear Claws, huge muffins pecked with various fruits, powdered pastries, and croissants. I picked the croissant. The most plain and basic pastry in the bunch. I have chosen the fancy pastries before. I know they’re bad for me for many reasons, but they are beautiful. And, tasty. And, faced with a choice of the croissant or the drizzled Bear Claw that seems to glisten under the lights and call to your stomach… Why would you choose the unassuming one? 

I’m tired of choosing the fancy pastries. I am exhausted of chasing after what I think I want. This year has been such an eye opener already. It’s solidified feelings I was already having at the end of last year. I know what I want… I’ve had what I wanted. How many times do you get to say that? Not a lot, let me tell you. And, for the first time in a long time I have taken something good and thrown it into a wall like a China plate.

 … I typed a long analogy right here, but I deleted it. 

Last night, on our last night in the city, LM & I were having dinner at a restaurant that had a piano bar. There was this group of older folks playing and the woman in the red glittery top, her cropped gray hair swaying as she started her song… “It’s so important to make someone happy Make just one someone happy…” LM & I just kind of looked at each other and shook our heads with a little laugh. You know that look you give your friend when you’re both thinking the same thing. 

Happiness is an allusive light of magic. It comes at you with such blinding force sometimes it knocks you on your ass. And, before you know it, it can be gone again. 

Happiness is the croissant in the box of pastries…

The Breaking of Us

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we all have lost a best friend. sometimes it is purposefully and sometimes it is beyond our control. whether it is for the best or not, best friend breakups can be the worst kind of heart pain we go through in our lives.

***

To You, the Best Friend of My 20s — There are so many things I miss about you. As the wounds from your betrayals have scarred over, the good memories try to push themselves to the forefront of my mind.

An unlikely pair we were – one of the unlikeliest, really. Two people who could not be more different, yet were so similar. Our bond was formed fast… one that we often said of that one could tell when the other was hurting or something was going on. An unspoken feeling that could be felt when we were not together. A connection rivaling a sisterly bond.

We bonded through tears and heartbreak, through hazes of long summer nights, through grown up jobs, through losses and gains, through accidents. A friendship that below simmered a hot difference in opinions and beliefs at times, but that somehow we made work. Because we thought it was important. Because we had each other. It was us against the world.

As I leave my 20s behind, I leave our friendship in a decade that was my growing up. It will stay there, perfectly preserved and wildly worth remembering. It will be those memories I will look back on and love when I am older and I miss my youth.

The night when you took care of me on the side of the road, the night you crashed your car, the interstate drive with you hanging out the window, the summer days at our local watering hole, the summer nights spent with Barefoot and boys, the nights where tears were all that were shared, the weeks you lived with me when you had nowhere else to go, our ride and die attitude. So many days spent with you that it felt like a lifetime.

You broke my heart, Best Friend of My 20s. You abandoned us. You left us. You broke us.

As the last few weeks of this year wind down… such a big year for both us, I forgive you. I have long accepted that there are many things in life I will never comprehend. Things that break my spirit every day and that I cannot even begin to fathom. We are one of them.

And, even then… we were a season. A beautiful, free, crazy, amazing season. A season I would not trade or choose to redo.

My life would not have been the same without you.

..

a Beautiful disaster

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glass

So many questions, so many thoughts and finally, a resting place – a question to God…

“Do you think I’m unbreakable?”

Broken pieces – we’re all made up of them. Sometimes we cut ourselves on other people’s broken pieces, sometimes we cut ourselves on our own. I’m broken. I’m shattered. I’m a mess. I’m human. So many thoughts and words and feelings are a constant bombardment. Solace and peace is what I hope for. The itch to flee is ever present, lingering below the surface… slowly simmering and sometimes rising far enough to the top to boil over and make me burn on the inside. But, I can’t run away. Why? Because, somewhere deep down inside of me there is something growing. Hope. Sympathy. Empathy. Care. Love. Compassion. From my mistakes I am finding renewal. But, it’s hard. It’s harder than anything I’ve done before. I find myself facing the fire, feeling the heat and the burn and the pain and withstanding. No truer words were spoken than “two steps forward, one step back.” Most days, I think I have it together pretty well then I think God must look at me and think: “Silly girl… Let me show you more.”

My mom, in her wisdom and often in spite of my deep refusal to believe her, used to tell me so often “life is going to be hard, Patty Lauren.” Life. Is. Hard. I never wanted to believe her – because God gives us free will and I wasn’t going to be stupid enough to screw my life up. I got that one totally on lock. I’ve made mistakes – I’ve made them because I was young, because I was stupid, because I do take to heart that you shouldn’t regret anything, that even if you make a mistake it was right in that moment, etc. I’m a product of infiltration. I’ve done things against my better judgment, against my own moral compass, against what my mind was telling me… and, now I am facing the repercussions of my choices. You can’t see it by looking at me – I’m not the face of meth, I haven’t developed an eating disorder, I don’t self harm – at least, not on the outside. I’m still trying to wade through these deep waters – to come to terms with my feelings and what I think.

I never thought life could be so complicated. I never thought my life could resemble something I’ve read about or watched in movies. I feel like a loose barnacle that is just floating along, waiting for that next piece of solid stability to cling to. On those nights when the wind blows hard, the rain pelts the glass and the howl from outside numbs the feelings inside… the nights when your head is so heavy with thoughts that you wake up the next morning to a headache you are sure is caused by the words and emotions trying to escape your brain… the nights when there is no escape… Those are the nights you bleed from the brokenness.

{as always, all pictures are my own.}