Sunflowers

Sleep seems so simple for some. Josh and I can be having a super deep convo, but once the lights go off, the heavy breathing starts. It's kind of soothing, though...in a weird kind of way. I wonder what he's dreaming about? Probably the same things I do, once I inally fall asleep, that is. Last night, however, I got one of the best sleeps of my life. Mom gave me a loratab, and I was good to go. Loopy-but eventually that set into drowsiness.

The heaving breathing has shifted to snoring. Not so soothing-but kinda funny, hehehehehe.

I have so much on my mind. Though it seems as though there's never enough space to write out my thoughts. They either get dragged together, pushed back, or forgotten.

Do you remember me?
I remember you.
And the sunflowers.

That day was so far away from now.

Captivate me.

I always wonder where all of Behnoosh's wisdom comes from.

"Everything in life makes you who you are, but it doesn't define the rest of your life. You will be able to attain freedom, if you get rid of the mindset that you'll never be happy on earth, cause you will be. Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue."

I feel like I'm not moving. This morning, I couldn't move to go to school. Partly because I was up half the night puking my brains out. And no, I don't have the stomach flu. Stress. Worry. Doubt. Confusion. Anguish. It needs to be released in some way. I spent the last two days laying in my bed staring at the empty patches of spaces on my walls, that I did everything I could to fill them all in. With paper, pictures, paintings.

I have my own little ways to numb the pain. But they they are only temporary. The scars are everywhere.

"All your scars hurt you really bad, but scars are there for a reason, to remind you that you got through that pain and you can get through anything, because with a little time they'll heal on their own as long as you don't pick at them. Your wounds will always be a part of you, but they'll close. And you'll find your happy self again."

Love is so important to me. I want everything in the world to be swung away and captured by it. I want it to consume me, and I want to show it to everyone. Because even the worst of people deserve love. I just find it hard to look in the mirror and feel anything but disguist.

"You really, really need to learn to love yourself. You will never be able to take in the love of others if you don't."

Okay look.
VUALA!
I'm here.
Yahweh.
I'm here.
I'm weak, I'm weary, I AM BROKEN...
but by God...I'm here.

Swing me up in your arms, and capture me.
Captivate me. Captivate me like a real Father should.
I want to know what that feels like.

Please.

Change my mind.
Show me...anything.
Tonight.
Right now.
Please.

When You're around, I'm found.

I want to start fresh. No memory of the past, no recollection of how much I've messed up, or who I've let down. I've let alot of people down. Including myself.

I try and trace back to a happy moment. A place where God was the center of my life and I treated everyone right. My friends, my family, people who's names I didn't know.

When I hugged my best friend by the baggage claim. 6 months is a long time to not see your best friend. I remember everything seemed funny for the next 3 hours and I was like a freshly lit candle. Really bright, really apparent. I remember coming home to an empty house, opening up the cocoa puffs, listening to music, and playing snow baseball. Can I have that moment back? I remember falling in the snow, wondering why I was wearing a skirt, and closing my eyes for just a moment to thank God for Maggie. Life had been rough.

Going to Lifestream with Matt. Before I knew who he really was, and after I thought I knew him. Standing with our hands lifted singing worship songs at journey. I felt like God was connecting us. I felt so much lighter than now.

Going to the sunflower fields with Austin and Abby. Letting the rain pour down on my face and not caring that my jeans were getting soaked. Just appreciating simplicity. Appreciate the friends who were spinning in circles with me. Imagining no future without our unbreakable friendship.

Sitting across from Joseff at my favorite park. Him telling me how beautiful I was. The first time I ever really heard a boy say that to me, and mean it.

Sitting alone in balcony of my church on the furthest pew up, talking to Chad. Reading the bible with me over the phone. Smiling so much that my face hurt. Caring so much about a boy who'd never care about me in the same way. Always thinking that he saw some difference in me. Always just...thinking about him. For no particular reason.

All those times I felt the presence of great company, followed by God. Every single person I've mentioned, I've lost. Some as recent as a week ago. Some as long as almost over a year ago. God brought them into my life, and also took them out. Maybe I wasn't focusing on Him as much as I should have been. Maybe it just happened. Maybe I'm a bad person. Maybe this prooves how I'm an awful friend, I don't know. All I know is that when You God...When You're around, I'm found. And I feel so alone. And I'm not sure if it's because the friends who used to reside in my heart-left-or maybe I'm just not looking in the right places. But God, I miss you. I miss feeling whole. I need to feel whole.

Giving up. Why does it always seem so ideal for me? Rest. Release. Relief. That's why giving up sounds perfect. Cause fighting hasn't prooven to get me to prevail through these hard times. Where is my heart? Where is my faith? Where is my God? I know where I am. Sitting in my room, in my chair, staring at the screen, holding back tears, and typing. That's precisly where I am. But Lord...please come out.

Grab my hand.

Scars leave alot behind.
They're. Constant triggers of the memory.
Thoughts you only thought you stored way back there...
Mmmmmm. The residue of pain is left...in them.

It's the lighter, rougher patches of skin.
Say, when you fell off your bike and your knees broke your fall.
The time you thought that jumping off the swing meant you were a superhero. That day you wanted to make your dad so proud for once, that you went in for the slide.

It's the old notes that hang on your bulletin board.
Moments that are frozen in a picture. Many pictures. Pictures that cover your walls, and binders, and heart. Memories.

It's the pain that a boy left, when he left.
A hurt that a father bestows on the child he can't look at.
The feeling you have when you lose the person who's got you through most.

It's the constant thud of overhwhelming loss.
Losing someone. Letting someone go. Someone being taken away. Something you'll never be able to prevent...not even if you went back in time.

Scars are only visible, sometimes. And other times, they bleed through the skin. Cut past the organs, cells, bone, and heart. They stay with you forever. Screw the Maderma. Nothing helps this kind.

I keep burning things to diverge my mind. Incense, paper towels, old things I don't want to look at anymore. Not pictures...but scraps. The same song plays on repeat and I didn't even mean it to.

"We will only need each other, we'll bleed together. Our hands will not be taught to hold anothers."

But I need to stop. I've lost my sister and I can't try and change that. I can't try and convince myself that it'll be better tomorrow, because it won't. This is supposed to hurt, it's supposed to be hard. I know that. I've lost a sister, before. I've lost many. But I didn't think my best friend was capable of giving up on me. Especially since she was the one who knew the whole wide world had given up on me. Especially because she knows how scared I am of losing people. Especially because she's known how much I've lost. Especially because...I've lost her before. And she promised she wouldn't leave, again. But I guess I can't trust anyone. No one earthly. Everyone will let me down at some point. Everyone.

Just for once...will someone please...grab my hand?
Just for a moment. Just so I won't feel so damn alone in the world.

Loss.

Loss is a curious thing.
Just as grief is. Jodi Picoult taught me that.
Especially when it happens unexpectadely.

Alots been lost this week.
My dads job, my best friend, my voice, my food, most of my fight.
Everything combined makes me sick. I haven't wanted to go to school I haven't wanted to wake up or move. This morning I skipped 1st hour cause I just couldn't go. And, again, I was throwing up. Is it possible for a bug to last this long?

Loss is such a curious thing.
It hurts.

People matter.

"You won't be able to fully appreciate the love of others without first learning to love yourself".

5 minutes before it's time for me to take the stage, I find myself heaving in the bathroom finding it hard to breath and choking up too much water. I couldn't do this, I had to focus. I ran out of the bathroom and got to the curtain just in time. The sunglasses helped, though. But it was hard to find which keys to play, it was hard to focus, it was hard to breathe. After the shows over, Behnoosh drives me to my car. She tells me that nothing is worth what it's doing to me and then she left. I got in my car and couldn't see. I didn't even realize I was crying, again. It started off with whimpers and then turned into sobs, and then I couldn't even remember who I was as I was holding my knees to my chest and opening my car door to puke out the rest of the pain until I realized that it didn't help. I was shaking and crying and pounding on my steering wheel. I texted Behnoosh and I told her I couldn't move...because I couldn't. She called me and asked where I was and I told her I was still in the school parking lot and within minutes I saw her pulling into the space next to me.

She pulled me back into the car and listened to me sob.
We sat there talking for what seemed like...forever. She told me that even though she's only known me for 5 months...that she cares about me more than anyone else in this school. I felt better. I felt okay. I know that people come in and out of your life...but I hope she stays.

"Live life how you want. But you must live it."

Thank you, Behnoosh.

People matter. I matter. You matter.

Making sense of it all.

Already living paycheck to paycheck...and my dad gets laid off.
Life seems unfair, sometimes.

But life could be worse...gotta keep reminding myself that I am blessed.

Time to grow.

"There are greater things ahead than any we leave behind."
C.S. Louis

I fell asleep last night, not remembering any conversation I had been having. I woke up and I wasn't in my grandparents house and I realized my friends were gone. This week was good for me...but was it good for them? I seem to always, inevitably, mess things up. I often wonder how I am capable of being loved.

Behnoosh was telling me last night that before I can help the world, I must help myself. That is true. I cannot talk about changing the world, I cannot talk about making a difference BECAUSE I AM A MESS.

There.

I remember one night a couple days ago when me and my best friend were crying in the bathroom and I was reminded of how much I hurt her last year. And that was a new sort of pain. Something that made my chest burn.

God, where is the consistancy in my life?
Seasons change. All the time.
So why can't I change? I obviously need to as I am listening to my sister and grandma tell me all the things I'm doing wrong and why. How can they possibly know, though? I don't make excuses but why won't they listen to me? Maybe then they'd realize why I am like I am. I dress weird because sometimes I just don't care. I get angry so easily because my old wounds are constantly swirling around in my dreams. I love acting because the long rehearsals allow me to almost never be home. I'm hurt so easily because I feel like I'm never loved. I want close friends because I've found that they are the ones who always have the capacity to love me-when I feel like my family doesn't.

"friendships don't make you live, they just help you keep living."