follow the yellow brick road

so i've moved on to bigger and better things. or perhaps just different things. so you should all come with me to my new blog location.

see you in oz...

of late

i never knew true forgiveness could taste this sweet
i didn't believe the know-it-all's who claimed that holding a grudge will eat you up from inside
i could never have imagined a year ago that i would be here now

-------------------------------------------------

i told claire that i would be honored to spend my life with her
i told jess that i want her to be with lin if that will make her happy (and i know it will)
i told myself that i am over that relationship and the hurt that was caused in it
all these things are true

incipit uita noua

------------------------------------------------

in the silence
you come to face yourself;
and in that silence
you cannot deny your soul.
it's shouting its answers;
it's crying its pain.
and though sometimes
you are forced to set free
a love you've never been without,
some things just have to be;
and in the silence of your heart
you find the courage
to push the fear aside,
to bid the love goodbye,
to take your soul
and to start anew.
in all the uncertainty, all the confusion

there will come clarity

and there will come an undeniable love
that the silence will prove true.

~unknown

a poetic interlude compliments of e e cummings

for claire:

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in

my heart) i am never without it (anywhere

i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear

no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want

no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

midwestern hope

in the wake of the shocking prop. 8 debacle, many of us began to lose hope that our nation could ever truly be progressive with respect to lgbtq rights. i am thrilled to say that hope was at least partially restored today with the legalization of same-sex marriage in iowa!

ptsd and triumph

i feel a little silly looking at the title of this post. me... ptsd? ridiculous.

i'm 23 years old. i come from a stable, safe, upper-middle class family in a peaceful small town in rural maine. i've never been homeless, starving, abused, raped, or assaulted. i've never been in a major motor vehicle accident, plane crash, or natural disaster. i'm not a member of the armed services, nor have i ever even been to a country in the midst of a war. 

what can i possibly know about post-traumatic stress disorder? 

lots, apparently. i was thunderstruck to learn this year that major emotional upheaval can bring on ptsd just as effectively as situations involving physical danger. when a person experiences something emotionally traumatic, the brain is sent into shock, quickly repressing as much of the painful experience as possible and building up walls to prevent easy access to that pain in day-to-day situations. but those walls, like anything built in haste, inevitably are riddled with chinks, small gaps through which that hidden pain can infiltrate the formerly-intact fabric of everyday life. 

so over the course of the past year i have watched helplessly and with growing horror, as if from outside my body, as seemingly-benign and sometimes even pleasant moments have been transformed into minor disasters at the simple mention of a name, the sound of a familiar song, the recollection of a particular memory. i have been ashamed at the bitter, cruel person who dwells deep within me and lashes out at the slightest touch of pain. i have been disappointed that my first instinct when faced with hurt is to curl up in a corner and hide my face. i have called out wretchedly to my strength and composure as they fled in the face of abject misery.

today (i suppose it's yesterday now) is the first anniversary of the event that brought on my ptsd. 

was i unhappy today? maybe a little. 

did i cry? maybe a lot.

did the pain rear its ugly head and lick at the edges of that still-unhealed wound? absolutely.

did i run away and hide in the corner? not on your life.

i looked that pain full in the face. i greeted it like the familiar bedmate that it has become. i was present in each memory and each wave of nostalgia. i made a point of simply feeling each emotion as it came to the surface. i wept. i felt hopelessness and despair, albeit briefly. i allowed myself a moment or two of self-pity. i processed. i reminisced. i gave that pain its due. 

and when it was all over, when the smoke from the emotional gunfire had cleared, i was still there. a little more haggard and bruised than before, but still standing. 

acknowledging that pain didn't conquer me. and if that's the case, maybe nothing can.