Is Anyone Else Like Frantically And Painfully Nostalgic For The Fall Of 2013, Which Was TEN YEARS AGO???

Today

I laughed until my abs ached with a coworker over silly emails. I wrote texts in iambic pentameter at the bus stop for the fun of it. A baby leaned on my chest like I was the safest place in the world, and another stretched her arms up to me to be held like I could bear her to the moon itself. A book about emotions during Holy Week written for toddlers moved me so much I read it twice. I walked briskly, squinting into warm sunshine, the brightest in days. I saw Jesus more clearly in the character of Moses by reading Acts 7 as if for the first time, I empathized with Paul as I reflected on this murderer going before his old enemies to declare his new allegiance, the shame, the fear. I marveled that Stephen saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God, a Chekhov’s gun I recalled in my class this evening, which, by the way, was the best I’ve been to so far. I realized it’s all about the long slow work of building a community. All of it. This is the work of God Himself. And we image Him in a thousand little ways, with our singing and storytelling and desire to create beautiful, uncorrupted things. Tears pricked my eyes as I realized this. I cooked myself a delicious dinner from scratch while singing Sondheim with my roommate, and put away leftovers for tomorrow. I ate peanut M&Ms and pineapple upside down cake, and felt food freedom and joy in my body. This body can hold two hefty babies at once. This body can sprint to the bus stop and jog up the escalator. This body can do a silly little dance in the kitchen and slide on the tile in socks. I felt seen in my botticelli shirt, known as people recognized that not once but twice I’ve worn artwork. I gave Abby a big hug. I spoke of church without shame in my class, though my heart raced before. I puzzled over the poem mine own John poynz on the metro, missed my stop, and had to backtrack. I read Dracula and chuckled at how girlhood hasn’t changed in 100 or 1000 years. Humans have always laughed and cried and shared salacious stories with their friends. I fretted over what to wear to the movies tomorrow night to see my friends all together. I felt useful and accomplished today. I felt so, so human today. I nearly cried euphoric tears while washing dishes. What greater joy could there be than to be alive on a Wednesday? What greater hope could there be than a realer, truer, freer life to come?

There is no poem that I could write to say

In better terms than this plain journaling

The wonders of existing in the world

Embodied, in community, and free.

I’m weak and I’m decaying, sure, that’s true

But I will never be this young again

And never have more clarity of thought

Or lightness in my heart than I do now.

Great God, what gift you’ve given me to see

That greatness isn’t some ambitious goal

Or changing the whole world, just baby steps,

and loving others through the little things.

Miss Lois told me that and she was right.

Amen and glory hallelujah, Lord!

Actually crazy how at 3 am different songs can astral project me so vividly into different points in my mental illness character arc and yes this IS about Lorde and Taylor and Phoebe and other unnamed icons thank you for asking here I am screaming into the void again no one to see no one to hear but I thought that wendy cope line today I love you I’m glad I exist and I meant it and also I’m starting to figure out how to handle my medication so even though me being awake right now is a breathtaking act of self sabotage I am truly trying and a win is a win so… yeah

And it’s summer again

Sun like tangerine juice

Sky as blue as candy

Days are long and lazy

Speeding to an old song

Flying down the highway

Palm trees in the rearview

Sink into the ocean

Sparkles on the surface

Oldnew freckles darken

Grass is green and dying

Want to skin my knees by

Running on the asphalt

Close my eyes and breathe out

Sweet tea, sticky fingers

Melting ice cream, longing

Sprinklers, seafoam, swimsuits

Everything is all wet

Undercurrents, secrets

Wild, charged, electric

Whispers, laughter, screaming

At the top of my lungs

Sand between the bedsheets

We’re alone together

Only in my mind’s eye

Heat stroke made me drowsy

Home at last, I’m woozy

Piano in a dim room

Fingers fumble, keys sing

Journal then forget it

Playlist, dance, cry after

horizontal body

Everything becoming

Young, but now I’m older

Want to be a kid and

Want to be a grown up

Somewhere in between, though

Endings are beginnings

Time’s a shifting seascape

This enchanted country

Infinite and dreamy

invincible in sunshine

Weak knees in the moonlight

Nothing so romantic

As a joke and shy grin

from a boy with straight teeth

Learn the lines in all things

think I might’ve found a

Paradise right here, now

All divine, eternal

Suspended in summer

Surely it won’t end, right?

Hi Pals, I’ve been observing Tumblr for years and I never really had a presence on here, but I’m 19 and having an identity crisis and this seems like a pretty excellent place to do it. I’m treating this blog like a diary, and I have no idea how often I’ll post or how active I’ll be, and I’m still trying to figure how to actually use this app, so wish me luck! Might share some poems, might do some web weaving, might fandom blog, might have a mental crisis, I don’t even know! Brave new world! Hope to make some friends maybe too so ask me anything I am starved for literally all interaction. Glad to join the hellsite in the year of our Lord 2022, however belated that might be.

Peeling Spring

It’s a citrus kinda day,

Sour sweet oranges and yellows,

I am filled with a tingling on my tongue,

And the smell of summer,

I’m alive,

My hands are sticky,

And taste of tangerines,

It is bright out,

But I’m not blinded,

The sun is in my eyes,

But I remembered my sunglasses,

I’m alive

Human sin and weakness is sooo funny because it's like. The deeper you are in it, the more desperate you are to keep anyone from seeing it and defining you by it. It's unbearable for someone to think of you as "the person with That Problem," and it feels more unbearable the uglier and more public That Problem is, so you scramble to hide (even when it's stupidly obvious you're hiding something, making you "person who Hides Things"), and you cut off relationships where you become too vulnerable (making you "person who Runs Away").

What's so funny is that you only actually get free of being "person with That Problem" (because that's who you are to yourself) when you stop fighting it and accept that you're in Christ, even with the problem. As soon as you can say "I do have That Problem, in fact I have Problems, but I can still be known and loved because who I am is in Jesus and not in myself," you've accomplished what you were after in the first place: being defined apart from the problem.

Just letting you know that everyone who can read needs to read a Wizard of Earthsea bc it is actually a perfect story and I adore it, after a dry spell of so so long I have discovered a new fictional world that I love, and there is so much more lore for me to gobble up! I am thriving! Kicking my feet and giggling over Ged Sparrowhawk, who is actually my age unlike the characters in most fantasy novels available, so wholesome so pure so good and yet still morally grey and powerful and flawed! I love! So yeah Ursula K LeGuin is the boss the champ the queen etc etc

Guys I am like 80% sure I am happy and no longer depressed but I don’t actually like it? Its. a hollow happiness bc all of my passions were formed when I was mentally ill and I have no sense of identity anymore now that I am recovered ish, I fear that this crisis will work me back up into a depressive fit if I don’t find some meaningful enrichment soon

Oh look its just me and my grief and my jealousy and my bitterness and my fruitless wishes to be better again <3

July <3

Lola Ridge // Zhukovsky Stanislav // Charlotte Eriksson // my photo // Rick Bass // @burningmine // Allie Ray // @geopsych // @thepoetryofascension