My story in other pictures

Nothing lasts forever, so that means that my heaven and my torture will end. What we find so wonderful will inevitably cease, but that comes with the knowledge that what pain there is in the world is not constant. My discomfort and my stress will end, and this small cage that I feel trapped in will eventually relinquish its hold on me, and I will be allowed to walk freely for another day. What seems so awful now will pass... I'll just keep telling myself that.

Sometime next week, maybe I'll have the time. Or maybe I'll pass it off for the week after that. I keep passing up opportunities to live and to have a little spontaneity. I wonder what it's like for those people playing frisbee in the park. They look like they're having so much fun, but I'm to busy to worry much about them. I guess I'll find out what it's like some other time.

You have to kiss a lot of frogs in the world to find your prince. At least, my mother likes to tell me that's how it works. I don't think my ex boyfriends would like being referred to as amphibians- metaphorically or otherwise- regardless of how close to the truth it may fall in some cases. But I do feel ridiculous in general when I discover that I'm not with the right person, so I guess all in all it shouldn't go any further than kissing the darn frog as it is.

Yes, give me liberty. Death is messy, and a bit to tragic and emo for my liking. I don't think going out with a melodramatic bang is the right way to do it these days. Accidental deaths are much more satisfactory- the kind of things that make the people who hear about it sputter in awe and say "shit" like you're a god. You might even make someone laugh, and that seems to be the best medicine these days. So yes, give me all the liberty you've got, and I'll find some poor sod who likes to run with scissors so we can point him towards a jogging path with a really powerful magnet nearby.

What is art? Who said we needed to cure it? What happened to AIDS and the starving children in Africa? Although Duchamp was smoking something when he decided his fountain was a good idea.

Can I think them through? I just want to make it as a stage manager, I don't know if that's too much to ask, but I'd really just like to get a job in the real world. How much thinking it thorough do I need? Does someone have a manual?

Well fuck.

Better Late Than Never

I have decided to get help, in every way I can. It's a scary thought, but I have internalized everything I am for my entire life. I have very rarely tried to figure myself out. Now it is time to try to do that. So when the time comes for me to be with someone else- to be a part of something bigger than just myself I want to know who I am. I want to figure out all the facets of myself .

Remember Sammy Jenkins

We don't need a map, because the world is filled with mirrors. Everyone is a small mirror for someone else, and we piece together the wholeness of ourselves through the combined images that we sort through each day.

We will remember what we choose to remember because we are a conditioned store of memories that we choose to use to define ourselves with. It is our actions that will define us, when we open our eyes, and can see everything in the mirror.

Just One Question-

What happens when you say "I love you"?

I'll Be Your Friend

lists seem to be in my head... so i'll try to go chronologically today

1. men can be unrefined pigs. -just because i'm wearing short shorts and have boobs does not mean i appreciate hearing "hey sexy" called out of a passing car while i am walking to work.

2. its hard to be classy when it's 80 degrees outside and humid, but i still try

3. hard work can be fun when accompanied by loud music and ice water

4. hearing about friend's hangovers is somehow bittersweet

5. when you get everything you wanted to get done in a day you should pat yourself on the back

6. when you get more than you planned done you owe yourself a treat

7. my treat happened to be a shower, dressing up in my favorite summer dress and taking myself to Biaggi's

8. i love attractive polite male waiters and busboys

9. i love men who make me feel attractive by smiling at me and asking how i am

10. my faith in mankind has been restored, and my spirits have been lifted

11. when a lightning bug hits your windshield at 70mph it stays lit

12. i love lightning bugs. they remind me of shooting stars

13. i love my pajamas and occasionally i love the peace of an apartment with just me in it

What Becomes of the Brokenhearted?

Somehow I got off track. It happens to all of us. We call it different things. Some of us require a diagnosis- a fancy name to validate our feelings- or our lack of them. 

Seasonal affective disorder. Acute stress disorder.  Panic disorder. Obsessive-compulsive disorder. Major depressive disorder. Adjustment disorder. 

Perhaps its the disorder that we should be paying more attention to. Not the disorder that doctors and trained professionals diagnose, but the dis-order. The lack of control that sometimes takes hold in our lives and tears us apart. We all fall down. And we all forget how to get back up sometimes. Neediness is not a character fault when we need help. The challenge is asking for help. Being able to ask for it, and then finding out how to ask for help. 

We are fragile, and we break. Those that would help us gather up the pieces and begin the attempt to rebuild are the true angels in the world. Our saviors do not always know that they have helped us. Sometimes it's merely a smile from a stranger in the local coffee shop, 0r a song on the radio, a play that touches our hearts. Sometimes its the physical presence of a friend curling up in bed with you and holding you while you cry out all the injustices in your soul, the comforting touch of the kind hand pushing a curl of hair behind your ear, the wet tear marks on their shoulder. 

Our destroyers are everywhere. We must face them every day- in the looks, the whispers, the absences. The failures. The lies. The truths. The rumors. They do nothing but seek us out with the intent of making us break- becoming the drop of rain that breaks the dam. There is nothing we can do but guard against the catastrophic disaster that waits for us around every corner. 

We must walk tall. We must walk through the fire. For although there are those who line the halls of this hell waiting for us to fall, to laugh at our mistakes and failures. There are also those who are waiting to catch us, our guardian angels, who do not know their capacities or their strengths, because they are walking through hell with us, they are on the same journey. So we keep our chins up and we do not look left or right, because the only thing that matters is where we are going, and all the beautiful things we are capable of. 

I have missed many of the days I should have taken my pictures, but this is not a failure, this is just a gap in my life that is not recorded. That didn't need to be recorded with pictures, because words and tears and late night phone calls are enough. This failure, this catastrophic break, this path of dis-order is etched on my heart and my soul, and it needs no more record than that. 

Time will soften the edges of the wound, and it will become a soft scar with a story, someday. Tonight it still hurts, and it still bleeds when I'm least expecting it, when I am barely brushed by insensitivity. But I know that there is nothing wrong with the blood, or the failure. There really is no failure, only a place where the path of live was obscured and I couldn't find a safe place to put my feet. I tripped and fell, and stayed on the ground- laying on my back and looking up at the sky and everyone living above me. The world is a sad place when you only watch from below it. I stood up somehow. I'm getting back on track somehow. 

I'm getting back on track with the power of red, with light, with sunshine. Soft guitars and vocal harmonies. Chamomile tea and soft pajamas. Disney movies, action movies, musicals. Smiles. Kisses. 60s music. Getting up each morning and turning up the radio and singing along with the country music because maybe I am always singing with the sad cowboy who is singing about the one that got away, but there's always the one that makes everything perfect in the distance, there's always happiness in the melodies and the reprise. 

Happiness. Beauty. Smiles. Tears. They are all there, and they are all a part of my history. 

I will never again change who I am because of other people. I never want to mold myself to fit some idea of what I need to be to be accepted by anyone. I am who I am. I can become better; stronger; more resilient. The glass walls around my soul can shatter when they have been replaced by soft India rubber. The dis-order that abounds will someday merely bounce off of me and not break me. 

I have walls, and I will keep them. For now. I know of no other way to live. I do not know how to face the world naked, without control. I will remain on my own terms. But I will try to be better. I want to be better. I can't go back. I won't. I will smile with the new day. I want to learn how to open up to people. I want to learn how to do this so I can handle it when it matters most. Someday it will matter, but it won't, because the right people fit well enough that there is no pain when the walls come down. 

To anyone who will change my life. I love you. I may hurt you with my jagged edges. I will hurt myself with them. But I can smile and I can laugh even when I cry, and I can love you with all my heart even when I hate you. 

Day 38- 

Addie's show changed my life. I had forgotten why I loved theatre, 

why I was devoting my life to it. But now I can remember. 

I can again be proud of all this work I am putting into a future that I can't predict.

 Thank you Addie. 

Day 37- 

The bomb from Matt's show.

The Chernobyl girl's dolly.  

Cyrano's mask. 

Day 36- 

John has become a comforting amusement in my life, and I am so happy that he and Taylor make each other happy.

Day 35-

Looking at the lighting I designed for the 'Belfast bomber scene'

Lighting design for Cyrano. 

A wider shot of Cyrano. 

Goodness, more Cyrano. 

'War in heaven' lighting- 

"I died the day I was born... on that day... became and angel... I am here by mistake."

Day 34- 

One of the first of many Arcadia rehearsals. 

Day 33- 

A quiet moment on the steps of Marquis after rehearsal, just watching the campus and enjoying the warmer weather. 

Day 32- 

Something that I had to draw for Design for the Stage. Maybe someday I will really enjoy this class, right now it's too tedious to fully enjoy. 

Day 31- 

I didn't seem to have a reason to smile. 

The dirty mirror just seems poetic now. 

Documenting one of the few days with blue sky. 

Stairs...

I looked down and saw a picture 

I walk through this door everyday. 

Day 30- 

Hookah in Colorado at Pita bar. 

The Air Force Academy BX- how original of me.

Day 29- 

On my way into Peterson to go work in the WC.

More of the same...

Day 28- 

The Writing Center seems to have become a habit of mine. 

Day 27- 

A picturesque tree on a gloomy day. 

Day 26-   

More working in the Writing Center. 

Day 25- 

Model of the Arcadia set.

Day 24-

Working with the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra, and the beginning of my breaking. 

learning how

Hanging by a thread.

And so it begins again, 

the pendulum swings.

Before my eyes, it mystifies-

and never waits for me

I forgot that time waits 

for no man. 

And he shall not wait

for me. 

Lost and confused, I pushed 

away my happiness. 

Misguided-- thinking that

I was helping him. 

But all I was doing

was hurting myself. 

Light Up the Hillside

I can sing out loud again. 

I can love the individual I am because I am imperfect and full if new dimensions.

I found better friends where I was least expecting it.

And I learned how to make something beautiful by removing the grey areas around it. 

I'm going to make it out of this hole. 

I'm going to be able to learn how to sleep again.

And I will begin putting up my pictures again. 

I will write down the things that get me through the hard times, rather than documenting my struggles continuously. 

I will love you someday. 

And we won't need a map. 

Time Heals All Wounds

I'm afraid to fall asleep. 

I don't feel safe anymore; there's something out there that I can feel stalking me. A fear that I won't wake up if I close my eyes. 

I just want to be touched. A hug. A hand on my shoulder. A kiss. 

I'm beginning to float away from my body. I woke up this morning and understood why the Creoles believe in zombies. Spirits. I seem to have lost mine.

I want to do the right thing. I don't want to lose a friend because of his inability to acknowledge me. 

I'm jealous of all the people wrapped in their lovers arms, their hearts are safe inside their bodies. 

He broke down my walls and showed me the pieces of my soul. And then he left without telling me if there is a way to put the pieces back together. 

I am blind; trying to put a jigsaw puzzle back together. The pieces are made of sand. The harder I try to hold them firmly the quicker they slip away. 

joe

we need much bigger pockets, I thought as I lay in bed, counting off the seven minutes that it takes a normal person to fall asleep. We need enourmous pockets, pokcets big enough for our families, and our friends, and even the people who aren't on our lists, people we've never met but still want to protect. We need pockets for buroughs and cities, a pocket that could hold the universe.

-extremely loud and incredibly close, johnathan safran foer

Where are you going? Where do you go?

I think I might be going crazy... no seriously, I just finished doing all the homework I have that I can do til about Wednesday or Thursday of next week! I'm so thrilled with myself, I hope I an manage to keep this up- if I can I should be in much better shape for handling all of my classes and Arcadia and Matt's recital. It seems that I am doing the lights for his show... it's funny how I heard it from David before I heard it from Matt... oh well. 

My wonderful and peaceful music has gotten me through the day, and a ten minute chat with Matt when he stopped by my room for a key I had revitalized me. Not to mention spending some time with Tay and Ame. I was feeling really lonely. The change from having the whole campus to myself to being surrounded by people was overwhelming. 

musical interlude- 

"I think I'll go to Boston, I think I'll start a new life... I think I need a sunrise, I'm tired of these sunsets, it sure is nice in the summer... oh you don't know me, and you don't even care. Ohhh yeah... But no one knows my name- there-  in Boston-  where no one knows my name."

So I've decided that I might be able to do this. This- whatever this is- I'm here. In Iowa of all places, and I'm going to figure everything out. Or at least all the things that are worrying me right now. There seem to lots of things. I fell asleep last night with tears I couldn't explain or stop just rolling down my cheeks, silently. I woke up exhausted and totally not caring- it was just like any other day at college- all the ones that make you want to shoot yourself just so you can feel something... But once I got back to my room I just started working, and then Matt stopped by and seeing him for a few minutes was really nice. Just to sit and talk for ten minutes. I wish he could have stayed longer, I had more to say, I always do, but he's ridiculously busy and he had to run off to go do something else. I have to admit that I miss just sitting in the writing center working with him late at night. I miss that company, even though I was basically terrified of him then- haha- it's funny how he used to scare me. Now I miss those times. 

I've decided that my biggest fear is of rejection. 

No not decided. Discovered. That's better, I've always been that way, I just didn't know it. I didn't make the choice to be terrified of rejection- I was made that way by my experiences. 

That's why I can get clingy when I feel like people are pulling away from me. I fear the rejection that I feel like I am beginning to sense. Now I'm working on changing that. I don't like being clingy. I don't want to be. I'd like to be independent. And I'd like to be able to know when to just ask for some company. Someday, maybe, I'll figure it out. For now I'm just learning, trying not to fall too hard that I shatter. 

Here we are. And the sun and the stars above us. We might be here together, or apart, or redefined. I wonder how you will write your story. How will it be read? Will the world understand? Or just me? Just you. Kiss.

Lies. everything we do is an action that symbolizes an emotion we do not feel. We think we feel it. We don't. Robots. Just moving through the motions. I wonder when the oil can will run out.