the world is too full to talk about

My friend Shea is always sharing with me. Sharing the latest book she's reading, music she's listening to, recipe she's cooking. She shares the details of her day, the challenges of work, the joys of new relationships and explorations and places. She shares ideas and philosophies, hopes and plans, quotes and you tube links, videos, and poetry. I love her for this endless sharing. For this giving. She gives without hesitation or prompting or promise of the returned gesture. She fills my life with happiness, laughter, joy, and a never ending curiosity of all we've yet to share with one another.

The other night I found myself listening to her speak about a film she recently saw that had clearly been moving. There's something pretty awesome about feeling the transformation someone has experienced because of a work of art. And so I listened to my friend whose thoughts were rather expertly timed as I was in a state of feeling rather low. And she brought me back up. We continued to exchange ideas and thoughts and questions about life and the world, as we always seem to do, wondering if other people are as self aware as we. And I just thought, how lucky am I to have such kind of friends? Well, pretty lucky.

This week she shared this:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

-Rumi

WILLIAM FITZSIMMONS

So I bought myself some tickets and officially get to see this guy perform live in April. So excited. Please check out his mad ear snacks. Beautiful melancholy:

my first instagr.am

Morning Coffee with friends:

instagr.am

the game

We all play it. Whether or not we'd like to admit it. Whether or not we in fact realize we are. But there it is. When it comes to relationships we are forced to pick up our pawns and play the game.

For the record, I hate the game. It has come to my attention, not so subtly in recent days, that for the last 23 years of life, I have been losing terribly. And if you should know anything about a Dawson, it's that we hate to lose. I mean, really, we refuse. It seems the game has gotten the better of me.

So I refuse to continue seeing myself on the weaker end of this epic battle. Yet I just don't see how I can give up all that I am and how I perceive the world in order to play at something I don't even fully comprehend. I mean after all, what's so wrong with just being yourself?

This is what I do know.

Sometimes I talk too much. Yes, I do realize this. I like to ask questions and pontificate and address the grander life topics. Once I get started, it's often difficult to shut up. I also ramble when I'm nervous.

I am a hopeless romantic and an eternal optimist. Please believe these are traits I have desperately tried to alter over the course of my existence, but it's proven impossible. There are those elements of who we are that are simply inescapable. No matter how hard we try.

I am nice to a fault. I am eager to please. I will almost always be kind and sweet and often don't take action out of fear... fear of crossing boundaries, fear of getting hurt, fear of revealing too much, or worst of all, fear of rejection. But please know this is not out of lack of wanting. I probably feel exactly what you feel... unless I really just don't want to kiss you.

And while yes, I am old fashioned in ways: I like to be courted, to be chased, to have an occasional door opened, to be kissed first... though sometimes I see moments where all of this is far too irrelevant.

I am in fact spontaneous and unpredictable. I don't always say or do what's expected. I am an adventurer. I like to try new things. I am, contrary to popular belief, open to change. I like a challenge. I don't like to be whom everyone else expects.

I am stubborn as all hell.

I hate being wrong.

And I hate to lose.

I am cerebral and complex and typically dwell or fixate far too much. I over analyze and agonize- for this, I blame my mother.

I want an emotional and mental connection. Though I want the physical too. I am innocent, yes, but not completely. Please know there's depth here. Please realize I am, after all, human.

I'm independent. I don't like asking for help though sometimes I need it. I enjoy having time to myself, though typically, I hate being alone. And I don't need you to always be around, or calling, or doing things for me. I actually am pretty low key and laid back. It's the game that's got me jilted.

And I don't understand why we all just can't say what we mean exactly how we mean it. Why are we doomed to spend our days decoding subtext and giving our friends and roommates the never ending play by plays to dissect? We're all just people, ultimately wanting other people, to some degree. In some capacity.

So if you could just be honest and tell me what you want and need, maybe I could find a way to give it to you. At least I know I can give you that. And if I could be allowed to care, instead of having to pretend that I don't, well that would be ideal.

I also know that I'm apparently incapable of translating spoken words, physical gestures, and passive aggressive text messages. Herein lies the problem. This is the game. I don't know the rules. I'm unsure of the objective. And more than anything, I just don't want to play. Kudos to those of you who can and do. I sure hope you're winning.

For now, I forfeit.

the first spring day is another...

Well this was just too amazing for words. My roommate sent me this from her work the other day to appropriately express how she felt about being locked up in the office:



And I suppose this is how I feel today about having the morning off and it feeling like Spring outside:

basket case.

Sometimes something weighs so heavily on your heart you actually feel like you're sinking. And all the things that used to keep you afloat, gliding through your sunny little life, find themselves stuck in giant tar bubbles. Impenetrable. Toxic. Sometimes the world seems to grind to a halt while you're sitting in your car. Savoring the last five minutes before you have to go into work, sipping hot Chai, windows down, you close your eyes.

Of course the one thing that should flash before you is the one thing you shouldn't be imagining at all. But there it is. This blinking reminder that you are in fact human. You're vulnerable, emotional, complex. You crave connection. You are human. Yet all you want in this moment and in every collection of moments to follow throughout the day, is to feel anything but this. To think of anything but... this thing.

Why do we dwell? Is this a female thing? Or a human being thing? Why do we fixate on people or situations or circumstances we cannot change? That ultimately leave us feeling the dark pieces: the sadness, the anger, the disappointment. Why is that easier to embrace and sit with than the good stuff? Or maybe it's just our heightened awareness being forced to face what's left after the good goes awry. After we find ourselves holding the pieces of our hearts like a broken mirror, unable to properly reflect.

You sit there, staring into empty hands, feeling like you're not even allowed to be here. You're not allowed to grieve the loss of something you never really had to begin with. And then you snap out of it and think, 'why the hell am I so upset?'

I cried this morning. I mean, really cried. The kind of cry I'd been holding onto for months. It was building upon missing loved ones, the illness of a dear friend, the stress of my life, and my disappointed little heart. I cried. And I mean sobbed. The kind of cry that spanned a significant amount of the morning, enough to ruin my coveted cup of coffee and a hot shower. I'm not embarrassed or ashamed. I'm vulnerable and sensitive. I am a Cancer after all. And sometimes you need to cry. Sometimes you need to feel to the depths and allow yourself to be where ever you are.

Sometimes you get to mourn the loss of the thing you nearly had. Of the thing you want. Because at least there, you know you've found something of worth. That thing you shouldn't be thinking about is clearly significant and beautiful. And maybe in time it will get a little easier to be without it. Or maybe in time, you'll find a way to have it.

Either way, you'll eventually let yourself believe that being vulnerable and putting yourself out there wasn't for nothing. It was worth it just to know you were capable of feeling something real. Something reciprocated. Even if unattainable. Even if only wrapped up in a collections of hours, of conversations and exchanged smiles, of feeling connected, and understood, and appreciated in the simplest of ways... at least that was real.

I know it's vague and highly internal. But there it is. At least this time I put it down here. I let it be real. I didn't bury it deep or attempt to hide the true feelings. Maybe that's a step in the right direction. And maybe if you're out there reading this, you can know that I think there's something here. And maybe if we're both lucky, we can get that illusive thing everyone's searching for. Because as far as I'm concerned, it's been right in front of me for some time. I found it. Now I just have to wait until the universe will let me have it.

So until then, I'll sip Chai, roll the windows down, sob from time to time, and keep on living my little life. I think that's the best chance I've got.

(Side Note)

A few weeks back my friend Shea shared this video of a talk with researcher Brene Brown. She's an amazing woman with a beautiful take on vulnerability and our need for human connection. I think this is an appropriate post in which to share. Check it out if you haven't already:

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

where our heads lived and were

I must admit I was fully prepared to jump on the bandwagon of countless single women who hate Valentine's Day. And I had every intention of writing some dribble about how a holiday stemming back centuries, to a time when the true Valentine risked his life in the name of love, has become nothing more than a consumerist driven Hallmark scheme. But last night I got a glorious evening of sleep. I had a delightful morning at work watching men of all ages purchase bouquets of roses for their sweethearts. I went running on a lovely Spring day that seems to have gotten lost in February. I watched my roommate get a Valentine's surprise and respond with such pure joy. And as I sat sipping tea, leafing through my collection of poetry, I stumbled upon an old favorite. While not overtly romantic or love infused, this spoke to me once again. And lucky for me, even on Valentine's Day, my heart was open enough to hear it:

in spite of everything
which breathes and moves,since Doom
(with white longest hands
neatening each crease)
will smooth entirely our minds

-before leaving my room
i turn,and(stooping
through the morning)kiss
this pillow,dear
where our heads lived and were.

-e.e. cummings

Happy Valentine's Day, loves. Here's to celebrating not only love, but each other, and this beautifully complicated thing they call life.

Be mine?

I know it's not Valentine's Day yet. And truth be told, I'm not the biggest fan of the holiday ( though that's another post for another week). But, in the spirit of all things truly romantic and heartfelt, I had to share this Bryan Adams tune. The roommates and I recently saw his concert at the Hippodrome in Baltimore. Let's just say, amazing. Well, amazing and sexy. I am currently obsessed with this song.

Bryan Adams, cheesy as it may be, will you be my valentine?

Enjoy.