so this has hit me like a bus tonight

it is ironic that i had begun a story about clay today and that the gist of it is meant to be 'clay has taught me about second chances'

perhaps that is it - that clay has become a world where second chances are in abundance and not painful to receive. my patience was also honed in the times when i had to hand out my own second chances to clay that would not cooperate.

in the real world second chances are sometimes the kind of blessing that lightens the heart and causes a spring in the step. other times plenty a time often nearly always second chances are sharp-edged. a steeper climb. a bridge to be crossed that hangs on worn twine, creaking under the weight. the weight of me. 

She has barely said a thing since she got back, she said.

she sits in silence and her hands don't stop moving, like they are the manifestation of her brain constantly searching, looking for the right words, But they don't have to be the right words she tells herself, but her voice in her own head is small and not enough for this brain that is on overdrive.

this deep, she cannot use the correct pronouns. not yet.

tonight as the night settles in the brain tries its best to obey. to stop. to take a breath, let oxygen flow through and be just the right kind of wind for dendrites to charge through the place in all the right directions. because at work, with people, while thinking in general, she breathes very little. every now and then suddenly discovering the dire need to gasp for air.

there are plenty of thoughts to sort out and events to properly evaluate and archive. and see in better light. 

like people. they are not an army sizing her up and thinking the worst of her mistakes. sometimes people bear gifts of grace and heart but her own ugly one that is without compassion for itself destroys anything good coming her way: she doesn't deserve to be helped. she should already know all this. she is being stupid. she is dragging everyone down. 

she isn't alone but it seems to be the only lens she can see from. misfire after misfire in communication is the result of vision affected by the brain's toxic logic.

she is meek nearly everywhere because her vision makes her so. because all around her eyes see the ideals and how things should work and she is already lagging behind it and she refuses to see why. because it is much easier to strive than to admit a limitation. easier to keep going and keep trying than to stop and discover why everything is such a stretch and in a great many knots.

earlier tonight there was a shift in vision. a context she has long stopped considerig herself part of. it is defiance, to think there is an escape from the context of a biological family, the context of breeding, without properly putting it to rest. always a need to get rid, her. 

there has been little to no display of true, quiet, sure strength in this unit. the mother is defensive, always. the father may have moments of quiet strength but juxtaposed to the other it is passivity. 

she doesn't trust her actions because she is afraid of turning into them. she sees the seeds. so she turns to the brain. her defiance with the weapon of intellect has set her apart but also ultimately isolated her from them. there isn't a comfort of security of intellectual support here.

there are many things i cannot see. many things i have to learn. learn not just with my brain - there has been enough of that. i need to learn with my being.

as another week is to begin and my eyes are about to close, i pray for the eyes of my heart to open. to see God working with me and those around me. which doors are you closing, Lord? which doors are you waiting for us to arrive at so that You can open them?

i pray for this week to have feet and minds and hearts in the right direction. eyes on the right prize. Lord, rid me of my pride and the walls i have around me that keep me from learning and moving forward. open my mind that has been shrinking back because of fear of my limitations. 

it is only i who loses in the fear of my own end, in the fear of failure. it is time to not be afraid.

inscape

i had a headache most of the day, i think because i slept a bit too much the previous night. it only really dissipated around 10:30pm and when that happens, i always get a surge of energy and i don't feel like i have to sleep, ever. 

so it is nearly 2am now and i am here writing. 

i'm starting this again to get to know myself. i don't know if i have said that every time i've resuscitated a writing habit. but right now i have really hit a wall and there are no more options of escapism. i'm enumerating the ways i have in the past, so that i actively avoid them this time. will enumerate to myself to make it as imperative as possible:

1. you compare the writing habit you are trying to pick up, with the writing habit you used to possess. you are never going to have that kind of energy ever again, and you haven't even tried to honour the energy you have now.

2. you are a perfectionist. you can't tell a story if you haven't told one that came before it. you have an incredibly heavy backlog of about 7 years. whatever the story is in one moment and if it presents itself to you as something to be written, just obey and write it.

3. you feel that writing about yourself is self-indulgent. for some reason, this only ever applies to yourself, never anyone else. in fact you will call it out if someone doesn't introspect or talks small and irrelevant. you are not so inconsequential that your stories do not deserve to be written and told.

4. perhaps, you are afraid of yourself. afraid of the words and the thoughts you will find. afraid of how your words will impact yourself and what is around you. 

5. perhaps, you are afraid to love again. in any way. when was the last time you poured your heart into something? when was the last time you allowed something to be indispensable? something inside you has been dead for a long time because you wanted to fit into a mold. you wanted to get along.

but love will protect you as long as you are not afraid. so don't be.

no more escape. rather, inscape. to go into the inner depths.