At a certain moment in one's personal history, home as a concept is a paradox. That moment for me is now.
It is odd to be welcomed back "home" to a place that has never been my home. Not in the way most dream, smell, reminisce about whatever place that bore them. The land whose ground supports the foundation of their parents house. A town or city that echoes with the sounds of the childhood they had no choice but to leave behind. A home is usually filled with lifes' firsts or a place to return to for holidays and anniversaries. A one of a kind locale at the center of connective tissue that stretches to sounds, scents and stories.
The more liberal of the twin cities was never that kind of home for me. It was a place to grow up in a completely different way. To discover myself and create a life around that Lauren. That is why I will always have a soft spot in my heart for this place and more than anything the people.
Upon my return to Minneapolis, the place that both cultivated and corrupted me, I was welcomed with open arms. The word "home" embraced me with the outstretched appendages of a long lost love. It trickled off the tongues of friends and my second family. Always prefaced by "welcome" and "it is so good to have you back". Practical strangers seemed genuinely happy to see me. To be welcomed was expected. It was the welcomed "home" that threw me. It slid from people's mouths so easily that it was hard not to believe. In fact, I was almost convinced. Yet, somewhere in the ethereal place where personal memories and instinctive pride come together to create the connection you have to "home", I was awakened. There was a knee jerk reaction and that knee went straight to my gut. This was unexpected. I've never felt all that close to the small town in which I grew up, but something like betrayal filled my insides. Like somehow I had replaced my actual place of birth with something all together different. It was odd. It was like a different side of me was trying to make itself known. Some deep seeded attachment to a place I left easily and have yet to return permanently flashed before my eyes and then was gone.
Once I came back to reality I had to admit I made a home in Minneapolis during college and grad school but it was fabricated. It wasn't authentic and I mean that in the most positive way. I created it out of a need to feel completely myself in a place with people that accepted that person. Here I found people that made that transition seamless for me. The majority of my adult life was spent on the corners of 1st avenue between 4th and 6th street so it's definitely familiar.
But is it home?
Have I've always felt closer or more connected to a place where no family resides, no former playground stands, no historical deep rooted emotional connection exists? And if I do, does that make me messed up? Is that disrespecting my elders or upbringing? Is it turning my back on my roots?
I am glad to be back walking the streets that gave me a chance to get to know me better. The dark corners and bright lights that gave me the confidence to leave the place I call home as well as this place. When I left for Chicago four years ago I didn't know that I'd return. It wasn't clandestine. At least, not in my brain. But alas, I am back. Surrounded by 10,000 lakes and hundreds of thousands of memories. Talking to voices that my ears haven't heard in the flesh for years. Turning corners that almost seem familial but no longer resemble the picture in my mind's eye. Filling my days with doing things in Minneapolis for the first time again.
Home is a paradox when you return to a place that was never really your home.
Especially when you realize through its archetypes and architecture the world moved on without you but is still happy to have you back.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
The gates are golden...
Dark.
Dimly lit but still, somehow vibrant.
A fire breathing head, that smolders and cracks while it winds from sea level to such great heights. The air is always on aflame.
A cloud appears on the sidewalk like an apparition. A smell you cannot misconstrue. Yeast pumps into the street where transients and tourists salivate for completely different reasons.
The pungent scent of a salt that can only accommodate an alien food chain that is both on the higher and lower end of our own.
The unreality of its reality transformed a movie set into a landscape to live and love right before my eyes.
"Take my picture", floated on the night mingled and muddled with the scent of medicinal THC.
"Where'd you get that booty?", broke the night abruptly like the disappearance of the beam from a lighthouse stretching across a nothingness that fades into a deeper nothing.
Blues spread over the deep blue.
Cash exchanged for contraband that sustains sister cities across the ever-rotating globe.
High heels walk the crowded streets of history.
You can smell the ashes of Ashbury. You can feel melting in the pot. You can see the hum of a place that runs on the real ideal that anything goes.
If it happens here it most definitely doesn't have to stay.
Costumes moonlight as casual and couture. It is difficult to miss the fanfare.
Gold lame jackets of lizard lounges beckoning for the good old days. Vampire teeth suckling on a cigarette. Beehives and bow ties on boys. On girls.
Boys. Girls. Some both. Some neither.
There is no rhythm here because it is too melodic to just be a bass line but there is sound and a strong beat. Noise with intention, vibrating with purpose.
A multiple personality disorder displays itself like the proud tail of a male peacock. Each one layered in a beautiful arrangement. Still schizophrenic but well meaning and full of heart.
It's not hard to see its appeal. Both sex and judicial.
There is something addicting to the feeling of already fitting in. Just another patch on an infinite patchwork quilt. Between the hours of late night and early morning my sister and I became citizens of a city that showed us it's wonders, it's unsavory and it's unkept secrets.
I felt like I fell in love in the dark.
Perhaps that is the best way to fall.
Dimly lit but still, somehow vibrant.
A fire breathing head, that smolders and cracks while it winds from sea level to such great heights. The air is always on aflame.
A cloud appears on the sidewalk like an apparition. A smell you cannot misconstrue. Yeast pumps into the street where transients and tourists salivate for completely different reasons.
The pungent scent of a salt that can only accommodate an alien food chain that is both on the higher and lower end of our own.
The unreality of its reality transformed a movie set into a landscape to live and love right before my eyes.
"Take my picture", floated on the night mingled and muddled with the scent of medicinal THC.
"Where'd you get that booty?", broke the night abruptly like the disappearance of the beam from a lighthouse stretching across a nothingness that fades into a deeper nothing.
Blues spread over the deep blue.
Cash exchanged for contraband that sustains sister cities across the ever-rotating globe.
High heels walk the crowded streets of history.
You can smell the ashes of Ashbury. You can feel melting in the pot. You can see the hum of a place that runs on the real ideal that anything goes.
If it happens here it most definitely doesn't have to stay.
Costumes moonlight as casual and couture. It is difficult to miss the fanfare.
Gold lame jackets of lizard lounges beckoning for the good old days. Vampire teeth suckling on a cigarette. Beehives and bow ties on boys. On girls.
Boys. Girls. Some both. Some neither.
There is no rhythm here because it is too melodic to just be a bass line but there is sound and a strong beat. Noise with intention, vibrating with purpose.
A multiple personality disorder displays itself like the proud tail of a male peacock. Each one layered in a beautiful arrangement. Still schizophrenic but well meaning and full of heart.
It's not hard to see its appeal. Both sex and judicial.
There is something addicting to the feeling of already fitting in. Just another patch on an infinite patchwork quilt. Between the hours of late night and early morning my sister and I became citizens of a city that showed us it's wonders, it's unsavory and it's unkept secrets.
I felt like I fell in love in the dark.
Perhaps that is the best way to fall.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
The Flatlands...
As someone who comes from the Midwest, land of rolling hills, tall corn and flat lands, a place with that name doesn't exactly belong among the sparkling antennas and dark, black iron of the Hancock and Sears towers.
A name like 'The Flatlands' doesn't seem to fit a city like Chicago, at least not instinctually . Yet here it sits on the South side of the city surrounded by everything that isn't flat. Not even close. Well, that's not entirely true. Once the doors open and one is inside these walls everything is flat but only for a while and only to serve at the pleasure of the artist that stands before it with bottle, blade or brush in hand.
It is run on an energy of people. A humming that comes from inside the brain, the soul and the heart. This place has a lifeblood and it's made of ink mixed with sweat that pumps out colors Crayola doesn't tell us about as kids. These colors emanate from a variety of cones. Pressurized and pointed because you never know what will come next. They spread from bristles and fingertips. It is a living, breathing creature that allows visitors but never truly lets them in. One doesn't need a passport to come here, but one may feel jet-lagged upon the return to Earth.
This place is poetry in words expressed visually. It is camaraderie in solitude. It is home to some. A rest stop for others. A place that one may not love at first but will always want to leave last.
Ruled by creativity. Run on 808's. Rotated on an axis of late nights and the lyrics that the people of this world spit. An individual sound. A communal silence. A place ruled by a common passion. The result a common good. Uneven, rough, and jagged as the streets of the city on which it stands.
A land unto itself. Full of cramped, cluttered nooks and crannies packed with everything and nothing all at the same time. Masterpieces and just pieces. One man's trash. Another mans treasure. In this place something could be both to the same person depending on the time, place and mood.
Here colors have their own scent, a scent one is powerless not to take on. Lining its bowels are materials waiting to be molded. Or resting in a flash of new found inspiration, molded but forgotten. Layers upon layers of project upon project try desperately to blend into the floor or the walls. Failing miserably to do so, of course.
Scraps lie in piles on tables and against pipes wishing for the proverbial dog to gobble them up or bury them. In every corner one can find mismatched liquid rainbows. The harshness of metal penetrating, banging or protruding. Panels dripping wet with what is here today and possibly gone tomorrow.
There is plastic and piping. Trees get blown. Bottles get emptied. Conversation flows both with words and without. Art becomes greater than artwork.
It is an amalgamation of paint. Wood. Paper. It is a concoction of film. Cotton. Fumes. A never-ending bass line that makes dreads, braids and baseball caps bob up and down. It don't matter if you’re black or white here. For real. This place, this world opens itself up to you as long as you have access to someone who has the key.
Welcome to The Flatlands.
A landscape that makes the name so much more than ironic.
A name like 'The Flatlands' doesn't seem to fit a city like Chicago, at least not instinctually . Yet here it sits on the South side of the city surrounded by everything that isn't flat. Not even close. Well, that's not entirely true. Once the doors open and one is inside these walls everything is flat but only for a while and only to serve at the pleasure of the artist that stands before it with bottle, blade or brush in hand.
It is run on an energy of people. A humming that comes from inside the brain, the soul and the heart. This place has a lifeblood and it's made of ink mixed with sweat that pumps out colors Crayola doesn't tell us about as kids. These colors emanate from a variety of cones. Pressurized and pointed because you never know what will come next. They spread from bristles and fingertips. It is a living, breathing creature that allows visitors but never truly lets them in. One doesn't need a passport to come here, but one may feel jet-lagged upon the return to Earth.
This place is poetry in words expressed visually. It is camaraderie in solitude. It is home to some. A rest stop for others. A place that one may not love at first but will always want to leave last.
Ruled by creativity. Run on 808's. Rotated on an axis of late nights and the lyrics that the people of this world spit. An individual sound. A communal silence. A place ruled by a common passion. The result a common good. Uneven, rough, and jagged as the streets of the city on which it stands.
A land unto itself. Full of cramped, cluttered nooks and crannies packed with everything and nothing all at the same time. Masterpieces and just pieces. One man's trash. Another mans treasure. In this place something could be both to the same person depending on the time, place and mood.
Here colors have their own scent, a scent one is powerless not to take on. Lining its bowels are materials waiting to be molded. Or resting in a flash of new found inspiration, molded but forgotten. Layers upon layers of project upon project try desperately to blend into the floor or the walls. Failing miserably to do so, of course.
Scraps lie in piles on tables and against pipes wishing for the proverbial dog to gobble them up or bury them. In every corner one can find mismatched liquid rainbows. The harshness of metal penetrating, banging or protruding. Panels dripping wet with what is here today and possibly gone tomorrow.
There is plastic and piping. Trees get blown. Bottles get emptied. Conversation flows both with words and without. Art becomes greater than artwork.
It is an amalgamation of paint. Wood. Paper. It is a concoction of film. Cotton. Fumes. A never-ending bass line that makes dreads, braids and baseball caps bob up and down. It don't matter if you’re black or white here. For real. This place, this world opens itself up to you as long as you have access to someone who has the key.
Welcome to The Flatlands.
A landscape that makes the name so much more than ironic.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
She's got legs...
and doesn't know how to use them?
Legs are so strange. They are the foundation of your body there to serve a functional purpose for most. You know, a way to get from here to there. They can be strong. They can be stubby. They can be gorgeous. They can be long. They can be overlooked. They can be the center attention and names like Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth have made legs so much more than the most archaic way to travel.
While I must say I love those women for reasons other than their legs, like their voluptuousness, moxie, gumption and pin up... it's their legs that have me writing today. I for one can appreciate someone who has really great legs. The kind of legs that turn heads. The kind of legs that have covetous knees. Yes, I said covetous and knees in the same sentence. The kind of legs that have a definition in the calves. A contour from top to bottom. A shape at the ankle. Different lines running parallel and perpendicular towards the ground. Graceful. Curvaceous. Silhouetted. The kind of legs that made the aforementioned women famous.
Well guess what? Those are not the kind of legs I have. So, while I appreciate the women who were known for their stems I also secretly hate them. Not only have knee surgeries and bike accidents scarred my, what I lovingly refer to as ‘trunks’, genetics haven’t helped me out one bit. My mother would attest to this, so I will publicly thank her and the women that have come before her for my walking sticks. The gene pool has left me with thick thighs, knock knees, high arches, and undefined calves… I mean the list goes on and on. I have all the trappings of killer legs, but in my case it’s killer of a serial kind.
I will always watch classic Hollywood films and stare in wonder at the way Marilyn and Jane Russell sauntered across the screen. Or the way Vera Ellen and Ginger Rogers floated seemingly inches off the floor. Their legs were a tribute to these women. I would argue their legs were a tribute to legs themselves. Little girls and grown women have stared longingly at the pinup of Betty Grable and sighed accordingly. Men have as well. Double takes and catcalls. Green eyes and pouting faces. Great legs have the kind of power to cause involuntary reactions. And when it comes to reactions, and legs for that matter, I will always be a bridesmaid, never a bride.
Legs are so strange. They are the foundation of your body there to serve a functional purpose for most. You know, a way to get from here to there. They can be strong. They can be stubby. They can be gorgeous. They can be long. They can be overlooked. They can be the center attention and names like Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth have made legs so much more than the most archaic way to travel.
While I must say I love those women for reasons other than their legs, like their voluptuousness, moxie, gumption and pin up... it's their legs that have me writing today. I for one can appreciate someone who has really great legs. The kind of legs that turn heads. The kind of legs that have covetous knees. Yes, I said covetous and knees in the same sentence. The kind of legs that have a definition in the calves. A contour from top to bottom. A shape at the ankle. Different lines running parallel and perpendicular towards the ground. Graceful. Curvaceous. Silhouetted. The kind of legs that made the aforementioned women famous.
Well guess what? Those are not the kind of legs I have. So, while I appreciate the women who were known for their stems I also secretly hate them. Not only have knee surgeries and bike accidents scarred my, what I lovingly refer to as ‘trunks’, genetics haven’t helped me out one bit. My mother would attest to this, so I will publicly thank her and the women that have come before her for my walking sticks. The gene pool has left me with thick thighs, knock knees, high arches, and undefined calves… I mean the list goes on and on. I have all the trappings of killer legs, but in my case it’s killer of a serial kind.
I will always watch classic Hollywood films and stare in wonder at the way Marilyn and Jane Russell sauntered across the screen. Or the way Vera Ellen and Ginger Rogers floated seemingly inches off the floor. Their legs were a tribute to these women. I would argue their legs were a tribute to legs themselves. Little girls and grown women have stared longingly at the pinup of Betty Grable and sighed accordingly. Men have as well. Double takes and catcalls. Green eyes and pouting faces. Great legs have the kind of power to cause involuntary reactions. And when it comes to reactions, and legs for that matter, I will always be a bridesmaid, never a bride.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Puzzles...
You know that feeling when you're doing a puzzle and you search and search because some of the pieces are almost perfect but then bend and warp slightly. Just enough to realize that it isn't the right piece.
Then you know the feeling you get when you actually find the piece that fits perfectly. That sense of excitement, accomplishment and also calm that follows. Calm because it fits. There is no fighting. There is no pushing. There is no trying to squeeze something in where it doesn't belong. It is easy. It puts you at ease.
That is how relationships should be. As a person who has always said "the people who walk around thinking relationships are easy should be shot", I guess I sort of agree with them. I mean don't get me wrong they are work. Work to make them successful, to be always present in them and sustain them. However, as far as a partner goes or the piece you find it doesn't have to be. In fact, it shouldn't be that hard.
The things that have warped you in the past are actually things that endear them to you. The things that have bent and buckled before are appreciated, wanted even. The pushing and squeezing is replaced by pulling in and letting go.
The cynic in me says "nothing is perfect", but the hopeless romantic in me says "a perfect fit does exist".
Relationships are just like a puzzle, there are plenty of pieces that almost fit...but there is only one that fits perfectly.
edited by kristin haley
Then you know the feeling you get when you actually find the piece that fits perfectly. That sense of excitement, accomplishment and also calm that follows. Calm because it fits. There is no fighting. There is no pushing. There is no trying to squeeze something in where it doesn't belong. It is easy. It puts you at ease.
That is how relationships should be. As a person who has always said "the people who walk around thinking relationships are easy should be shot", I guess I sort of agree with them. I mean don't get me wrong they are work. Work to make them successful, to be always present in them and sustain them. However, as far as a partner goes or the piece you find it doesn't have to be. In fact, it shouldn't be that hard.
The things that have warped you in the past are actually things that endear them to you. The things that have bent and buckled before are appreciated, wanted even. The pushing and squeezing is replaced by pulling in and letting go.
The cynic in me says "nothing is perfect", but the hopeless romantic in me says "a perfect fit does exist".
Relationships are just like a puzzle, there are plenty of pieces that almost fit...but there is only one that fits perfectly.
edited by kristin haley
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Penny and the Packers...
There are a lot of things that mothers and daughters bond over. Shopping. Movies. Gardening. Cooking. Men. While I can't say that Penny and I have never bonded over any of the aforementioned things, I know with complete certainty that nothing brings us closer together then men.
Specifically, men in uniform. More specifically, men in the unmistakable green and gold of a Green Bay Packer jersey.
Sundays, Mondays and during the playoffs... Saturdays include cross state, country, at times continent phone calls and text messages for collective celebrations and disappointments. We yell through the phone, we curse through text messages. When my mother was given Packers tickets for the last game of the 2010 season, she took me. When the Packers beat the Vikings and I was in Denmark, I called her at 5am in the morning because I knew she would be watching. It is a relationship that some would call unconventional, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
It started when I was a very young. I can't remember a time when the Packers weren't on in some room of the house. I remember going over to my grandparents house to watch as a kid, and seeing my mother and her mother bonding the same way. Screaming 'you toad' at Don Majkowski and his crazy mullet, or in grandmother's case the referees. Crying when Reggie White died. I remember my grandmother and mother not having very nice things to say about the likes of Mark Chmura and Antonio Freeman after their escapades came to press. Recognizing that the rest of the league pays homage to a man who coached us for 10 years and brought us two Super Bowl trophies. And then to watch Brett Favre , braces and all bring us back there in 1996. I was 13. There is the Lambeau leap. The Gilbert Burger. The experience of being at the stadium itself. My dad giving up his corporate tickets so that mom and I could go sit in his box seats. Watching the UW-Madison marching band celebrate center field after the Pack beat the Cowboys, which at the the time was a big rivalry. Sterling Sharpe's career ending injury. Mike Holmgren leaving and taking what seemed like our entire coaching staff with him, and subsequently trying to stifle a grin when his street sign was rumored to have disappeared. Sam Con. Brooks. Bennett. Matt Flynn out performing Tom Brady. Non-profit, community owned. The training camp bicycle tradition. And of course watching a hero of any Green Bay fan become a sad, pathetic media train wreck.
Yeah, we have cheered through the good, the bad and the very very ugly because the words fair weather were never used in our house. In fact I think my mother inadvertently used Sunday games as a teaching opportunity. She is a teacher after all. She taught me you can still sound positive when you are yelling nasty things at Cris Collinsworth. That it is okay to be irrationally passionate. That it's possible to lose with grace. That you can't control everything. That you are never to old to celebrate like it is Christmas morning. That there is no such thing as semi-loyal. That it is important to honor your personal history. And that love is a labor that you should take on with your whole heart.
The relationship my mother and I have with the Packers, has made our relationship stronger in a way that many including my sister and father don't really understand. But in spite of that, they are still there right next to us in the living room anytime my mom and I are together for a game. Why? Because there is nothing like watching us watch the Packers.
Oh, and Mom if you read this. I am coming home on Saturday night so we can watch our boys. Go PACK!!!
Specifically, men in uniform. More specifically, men in the unmistakable green and gold of a Green Bay Packer jersey.
Sundays, Mondays and during the playoffs... Saturdays include cross state, country, at times continent phone calls and text messages for collective celebrations and disappointments. We yell through the phone, we curse through text messages. When my mother was given Packers tickets for the last game of the 2010 season, she took me. When the Packers beat the Vikings and I was in Denmark, I called her at 5am in the morning because I knew she would be watching. It is a relationship that some would call unconventional, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
It started when I was a very young. I can't remember a time when the Packers weren't on in some room of the house. I remember going over to my grandparents house to watch as a kid, and seeing my mother and her mother bonding the same way. Screaming 'you toad' at Don Majkowski and his crazy mullet, or in grandmother's case the referees. Crying when Reggie White died. I remember my grandmother and mother not having very nice things to say about the likes of Mark Chmura and Antonio Freeman after their escapades came to press. Recognizing that the rest of the league pays homage to a man who coached us for 10 years and brought us two Super Bowl trophies. And then to watch Brett Favre , braces and all bring us back there in 1996. I was 13. There is the Lambeau leap. The Gilbert Burger. The experience of being at the stadium itself. My dad giving up his corporate tickets so that mom and I could go sit in his box seats. Watching the UW-Madison marching band celebrate center field after the Pack beat the Cowboys, which at the the time was a big rivalry. Sterling Sharpe's career ending injury. Mike Holmgren leaving and taking what seemed like our entire coaching staff with him, and subsequently trying to stifle a grin when his street sign was rumored to have disappeared. Sam Con. Brooks. Bennett. Matt Flynn out performing Tom Brady. Non-profit, community owned. The training camp bicycle tradition. And of course watching a hero of any Green Bay fan become a sad, pathetic media train wreck.
Yeah, we have cheered through the good, the bad and the very very ugly because the words fair weather were never used in our house. In fact I think my mother inadvertently used Sunday games as a teaching opportunity. She is a teacher after all. She taught me you can still sound positive when you are yelling nasty things at Cris Collinsworth. That it is okay to be irrationally passionate. That it's possible to lose with grace. That you can't control everything. That you are never to old to celebrate like it is Christmas morning. That there is no such thing as semi-loyal. That it is important to honor your personal history. And that love is a labor that you should take on with your whole heart.
The relationship my mother and I have with the Packers, has made our relationship stronger in a way that many including my sister and father don't really understand. But in spite of that, they are still there right next to us in the living room anytime my mom and I are together for a game. Why? Because there is nothing like watching us watch the Packers.
Oh, and Mom if you read this. I am coming home on Saturday night so we can watch our boys. Go PACK!!!
Sunday, December 5, 2010
The Dark Side of Transparency...
Honesty is the best policy. Yeah we have all heard it before, but my malleable adolescent brain must have absorbed that golden rule at a much higher capacity than others. Or perhaps it was my inclination towards bending the truth as a child, a punishable offense in my house, that branded it into my brain. At this point in my life honesty is almost a compulsion.
I tell the truth in every way possible. You know how omitting the truth, is just a different way of lying? Yeah that is what I mean. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I can't keep my opinion to myself. I give more information than necessary. If there is something on my mind you'll know it. Poker champion I will never be. Honestly, I even speak in an authoritative manner that makes my personal perspective sound like fact. I answer questions after these obligatory caveats
'Do you really want my honest opinion?' or 'This is going to sound horrible but...'
with complete and unsparing truth. Like I said it's a compulsion.
Of course my sharp tongue can lash with the best of them. I have hurt those close to me and while they say they love and accept me for my honesty, it still hurts to know I have hurt them. After all, you can only say you are sorry so many times before you've rendered the word completely and utterly useless. And forget first impressions. There is no recovering from being a bitch in front of or to a new acquaintance or complete stranger. You can't.
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." That is so true Ms. Angelou. How do I know? Well because I have been on the receiving end too. At some point the tables always turn.
In this case I am referring to my feelings. I have a heart that is among the easier to bruise. I've let down and left my guard around my ankles many times for exploiters both hidden and obvious to take advantage of. The only thing that follows is disbelief, self doubt and deflation. It's hard to bounce back when you are only half full.
Any sense of empathy or imagination can see this makes for quite the precarious situation. It is as if I am always walking on a tightrope, balancing between violently active verbs and a hopelessly romantic heart. Both of which are inherent to who I am and have become. I watch my words fly like arrows, wishing I could swallow them the minute after I let them fly. I watch my heart fall harder, faster wishing it wasn't made of glass and I wasn't standing on concrete. And because at this point it has become habit, it is definitely a hard one to break.
A very good friend of mine recently told me that I have this crazy curious, doe-eyed naivete whose companion is solid, unfaltering conviction. No one has ever gotten it so dead on. I am so transparent in some situations, you can practically see through me. I am as opaque in others that you wouldn't even bother trying to argue with me. Quite the dichotomy. Definitely an internal struggle. After all, how do you change something that at 27 has become so much a part of you?
While I would never want to change completely, I know I could be honest with more grace. A lot more. I know I could be transparent and self-preserving at the same time. At least when I need to be.
I recognize these traits are assets in specific situations. I realize that for some they are honorable, they are envy inducing, they are even the correct way to respond. I don't necessarily disagree, but I have learned that honesty isn't always the best, especially when brutal. Truth will out the nasty as well as the good and it is easy to be overlooked when you're completely transparent.
I tell the truth in every way possible. You know how omitting the truth, is just a different way of lying? Yeah that is what I mean. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I can't keep my opinion to myself. I give more information than necessary. If there is something on my mind you'll know it. Poker champion I will never be. Honestly, I even speak in an authoritative manner that makes my personal perspective sound like fact. I answer questions after these obligatory caveats
'Do you really want my honest opinion?' or 'This is going to sound horrible but...'
with complete and unsparing truth. Like I said it's a compulsion.
Of course my sharp tongue can lash with the best of them. I have hurt those close to me and while they say they love and accept me for my honesty, it still hurts to know I have hurt them. After all, you can only say you are sorry so many times before you've rendered the word completely and utterly useless. And forget first impressions. There is no recovering from being a bitch in front of or to a new acquaintance or complete stranger. You can't.
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." That is so true Ms. Angelou. How do I know? Well because I have been on the receiving end too. At some point the tables always turn.
In this case I am referring to my feelings. I have a heart that is among the easier to bruise. I've let down and left my guard around my ankles many times for exploiters both hidden and obvious to take advantage of. The only thing that follows is disbelief, self doubt and deflation. It's hard to bounce back when you are only half full.
Any sense of empathy or imagination can see this makes for quite the precarious situation. It is as if I am always walking on a tightrope, balancing between violently active verbs and a hopelessly romantic heart. Both of which are inherent to who I am and have become. I watch my words fly like arrows, wishing I could swallow them the minute after I let them fly. I watch my heart fall harder, faster wishing it wasn't made of glass and I wasn't standing on concrete. And because at this point it has become habit, it is definitely a hard one to break.
A very good friend of mine recently told me that I have this crazy curious, doe-eyed naivete whose companion is solid, unfaltering conviction. No one has ever gotten it so dead on. I am so transparent in some situations, you can practically see through me. I am as opaque in others that you wouldn't even bother trying to argue with me. Quite the dichotomy. Definitely an internal struggle. After all, how do you change something that at 27 has become so much a part of you?
While I would never want to change completely, I know I could be honest with more grace. A lot more. I know I could be transparent and self-preserving at the same time. At least when I need to be.
I recognize these traits are assets in specific situations. I realize that for some they are honorable, they are envy inducing, they are even the correct way to respond. I don't necessarily disagree, but I have learned that honesty isn't always the best, especially when brutal. Truth will out the nasty as well as the good and it is easy to be overlooked when you're completely transparent.
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