The Fine Line Between True Feelings and True Love

Sometimes our conversations have long pauses between speaking. At first, I took his silence for pouting or being quietly mad; for that's how I felt when I was silent, which wasn't very often really (me? silent?). But now we both pause similarly when having certain kinds of conversations. Long, quiet moments where we carefully and thoughtfully consider what we are about to say, before we say it. It is understood that the pauses are a matter of care for each other, gentleness with each other's feelings, sensitivity to our friendship, and a genuine desire for honesty and truth rather than reactionary feelings.

Guaging the pause is always delicate. Too short and I might say something rash. Too long and it can be misinterpreted, or else I lose my chance to respond because he will take another moment to clarify or expound.

The scriptures talk, at one point, about "reproving betimes with sharpness" -- a weird, almost non-sensical statement, which really means: "say it now, don't wait, deal with things in the moment or else they'll spin out of control." And I've found it so true, yet so hard to adhere to. I am so wary of saying something I'll regret in the future. I so much want to be careful. And yet, if I say nothing, but harbor ill feelings, they only make it worse later.

I have to be honest with myself: am I afraid of speaking my mind now because I might be hurtful, or do I mostly just not want to be wrong? Many times, I mostly just don't want to be wrong. My genuine desire to say something true gets twisted into feeling the need to be right. It's fine to want truth, except that sometimes you have to express the possibly-wrong thing you're feeling in order to find the truth. Sometimes only by inviting another person's point of view can you even begin to see it. Sometimes you need to humility to go out on a limb and say how you feel, only to discover your own selfishness, pride, egotism, and lack of love for another.

I hate being wrong. But I hate being unloving more. But some days I can't be everything that I want to be. Some days I wake up sad or selfish or depressed or indifferent or preoccupied and on those days sometimes I can't find the fine line between true feelings and true love.

...pant pant pant. It's over. And boy do I feel happy now!

Click Here to see about my CD Release. I was terrified! I was more nervous than I've ever been in my life, including my wedding day. And it went great... such satisfaction :)

If you can't win an argument on the merits of your position, win it on grammar.

"I am an innocent bystander" Jared said. "I'm just cooking the chicken. You bought it."

"You're supporting the inhumane treatment of chickens just as much as I am," I argued. I had bought the cheapest chicken available at Winco the day before, and I almost felt guilty, since in order to produce them for so cheap, the chickens surely must be mistreated and abused at some mass chicken-plant somewhere. I had admitted as much to Jared, saying we were supporting the industry, which started the discussion.

I continued... "I merely bought chickens that were already killed. It's not like I'm the one who abused them. Someone else would have bought these chickens if I hadn't."

"Well, I'm just preventing waste," he responded. "If I didn't cook these poor dead chickens, no one would, since you already bought them. It is true that if you hadn't bought them, someone else still might have bought these very chicken breasts. BUT, since you did buy them, more chickens have to be abused and killed to fill the demand, since you supported the cheap, abusive, chicken trade. If you hadn't bought these chickens, less chickens would have...."

"fewer chickens" I humphed. pause....

Jared rolled his eyes, "well, you can say 'less' chickens or 'fewer' chickens, but either way..."

"No you can't say 'less chickens,' that's grammaticlly incorrect! You can only say 'fewer chickens' since the chickens are quantifiable. Now, if you wanted to say 'less chickEN' then that's fine, but inasmuch as you're talking about multiple chickens, and you can count them, it's 'fewer'"

ha. take that, Jared.

I win now, right?

Walk in the Woods... I mean Swamp

Yesterday I didn't feel so good, so I went for a liesurely walk instead of my usual (up & down up & down the biggest hill I could find within 5 minutes of my house). I also wanted to stay in the sunshine, so I walked past the library and along the railroad tracks.

Behind my house is a swamp, and through the swamp runs fanno creek. It's all fenced off, and no one really goes in there. What I found was that behind the swamp is a lot more. A Big field and trees and lots of other cool open beautiful space. I walked around and around, took pictures of all the pretty things.

Swamps are somehow scary to me. Are they to all people? It started getting dark, but even in the daylight there's something eerie about the stillness, the silence, the deadness, andyet lurking life in a swamp. The fact that you can't easily get from point A to point B, the fact that you're never sure if your foot will hit ground or water under the thick reeds, the fact that you occassionally hear another creature, but never see it. The strange sense and smell of living decay.

When I was little we lived near a swamp. It was THE place for adventure and bravery, among Pixton kids. I had lots of scary experiences there, that threatened my life(in my childhood view). Snakes, frogs, half-eaten birds and animals, "nearly" drowning, and other stuff like that. Maybe I'm only uneasy in the swamp because that was how I felt as a child. But somehow I think almost any sensitive person would feel that way... if caught exploring there alone, no one knowing where you are, the sun fixin' to set.

I tried to get back. I didn't know if I could cross the swamp/creek, but I wanted to try. There must be a fallen log somewhere. It was getting dark. I knew Coyotes lived back there and surely other stuff. I was getting caught on brambles, tripping in holes and marshy mushy ground. I found all things mysterious and beautiful and scary. Finally I found (miraculously) a fallen bridge. I was sure it was unsafe, but going back the way I came, alone, in the dark, was not safe either. Deep, muddy water swirled below. I said a silent prayer and stepped slowly and carefully along the teetering brace.

On the other side a man told me about the blue heron who lives nearby and introduced me to his dog. I felt I had just cheated death, or childhood, or both. And life was normal again already.

Emily's Book

I'm reading it... to edit it of course. I just have the first 100 pages. It's amazing.

And I appear in it too, as a character, so that's fun. Or it was supposed to be. She gave me all the necessary disclaimers: "it's a character based on you, I can't represent you exactly, blah blah blah" ...I'm a songwriter. I know.

I was prepared for her embellishing her assessment of things maybe. But this may be one of the hardest things I've ever done. I got to the part where people in the ward asked her... "so, what's it like living with her?" and all the mean things people said about me behind my back. ...............i'm so crushed. i had no idea. i lay awake in bed last night for hours, tears welling up in my eyes. people i thought were my friends said those things about me?! people didn't like me? i must be so naive! i always imagine that everyone likes me. after all, i like everyone. there's hardly anyone i don't like, and i certainly don't say mean things about other people behind their backs! i just can hardly believe it. But i also know it's true. it makes sense. sometimes i sensed gossip or something-less-than-good-will from people. i never thought it was about me.

i don't really know how to take it. It reminds me of the 4th grade. I had long been the class geek. One time there was an obvious secret among my classmates, and it was obviously about me and Matt. I tried to listen to the whispers, the looks, the taunts, to figure out what it was about. They even invented a secret code-language. One day, my two best friends -- the other geeks in the school -- learned the language and began talking behind my back. I wasn't worried about it. Just flattered. I told them I knew what it was about kindof. They said, "oh, what?" I said that Matt liked me (I knew that he was planning to ask me to "go" with him). They laughed and laughed. Turns out Matt lost a bet with his best friend, and his punishment was to ask me to go with him. In that moment my little teachers-pet-smart-innocent-kid-who-played-with-ladybugs world was shattered. Instead of being the desirable person I thought I was, I was the lowest of the low. I was a PUNISHMENT for this kid. And everyone else thought it was hilarious. Even my best friends.

I had no friends that day.

Nor any day for a long time after.

Since adulthood I have considered myself lucky: popular and well-liked with lots of friends and amazing people in my life. Have I just spent my life thinking that was an isolated incident of childhood cruelty, when in fact, I have always been quietly despised and murmured against?

Do I have any friends now?

I dreamt last night that Jared left me. That I found a new boyfriend, but I wasn't happy, and I wanted to call Jared and beg him to come back. I woke up and tried to put my arm around him, to remind myself that he was there and he pushed it away. I tried again, he pushed again, harder. Then he rolled and pushed my whole body away. ... I know he's asleep when he does this. I know he doesn't know he's doing it. But I also know I'm asleep when I have bad dreams. They don't hurt any less, they are no less scary. And his pushing me away is no less painful, in those moment, than if he looked me straight in the eye and did it on purpose.

I think the 4th-grader in me never really grew up, and I still fear nothing more than rejection.

hold me closer
than you've ever been
to the moon
on those harvest nights
hold me closer
than you've ever been
to the womb
at the beginning of our lives

and help me to find my soul this time
before I lose you, lose my mind
help me to find....

Stupid Wife Things

Last night it rained all night like crazy. I drove Jared's car home from a party, for reasons not important here, and like the quintissential wife, I did a stupid-wife-thing and left the headlights on. I also didn't park it in the garage because I could see a bike encroaching on the car space (Jared's car is wider and harder to fit in the garage than mine, I didn't want to risk scratching it, and I was too lazy to get out and move the bike).

Why do wives always do stupid things? When I was single, I was brilliantly smart, and did everything in a self-actuating, independent and intelligent manner.

Now that I'm a wife, I do stupid wife-things.

So this morning Jared's car 1) wouldn't start, and 2) was flooded and soaking inside from the rain.

My fault. Well... the battery being dead is my fault. The flooding is an unrelated problem that coincided by coincidence (hey, those words are, like, the same word!), but it took us all morning to figure that out.

I'm secretly happy about the car problems because Jared was home for an extra couple hours morning. I love mornings with Jared. But I don't have the discipline to get up 2 hours earlier than I need to just to talk to him while he gets dressed and reads cnn.com.