a liquid diet

"I want to be like water.
I want to slip through fingers but hold up a ship."

And that's all I want to be.

Apathetic or Maudlin?

I feel like I lost something today.

To be cliché, something I never really had.

Something I shouldn't have.

I have been frustrated lately. I've felt caged in and frustrated.

Taking a lot of deep breaths, counting to ten.

I feel like I don't know what I'm doing, what my next move should be.

I don't know what I want or what is best.

I can't tell...

I'm starting to doubt if this is right for me.

Ode to Nostalgia

I got off work early tonight.
Went home (well, to Meg's) and ordered a Papa John's pizza. Pepperoni of course.
I settle down with my Harry Potter book, break out my laptop to give facebook a quick glance, and am overcome by the urge to pick up the phone and dial a number I haven't dialed in months.
Not that I can't call it, like it would be inappropriate or awkward. But because the number I want to dial won't work, as the person it belongs to is in Canada.
Oh Canada. The summers I have cursed you...

I want to call my friend and apologize.
I want to call my friend so he knows how much I do and always will care.
I want to call my friend and talk about music and life.
I want to call my friend because I miss laughing so hard my stomach hurt, smiling until I thought my cheeks would break, and having those rare deep conversations where I know the things he says have never touched another's ear.

And maybe I'm nostalgic.
But really... I think I just miss a person who has been actively involved in my life for almost eight years now.

Really, I think I just miss one of my best friends.

god and i

were good friends.

I was in first grade when my feelings on religion changed.

I was raised Protestant. attended Sunday school every week and church after that.

Maybe I did not always pay attention.. but we prayed before we ate each night, holding hands at the dinner table.

And then it was my first day of school. I was six years old and ready to go, with my little backpack and my uniform (a plaid jumper and white polo).

I was the epitome of adorable.

Walk in to school, get lost immediately. The second grade teacher, guides me across the hall to the right classroom.. and there she stood. Sister Carol. In all her habit-ed glory.

And then came Father Mike - so handsome, so kind, so funny.

Second grade. My class was doing that second sacrament (technically third, I think): holy communion.

I wanted so badly to participate.

I wanted so badly to have that connection with God.

So I was baptized, on Easter in second grade. I wore a white dress, I held a candle, and I took a bath in Father Mike's holy water.

Next step: converting my entire family to Catholicism. Easy.

First communion? Piece of cake.

I was drawing pictures of God (a stick figure with a beard) in my diary at this point. I was also writing songs about how much I loved him. They went a little something like, "I love you lord, I love you, for all of my life." You know, really clever lines like that.

And to top it all off, I wanted to be a teaching nun. Just like Sister Carol

I wrote in my prayer journal up until the middle of fourth grade.

When mom and dad had their messy divorce, grandpa got cancer, and everything (felt like it) went to hell.

I still believed in god, then. Lots of kids go through those same things. It's part of growing up.
I still prayed. I still asked him for help and forgiveness. I still went to church and hugged Father Mike after every mass and took my eucharist and thanked the father, son, and holy spirit for it.

I don't know when I lost faith. I don't know when I stopped writing my songs to god.

I don't know when I stopped enjoying church as much as I did.

I don't think it coincided with any specific event. I think I just got older and my thoughts became more complex and I became, I hate to say it, less gullible.
I knew that prayer wouldn't fix all the problems in the world or make people less hateful or violent or intolerant.

I think I was in seventh grade when we had a guest pastor who gave his sermon about stem cell research and gay marriage and I thought to myself.. "well, that's not right"

And I wondered how an institution I believed in so much, that I put so much time and love and effort into, could be so.. wrong.

Because the Catholic church is so twisted and wrong and judgmental.

And I don't think I am cut out for that.

And I couldn't find anything better to believe in, so I walked away from religion all together.

And I walked away from god. And rarely looked back.

I dabbled in church off and on for a few years. I went back to my church every now and then. I went to a friends church. I participated in the youth group.

I could just never get that feeling back.

The feeling that I believe in something, something big and beautiful that will somehow help me, someday, somewhere along the way.

I may not believe in god.

But I believe in love, in music, in the kindness of people.

I have beliefs. I have faith.

And if someone were to prove me wrong about the big man, I wouldn't argue them down or be disappointed.

Because I have my faith. That's all I need.

And I'm sticking to it.