The Hardest Thing

There it is again- that wall
It comes up subconsciously when you start ordering me
What to do and don’t and how to not do it
And before I’ve even crossed a line-
Because I was simply admiring it-
You say stop and I turn, bewildered
Every impulse in me to disobey shoots off
No guy is allowed to order me around
No man tells me what I can’t do, how I should behave
Save your lessons for your dog, I almost say
‘Submissive’ has never been part of my vocabulary
Then I pause
And I break down the wall
Because I see it too- the path we could go down
Full of unnecessary drama
Fights and issues, hurting you and me too in the end
All to prove a worthless point
So I kick myself for even saying anything
And vow to swallow my pride
Thus proving my love for you
Outweighs everything

It Was Always You

As we grew up, I dreamed of him
Even as I said I’d never want a guy
I’d catch his eye and be startled at the emotion I felt
Even as I tried and succeeded at being the tough girl
She told me he wanted to save someone
And I wanted it to be me
Even when I didn’t see him for months
As soon as I did, our pattern continued
Our way of getting so close then shying away
The smell of his cologne drove me mad
The desire to have him closer never faded
The way I’d hang onto his every word
And he’d duck his head bashfully and laugh along with me
Eyes shining and laughs bouncing
The things he’d remember made my head spin
Every inside joke and loaded question intrigued me
My heart raced just to have his attention
Even when I was with someone else
Part of me still wanted to be with him
Even as he lies to me, I listen eagerly
Even though he’s got no future, I want to be part of it
Even though he’s wrong for me….
Well haven’t we all loved someone who always remained
Just beyond our reach?

Beyond your View

If there was something else you wanted to do
You would tell me, right?
He asks me so innocently and I almost laugh
At the irony of that question
There is so much I don’t tell him
But mostly, lately, my secrets only number one
The fact that I’m always dreaming of what I can’t have
You merely mentioned he was leaving soon and I went numb
My mind already racing with ways to make him mine
There is nothing I want to do
And nowhere I need to be
Because of you and the invisible chains
You have fastened tightly around me
Once someone saves your life
You’re forever in their debt
It’s as if one burden is taken away from you
And another unbearable one replaces it
I never realized how hard it’d be
To make you happy- it means staying pout
When all I WANT to do is run away
Into his arms

Even At My Worst He’s There

One day I walked until I fell
My heart so heavy I couldn’t bear it
Unless I was standing still
I sat wedged between two fallen trees
Out there, feeling of loneliness are allowed to be
So my pent-up confusion flowed down my face
My anxiety dug through the rotting bark
My pain cringed over the calm creek
The feeling I hide from everyone else
Are freely released in my safe forest
Then the feelings passed, leaving me empty again
My phone buzzed unrepentantly
I looked through bleary lenses
I love you
He wrote, just a random reminder
Of why I can’t be the girl who cries alone anymore
Of why I have to be strong and survive
Of why I need to trust and be willing
To share my thoughts with animate objects
One day I wanted to run away from him
And he made it impossible for me to go
Without even knowing what I was thinking

Why I LIE

Because it doesn’t HURT you
The way the TRUTH would
Because that way you don’t SEE
How DARK I tend to be
Because HONESTY for me
Is blunt, HARSH, and unfeeling
Because all through my LIFE
Lies were the ONLY way I survived
Because the WAY you’d look at me
If I blurted out the TRUTH
Would be unbearably disappointed and SHOCKED
Because it’s all I know
It’s all I’m CAPABLE of
Because I’m AFRAID of truth
It’s so rarely necessary
So rarely HELPS anything
So rarely SAVES me
Because it’s easier for BOTH of us

Stop and Go

Have you ever accidentally hit the gas pedal
Instead of the brakes?
Suddenly you’re surging forward
When you meant to slow down
The car jerks ahead and your brain gets confused
It’s the strongest sensation ever
The damage will be inevitable
For once you lunge forward
It’s hard to brake than keep going aimlessly
Harder still to reverse than break
Yet our instincts propel us to go back
Knowing the danger that can be caused
When you mean to slow down and find yourself speeding up
Careening towards a certain doom and terror
I’ve got to slam on my brakes
Instead of speeding towards that cliff

Secure

I found my soul mate
I found a guy who wants to show me off when I’m wearing sweats
A guy who follows me around because he wants to be near me
A guy who’s always there when I need something
No matter how ridiculous it is
A guy who indulges me constantly
A guy who thinks that what I’m thinking is important
More important than anything else, even
A guy who sees my bad side and says he has one too
He gets jealous when other guys even LOOK at me
Wants to wrap me up and tell them to stay away
He lets me dream of the ocean, of moving far away
Because, he says, he’d follow me anywhere
He’d drive hours if it meant doing me a favor
He’d buy me everything I touched if I let him
He’d sit beside me forever, not doing anything
So long as I’m there, he is
And he’s happy just to hear my voice, to see my face
I know
Not just because he tells me endlessly
But because I feel the exact same way
He loves me, despite my flaws that he brushes away
Despite my mood swings and temper
My confusing ways that annoy him sometimes
The way I just cannot be honest
He pushes it all aside
Knowing he has frustrating ways too
And smiles at me, so happy
Just to be in love
With all its ups and downs
Its highs are always higher than the lows are low
All I know now is that being beside him
Is my favorite place to be

Graduation

Well last night was graduation at Suburban Heights Christian School/Church! It was a blast for sure. I got there early, gave Brycia 4 roses and Lisa some chocolates. Now these two girls mean THE WORLD to me, they really do. I love them like little sisters and I try to take care of them whenever I can! Lisa's my neighbor on my dusty gravel road and she's one of the funniest, kindest, loving, strangest girls you'll ever know. I've known her forever and hope we'll be friends for that long too! Brycia's my bestie, my constant in an ever-shifting world. We talk on the phone all the time, for hours, and this fall we're going to college together and I'll be living with her, yay! She's beautiful, always ready to laugh or be laughed at, energetic and an amazing friend. I graduated from this school last year, but I almost had MORE fun watching some of my best friends go down the aisle instead of me! Jake gave a funny ad-libbed speech, Brycia, Lisa and Hannah sang some beautiful songs and Pastor Parker gave a message. We all went to a reception downstairs afterwards and ate sandwiches and cake, took a ton of pictures and tried to talk to everyone there. Then I headed to Pizza Hut with the Dice's and Brycia came along later. We ate more food, talked and laughed some then I went with Mike and Stephen to the Dice's to watch Taken. By the time I got home it was 5 minutes to 1 a.m.! I was so dead, felt like I'd gone to prom or something. But it was an amazing evening and so much FUN!

Summertime and the living is easy

Bare feet and lawnmowers mean it's time for summer to begin! Or at least spring. There are flowers everywhere and it all smells heavenly after a winter that didn't want to go away! I played with my dogs all day even though it's still pretty wet outside. Jill came over so we had a lovely Saturday of eating cookies, trading clothes, running through the lawn and playing with our animals. I love warm weather!

Jade running to me

Wildflowers are the best!

Bare feet = summer for me!

Awesome buds

Flowers are everywhere, it's great!

Colors!

Stalking my family

Love the water right now

Playing with my girls

Daisy eating flowers

Thursday giving me dandelions

Coolest bumper sticker ever!
Dad mowing- yeehaw!
My oldest, bestest friend

I like the blanket of flower petals beside Jade
SUCH a pretty tree!

Juliet

My cat had kittens. This is not startling news if you don't know Juliet. She's a 10- or 11-year-old cat who's definitely got a few kinks in her mental workspace. I'm pretty sure she's retarded, actually, and I'm just stating that as a fact. SHe rolls off tables when she's happy. Not very bright. ALso, she has mutant kittens. It's just weird, and often gross. They're often bald, too big/small, and dead or dying. She had a cute orange one that lived for 3 weeks- then died suddenly. This one looks exactly like her, down to the orange spot on it's ear, and it's a girl (named Helen of Troy for now, possibly Macbeth later) so I'm thinking if it lives Juliet will finally die....

Worth A While

I’m not beautiful
I’m not a genius
I’m not interesting
Or worth much time
I’m not perfect
I’m not witty
I’m not even optimistic
Or worth much effort
I can’t say how much I love you
I can only hold your hand tightly
I’m not mesmerizing
Or energetic
But in his eyes I become
What I always longed to be
He thinks I’m a gorgeous, smart, feisty woman
He tells me I’m flawless, funny, and bright
He squeezes my hand right back
Bring me up out of my every funk
He says I’m dazzling and wild
As if his time and effort are never
Wasted on me
And if they are, he says
It’s time well wasted

Slowdancin In A Burnin Room

There once was a boy who,
No matter where he went,
Destroyed everything he touched
He met a girl who had pretended
That she was ‘good’ for so long
She no longer knew where the façade ended
And she began
There once was a boy
Who was never happy for very long
He met a girl who could only dream of normality
He saw the girl for what she was
She knew him better than he knew himself
And neither were satisfied with what they saw
Too many roadblocks on the way to recovery
Too many false alarms pulled
There once was a boy incapable of real love
He met a girl that wanted only that
There once was a boy
Who fell for a girl
Who couldn’t fix him
Because she was broken

This ring is from Lord of the Rings, one of my all-time favorite movies. I've been drooling over this for like, 3 years now I think? Yeah...I'm weird. I should just buy it, but I was sorta saving it for a special occasion, like an engagement or something? Who knows when THAT'LL happen, though! I'm saving up for it now :)

She's Already Gone

I miss the strong side
The side that saw black and white
The part of me that dreamed of things that could never be
There’s a danger in dreaming of a future that could exist
For if it fades away, so will I
I’m placing trust in a man
Who has no idea who I was and still am sometimes
I’m the one who hates to talk
But wishes someone could hear her
The girl who spends forever on her makeup
Then avoid eye contact when you give compliments
I’m the girl who draws you close
Then habitually pushes you away
The girl who used to cry every single night
Living with flashes of nightmares
Tormented by demons she didn’t know how to fight
I’m the girl who hid from everyone
Losing herself along the way
I’m the girl who had no reason to go on
Until he came along
I was so far gone before he saved me
And I’m wondering if you ever really come back from that
So much damage was already done

Willow Tree

My crazy cat, Juliet

Amy's weird white mama cat

Mom burnt some grass & it looked cool

Mountain air

Daisy attacking me!

This is what she does every day

Knocked me over

Calming down

Hyper!

Meet Daisy

Jade modeling for me

So cute

Our First Date

Well he surprised me that's for sure! Mikey told me on Sunday that he had to take his truck up to Iowa City and drop it off 'for his dad' and then Monday night- our date night- he said he couldn't pick me up til 6:30 because he had to 'do some stuff for his Pap (Grandpa)'. And like the trusting girlfriend I am, I didn't get suspicious or ask questions. I just shrugged it off and went on like business as usual! On Monday I got ready to go at 6:30 and he texted and told me he was here so I went and beat him to the door, walked out onto the porch...and saw a huge white limo sitting in our muddy graveled driveway. I felt my face freeze up and all the words that usually flood my brain evaporate. I ran through dozens of reactions in my brain before I meekly entered the limo and sat on the leather seats, sort of laughing. I had been a little irked that he hadn't made any plans for this, our 6-month anniversary and first 'official' (since he asked my dad about it) date. But I wasn't gonna mope about that, I just made sure we would go eat someplace good and then either shop or hit a movie afterwards. Good enough for me! Apparently guys surprise you only when you stop caring. No one's EVER done anything like that for me before, so I was kind of on cloud nine. I gave him his Ipod on the way up, not feeling ridiculous about spending so much any more! Once we got to the restaurant- Outback steakhouse, yum- there were these Amish girls sitting on a bench ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the limo. That cracked us up! The food was great, I got ribs and he got steak and we shared. Then we went shopping and he insisted on buying me something so I found some AWEsome purple pants, which were buy 1 get 1 free so I got pink ones too! We ended up at Barnes and Noble's, where I could probably LIVE if allowed. He went down and pulled the truck around while I found 2 books I wanted to read so I bought them. He was mad that I didn't wait and let him buy them, because I wasn't supposed to spend my money, which I said was sexist and he had bought me enough, anyways. He drove me home and I said see ya Wednesday, to which he replied "Dang it!" Apparently he's not sick of me after all these long months :)