If I were to write a (very late) blog today, this is what it would say:

3 months of silence.
Followed by 1 week of crazy.
Beat.  Sapped.  Tired.
But happy.
Ate so much.
Ran so fast.
Didn’t really sleep.
Got something I was hoping for.
Love my friends gobs.
And gobs and gobs.
Like, hug-you-in-the-sunny-parking-lot gobs.
Gorgeous in Nashville today.
Flying to Austin tonight.
Val’s picking me up.
Hooray, Val!
Joey and Sam are getting married tomorrow.

But it’s snowing back in Colorado.
And Mom’s in the hospital.

I can’t really focus.  Social whiplash and emotional incongruity.  Reasons to cry while the sun shines down.  And I think that’s just like life.

It’s all going to be okay.  Right?  It’s all going to be okay.

The other day, this was my Facebook status:

As futile as Facebook can be, I took a shot of it because I wanted to remember that moment - that realization that the darkness that I’ve been sitting in for going on a year now just isn’t really there anymore.  Perhaps this is tempting a jinx, but I will say it anyway: life feels pretty good right now.

I know that in the middle of the depression, the disappointment, the pain, no one really wants to hear, “Don’t worry, it will get better!”  Those honeyed words can feel hollow and nugatory - because when all you can see is darkness, it’s hard to imagine the light.  In my experience, when well-meaning people try to band-aid despondency, it highlights a disconnect, and makes the depressed person feel even more alone.

But now, on the other side of this most recent bout with a powerful hopelessness, I am just so grateful that it’s over - and I want to remind those who are in it that it’s not always going to feel this bad.

It’s not.

It might feel bad for a long time, and before it gets better, it might even get worse.  I know that some of you out there have experienced mammoth losses, ones that I cannot comprehend.  Some of you have broken hearts that feel beyond mending.  Some of you have faced disappointment after disappointment, or suffered a family life that you didn’t ask for, or simply fallen into this same old rut over and over again, with no idea how to change your stars.

I do not pretend to have the answers “why.”

But it’s not forever.  You have not been abandoned.  You are loved beyond all measure - and even if you know it in your head, someday, you are going to feel it again, too.

So don’t lose hope.

It’s been awhile since I’ve talked about my feeeeeelings.  For those of you wishing to keep a finger on the pulse of my emotional health, this one’s for you.

I remember around this time two years ago, soon after I had moved to Nashville, feeling lonely and afraid and sad.

This move could not be more different.

Not much scares me these days.  I don’t know why this is, why this time I feel so much more stable and confident - maybe because my reasons for moving are different than what they were two years ago.  Maybe because of what I experienced in my time in Nashville.  Maybe because I’m just a little bit older.

Nashville was an amazing two years - but it was loud, and it was painful.  I will never be sorry for the time that I spent there, but to be honest, it felt like being put through a cheese grater.  A big part of me died while I was there.  I was stripped of a lot of things: dreams, expectations, confidence, even truth.

A lot of times, I forgot what I know to be true.

This past month has been quiet and understated - a welcome change from the chaos of my life for the past two years.  I miss my friends in Tennessee, and start to feel a bit left out when I think of their lives going on together and without me (because how could they possibly live without me?), but most of the time, I feel calm.  My heart feels still.

I have no idea and no expectations for what this season in life will be or bring about.  But I am seeing glimmers of revival in the parts of my heart that I thought were dead and gone.  It feels foreign, but it feels like hope.

On Sunday, while talking to my mom, one of my major insecurities fell out of my mouth.  Without the slightest hesitation, it slipped off my tongue – and landed right there on the coffee table.

“Where did you learn that?” she asked.  “Why do you feel that way about yourself?”

And for the past 36 hours, I’ve been thinking about the “reasons why.”  For an all-around self-confident girl, I’ve spent a lifetime banking reinforcements for a few stupid insecurities.

A few days ago, I got word that John Medina, a dear friend, former employer, and bona fide GENE CLONER was going to be speaking in Denver last night – so of course, I went.  I’ve heard John speak in Seattle many times about his research on the brain – how it works and what we know – but no matter how many times you hear him, he’s always engaging, entertaining, and brilliant.  It was so good to see a familiar face.

Last night, he said that research shows that it takes 3 reinforcements for the brain to learn something, and 50 to unlearn it.

For a girl like me with a lot to unlearn, those are some really bad odds.

Once again, it’s time to combat with a Hiroshima of Truth.

Controversial foods that I happen to love:
Olives
Mushrooms
Beets

Controversial foods that I happen to hate:
Tuna
Pickles
Cauliflower

Cauliflower is the worst. It makes me think of cauliflower ear.

I have a serious addiction to chewing gum, but I ran out about 8 days ago, and have yet to buy a new pack. Every morning after my two cups of coffee, I reach for a piece of minty freshness, and realize that my purse is empty. I spend the rest of the day going through withdrawal. Why I don’t just go buy a new pack of gum is beyond me - maybe I’m trying to prove my ruggedness of spirit.

Speaking of spirit, last night, I mentioned my “melancholy spirit” to Zach, the friend from Seattle who now lives on the JAM house floor (JAMZ?). He told me to not to call it that - because there is a difference between “spirit” and “temperament,” and that my spirit is actually quite fiery. I think that’s true - and it was nice to hear from an outside source.

Also last night, I sang background vocals for one of PZC’s grad school projects - he set up a makeshift isolation booth in his closet, and I sang from there while he and Zach sat silently in chairs in the middle of the bedroom. Occasionally, one of Paul’s roommates would poke their head into the room and find us thusly. That thought is making me laugh today.

I go to Boston tomorrow. If Seattle is my true love, then Boston is my crush. Seattle is to Edward as Boston is to Jacob - although, no, I still have not finished “Eclipse,” so I don’t know how it’s all going to end, and who knows - maybe Bella will wind up with a werewolf after all. At this rate, I may never know. I don’t fully believe that she has “just friends” feelings for Jacob, no matter how many times her annoying narrative voice insists upon it. I kind of want to take the book with me on the plane, but what if I still don’t read it? It’s a huge, heavy, embarrassing novel to be toting around and flashing to strangers if I’m not actually going to read it.

But I want to know how it all ends.

Don’t tell me, though.

If eyes cleansed with tears see the most clearly, then today, I have perfect vision.

Sometimes, I think that I’ve gotten really good at confessing my tiny faults in hopes that no one will ever suspect nor discover the big ones.  But lately, I’m not very good at hiding them – and as a result, have been pummeled with my rather large, rather imperfect, imperfections.

I guess that’s bound to happen when you exist in relationship with other humans.

We are messy creatures.  I am a messy creature.

And sometimes, it brings a lot of tears.

But I’m learning that the people who stay – the ones who don’t run away when the going gets tough, the ones who listen without trying to fix, the ones who forgive ugly words and flat-lined attitudes and the same old shit that you carry around no matter how your life changes or morphs or moves – are worth anything and everything it takes.

Communication.  Honesty.  Vulnerability.  Compromise.  Effort.  Forgiveness.

I am learning a lot.  And I don’t call them my “starter husbands” for nothing.

- - - - - - - -

My friend Heather (SHOUT OUT – hey girl heeeeey) recently told me that this blog is the only “Dear Diary” blog that doesn’t make her want to vomit.  Well, that kind of made me want to vomit, because wait – I don’t write a “Dear Diary” blog, do I?

Who am I kidding.

GAH.  Enough about my feelings.  I’m changing the subject.

I woke up this morning with 7 spider bites on my thigh, abdomen, and armpit.

I never go to movies, but all of a sudden, I want to see a ton: “Away We Go,” “Harry Potter,” “Where the Wild Things Are,” “Julie and Julia,” “The Time Traveler’s Wife” (you know during the preview where he says, “You have a choice,” and she says, “I never had a choice”?  I LOSE MY MIND), and “500 Days of Summer.”

I wish I had a cute lunch bag.

It’s amazing how quickly I, an alleged full-grown woman, can revert back to feeling like I did with other girls in elementary school: insecure, timid, and small.  Recently, a moment leapt out of nowhere and grabbed me by the throat, reducing me to those irrepressible tears that leave me shaky and sick to my stomach – because my feelings got hurt.

I am naturally a sensitive person, but I’m also fairly rational.  I don’t get my feelings hurt all that often – mainly because I am largely surrounded by pretty tremendous humans who rarely do or say mean-spirited things.

But when it does happen, it makes me feel so sad, and shocked, and ultimately, rejected.

How could I NOT cry?

But here is the difference between 9-year old Annie and today’s Annie: to forgive is to not let those feelings take root – even when they are justified.  To forgive is to deflect any feelings of insecurity catalyzed by those initial words.  To forgive is to let go of what is right, reasonable, and defensible – in favor of something entirely unsensible.

It’s hard work, forgiveness… but then again, isn’t it our very best option?  Isn’t it the easiest, most freeing thing we could possibly do – to simply let it go?

No one ever loses if no one is keeping score.

On Friday night, I attended a memorial service of a dear friend in Seattle.  While there in the church pew, celebrating the life of and grieving the loss of this amazing woman, another friend took my hand and placed it on her pregnant belly to feel the baby kick.

One friend is giddy about a new love interest in her world.  Another is dreading the inevitable breakup she will soon have to initiate.

And after a gorgeous spring day – the kind that confirms that Seattle is the most beautiful city on the planet, and nudges my spirit saying, “Remember what it’s like to smile?” and in which I got sunburned cheeks from being outside at Green Lake and along the waterfront of Shilshole – I spent the evening with, and felt the incomprehensible sadness of, my sweet friend who is living in the ruins of having lost a child.

Death and life, the end and the beginning, profound joy and severe pain; contrasting events juxtaposed in the most poignant way.  It made me feel so small.

And I was re-reminded: the only way to find life is to live in the present.  To be emotionally gutsy enough to feel whatever we need to feel, come what may.  To attempt to live in gratitude, no matter the disappointments or frustrations or non-ideal circumstances.  To find the gift in the “right now” – because life, ready or not, is going to hold a vast spectrum of events, emotions, stages, chapters, seasons.

We have to be present.  We have to.  Because in this life, longing is inescapable – but to be available right now is to be open to hope right now.

There have been a lot of times in the past several years when I have needed courage.  Between the ending of relationships, and a solo cross-country move, and feeling so alone I could barely breathe, and being relatively destitute, and getting roommates, and starting to share my music for the first time, and introducing myself to hundreds of new people, and continually putting myself out there… I have been through a lot of big, dramatic, grandiose transition.  Change is scary.

But for me, change is not the scariest thing.

In recent months, a lot of things have fallen into place for me.  I’m on stable ground.  I have a home, and a Tennessee family, and a great job, and a feeling of belonging.  I know my way around the city, and I’m involved in my church and various other groups, and I feel very much a part of the fabric of my Nashville community.  Things are steady.

Then why is my first instinct to run?

I’m finding that staying put requires a lot more courage than leaving.

Back in March, I went to Kansas to sort through my childhood things and help my parents get their house ready to sell.  While I was there, I found an old jewelry box full of various plastic beaded bracelets, butterfly rings, earrings with no mates, and many, many necklaces whose thin gold chains were knotted and tangled into a solid mass.

No matter how hard I tried, I could not get those knots untangled.  There was no way to decipher where the problem began, and with every link that I would tug, the knot would get tighter.  The mess would get worse.

Sometimes, I feel like those gold chains.

Sometimes, I feel like such a complicated jumble, there could never be hope for a solution.  I cannot see where certain issues end, and where others begin.  I am confused by my emotions, by my tendencies – and have no more understanding of myself than I do the infinite galaxies.

Last night in church, I found myself praying, “God, forgive me for… just… all that I am.”  I didn’t even know where to begin, because I cannot pinpoint a beginning.  All that I know is that a lot of the time, I’m a tangled, muddled mess – and I don’t know why.

Will it ever be resolved?  Will I ever be resolved?

But then, I felt God press on my heart: “I know what you’re made of, and it is good.”

I see the mess.  He sees the gold.

I see the knot.  He sees a straight line.

I see the confusion.  He sees the solution.

One day, the chains will fall loose.  Everything will make sense.  Everything will be made right.  I believe it.

Because if I can be victorious in untangling a mass of gold necklaces using olive oil and a needle, then surely the God of the universe has a creative solution for the complexities of you and me.