My before and after.

I wrote this in August and didn't have the guts to share it until now:

"2:00 am and suddenly something inside me stirs to write this, my head opening up a long-forgotten faucet of strange metaphors and clumsy creativity. I have missed this tired, unsettled feeling that leads me so readily from one paragraph to the next.

I write this as a kind of testimony. To what? I'm not sure yet. Maybe to depression or anxiety or insecurity, maybe to sadness, or brokenness, or that feeling of being forgotten. I hope that one day I can say it is a testimony to happiness; not the superficial happiness that reads across my face every time I hear a great song or laugh until I cry, but the kind of joy that has been tucked away in some undiscovered memory, or folded into a page of my Bible. Maybe it's still sitting in the brain of someone I haven't met yet, bubbling like a stew. I am scrawny and starving as the chef looks back at me, unsympathetically - "Just another five years and it'll be ready!"

What I really think this might be is just an excuse to write, something my own stupid thoughts have prevented for what feels like years now.

I think I want to start with the past two years. They loom over me every day and I fight them off like a dying animal might fight off flies or vultures. I've felt that way before - like a raccoon, riddled with fleas, lying on the side of the road and hopelessly swatting at the flies, knowing the whole time that I should just give in and willingly provide a home to some hungry maggots. I should have seen that truck barreling down the highway, and it was my own fault for stepping out into the asphalt in the first place. Even if the driver was asleep at the wheel, even if he had time to slow down, even if it wasn't really my fault, it was. Always.

I guess that sums it up, really. But I will try to explain, and more specifically and concisely this time.

My life at school has been a tragedy in my eyes ever since I started feeling a little off occasionally when i was alone at night. I was so ready to be of interest to someone that perhaps I gave in to the immediate drama of depression. It consumed me, and I let it consume me, more and more like a drug every day. I was suddenly very fascinating and dramatic, and so very "realistic" about things. (That was, and still is sometimes, my way of putting a happy face on the word "negative.") I was secretly a mess and that made me more interesting in my mind.

For as insecure as I became, I sure thought very little of others. The word "cliche" was bitter in my mouth, and anything it touched was bitter, too. It never occurred to me that being so very, very pretentious could lead to isolation, to fear, to anxiety, to an even deeper, more dangerous state of depression.

I did have one skill that, to this very day, has remained the fuel to my fire, the reason I can go on living that second life of mine - the one of the dramatic, tortured soul (who never really had anything to cry about) - I hide it. Unless you lived with me, you'd never know. And even then, I dare you to pry the whole story out of me.

Today, I have my symptoms rehearsed, fully without shame for the common affliction: depression, anxiety, insecurity, whatever this monster is (all of the above?). I can calmly have a conversation with someone else, my face showing only a confident, rational person. Sometimes I wonder if people think I do it for attention. There was a time that I might have blatantly done things to get attention, but I wouldn't have done that. Never that. And those days, I guess, are gone now, like I hope these days soon will be.

It might be wrong to wish that time would pass more quickly, but I have lived for several years now with the weight of this terror tied to my waist, struggling to go to work and socialize, to get up on stage and pretend to be confident, to get through one date without becoming accusatory, defensive, pouty or weepy. That weight killed me. I still don't know where it came from, but there it sat, like a hundred faceless shadows keeping their hollow eyes fixated on my brain, waiting for me to think the wrong thing so they could attack.

They wear so many different faces, those shadows, and they slip in and out of my life without warning. Sometimes I see the faces of professors - not the kind ones who encourage me and make me laugh, but the ones who take off points on papers to make me think I need improving, the ones who blatantly refuse to teach you when all you want to do is learn, the ones who take themselves so seriously that every living creature is beneath them - those professors.

Sometimes I see the faces of my friends, people I love, people I hate, people I don't even know - faces of people who are prettier than me, taller than me, shorter, smarter, more popular, more likable, less ignorant, more talented, more focused, more successful; people who are .BETTER. than me.

Sometimes I see the faces of boys from my past, some of them too wrapped up in themselves to know what real love is supposed to feel like, some looking for something else, but never willing to tell that to my face, some who threw away a perfectly good friendship without even giving it a chance, some who took my first true, beautiful experience with comfort and love and destroyed it for no reason, laughing at me so hard, it seemed, that I still blush with fury, with sadness, with utter shame and brokenness and embarrassment, every single time I think about it to this day, and some - perhaps my deepest point of shame - who I dumped on and left behind without consideration for how anyone else might feel, because I was too naive and selfish to know a good thing when I had it.

Sometimes I see the faces of faith - my own perfect image of God and my inability to satisfy Him with anything that I do, the face of a disappointed Caucasian Jesus Christ, a ridiculous picture driven so far into my brain that it has yet to come out, the face of my own certainty that my years in youth group were spent being committed more to music about God and Godless social endeavors than God Himself, the face of organized religion, angering, terrifying sometimes, but more often than not filled with love and sincerity in its desire to TRULY promote Christianity - to live life like Christ - and my inability to warm up to any of it.

But always, always, I see my own face, constantly changing from sad, to stupid, to broken, to worthless, to annoying, to frustrating, to mean, to irate for no reason, to sobbing absolutely uncontrollably, hysterically, and finally submissive, hopeless, beaten, defeated.

These days, I look into my own face and I see behind traces of fear and doubt defiance, hope, and courage.

Hope has worked at me like a virus for so long, like a parasite that squirms through my organs. It's something my brain tells my body to kill on sight - dangerous and unrealistic. I have come to realize now that my brain is wrong: full of lies - FULL of lies, barely a single truth left. I have to let the parasite grow bigger before I realize it is not a parasite at all...

I don't know how this story ends, and I am not sure why I wrote it down. This is a much messier and a much more pointless testimony than what I intended, and it is certainly far less literal than what I meant to write.

I apologize for the brain clutter that is written above. It has gaps and detours that I might one day be able to mend, but not right now. It all feels too unorganized anyway.

If anyone actually read this and got through it, I guess I should say "thank you." It's not like this really served much of a purpose. But, if nothing else, I wrote something, and that hasn't happened for a long time."



I read this now and wonder who I was. I don't know when it happened, but sometime between the beginning of September and tonight, I decided to be happy. I wish I could pinpoint the exact moment, but I don't know that I can. All I know is this: God took me out of the barren place and brought me to the place of peace, even while I am crippled. That statement can be explained here: http://www.hispcc.com/audioFiles/2010_08_29.mp3

I can attribute my struggle with depression - and yes, I consider it a struggle now, although I would have considered it that before (and I would have been wrong). What I experience in the past was not a struggle. In order for there to have been a struggle, I would have had to fight it. Instead, it just happened to me and I accepted it.

Somehow, at some point, God gave me the strength and the desire to fight back, and He has given me so much joy in my life that depression now has to fight its way in. My general attitude about life has changed, and I am beginning to see God's hand in each person I see - my love for my friends has grown, and people that I "didn't like" before are now people to whom I only want to be closer.

I still have so many things weighing me down - so many lies that pop up in my head on a daily basis that threaten to make everything collapse. But God has also given me people I love that surround me and remind me that my happiness is worth fighting for, that perhaps this terrible weight in my stomach is just another lie, or another unresolved conflict my brain has somehow created, chemically or otherwise. And, slowly but surely, each and every person around me, regardless of where I am, is someone I love, someone God loves and whose quirks that I ordinarily would have viewed as annoying or frustrating are now things that make them completely unique and lovable.

It is strange how intensely beautiful everything is when you look at it through the eyes of someone who knows God for what seems like the first time.

I feel like a child again. It would take me hours to write out all the things that have changed in me, but they are all worth mentioning at some point.

Right now, though, my brain is a little exhausted. I feel strange leaving this where it is because I just dropped such a bomb in what I wrote up there back in August. But truly, I feel like a different person.

And now I know to what I was writing that unfinished testimony - it was to happiness, yes, but more importantly, it was to the insurmountable joy found only in the love of God and in the joy of living for Him and understanding that His purpose for you is to be happy and so on and so forth. I really could go on for quite a while.

END.

I'm writing the folks back home to tell them, "Hey, I'm doing all right." Yeah, I'm doing just fine.

Occasionally I will sit and stare for so long that my brain becomes like syrup. Every thought that enters my head begins to drip with richness and meaning, even if it's "I wonder if it will storm tonight?" Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Without a doubt, though, when my thoughts become sticky, sweet, and heavy, they ooze slowly back into the nooks of creativity (somewhere they are usually too rigid and regimented to go) and grasp onto the one remaining outlet for writing: this blog, lonely and abandoned as ever.

The sad part is this: I have so many words but so little inspiration. Story of my life.

Those two paragraphs up there are all I have. I need to do things in my life in order to have any remote form of inspiration.

The bad thing about syrup is that you can't have too much of it or else you get sick.

Sleep takes over at this point.

END.

I'm gettin' bugged drivin' up and down the same old strip. I got a funny new place where the kids are hip.

Work makes me tired.

I have no time to write because my body goes, "NO, Allyson! Bedtime! Now!" every time I think to come here.

I write best when I am tired. Fatigue is my muse.

It's time to sleep. Good night, muse. Maybe I'll be able to spend more time with you tomorrow.

END.

You're addin' all the right colors every day, and you take the grey away.

I want to post this song, but I can't find it anywhere online - they're a pretty obscure band.

I am so happy right now!

"Things are out of line,
but it's not as bad as you think.
Just a temporary mess,
like the dishes in our kitchen sink.

Oh, I know I can be strange,
but everything's all right,
'cause I'm sleeping next to you
come the night.

You're adding all the right colors every day,
and you take the grey away.

You got that sunny sense of humor
to keep me from getting down.
You are music personified
when everyone else is just sound.

Oh, I know I can be strange
but everything's all right,
'cause I'm sleeping next to you
come the night.

You're adding all the right colors every day,
and you take the grey away."
- David Shultz and the Skyline -

You know it's useless to pretend. That's all the voices say: "You'll go right on circling until you've found some kind of friend."

A dream I had a couple nights ago. I apologize in advance.


I stood on the shoreline watching someone toss a fishing line into the water, the strong current giving her nothing more than gratuitous amounts of seaweed and false hope. It seemed she would not catch a thing.

She was certain, once again, that she had something on the other end of her line and reeled vigorously, but there was no sign that anything was fighting it – probably another patch of seaweed.

Then I saw, as if obscured by a camera lens, a blurry mass being dragged across the sand to where we stood.

I bent down and heard the softest hooting noise, so soft I could almost feel it like a blanket on my face. It pained me like the most piercing shriek.

My eyes focused and I saw that it was an owl. His feathers were drenched and matted by the unforgiving salt of the ocean. Frail wings were brutally crushed beyond repair and black eyes seemed to plead with me, for something, anything.

He let out another terrible, heartbreaking hoot, as fragile as silk, and I began to cry. What could I possibly do for this poor creature? I touched its wings very softly and one of them fell off. The owl continued to sing his gentle, barely-audible requiem as I cried and helplessly looked around me for anyone else to care – no one noticed.

Finally, I resorted to trying to pick it up to take it somewhere. I put my hands underneath and lifted. For a moment, it seemed to work, but as I regained some sense of hope, the owl dissolved between my fingers, its eyes remaining for a split second, imprinted in my mind.


I'm sorry if that was depressing. Like, ruthlessly depressing. It was something that really stayed with me when I got up, though, and I've been thinking hard about it for the last couple days. It felt vivid, as most dreams where I start to cry feel.

I don't mean to say that I'm always sobbing hysterically in my dreams or anything, because I'm not, but it does happen occasionally. This was probably the most personal and unsettling one of those dreams I've ever had, though. Usually I'm crying about something stupid.

Anyway, I just wanted to document it the best I could. A few other things happened after that, but it was all extremely fuzzy and disjointed, and it hasn't been eating away at me like this has.

I'm done now. It's time to sleep. Goodnight.

END.

Now the distance is done and search has begun - I've come to see where my beginnings have gone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEDbI2UJhXM

Please, please listen.

"Well I looked into a house I once lived in
around the time I first went on my own,
when the roads were as many as the places I had dreamed of
and my friends and I were one.

Now the distance is done and the search has begun -
I've come to see where my beginnings have gone.

Oh, the walls and the windows were still standing
and the music could be heard at the door,
where the people who kindly endured my odd questions
asked if I came very far.

And when my silence replied, they took me inside,
where their children sat playing on the floor.

Well we spoke of the changes that would find us farther on
and it left me so warm and so high,
but as I stepped back outside to the gray morning sun,
I heard that highway whisper and sigh, "Are you ready to fly?"

And I looked into the faces all passing by -
it's an ocean that will never be filled -
and the house that grows older and finally crumbles
that even love cannot rebuild.

It's a hotel at best, you're here as a guest.
You oughta make yourself at home while you're waiting for the rest.

Well, I looked into the dream of the millions,
that one day the search will be through.
Now here I stand at the edge of my embattled illusions,
looking into you.

The great song traveler passed through here,
and he opened my eyes to the view,
and I was among those who called him a prophet,
and I asked him what was true.

Until the distance had shown how the road remains alone,
now I'm looking for my life in a truth that is my own.

Well, I looked into the sky for my anthem
and the words and the music came through,
but words and music will never touch the beauty that I've seen
looking into you,
and that's true."
Jackson Browne

Help me with this. I think I have to learn something from it because it hits me kind of hard when I listen to it, but I'm not quite there yet. Please discuss.

END.

Besides, maybe this time it's different - I mean, I really think you like me.

Traces of optimism lie in the following:


Yours is the first face that I saw.
I think I was blind before I met you.
Now I don’t know where I am,
I don’t know where I’ve been,
but I know where I want to go.

And so I thought I’d let you know
that these things take forever -
I especially am slow -
but I realize that I need you
and I wondered if I could come home.

There's a wall of ice I need to smash before I can reach anything creative. It's a really thin wall, too, but it's like I'm in one of those dreams where I try to punch someone in a fight and my fist is really sluggish, like I'm underwater. It doesn't matter how thin the wall is if I can't move quickly enough to break through. Does that make sense? Probably not.

I think I lost myself somewhere in high school. It's strange how I was happier before I really had very many friends - back when my friends were the people who liked me instead of the people I could fool into thinking I was cool. Maybe that's still not true - I don't know who I consider my "friend" and who I consider just a "friendly acquaintance." There are some of my "friends" who I might even call "strangers."

Here's a secret that's probably pretty evident if you spend any time around me at all - I don't use the word "friend" or even "love" liberally at all, even though I feel that they are both fairly noncommittal in most situations.

Here's a bigger secret:

I love everyone - yes, everyone - I've met at school over the past few years. They are all good people, despite how it might sometimes seem to others. And I believe that, at least at one time or another, they have all been sincere with me - that's hard to do.

I guess having a lot of friends isn't really as important as some people think it is, or as important as I thought it was back when I was fifteen or sixteen. It's easy to think that, though, when you have friends.

Making sense is something I rarely do anymore.

So if you want to be with me,
with these things there’s no telling,
we'll just have to wait and see.
But I’d rather be working for a paycheck
than waiting to win the lottery.
Besides, maybe this time is different -
I mean, I really think you like me.

What do I think this song is about? Probably what it says it's about. What do I take away from it?

It's about seeing and understanding things for the first time - maybe understanding them so well that you're suddenly willing to put the work in to make your dreams reality, even if it's difficult, especially for you. It's deciding that working towards happiness is a better option than waiting to see if happiness happens to you.

I want to follow that happiness.

And you said, “This is the first day of my life.
I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you.
But now I don’t care, I could go anywhere with you
and I’d probably be happy.”

I'm glad I didn't die before I met you.

END.