Your Song -- Ellie Goulding

"Looks like one just left the nest," Steven seemed to sum it up pretty perfectly. I had just gotten home Sunday evening, was pulling my shoes off. I had told him that I felt...something strange. I had big, new feelings that I'd never had before. We had just seen them off that evening, or was it afternoon? I had been up so long, running running running...It was all worth it, though, to see their beautiful faces as they each came up the aisle. Married.  

It seemed like only yesterday the kid was dyeing Easter eggs with her siblings at the table on the back porch. Monster eggs with silly googly eyes and bright colors. What a whirlwind of a weekend! What an amazing life we all have! And what a gift to be able to share it with one another in such happy times!

I might come back here occasionally to beat the hell out of a dead fucking horse, so to say, but what I truly live for is the here and now. I want to experience each moment of the remainder of my life fully. Be present fully, especially when these huge life events seem to be coming faster and faster as I go along. 

I remember what it was like as a child and thinking that time seemed to just drag by so slowly, especially when you were waiting for something you were excited about, as children often do. I also remember people telling me to enjoy it while I could. I wish I had listened, understood, and done a better job of being present all these years. I can't change the past, but I can be present for now and in the future. 

I have a feeling that this isn't the last time that I will experience some new feelings and I am happy to say that I am excited to see what else life brings. There will be many more gatherings of family in the future, many more times that I will be able to look around at the room and see everyone happy and loved. 

I don't know that I will ever have another moment where I am scrambling around the kitchen, cooking for a crowd, and then look up to see my Dad, my guy, and the ex-husband chilling at the same table. I even came out of the kitchen and over to the table to witness it up close. It was true and, though I had been too busy to notice at first, they seemed to be having a decent time. 

Sometimes life really does surprise you when you least expect it. 

Who Will Save Your Soul -- Jewel

I have a feeling that you keep checking here to see if I will write again. Well, like I said before, I never stopped writing, I just stopped sharing it all. 

Have you ever met a truly evil person? Unfortunately, I have met a few. 

One, in particular, that I have to work with again. That's right, folks, the person who used to harass me at a job I had a few years ago is at it again! The box-makin'-bitch is back! Only now she doesn't make boxes. Only, this time around, I refuse to tolerate any unwanted and unnecessary contact with this person. I don't believe that she can understand that. Something is wrong with her.

I have a very strong instinct for people and this one is a bad person. I hesitate to call her 'e-vil as in the fru-its of the dev-il'n (like on The 'Burbs movie, when they're reading up on 'the occult'), because I feel like calling the demons out to their faces just makes them frustrated they can't shed their human skin suits and eat you right there, like a light snack--and I would definitely be unappetizing, as Dad has suggested that I'm just full of piss and vinegar. I didn't really understand that saying but I'm guessing it means that I can be a mean little shit of a person if you cross me. That much is true. I love to call people out to their faces for being huge pieces of shit. I've spent the last three years working on how to tell them to their faces AND THEN DOING IT. I don't think I will be allowing anyone to harass me anymore, either. 

The reason that I don't want to interact with this negatively-charged person is that I am incapable of faking niceties to someone who doesn't deserve the kindness that I had shown before. And they will not have an opportunity to redeem themselves to me, because I don't care to know them at all now. I would prefer if you took it up with God for redemption. You might want to pray about it--a lot. And consider what Jesus would do. Some say he would turn the other cheek. Well, I'm turning my cheek but if you even try to fucking slap me, I will probably hit back. I'm a fan of the Jesus who flipped tables and drug the rich evil bastards out of the Church because they weren't aligning with the spirit of God in a good way. I can't be doin' all that, I know. So I just silently cheer people on when I see them doing good. But I can't be silent when I see people doing bad things. I won't. 

Except for Thursday at work. Some older lady that I don't know at all, I hate to admit that I haven't memorized her name yet, but I am still new and learning everyone's names. That's ok. She seemed like a decent person who is just struggling with how to navigate around a new person in her space. I was seated at my table, on the other side of the building now, learning something new to do, when, after break and the other employees who went outside to enjoy their break had come streaming back in the doors. This lady was mumbling something about feeling like slapping someone as she walked up behind me and gave me a light smack on the back of my left shoulder when she walked by, so I said, loudly enough to get attention from everyone around, who both saw and heard the incident, "What did I do? I am literally just existing over here, ya know?" And we all kinda laughed an shrugged it off because it seemed like she was attempting to make some sort of joke that I didn't quite understand. Everyone was frustrated that day because an error had allowed some products to skip an important step in the process that could not be undone without a lot of extra effort. It was unfortunate because there is a production deadline, but, like one lady said, "Shit happens."

I let this whole incident slide because I kinda felt like the person behind it isn't evil. She might be a not-very-nice person sometimes, but I don't know her well enough to know for sure. But I know enough about how her presence feels to be convinced that she's not evil. I suppose, when I think of people as 'evil' I am most likely spotting someone with very strong dark-triad traits, even if they aren't an actual demon or possessed by one. I can feel their intentions and I know that those intentions are bad. I can just feel it. I don't need to interact with them further to know it for sure. 

I used to believe that people could be redeemed in their lifetimes. Now I know that most people have to go through life several times to actually, successfully, learn all the lessons it takes to not go through hell on earth--again. It's not my fuckin job to help you with that. I am not responsible for walking your path, nor are you responsible for walking mine. I am attempting to walk the Eightfold Path and some of you will never even learn what that is. And, that's ok. It's not my place to force you to learn it or try it. The only thing that I can do is just sit back and watch and wait for you to understand that you're doing this all wrong. It likely won't happen in this lifetime. 

So, if the bitch is reading this, assuming she can seek things out to read on her own anyway, without being led here by another evil person keeping tabs on me, I'll say what I am "not supposed to" say to you in person, at work, so here goes:

Dear Paula B.,

You suck. I think that you are a bad person. I don't want to interact with you. I'm sorry that you have had a hard life and that it's probably only going to continue to get more difficult and unhappy for you. I see that you are the class clown and the cut-up, making jokes to everyone and making a lot of people laugh. I love that for you and for them. I am glad that you can find people everywhere you go that will tolerate your insipid bullshit. I, however, am not one of those people. I have no desire to interact with you further because I know that you lack the capability to learn and grow as a person from the things that you do so consistently. I have heard the stories from others about the same behavior you and your friends have perpetuated at other work places. What happened to all those jobs? Why did you lose your job delivering Amazon packages? I cancelled the Prime service completely after you delivered a package to my place before I moved. I wrote about it here, I think, but if I didn't, let me just say this about it: That day you were at my rental, delivering a package, I meant every fucking word that I said to you. I don't fucking like you and I want you to stay the fuck away from me. I am not allowed to say this to you to your face while I am at work. It is all that I desire to tell you, so I will repeat it: You are a bad person. I don't care to speak with you at all. That's as nicely as I can say it, so, again, I choose not to interact with you at all because I don't think I can be nice to you. You don't deserve any kindness from me at all and the least I can do is stay away from you altogether. I can keep to myself. Can you? Not likely. But you could make a better effort to stay the fuck away from me. 

Why do you wait for me to arrive and get out of my car before you exit yours? Why do you linger near the front door at the beginning of the day? What are you expecting from me? You'll not be getting a cheery greeting from me anytime soon. Are you trying to force an interaction? I know that I am not supposed to be mean to you, so I choose to avoid you altogether. I know this because I feel like dragging this out further and further with unkind words will only make things worse. I believe that you must not understand that you are a bad person. You probably believe that all the little things that you do to others will never result in negative consequences for you. I believe that you are already experiencing them, but that you are too stupid to understand the lessons being presented to you every day of your unfortunate life. It's not my job to point out to you, daily, that you should strive to be a better person. My boss would say to pray about it. In fact, she did. And I prayed a lot about it. And the answer was surprising. I am suppose to forgive you. So I do. You're forgiven but never forgotten. I will remember the way you treated me until the day, probably many incarnations from now, that you learn the lesson for real. Because I will be there to greet you on the other side, as I always do. I know that you are incapable of understanding that. We all return to the source. I wish everyone would understand that but, then again, I can't force a lesson that you aren't yet capable of learning. 

I hope this letter finds you as well as you'll ever be in this life, and that you will continue to improve your life. I still have hope and faith in God. Maybe I don't have any hope that you'll actually change, Paula, but I believe that if you really wanted to, you could. I don't think you really want to, though. I don't believe that you're capable at this point, in this lifetime, of being who you are supposed to be--for whatever reason, you can't shake that devil from your shoulder who's always calling on you to say and do the things that I find abhorrent. So, go ahead, live your life however you want. You're not welcome in mine. I will tolerate your presence like I tolerate everyone else like you, from an observable distance when you're around. I don't need to talk to you to know that you haven't yet changed and that you are most likely not capable of it either right now, or in the immediate future.

I feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for any person who feels so lowly of themselves as to make targets of other people with their hatred and their pain. I've heard a lot of jokes in my day at other's expense, including my own, and I don't really care for it. I believe that if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. I don't always succeed in that, but I have a personal goal of not engaging in so much negative talk about other people to people that I don't even really know. That is reserved for times and spaces that I deem safe to vent my frustrations. Work is not one of those places and the people there, although very kind and helpful, are neither my friends nor my family, with whom I might seek to share a moment of commiseration or to whom I may wish to vent any frustrations with life. I choose not to share that stuff with people that I don't know very well and I definitely choose not to share any conversation at all with you, Paula. So I will end with this: I don't like you. I don't want to speak unkind words to you at work. So I choose to actively avoid you. You can continue to follow me around, go to the bathroom when I'm there, come and go when I do at work to try to force an interaction. I've said here all I have to say to you. You suck and you don't deserve any amount of attention from me. You've already received enough. This is the last you'll hear from me unless you decide to physically confront me yourself. I don't want to confront you at work because it is unnecessary. Leave me alone. 

Sincerely,

Laura R.

I used to believe that people are capable of changing. Now I know better. After so many times of letting people, like my ex-husband, and Andy, and all those other 'friends' treat me like complete and utter shit just because I was afraid to lose a relationship, well here's a little message for the rest of you that might be asking yourself why I don't want to talk to you anymore: it's probably one of two things--either I'm busy living my life or maybe I just don't fuckin like you. YOU DECIDE!!! If you are puzzled and I haven't spoken to you in a while, don't take it personally, I really am busy and have changed phones and numbers so many times that I probably just don't have the ability outside of Facebook or Insta or some such. It's okay, I hope you know I love you all. I would say that I love all people. I tried that. I tried to mirror the love that I have received in this life, even toward others who probably didn't deserve any crumbs of it from me. I am not embarrassed to say that I have told many people in this life that I love them even when it seemed to shock them and they were incapable of understanding that I meant it unconditionally, as God wishes we all did love one another. That is how I love. Unconditionally. I can do it much better from afar if I don't like how you live your life. That's why I choose to stay away from some specific people, like Paula B. at work. It's because she has to realize, all by herself, that the things that she does are wrong and that God wants you to try every day to be better than you were the day before.  

Now I also know that people don't always deserve my time, attention, and affection. My family and true friends do. And they will receive it when we interact and even when we don't. My love for them is always there. Unfortunately, I cannot hold back all the love in the world from the people I don't feel deserve mine. They still deserve the endless love that believing in God or another higher power brings, whichever anyone chooses to believe, even if they're not always very nice people, they deserve God's love. Yes, even all you hateful people, you still deserve God's love. You should work harder at feeling as though you deserve this wonderful life and God's love and guard your thoughts, your words, and your actions accordingly. I don't know what else to tell you other than that I'm done with evil people and can't be bothered to try to make them understand that they are choosing to suck at life and feeding the evils of harsh words, harsh thoughts, and harsh actions only makes those things fester and grow until there's no room for anything else. I choose not to do that anymore. I choose the other path. You get to choose yours. I don't have to like you or interact with you, and God's love is there for you if you choose to seek it out and accept it. But I don't have to be the one to show you the way. That is your work. But keep in mind that the path you are on can be changed at any time. It's always been up to you. 

So, stay the fuck over there or walk this path. It matters not to me. I will not mourn your loss from my life one bit. I just wish you could take a very obvious hint that I don't want either the opportunity to speak to you in person or the opportunity for you to try to redeem yourself to me. It cannot be done. Once I know how bad you are, it can't be undone. The only thing that can change that is between you and God, because the other side is where we will most likely meet again, and I have a feeling that you won't be happy to see me coming then, either.  I wish you all Peace, Love and Light, whether you think you deserve it or not. But only from a good safe distance. If I have to tell you to your face, I'm gonna tell you that you suck, but only if it's in the appropriate public environment. 

Born Again -- Saint Motel & The Writer -- Ellie Goulding

When my Grandma Roark passed, we went to Cincinnati. I still vividly remember being curled up in the chair at the funeral home and watching people come and go for what felt like hours. It probably was hours. I still have the velvet dress I wore, it has dragons on it. Mom had told me that Grandma Roark had helped a lot of people over her long life and they had all come out to pay their respects. As it turns out, I've been to a lot of funerals over the years. Some were far more difficult to bear than others. I was reading over the old blog posts and my memories of some things are more clear than what I wrote about some of the dreams I had back then. That's okay, though, I was trying to get the words out. I suppose, when I would be writing, my goal was always to try to paint a picture, convey an image, that I have in my mind, to the audience. It's sometimes difficult to put images into words in just the right way, no matter how hard I try. 

I have finally decided that, sometimes, what I want to convey is the air of a David Lynch movie that has sometimes developed in the past, in my dreams. I would be dreaming along, everything pretty typical, dream world, dream scenario, and then...awareness. I would know that I was dreaming, and then the world would shift, like suddenly it's blue everywhere and things are flooding. I had a lot of nightmares back then. I'm pretty sure that it had something to do with how depressed I was after Mom died. Fighting my own demons was what it took to be able to rest well--I wish I was exaggerating. I had to overcome so many things to be able to be here and writing this today.

Sometimes this is the only gift that I have to offer the world--my words. I hope it's enough.

Homer was kinda like our direct conduit to God. That's why it hurts so much that he's gone. When he preached, you could feel the light shine through him and it truly did feel like he was the Disney Princess of Preachers. I can't recall a time when I attended church that I wasn't moved by his words--that his message didn't touch upon something with which I had also struggled. And, it seemed like he was a natural at conveying the message of unconditional love, of being able to interpret the passages of the Bible and apply them to the struggles of our modern lives. I imagine he and Mom are in heaven arguing about the Bible again. Maybe they just do it for fun now because they have all the answers there?

There's a picture at Dad's house, in a silver frame, a candid of Homer and Bill, in which Homer is happily exclaiming, mouth open in a jubilant hoot of laughter, with Bill right next to him, close enough to throw an arm round his shoulder. I picture them together in heaven, having a grand discussion seated at the largest kitchen table ever, where even God is laughing uproariously. I like to picture them like that because they were so happy. I picture their heaven as all the happy moments of their lives stretching on forever. There are no words that can accurately convey how deep this loss is for not only his family, but also his friends, and our community. So I comfort myself by picturing all our loved ones in heaven together with Jesus at the big table, having an endless last supper with no Judas to betray them. It works for me.

I remember coming to the office in the middle of the day to visit Mom and Dad at work, and Homer being there and they were having a discussion about Community Ministries business, repairing or replacing some siding on someone's house or something, I think. Anyway, after quite a lengthy conversation that only had a little to do with Community Ministries and a lot more to do with their opinions on various world events and news, after Homer had left, I had asked Mom all about Community Ministries and what it was and what they did. I guess, as a teenager and younger child, I hadn't really realized that certain things happening were because good people in the community got together and tried to make things better for others. Every time there was commodities distribution, my Grandparents would always go and Homer was always there, among many others in our community who helped to hand out the commodities. Bill would make two different giant pots of soup beans, he would make a vegan pot so that Homer could have some beans, and one with ham hocks. I don't know what I thought was going on but, when I finally was old enough to pay attention, I discovered that it wasn't just them going and having a soup bean dinner together on a consistent schedule--they were actually prepared in an effort to offer a hot meal to anyone who showed up to distribute the commodities every month.

Mom's desk had been full of papers, snippets of interesting articles, various important paperwork, and, of course little notes about amusing things, an incredibly vague note about her and Homer agreeing about something on a specific date, I think something about the Bible, but who can know? When I went through Billie's office stuff I found that she had kept a binder of all of the copies of Homer's sermons that had come in the mail. Also in the desk, I found a trophy of recognition from Bill's time in Mt. Healthy serving that community. Here I was surrounded by such good people all this time and what the hell have I been doing? Surviving, recovering, and growing as a person? There's something missing here, I think, and I haven't quite figured it out yet, but I'm working on it.  

This loss enhances all the others. I suppose that's why I'm having the morbs about it. It reinforces the uncomfortable reality that the community that we once lived in isn't ever going to be the same again. Yeah, you can still go over and scan some kinda card, pick up commodities, and are on your way again. I'm glad that someone's still doing the commodities distribution, although I wonder if anyone will take it upon themselves to buy the huge bags of beans for the soup every month? Do they do that anymore? (I'm sure it's fine.) 

I guess I could figure out how to take up the mantle, I suppose, somehow, try to fill the bean void? Is that what I'm supposed to do? Should I cook large vats of beans? Is that what I'm supposed to do? Is that my purpose in life? To cook the beans? (I know, I know, I'm just being silly, trying to ease the pain a bit with a little laughter.) But we legitimately found the huge bean-cooking-vats, so I'm ready now! I could cook the beans!

I know I can't completely ease another's suffering--that I don't have the right to do so--but it doesn't make it any easier when someone you care about passes from this world to the next. I know everything is going to be alright, that we all will someday pass from our time here on earth in these vessels. And we will be reunited with all those who have gone before us when we do. I have faith. 

This is what I see when I close my eyes and picture him: Homer in the pulpit, Bible and sermon pages open before him, and he looks to the book and reads a line, and he smiles, head tilting forward as he looks around the room, and then he says the thing that just...ties it all together and the anecdote that he began with has suddenly come full circle and he pauses, lets the silence stretch for a moment, and then hits you with some shit Jesus probably said verbatim (in Aramaic) back in the day, and suddenly you're dabbing your eyes and thinking to yourself that's exactly what I needed to hear today, how is that possible? And that was Homer--he had a way with words, too. And we're all going to miss him.