Tag: brokenness

I Don’t Want to Live in This World

On By sarafroiIn Uncategorized1 Comment

I hate this world that I’ve created.

I hate that I moved across the country with big dreams, none of them being fulfilled.  They’ve been destroyed so much that I’ve let them go altogether.  I don’t even write anymore.  I probably don’t even exist anymore.

I hate that I moved to the south and have encountered far more entitled people than I ever did living in a resort town.  I hate that I feel that I can do nothing right.  I hate that I don’t have anyone to depend on, so I’ve learned to depend on myself.  I hate that my heart aches for a church like the one I left behind.  I  hate that I can’t find that here.  I hate that every promotion brings more misery, instead of confidence.  I hate that I complain so often.  I hate that I’m depressed.

I miss my home.  I miss my family.  I miss my friends.  I miss my mom.  If I had known that moving here would mean losing her, I never would have come.  I miss that she made me empowered.  I wish that I had appreciated it while she was around.

I don’t want to be alive in this world anymore.  I know it’s supposed to get better.  I know it always has gotten better.  But I don’t like the in between.  I don’t like that I’m in the in between again.  I don’t like that I’ve gotten so lost, that I’ve disappeared completely.

In the Wake

On By sarafroiIn Poetry (Spoken Word)Leave a comment

In the wake of the storm
A stillness unsettling
We dwell here
Searching for your peace

Pieces of our brokenness collected
Bringing them to our father
With tears streaming
Not realizing your joy at these gifts

You delight in your children
Yet we hide, ashamed
Believing we are naked in the garden
Not realizing you have already seen

We are not disappointments
Works in progress
You smile upon us
At every step

Every time we stumble
You are there to catch us
Not disappointments
As we chase you

Striving, ever striving
Not accepting rest
Afraid to settle
Your voice says, “just be still”

Leaps and bounds are not expected
The journey is what we were made for
You fall in love with our story
As we tell your story

We battled the storm
And you were with us
Your hand upon us
Carrying us when we couldn’t go on

Now here, in the wake
There is a stillness, unsettling
We can dwell here
Finding your peace

All That I Am

On By sarafroiIn depressionLeave a comment

I might be fake.  I know I’m not fake.  But I might be.  Because I cover it all up.  As honest as I am on paper, very rarely will that honesty spill out of my being in real life.  Very rarely will I be okay with someone seeing me as I am.  Because I expect to be rejected.  Which is why it’s so very hard for me to reject.

I had a hard week.  Maybe one of the hardest, in a very different way.  In a way that I can’t process.  Because I’ve been on the other side, almost.  I can’t write about it, but I’ve talked about it.  I feel like I need to keep talking about it.  Because I’m not sure if I dreamt it.

I am not a burden.  But sometimes I believe I am.  Sometimes, when I have constant communication and suddenly no communication, I feel like a nuisance.  Sometimes, when I can’t process something,  I ask for help, and it gets blown out of proportion and that becomes everything.  Sometimes I feel that my problems are all that I am.  But that’s not all that I am.
I am fun.  I am small and, some might say, adorable.  I am an adventurer.  I love the people in my life.  I love when people see my potential.  Because I have potential.  I am human.  I am creative.

Thursday night, I was gathering my things to leave the house I was at.  And my three friends were on the couches.  And suddenly I broke down and sobbed.  I don’t sob.  Not in front of people, for sure.  It all spilled out of me, for a moment.  That kind of vulnerability is terrifying.  I want to be strong.  I want to be sane.  But I am far too aware of my insanity.

So yesterday I felt lost.  Yesterday I felt empty.  I still feel that way.  And I’ll be honest.  I thought about old coping mechanisms.  I thought about my options.  I could become numb.  I could close myself off.  I could disappear.  Instead, I went and bought a hamster.  My hamster is great.  Because I’m great.  I feel like a child.  But I am so content with my decision.  Maybe, someday I’ll let you meet my hamster.  Because I am not fake.  I am real.  I am a real human with real issues, and a real hamster.  (It’s less commitment than a dog).

Please Let Go

On By sarafroiIn depression, Poetry (Spoken Word)Leave a comment

Words so cryptic, as if she’s done this before
And she has
Done this a thousand times
Every time terrified
That it will be the last

Rehearsing in her mind
Every moment up to the ending
Although no one else has the script
So it never goes quite right

Her heart addicted
To what comes across as manipulation
Trying so hard to push and pull away
Reeling them in anyway

Don’t tell her to hold on
As you hold on
Hands cut on the brokenness
Please let go

A Mess Worth Loving

On By sarafroiIn depression2 Comments

I just saw the move Suicide Squad.  And this blog is not about that.  But it made me think.  There are so many psychological things going on in that movie.  I think that’s how I can tell good screen writing.  It’s  a mess.  There are so many levels in the simplicity of the story.
I just rewatched Avatar: The Last Airbender series.  That’s another show with so much psychology.  Everyone is a mess.  Everyone has a dynamic.  It isn’t just good over evil.  It’s more than that.

I love messes.  It’s probably because I’m a mess.  I’m a psychological mess.  I live in organized chaos.  And I can hate it, hate me, keep trying to change myself, or I can accept myself.  Just like I’ve accepted every mess of a person that has walked into my life.  And we can’t deny that we all have a little mess in us.

I have a talent for finding broken people, the messes.  It’s like I have a mess magnet in my heart.  And my heart loves them loves them loves them.  I don’t even want to fix them, I just want them to be accepted.  I crave acceptance and I try to hand it out like candy at a small town parade.  I would be lying if this acceptance has not hurt me in past, but it’s still all I know how to do.  I don’t want anyone to feel the hate that souls, my soul, are so capable of churning up.  Hate will never make the world a better place.  Who cares about disagreements?  Hate will never change anyone into who you want them to be.  Love might.  Acceptance might.  And if it doesn’t, it won’t matter, because love always wins.

It’s so funny to me that this is my philosophy on life, when I am so quick to turn it around on my own self, my own people, my background, my roots, where I came from.  I get so angry at Christians because in my eyes, I still expect them to judge me.  I still see the judgement toward those who have chosen a different lifestyle.  I still hear the judgement in their voices when political disagreements become apparent.  But aren’t we supposed to be Christlike?  Aren’t we supposed to be loving, just like the God that we say we follow, that we say created us to love?

I want to accept.  While I expect to be unaccepted.  In every walk.  When people get excited that I decide to show up somewhere my mind is blown.  I don’t expect it.  It almost makes me want to leave.  Because I’m a psychological mess that loves psychological messes.  As soon as I hear your brokenness, your struggle, your story, I’m likely to fall into your soul.  I’m likely to want you by my side, in my heart, near me, with me.
And I know it’s time that I take a step back.

Today I took a step in a different direction.  I forgot my notebook when I went to church, so I couldn’t write, which is my protection, I think.  Yes, it is my identity, but I’m vulnerable without it.
When the music started playing, it suddenly occurred to me to join my friends on the floor, rather than staying in my seat.  I haven’t been that person in years.  Because of my fear.  I’m constantly expecting to be watched.  Because I don’t dance.  I don’t jump around.  And when I lose myself, I’m more likely to be still than I am to be some spiritual craziness.  I’m more likely to be like Mary, lost at Christ’s feet, than I am to be like David, who danced before the Lord.  I always expect judgement in that.  But it is my reality.  Stop judging me for my reality.  Or maybe you’re not.  Or maybe I don’t care anymore.

Blogging Everyday in July|Carcrash

On By sarafroiIn Blogging Everyday in July, depression, Poetry (Spoken Word)Leave a comment

Car crash, shipwreck
Chaos ensues when I step into the room
Your voice in my head controls me
The extent of this weakens me
There is no way to say no
Because I want this too

Car crash
Lost control of the wheel
When I met you
Crashing into the guardrail
Shattering my whole being
Still smeared on the road there

Shipwreck
Desert island, don’t want to be rescued
Needed to get away
But I never learned to sail
Every decision leads me back to you

Car crash, shipwreck
Chaos ensues
Can’t get away from you
My heart, my soul
My destruction

Blogging Everyday in July|A Poem I Wrote on a Plane (No One Knows My Name)

On By sarafroiIn Blogging Everyday in July, depression, Poetry (Spoken Word)Leave a comment

No one knows my name here
I don’t even want to know it anymore
Finding comfort in the anonymous nature I now dwell in

The land forming below me holds no beauty for my eyes
Though I know some still find it sacred
Scattered through with lakes welling up
I stop to wonder where they come from

The anticipation my heart held before I fell asleep
Has been replaced by a new kind of dread
Expecting someone to collect the bounty on my head

I have been a thousand places
Each one unique
Yet I find them all in one another

Just one last adventure
Reminding myself not to hold my breath
Rising and falling with the pressure around me
I never meant to leave my heart behind

I think we tend to expect too much
Ending up defeated when we can’t fall asleep
These decisions weight heavy, but we continue to choose them anyway

I might beg you to hold me close tonight
Just one last time, I need you
As you wait up for me, watching for my figure in your doorway

I fell for you, tripped over who I was supposed to be
I gave you everything, forgetting who I was
I became someone else, changed my fate, my destiny, my name

I know we’re both pleading with our hearts to stop beating
You can’t have my anymore, but  you can have my every time
I was just a notch in your belt, you still wish I was more

Above the clouds now, drowning in your memory
I return, I return, I return
Tightness in my chest as my heart readies for the landing

Almost whole, almost home
Only to be broken
But this time I chose it, I chose you

I know full well that unless I stay, you’ll never choose me completely
It’s a game or it is real
We’re somewhere in between

So maybe this will be the last time
Maybe next time I’ll stay, gone
Begging you to pull me closer as I push you away

No one knows my name here
I don’t know my name here
But you know my name

No one knows my name here
But I’m more than just a name
You might know my name
But you’ll never know me

Blogging Everyday in July|Bad things, Good People, and Whatever’s In Between

On By sarafroiIn Blogging Everyday in July, depression, TheologyLeave a comment

There is a such a common question that is asked.  It’s asked to trip up those who have faith into doubting what they believe.  It’s asked genuinely, really wanting to understand if God really is as good as we say he is.  It’s asked out of curiosity.  It’s asked, just to see what kind of answer I can come up with.  But I’m okay with not having all of the answers.

Why do bad things happen to good people?

I believe that God is perfect.  He created the world to be perfect.  But we failed, thus the world was corrupted.  However, God continues to love us anyway.  Because his love is perfect where we fall short.
Some people like to think that God orchestrates everything that happens in this world, but that’s not the case.  I mean, yes he could do that, but he gave us free will.  So, as humans, we have choices to make, choices to do evil, and choices to do good.  Hating someone because they’re a different gender or race?  That’s a choice.  Loving someone, even though they’re different, or might not love you back?  That’s also a choice.  And for those of us who had the misfortune to be born after the original sin in the garden, sometimes making the right choice doesn’t make sense.  Because we were born into sin.  So vision gets skewed sometimes.
But choice doesn’t answer the question as to why some people get cancer, or are born with a mental “defect” that makes life harder, or why people develop dysphoria, or even why I’m bipolar.  Am I not a good person?  I’m not answering that.  But it’s because this world is corrupt.  This world has sin in it.  And sin isn’t just an action anymore, it’s in the world.
God did not create the world originally to contain sickness and hurt and anger.  Those all came after sin.  And even if someone tries to live their whole life never sinning, they still live in sin.  Because sin is in the world.  It’s in the air we breathe.  It’s not something we can just escape.  We can’t fix a corrupt world overnight.  I’m not even sure if we can fix it at all.
And if we ask why God doesn’t step in and destroy all of the things that are not of him, I think it’s because he loves us still.  He loves us regardless of if we love him.  It’s not as easy as, “those who don’t accept Christ are going to hell.”  It’s complicated and unexplainable, God’s love.  His desire never was, is, or will be to destroy us.  Even when he told Moses on the mountain that he wanted to kill all the Israelites and start again, he didn’t destroy them, and he never ceased to love them.  Even when he sent the flood to make the world new, he broke his own heart and promised never to do it again.
But all of these answers aren’t really answers.  No answer I can ever give will ever be good enough.  And I’m okay with that.  I’m okay with the mystery of God’s goodness.  I’m okay with simply knowing that we don’t know what he’s doing, because we are inside of time, where he lives outside of it.  We don’t know what awful thing he’s going to use for some amazing goodness in our future.  And we also don’t know what awful thing he hated to allow, but did because of the corrupt nature of the world, and the rampant free will that he didn’t interfere with.

I’m bipolar.  And I accepted my crazy a long time ago.  I used to believe that God created me this way, and that somehow it was going to be used someday, and I spent so many hours angry at him for it.  But maybe he didn’t create me this way.  Maybe I just am this way because of the corruptness of this earth.  But that doesn’t mean it won’t be used someday.
I both do and do not try to hide my crazy.  I can get really excited and feel so much love for my friends and want to do so many fun things.  But that excitement will get used up.  I’ll hit the mountaintop and drop off a cliff.  I woke up yesterday knowing I shouldn’t see people.  But I chose to drive to Nashville for the first time with them instead.  If it had been smooth, with a plan, and a city tour guide like I had in Michael Glenn, or Jackson, or even Jamie with his San Francisco list, or Aaron with his Portland list, and maybe a whole day, then my landing at the bottom of my depression might have been smoother.  My city exploring might have been something worth doing.  But instead, instead the chaos inside my head matched the chaos outside.  Instead I didn’t know what I was doing.  Instead, it was as if I had never been to a city before and things like paying for parking had to be mansplained to me.  Instead, I saw no river or beauty, I saw the ugliness that comes with all downtowns.  It was loud and hot and too much.  Why I ever thought that kind of adventure on a bad day would have been a good idea is beyond me.  Because I can’t explain my broken soul to those around me.  I’m unhelpable.  I’m broken.  But I’ve accepted it.  It’s just embarrassing when I’m spilling out onto the floor and the only thing that can be done is to mop me up.
Life is chaos.  Life is chaos.  Life is chaos.  And I could go on screaming at God to take me from it, because I’m not going to do it on my own.  Or I could find a way to take this chaos and make it art.  Find the beauty in the ugly.  Be Tyra Banks for a moment.  That’s not something I know how to do at the bottom of the cliff, but I will find my moment at the top again, and I will be living amongst the beauty again.
And none of this is to say that I had zero fun in Nashville, because I did have fun.  I love my friends here, they care about me.  It wasn’t there fault that I can’t handle my own existence sometimes.  That will never be anyone else’s fault.  That’s not what I want to be taken from this.  I am flawed.  We are all flawed.  Welcome to honesty hour.

 

Nobody’s Story

On By sarafroiIn Poetry (Spoken Word)Leave a comment

Nobody’s story is simple
To get to where you are now had to come from somewhere
Even growing in perfection has moments of misdirection
Every stained glass had its broken moments

The one who has it all together had to learn to stretch to wrap their arms around the broken years
The one who shines so brightly in the light has trouble falling asleep at night because of fear of darkness
The early riser, morning conqueror never fell asleep in the first place
The one so quiet and concentrated has learned to gather scattered thoughts to keep from going crazy

We try to put everyone in a box
Believing no one can understand
That everyone’s life must be easy
Because you can watch them breathe while you feel as though you’re suffocating

Things don’t go to plan
Because the chaos of the universe already has its order
As we try to grasp it we fall apart
Developing a story to be told

Nobody’s story is simple
To get to where you are now had to come from somewhere
So tell it

Heavy

On By sarafroiIn Poetry (Spoken Word)1 Comment

Heavy
That’s what it is
Something deep within this soul
That doesn’t want to wake up yet

It feels like revival
In this room
Ready to break this heaviness
But with a fear that they’ll see
This brokenness within

Hidden is the easiest way to go on
Yet he never promised easy
He promised dreams coming to life
Fruition and adventure
There’s no turning back now

You’ve walked on the water
Now quit looking at your feet
Or you’ll only see that you are sinking
You’re not sinking
This is only the beginning
Are you ready to make a life here?