Hard Candy (now what?)

Do me a favor and just listen to the whole album, ok?


Ten years later I find myself healing the heart with the same musical salve.

It's not about the boy but about me. It is not the relationship that determines how to best get your life back, but who you are at your core. I'm made of Counting Crows and Tom Petty and Foo Fighters with a little but of the Fray and Needtobreathe added in for good measure. I can't get enough right now of what makes me ME.

So selfish. So focused on this need to get ahold of the passion and toss about in it like before. Dance like before. Connect like before. Be like before.

I know this experience is changing everything about me just like the last ten years have made me different than I was the first time I laid in the floor of my apartment soaking up Hard Candy. I know it is true. I'll never be 21 again. But I if I can just get myself to remember it well enough, I feel like maybe I can find the path from here a little clearer. It's not a what if - it is a now what.

Every bit of this album is helping me answer this question so don't be surprised to see several more tracks from it driving my upcoming posts.

Have You Seen Me Lately?

I remember me
And all the little things that make up a memory
Like she said she loved to watch me sleep
Like she said:
"It's the breathing, it's the breathing in and out and in and..."
(Counting Crows)

I wanna know that there is a piece of me in the world beyond myself.  That there is any bit of me that hasn't been fully handed over to God's will to make the world a better place and the people around me more fulfilled is truly my worst fear.  Also, socks. 

But that makes it hard to be a girl sometimes and want something for myself.  I get selfish in a very fierce way because sometimes I lose the balance.  That is not an extreme I like to operate out of.  The balance will come from getting comfortable in God's really tremendous work for my life - when he puts me somewhere to serve and impact and do the hard work of loving broken people and still it feels like my birthday every day.  

The dream life. The honest and real promise. When nothing that happens can shake my faith in him and my Joy cannot be stolen.  

So close. 

Washed by the Water

Even if the Earth crumbles under my feet
Even if the ones I love turn around and crucify me
I won’t never ever let you down
(Needtobreathe)

If you haven't seen what Matthew Paul Turner has been stirring up the last couple days, you should go check it out.  I don't want to make it into a big deal but these posts and Andrew's experience have really opened up some freshly healed wounds for me.  I haven't yet completely overcome my own "excommunication" or the events leading up to it, but my heart is breaking for Andrew completely independent from my own experiences.  

I try so hard to live a life that lacks judgement and shows unwavering compassion and I fail all the time. My weakest moments are in the face of hurts caused by my fellow Christians.  Why must we be so cruel? Why do Christians so often use God's love as a weapon or a threat?  Why does it make me SO angry? Why can I accept my own weakness and sin and know that God is healing my brokenness in his own time, but I am so slow to forgive others? 

It is something I know is wrong.  It is something I am working on. It is something that gets increasingly harder as I see and FEEL the pain that is inflicted on the already broken world by the church. But we must rest in the peace and comfort that God is bigger and more powerful than even Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll. All we can do is love and forgive and love some more. 

  

Stronger

What doesn't kill makes you stronger
Stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone
What doesn't kill makes you fighter
Footsteps even lighter
Doesn't mean I'm over 'cause you're gone
(Kelly Clarkson)

Good Time

You just wanna have a good time
Just like everybody else
You don't want to fall apart this time

(Counting Crows)

Self-discovery isn't really about you at all.  If you don't have people around you to understand it, talk it through, question it, tell you your wrong, support you, agree with you, make fun of you you aren't doing it right.    Then at the end you find out who you are but you ALSO find out who still likes you and wants to stick around. 

Unrelated: things can be really fun with the right people.  Stupid, boring, tedious things.  And fun things with the wrong people is just about the saddest thing I can think of.

The Ghost in You

Stars come down in you
Oh and love, love, love you can't give it away
Inside you the time moves
but she don't fade away
(The Psychedelic Furs)

You can't change anyone. You can't fix anyone.  All you have is the power to love people until they move. And sometimes when they do, you will find it is in the direction you least thought possible.

It is best not to meddle. To leave folks be. And love them where they are, from where you are.
Once in a while, people connect in those places and bonds are formed that can't be broken.  These are the things, the people, that make life worth it.

The rest is all just action, reaction and hurt. Connect to the people you connect with. Let the rest of it go.

Need You Like a Hurricane

I need You like a hurricane
Thunder crashing, wind and rain
To tear my walls down
I'm only Yours now.
(Jimmy Needham)

The sharp and crushing blow of change can cut through a person at a moment when everything seems fine.  And then there is no person. 

What was once a laughing, bubbly personality with shoes is now just a stomach full of rocks and a pounding headache. 

Many people have moved on in my life.  Many people have had to go because their journey was taking them someplace far away or just separate from me.  Many people don't have the energy or the strength to face the truth and light in me and so they leave.  Once in a while sickness takes people and even if they recover, they don't come back.  I have even come to terms with the sad fact that no matter how much or how well I love someone, they just don't always feel the same way or care enough to try. Loss is not new to me.

But it isn't easy. And once in a while the change and the loss all converge and when you make it through to the other side you KNOW you will be something new and your life will be different in ways beyond imagination.  So, there is wonder and amazement to be grasped. There is strength to draw on.  There is faith to lean on and grow by. There are those who are not going to leave to depend on. And that means there is trust somewhere in there. And letting go with love.  And giving thanks for the amazing and wonderful now.

(Just Like) Starting Over

It's been too long since we took the time
No-one's to blame, I know time flies so quickly
(LENNON)

No resolution.  No need to commit to something.  No desire really to change except in the ways I must.
My year will be big enough without building in a lot of chances to fail and a lot of pressure to succeed.

I will say goodbye so many times in the next few months. 

The Gracement (Matt Barker)

But I will keep dancing and smiling and being me.
Or I will start being me again.
(I'm sorry)
I got lost, but I'm working it out.
I have great help and support.
And I'm having great fun!