I've decided..

I'm making my own book of poems and art. :)


No time like the present, right?

Something I Should've Written A Long Time Ago.

This is a post I put on myspace a few days ago.. decided to put it here.
**

So... If you read this, you deserve 5,000 Chuck Norris pancakes.

I seem to love starting blogs or posts, or whatever, with "so". I have no idea why that is, but it seems to be quite the familiar pattern with me! lol.

WARNING: You will see the word "realize" in this post MANY, MANY TIMES.

Anywho-- on with this. I'll tell you right now that almost no one will read this because of how long it is, or its content, and the ones who will, won't comment, because they're either afraid, or honestly won't know what to say. They might even think I'm weirder than usual. lol. I don't blame them, but I'd probably react differently. I have no idea where I may go with this, but I know where I want to start, so I'm gonna give it a shot.
Today, I saw a movie. Well, actually, a few movies. If you're burning with questions as to what these movies were, I'll tell you. "Madea Goes To Jail", "Once", and "Knowing".

As is quite apparent, all these movies are COMPLETELY different, and while Madea IS hysterical, by that meaning, I wish she was my angry black grandma.. the other 2 movies hit me a little more deeply.

Once is a really beautiful movie.. it is very realistic.. almost raw. The music is beautiful and awfully inspiring. And it basically taught me that.. reality really is better than movies. Being as realistic as it was, I kind of craved some adventure from it. Real life stuff. I mean, we all love movies, and sometimes wish we were in that little frame on the screen, but in all REALITY.. Life is more interesting and unexpected.

Knowing. Well.. I know some people loved it, some hated it, but I thought it was interestingly good. It was sort of biblical, but not.. really. Just took some things it wanted out of the whole "Scary Apocalypse" thing and ya know.. went from there. But, it made me think alot about the past and future.. so hold on to your seats, cause this might get sort of REALLY SCARY! (lol)

***

I remembered something from a really long time back. I remembered I had a xanga from like, 6th grade to 8th grade or so. At that time, I wrote, like, a whollllle loootta crap about alot of funny random things during school (that made me laugh alot now, like Anthony Thornton "not liking girls", Operation Aware AWKWARDNESS, Nicole and my's interesting and quirky convos in Language Arts class, lunch time jabs.. etc, lol) that I forgot. And then I wrote some important things. I went through from the very beginning, which started from 2005-ish. And for some reason, I was drawn to read it.. all of it.

I realized a whole lot of things that I think I knew in the very back of my mind, but kept pushing further back. Who knows why. Probably because I felt kind of weird about them and didn't know what to do.

I realized I was a few things, other than RADICALLY different to how I am now, and noticed things I did differently:
- I didn't use commas much, and when I did, I used them, like, ALOT. lol.
- I observed things more, and wrote down those things much more and in more detail.
- I had more friends and a heckuva lot wider spectrum of friends.
- I was more openly religious, wish is true to how I really am.
- I didn't realize at the time how important those little things I wrote would help me see things now.

There was a particular post I made that, every so often, I would find myself wanting to go back and read. Even though this is true, I've only done this maybe.. once or twice. Well, I went back to find that particular post today, and it was interesting. It also wasn't how I recalled.

This post was about a dream I had one day in 6th grade, ish.

I remember that I had dreamt this really crazy, vivid dream. And unlike anything else I'd ever dreamt before, because I STILL, to this day, can picture little parts of it. And I recalled it almost perfectly when I wrote it all down.
I'm one of those people that has a hard time talking to others what I'm thinking, but words don't fail me nearly as much when I'm writing. Hence why I write so darn much. But right after I woke up from this dream, I told my mom and my brother what I thought it was about. I'm also one of those people who find, what others might consider "wacko" (lol), meanings from dreams. But I totally believe what I think they mean.

So this dream was basically what I considered a God dream. Yeah, we're in the God Zone. Lol. Make your religious jokes. "Oh Erin, you must be some Old Testament prophet. I haven't seen you around in a while!" lol. But really, I'm not kiddin' here. It basically was this: I had been playin' around in my house.. doin' random stuff with hula hoops, yeah seriously HULA hoops, I'm cool. And um, yeah. Then I got some mail, and my mom was like, Yo Erin.. ok, she didn't say that, but she said my name.. and said, "you got some mail." So I went over, and it was a letter from my Language Arts Teacher of the time, Mrs. Poindexter. She had sent me some mail seeing how I was doing, and congratulating me on my grades, whatnot. And then this part, I really remember, almost like it was yesterday. She had this envelope. It had a journal that I recognized at the time, because it was one I bought and used with my friends to talk in during school. We wrote buttloads in it. And it had a note on it, that said, "I know someday, God will do something great for you."

Ok, so this is heavy stuff, amiright? Yeah, everyone's probably gonna leave right about NOW, if you even trudged your way through half this shiz! lol. So you're like, wow, Erin centered a lifelong blog around this stupid, meaningless dream. Well, all I can say is.. you are not me, my friend.

To anyone else, this probably means nothing. It probably would to me too, if I wasn't me. But I pretty much interpreted this dream into some crazy intricate WEB of.. insanity. lol. I had wrote out all these very true, symbolic meanings of everything, at the time. I'm just weird like that, and kind of OCD. lol. I thought, honestly and truthfully, this meant that I was going to be "healed" or whatever, and that I was to use it as a testimony for my friends and other people to realize... things about.. well, God. And maybe that might not even be what it was supposed to mean, but it gave me some hope at least to feel more than how I had been feeling. Maybe I was supposed to write something of importance to translate things to other people that I couldn't in spoken word. And I'd always loved to write and keep journals, tell stories, write random stuff. So I wrote.

See, all these things had meaning at the time. It was a really pivotal point in my life, and you might just think all this dream stuff was imagination and events, just clouded and exploded into one GIGANTIC weirdo "God" dream.

That's simply not true, though.


From that point on, my life changed, alot. At the time, I was struggling alot with myself and self-consciousness about myself, you know, just like everyone else. However, other stuff had always caused that. I went from either feeling like I was nothing, to feeling like I had some mission. I always had mostly liked who I was on the inside, because I felt like I had things to offer and help people with. And I've always liked to help people, especially now. But I was, simply put, born with a disease. A muscular degenerative disease, along with many other things, like skeletal problems, and feet issues to where I can't walk or run normal. It's a muscular disease that, supposedly, very few people have, called Myofibrillar Myopathy, and for basically all my life, I wanted to know what it was, and get a cure, fast. I was so sick of this thing, because it'd burdened me all my life. People saw me, and still see me, differently because of it. I was absolutely positive, once I got this cure, I'd be a "better" me and everyone would like me, I'd be normal, and la dee fri-kken da. But things don't work out that way, and there is no cure. I'm just supposed to sit here and wait 'til there is one, or try and hang on to some hope it'll go away, somehow.


Pretty bleak, right?

And this is where the dream comes in.

You honestly have no idea how much it changed how I saw things. It's kind of like, you look back on life, and there's those few, honest to goodness, milestones, that completely change what you do and why you do it. And that was one.

I was one of four kids that had absolutely no athletic ability, while the other 3 were soccer junkies and well-rounded individuals. My mom was a great gymnast. My dad a great baseball player, among other things. I was kind of the "different" one, and I guess that lead me, and even others in my family, to believe I was supposed to make up for all this stuff that had disappeared from my life, that was previously placed in theirs, with something different and important. I had a mission now, but I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

Well, 2 surgeries later, poking and prodding, especially since 6th grade, 6 hour trips to a hospital out of state every so often, and multiple states of wandering aimlessly ON this road.. I'm back on the road, and I still feel like God's not done with me. Maybe I am important, and maybe, for once, I'm allowed to think so. And not in a way that my head will explode from the self-importance or self-centeredness, just, in a way that I have a purpose. That I am a tool for something, and that I'm this way for a reason.

So next time you question why someone believes this God, or prays to this God, or has faith in this God, or whatever He is to you- I hope you remember all these things.



And basically, I have no idea why I wrote 90% of my life story on here. lol.

But like Tom Petty said, "it'll all work out". That is, if you want it to.

I Can't Wait

For Jars of Clay's new CD. :)

Enjoy. <3



"You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken."

— Anais Nin

"Something"

Wonder what it's like, to breathe water and flame
Floating, quiet days that linger in rain
What will I find behind this door
The same thing I dropped on the floor before?
If there's a hope in me looking, I might go find out
Still I see a dream
Covered in doubt

And in this dream, I see me
In a house in Paris,
Holding this same strange will, of dying to survive
Others are waltzing around me in quick pace,
to the conductor of "Death and Life", some killing race
Drowned out by the feet, sweating cool
on the floors of a heartbeat, some exception to the rule
As we all try to catch the beat, that rolls in the dunes
The slick fish that swims in circles 'round the moon
They dance out their fishing poles, and attempt to swing
While I watch, and still try to find
Something

Credit to "Cherry Blossom Girl" for the pretty picture. :)

"Piano Boy"

A great iron hand, passed over every batting eye
Slipped under one day and gave way
to conviction
Drowning in a paper bag
to shame
No longer accustomed to things
That once felt so
normal, so
usual, so
Good

Flinging open every old book
Every old page and every old photo
Every old word and every old girl
That once made sense at night and
tucked him into morning daylight
That once had him swinging on the moon
Which was now white dust
From the city's pollution
Hung over an old tune

He resumed to walk the streets, alone
Making friends with the old shadows
And buried candles
There came a fear
that shattered all thoughts and molds
A process that was simple and once before,

Worldly

That which is now dead

to none but one

In his most beloved aching song

Played from the piano boy he once knew

This old moniker, who says

"I'm with you"

"Hammer"

All true beauty was not
Born beautiful at all
All wrapped in foil, and called names
That were not theirs to call

I was born missing, plastered
on a milk carton
You say,
I was born lost in silk sheets
But I was not born,
riding on a wave
That did not know my name

Call me,

distanced in waters that drip from my mind
My own ravine
That echoes all my barriers, and punches
through windows of waterfalls
through windows of crying trees
I could not bear the bear that crawled around me

Though locked in keyless confusion
I know you can hear me
You're going to say,
You're going to say
'You wanted to hammer all this, but I
knocked some sense into you'
I wanted to hammer all this
but

then I believed you

"Of all man's works of art, a cathedral is greatest. A vast and majestic tree is greater than that."
- Henry Ward Beecher

"The Lonely Dog"

The lonely dog arrests me
in all forms of word
He barks alone, he breathes alone
Never to be heard

What drives the thing to go on
In a household who lost his name
Tag, behind the drawer where they stored
All his things
They once were important,

and now he's replaced

What catches his bark, what catches his bite
Leaves my world to wonder in delight
of the smile
of my lonely dog.

Notes From Underground

"A lot has been on my mind lately."

That must be the greatest opening statement to a blog post ever, right? Lol.

Well, it's true. A lot is on my mind usually, but I guess I've just been thinking on overdrive ever since yesterday.

We went to go see my brother and sister-in-laws new place, and helped them sew up the drapes and put them back up again, which took about an hour or THREE. I now have a new found dislike for drapes. I think when I get my own place, I'll just tape a blanket up on the wall, seriously.

Anyways, it was really fun to go see them, see the new place, and then go to Applebee's (first time in like, 5 years probably, and even funnier because I kept making fun of Applebee's on the way to Stillwater. LOL. It was great nonetheless). My grandma came to help us sew, and yeah, she's like, a master at that, so thank GOD that she came, or those drapes would've looked LAME! XD

And since it's a 2 hour or so drive there, my dad went with my grandma, and me with my mom.

We played Jars of Clay all the way home, and it was really good roadtrip-type music, actually. :D

And here's where my crazy thinking comes in. *uh-oh.*

I don't want to alienate anyone by saying this, because I love all my friends, and acquaintances. And I'm not talking about anyone specifically here (those who read this, if anyone does, LOL).
I truly and honestly don't think anyone doesn't believe in anything. I'm not strictly talking a high-power type thing, but those who say they don't believe in one, a God, can't really say they don't have their own God-type figure that governs their conscience on what they may say or do. And this isn't being said to dictate anyone who believes this, I'm just ruminating here. Some whom I've encountered that deny or recant a certain "organized" religion, or say they don't believe there's a God, or constantly throw things at you for believing so, tend to worship their own Gods of "logic", supposed knowledge, themselves... that last bit sounds somewhat odd, lol, but I'm just trying to write things to help myself put things in perspective.

And since I'm an absolute baffoon when it comes to forming thoughts, all that might sound really silly or stupid from an outside point of view. You can take whatever I say with a grain of salt, and that's fine by me. :)

I just can't help but say, or try to say, something about it.

"On The Road"

White lines d i s e c t
White lines direct
Gardens
of underground creatures
Built on ambiguous road and meters

They're floating on this turning dashboard
And they're up, lookin' for their sign
At high noon or high night
Special speckled strip of sky,
that might try

For them

Will they ever look behind themselves, or beside themselves?
Lost little creatures, that lost all their sense
Possessed and caressed

By their own.

People are funny creatures.

They are completely different people around different people. They're chameleons. They think they are evolving, but they are only becoming this or that way because they've subconsciously conformed to the people they're around most, presently. Most are continuously trying to tweak themselves to make themselves appear more acceptable, when you're already fine the way you are. "Your presence dominates the judgements made on you".

It's interesting to realize, most everything we do is based on hope or trust. Some form of that. Get up, hope the day will be good, get in the car, hope it'll start, eat food, trust the person who made it didn't poison it or something.. lol. Go to the doctor, hope they can help you, and trust the medication they prescribe. Trust advice you ask for. Hope someone will find meaning in something you write.

And no matter what you do now, or listen to now, or say now, I've found, you always go back to your roots, in some way or another.

Recently, I've been playing guitar more than I have in the past year or so.. and I've been listening to music I used to listen to when I was a little kid. And I've always really found the most joy and comfort in it (the exception being AIC, even though I did discover them quite a ways back). It's just interesting that all this other stuff I started liking after that point, kind of blurred. You forget it, somewhat. But you always remember the first bands and kind of music you listened to.

When I play guitar, it's not like some heavy riffs and stuff that I do like listening to now. lol. It's the acoustic, folkish, light stuff that I listened to as a kid. My sister plays the same way, because we grew up on the same music. Christian music. Jars of Clay (along with DC Talk) was pretty much the first music I remember loving, and it's (they're) still one of my favorite bands. And Coldplay- I listened to them alot as a kid in elementary school. 60's and 70's stuff my dad and mom loved that I listened to all the time, like James Taylor, Carole King, Chicago, Led Zep, Joni Mitchell. You don't forget that kinda music. Yesterday, I listened to "Fire and Rain" for the first time in about a year or two. And do you want to know what happened? I cried. Not to get all sappy, but man, I cried. After I lost these extremely special people in my life between the time I heard that song, and heard it again, it healed me in a way. That kind of stuff still gets me the most, really. When I get down or something, there are 2 bands I usually listen to and can depend on. AIC and Jars of Clay. 2 COMPLETELY different bands, but they both are really more similar to me than I thought before.

We're all just a bunch of scared and awkward kids, who wanna have fun, who love people and things that makes us happy, and want to be loved.. in bigger, more matured bodies. I will still be the kid I was when I'm 80 years old and asking my own grandkids to help grandma as I fall over. (lol). It seems like no one wants to become old. Honestly, I'm excited to get older. I can say to my family, "I've gone through this" and "I've gone through that", or "I was there when that happened".. and maybe if I'm lucky, they'll draw some kind of hope or inspiration from it.

Life is a gift. Sometimes you forget that it is, because you're so easily drawn into your own pain and pity, but it's a gift and you cannot take it for granted. That's losing the entire point. I'm just sitting here, thinking about my life, and how bad some things got, and how I somehow got through them, or why I did. You know, Mrs. Philisophical kind of stuff. And then I click on something, and it says, "So-and-so (around my age) is dying" or "Jenny has a brain tumor" or "I lost my mom" or "My dad died", and God, it hits me. And I see the bigger picture. They are all awful things, but they are all there for a reason. And not to get all religious or anything (even though, honestly, that shouldn't matter), if God created a world without loss, there would be no compassion.

Gifts are so interesting to me. Some people... have the most amazing gifts. Musical gifts, gifts with writing and communicating and hitting someone right through the gut, and leaving you, wondering, "How did they know that about me?" Of persuading people in positive ways, or of just reaching out to people and helping them, in a way other people couldn't. Painting words, painting people so realistically, you can feel them there; drawing concepts. Making a home a beautiful place to be, to make you never want to leave your home. And when you see those kinds of people, you're like.. "What's my gift?" You're so in awe of these people, that you don't realize you have an amazing gift as well. And how important it is to develop whatever that might be.

You might be affecting millions of people without even realizing it. A chain reaction. And maybe through such minor ideas or actions, maybe completely unlike the people that put you in shock and awe. Perhaps this loss, perhaps what you think is your biggest flaw, is a gift to you, and a gift to someone else. They see something you may not see in your lifetime, because we're just built that way. And they in turn, might act on it in a great way.


Be your own person. Allow people to affect you. But please don't let them change your essence.

And if you can- by all means-

Be excited about life.

BLOGGER'S FAIL

I wish my blog wasn't so ugly. I want to make it beautiful, but I don't know html well at all, so that's bound to fail.


More on this later. :o)