Inner Angst ~ 15 Words or Less Photo Poetry

Inner Angst

thorny exterior
shouts "stay away"
yet secretly I yearn
for you to ...

stay anyway.

Catching up

It's been a very strange time. In the last three weeks I've started a job, marked the passing of the 2nd anniversary of Emily's death, went to the beach with Laurie and Rachel, celebrated my 27th birthday, and then found out that the company I was working for hired someone else while I was gone.

I feel like I'm really not quite sure where to start, and with what. Right after I posted my blog about the cutting, my computer cord fried and I was without a computer for several days. I never really got to acknowledge the comments that so many people left for me. Forgive the silence, and know that I treasure every word written.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the job situation. One of the pitfalls of working through a temp agency is that the employer doesn't necessarily have to give you a reason why they don't think you're a good fit. There's a little more to the story than that, as there usually is, but what's done is done, and there's not much sense whining about it anymore. It wasn't a good fit for me either, and I'm just praying that something else that will be comes along soon.

In someways, I'm almost glad our annual beach trip happens to be around the time of Emily's death. I don't know what it is about the ocean that makes me feel closer to her, but that's where her memory comes alive to me the most. I can think of her and the knot around my heart loosens just a little. Perhaps this sounds corny, but staring out into an endless sea gives me a greater appreciation for everything that I do have. Maybe it's the feeling of being so insignificant when you think about the big picture. Whatever it is, I come away from the beach feeling restored.

I purposely left my computer at home for the week we were gone. Which is a first for me. Usually I find myself going through some kind of withdrawl after a few days. Even when I was in Poland I made sure I got my internet fix at the local internet cafe. I guess I kind of wanted to prove to myself that I could go without it. And you know what? I really didn't miss it all that much. Instead of staying up late plugged into my computer, I went to bed so I could get up with the sunrise. Instead of checking up on the latest facebook status, I spent more time checking in with the two people closest to me. It was- refreshing.

But now I find myself once again with the weekdays stretching ahead of me, plugged into my laptop sending out applications again. Ironic.

It's been a strange three weeks. I hope the next three are a little better.

Two years, and two days

I've spent the last two days trying to find the words to write. As usual, the more you force it, the harder it is. I'm still not sure what I want to say that I haven't said before. I still can't believe that it's been two years. This day hurts the most. Holidays are bittersweet, but there's so much else going on that it's easy not to focus completely on missing Emily. I miss her on her birthday, but quite frankly she drove me so crazy with her incessant obsessing about her birthday that ignoring the day is not a new concept for me. But the first of April? All I could do was think about her. Sometimes it was a happy memory, but mostly I just missed her. So much has happened in the last two years, and it's still hard to wrap my mind around the fact that it is happening without her. And it still breaks my heart when I go a few days without thinking about her. When I can't remember what her voice sounds like, or the way her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled, or the way she'd pretend to play the role of the "dumb blonde" even though all of us saw right through the act, but we went along with it because she was Emily and she was cute.

Damn, I miss her.

I don't like growing up without her. I'm going to be 27 in two days. I can just imagine the cracks about how I'm getting close to 30, and it makes me want to cry. She'll forever be 20 in my mind, and I just wonder what she would have been like at 23. And when I'm 34 what she would have been like turning 30. I wonder if we would have become closer by then. Sometimes I fear that we might not have ever worked things out. It's the open-ended wonderings that keep me up at night.

Last year was not a good year for me. I spent most of it sunk in a depression up to my eyeballs and doing my best to hide it from everyone I love. When I see my scars, I see Emily. Sometimes that's a comfort. Sometimes it makes me furious that I allowed myself to fall into that kind of coping situation. I want to blame her, because it's easier than blaming myself. I'm furious at her one moment, and miss her so much the next I can't breathe. I go a few days without thinking about her and sometimes it's a relief to forget.

This year I think I've finally started to figure out who I am. Who I am without Emily, and yet who I am with the memory of her still with me. I find that I look at things with a different perspective than I would have before. I value and cherish my friendships and relationships more, even if I'm still learning how to show it. I've been overwhelmingly blessed with friendships through a blog that I probably never would have started. I've realized that while moving away was one of the best things I've ever done, you can't run away from the memories completely. I've found in Lauren a different kind of sisterhood that's helped to heal the broken spots that I thought were beyond repair. I've learned that no matter how often I yell and scream at God, He still hasn't given up on me. And it's sinking in that He never will.

I'm not the same broken person I was this time a year ago. But yet I know I'll never be truly whole, because there will always be a broken piece that is my sister.

And I'm learning to be okay with carrying that brokenness. I've finally realized it can't be fixed. So instead I heal around it, face the broken part when I need to, and build around it instead of over it. And I carry her with me, because she's part of me.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear;
and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)
i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart) ~ee cummings