It has not taken seven years for every cell of Nashville to rejuvenate. At 20 I moved here to attend a private bible college believing wholeheartedly that I was going to end up in Afghanistan on the mission field. A short four years later I have never felt further away from that person or the dream of Afghanistan.
I am not at all who I was.
In the cool April air, I sit on the "Engagement Swing" enjoying my last season of Richland bathed in soft pink and white blossoms. During freshman activities, upperclassmen warn:
"Don't sit on the engagement swing with anyone of the opposite sex unless you want a 'ring by spring'."
The swing is either enchanted or cursed: Everyone got married.
I didn't.
Then, I didn't again.
Then, I didn't again.
I do not anticipate getting married in the next two months.
It could be the day, or nostalgia, or it could be that I do wish [at times] it had been different, but I strongly feel [at the present moment], there is some beauty to this. Most of the southern belles I met as a wide-eyed freshman, I envied. Delicate, naive, soft with social graces--I ached for the simplicity of their lives. Home was usually only moments away for them: Usually in an enchanted pocket of Pegram or beneath the gorgeous green canopies of Kingston Springs. Their fathers owned car dealerships, furniture stores, or hardwear shops. Their mothers generously offered an extra plate of country fried chicken, mashed potatoes, collard greens, cornbread, and steaming hot rolls on Sunday afternoons so that no "orphan" ever went hungry. Sweet-tea Sonic runs to the sound of George Strait were a Finals-Week ritual. When the summer came, hand-written letters replaced soft southern drawls--complete with floral borders and cursive monograms. College for me was more than just an education: It was the adopting of a community, a culture, a lifestyle, a family, a h o m e. I entered a world where everyone and everything was beautiful: Christianity was...perfect. Somehow, these people in their quiet quarters did not experience depression, sadness, darkness, loneliness, or fear. The most important thing was what dress went with which tights, and if the "southern gentlemen" of the moment would notice our fabulous outfit combinations.
My southern gentleman was from Michigan, and--despite knowing better--I still feel at times as though I have had and lost the love of my life. Through "The Growing Season" as I so casually coin it in my journals, I became someone else. Or rather--I became myself again.
The hippy-rooted, eclectic, manic-depressive, hoarder that I'd stuffed in a doobie when I left Norman hoping to God she'd never show her face again--arrived.
Jade showed up just in time to ruin and possibly save her life.
"Oh there you are, you crazy!"
The giant I believed I had buried, followed me to Nashville to break everything.
As Emerson would say:
"Traveling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.”
No city, no perfect religion, no fabulous dress, and no romantic relationship could hide my blemished self.
Discovered, I began immersing in friendships that surrounded commonalities such as: Art, poetry, music, and rogue humor. The visionaries at Free Will Baptist Bible College [hiding in the shadows so that they too would not be discovered] came about. In the beginning it was beautiful. Poems written in the garden would take the body of songs or hues of rouge, amber, and cerulean. Evening walks would stumble into forbidden places and secrets by the train-tracks only slightly revealed by the spark of a lit cigarette.
The trouble with artists is that they are so terribly, and undeniably
h u m a n.
The trouble with fallouts the lives of artists:
They just keep happening.
Nothing can always be beautiful.
Nothing can always be beautiful.
My senior year began after being asked to never return home again. Upon a visit due only to the death of my grandmother, I was able to lift the bedskirt to what is left of my things. Have you ever stood in a place that should feel distinctly familiar but instead feels incomprehensibly foreign?
Everything in my life feels incomprehensibly foreign
Nothing feels consistent. Nothing is ever the same.
I think I got stuck somewhere and couldn't wake up--
But sometimes I still feel like I'm asleep.
Everything in my life feels incomprehensibly foreign
Nothing feels consistent. Nothing is ever the same.
I think I got stuck somewhere and couldn't wake up--
But sometimes I still feel like I'm asleep.
Left--
After the destruction,
Transition,
And moving on--
I am.
Even dose remodeled.
I was asked last week to start studying my personality as an extrovert. To which I found: I am not an extrovert. I am just in tremendous pain and suffering 99% of the time and I like to remedy that with the company of people. Most of the time I want to punch the people around me in the throat. Lately, I have been pondering: I am lonely anyway, even amidst the bustling distractions and conversation. Why not just sit at home by myself?
I then, am an introvert that cannot self-medicating in unnatural ways.
By the same friend who so uncomfortably reminded me that my body will be new in seven years, I was challenged to be still and listen. A word from the Lord--this message keeps reoccurring. I then explained why I have so much trouble being still.
If I am still then I will have to stop bull****ing.
If I am still then I will have to stop pretending to love the things I truly detest.
If I am still then I will have to admit that the hurt didn't go away when I got healing.
If I am still then I will have to be honest: He really wasn't technically addicted to porn.
If I am still then I will have to acknowledge: I killed a man twice.
If I am still then I will have to accept: It was my fault it's over. I sabotaged it.
If I am still then I will have to be a l o n e. Be really a l o n e.
If I am still then I will have to look at this blossoming Richland avenue and see that it is over.
The trouble with being In Transit is the destination is usually unclear. Sometimes, I get in the car and drive for hours without being entirely sure where I will end up.
As this season comes to a close, as I graduate and enter the "real world," I will lose all the things that I am familiar with. So many pieces of myself have been erased with my cellular turnover: I own nothing I owned five years ago--no clothing, no shoes, no remnants. Nothing at my house is my own, and my small room is flooded with new things that do not have faces yet. While now is the time to embark and build a new life, I feel like I'm sleeping in a stranger's bed. Even the inhabitance of my body feels unnatural: My reflection looks nothing like the naive, baby I used to be. Where did you go, Jade? And who were you when I had you? Where you the hippy Normanite, the southern belle, the mourning post-love poet, or the new face[less]?
I feel f a c e l e s s.
After there is nothing left around remind me who I am
No pattern, no scent, no familiar home, no trace,
No consistent friend--
Who am I?
Where is my voice?
Do I exist at all?
I feel invisible most of the time for enumerable reasons. The primary one being: I am tired of character building. I am exhausting with developing a solid Jade. Most of the people in my life presently only know me in reference to who I have been since January. In December, I was someone else entirely. I seem to be someone else entirely every four to six months.
I am several books with many chapters. There are so many various forms of myself; I fear I am not real at all. I am just a terminal full of faceless fliers, just a tumbleweed, far from home, a vagabond, a gypsy, the tree that falls in the woods that no one hears--
I am several books with many chapters. There are so many various forms of myself; I fear I am not real at all. I am just a terminal full of faceless fliers, just a tumbleweed, far from home, a vagabond, a gypsy, the tree that falls in the woods that no one hears--
I am in transit.
