Out with the old, in with the new

2014 has turned out to be one of the darkest and hardest of my life, which is disappointing because my horoscope for the year was so hopeful. There have been some really great moments, but on the whole, 2014 has kicked my ass. Here are some lessons I've learned:

-I love my family so much, but I don't care about making them proud anymore. Their guilt trips, lectures, expectations, etc don't work anymore. I've become numb to them. Not that I intend to go and live a reckless life, but I've figured out that success in the eyes of my parents means always being an active member of the LDS faith. Nothing else really matters to them; that is their paradigm and they cannot see beyond it. I honestly feel that even if I were to find the cure for cancer or end world hunger, my parents would still be saddened by me because I no longer believe. This has been one of the biggest struggles and sadnesses in 2014. I've had panic attacks and many many many sleepless nights because of hurtful and/or presumptuous things that have been said to or about me. So, it doesn't matter that I volunteer every week at the refugee center, doesn't matter that I donate to different charities every month, doesn't matter that I worked Candy Cane Corner during December, gathered winter clothes for refugees, deliver food to sweet old ladies every month, doesn't matter that my profession revolves around feeding the hungry, doesn't matter that I am a good friend who takes care of people as best I can, none of it matters. My mother is still disappointed. So I will continue to better myself, better my community, spread my love as far as possible, but I will no longer expect it to make a difference in the way people see me. Because it doesn't. I love my family, and I know they love me. I will be there if they ever need me, but I also will have no qualms about living the life I want to live, though it goes against the life they want me to live.

- Poor R. He had no idea what he was getting himself into. Granted, he's had his share of issues this year and he has been horrible at communicating with me. But R was exciting. Not because of who he actually was, but because of who he was in my mind. He's earning a Masters in ecology, has travelled all over the world, works for Yellowstone during the summer and tracks animals. He's living a life of adventure, and I liked living through him. If I'm being honest with myself, our relationship was never meant to be what I hoped it to be, and I'm not even sure how attracted I actually was to him, but he brought excitement into my mundane life. He's done things I wish I had done, lived the life I wish I had lived. I wish I could tell you he always made me feel beautiful, safe, secure and confident, that he took good care of me, called me just to tell me sweet nothing's, made impromptu visits just to see my face. He didn't. But he filled my mind with such wonderful fantasies when he was away, and filled my world with such surreal emotions when he was around, I didn't want to let him go. It wasn't fair of me. Then again, he wasn't fair to me either. We used each other. It was painful, so painful, but so beautiful and romantic and passionate. The time we actually spent together was so dreamy I had to pinch myself to make sure it was actually happening. I wanted the dream to last, but eventually I had to wake up. Waking up is hard to do. Is it weird to say I'm happy it happened, even if it ended? At least I can say I had a magical time. Time to rise and shine.

-I'm so happy I am not married. They say no one will love you unless you love yourself, which I think is complete bullshit. I know plenty of people who are loved who don't love themselves. And besides, I feel like I have a pretty good sense of self-love. But there is a lot about myself and about this big world of ours that I still want to explore and discover. Enough of living vicariously through others. I'm going to start living the life I've always wanted to live, and so thank God I'm single and I can have my adventure with no obligation to anyone but myself.

- The internet is full of bullshit. Do you know how many times this last year I've been convinced I had some major disease? Or that I needed to stop being myself and learn how to play the game so as to be more desirable? Or how many times I saw Kim Kardashian's photoshopped butt? The internet, and my impulse to google everything, just adds more anxiety to my already anxious mind. Guess what? I will never be good at playing the game. I am as straight talking and honest as they come. Just gotta meet someone who likes that in a woman. And my aches and pains? They have everything to do with all the stress I've been dealing with all year, not cancer. Shut up, internet. I'm not listening anymore.

- I gotta be me. I have to stop letting the advice of others, well intentioned as it may be, get into my head and overwhelm me. Gotta shut them out, live in the moment, do what feels right, and be me.

I know, I know. The idea of a new beginning at the new year is perhaps cliche, a new beginning could happen at anytime, but I have to say I am so excited to leave the old behind and start fresh and new at the new year. I like the tradition. How lucky that a new birth year happens at the same time for me. It's a baptism of sorts, being washed cleaned from the past year. Maybe it sounds dramatic, but I already feel different, in a good way. A peaceful way. I feel really good about 2015. I'm not even gonna read my horoscope.

Poet Didn't Know It

Penitence

My perseverance was a plague, a perplexing

Plague which propelled

You away.

My pitiful pushing was an attempt

At piercing and penetrating

Your heart.

I thought with pushing and pleading,

Perusal and passion,

I’d win.

But it all proved pernicious.

A pathetic plan, that lead

To pathos.

Crush

I have learned about

The falsity of romance;

Love at first sight isn’t real,

It is a protrusion,

            A fantasy.

Yet I find myself longing

For the quixotic.

I yearn to be jittery,

To give and to catch glances,

            To play.

I desire the jocundity

And the felicity that comes

With the uncertainty

And the stupidity

            Of infatuation.        

CS

Raggedy Ann sits on my desk;

She is an old porcelain figurine

Wearing a dress painted yellow and blue,

The dust has settled in the cracks of her orange hair.

My mother painted her. On the

Back are her initials: CS.

Christy Stultz.

Her maiden name was Christy Chinn,

Her name now Christy Heywood.

Christy Stultz.

This name represents a time in between;

A liminal space after her childhood and

Before she became the mother I

Know her to be.

A time in my mother’s life

Which remains a mystery to me,

A time I will never fully understand.

With a child, a faith, and a determination

Which kept her going, she was experiencing

Things that would make her

The woman she is now.

Summer Rides

The summer after graduation,

I felt trapped in my town.

I couldn’t stand being home,

            Or being at work

            Or any place where people were around.

I wanted to be

Alone.

I used to tell my parents

I was going to a friend’s house.

My mother worried

About the "burn-out" friends I spent time with, but

She had no reason to worry.

Most of the time I took

My sister’s car

And went for drives.

I would let the windows down

And listen to Stairway to Heaven,

The smell of wet alfalfa

And roses flowing

In

and

out

Of the car with the wind.

These were moments

Of peace

            And freedom

            And joy;

Moments I wanted to last

Forever,

But I knew they would end.

I would have to go back home

Or go back to work,

Trapped in a world

I didn’t want to be in anymore.

I longed for a world of my own.

I longed for the solitude 

And freedom of

Independence.

"Music. The great blobs of purple and red emotion have not touched him. He has only heard what I felt. He is far away and I see him but dimly across the ocean and the continent that have fallen between us. He is so pale with his whiteness then and I am so colored."-Zora Neale Hurston

To Zora Neale Hurston

I can feel the colors of the music:

Red

                                                Blue

                                   

                        Yellow

                                    Green

                       

                                                                                    Orange

Purple

                                                Pink

As the melodies mix with the harmonies and

The rhythms Pow

                             Boom

                                    Da,

 The shades mix together:

They

                        S

                              W

                                    I

                              R

                        L

They

                                    N

                        A                      C

            D                                             E

They

          P           L             A             Y             

Creating a climax of colors
In my body.

Ms. Hurston, 

I can feel the music too.