lemon ruth

in the past 48 hours i’ve learned how to hold onto things more lightly.

none of this is permanent or final or secure.

there have only been a few times in my life when i’ve felt like things might not actually be ok, and last night was one of those times.  i weighed every option that came to mind and not a single one felt completely right or even completely feasible.

the amazing thing was that so many people came to my rescue.  it was almost shocking to realize how much support i have out here.  i wasn’t expecting that in the least.  i love to take care of everyone else, but i rarely allow anyone to take care of me.  perhaps this is the lesson i need to learn: it’s ok to need help.

it’s ok to need.

i still feel panicky and i’m still confused, but the immediate crisis has been averted for the time being (at least another 2 weeks).  there is the ongoing fear that we could shut down any day and all be out of jobs, but for now we are getting paid something and the doors are still open.

of course this has all reopened the debate of whether or not i am moving back to nashville and/or how soon that would or could happen.  last night in the thick of things, i was certain this was the final straw in this ridiculous city and i’d have no choice but to cut my losses.

however a huge part of me was so terrified to give up on the west coast that easily.  yes, this has been difficult but it’s also been really really good.   my mom said something along these lines last night and i felt for a moment like i could survive anything on the other side of these 2 heart-shattering years.

some people make it look easy.  they are confident and carefree and when i see these people around i wonder what it would feel like to care so little (in the good way).  as for me, i give too much of myself to even the tiniest of details; i don’t save an ounce of it for tomorrow because this could all just end at midnight.  i feel too much.

and so now that i’m on this shakier ground, there is an urgent set of questions to be answered:

stay or move back?

save or spend?

look for a new job or stay here on good faith?

mostly just those few things need to be figured out.  the problem is that my job is so much more than a job.  i am invested in every bit of it.

i don’t have answers right now.  all i have is this sinking feeling in my stomach that yesterday’s events are just the beginning of a terrifying new phase of my life.  i mean, i’m up for an adventure but a bit worried about where i’ll end up this time.

all of this is to say:

to my friends/family here and all over the country: thanks for your support yesterday and every day before that.

love, LR

there are times when the normal (and for the most part: good) tension of life escalates to an almost unbearable level.  it feels something like the devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, like in those bad nineties movies.  too many conflicting motives/desires/emotions.

i mean, it’s difficult enough to come to conclusions about each day’s happenings, but when the tension rises it becomes nearly impossible.

i’ve got these steadying influences in my life.  as always, i have my family and my best friend (very far away, to be fair) and a pretty good career.  the cafe has been a huge part of this recently as well.  it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite places in the city, and the people there are already family.  nothing is quite like being surrounded by likeminded friends.  i don’t have enough of that in my life these days.  it’s one of the things i miss most about nashville and even jersey.

but despite these steadying influences, there is also that little devil on the other shoulder.  for one, there is a person in my life who has slowly transitioned from one of my dearest and oldest seattle friends into a manipulative and damaging force.  he twists my words and actions into personal attacks on him and any time i make plans with anyone else, he launches into a verbal tirade.  this is all coming from someone for whom i have given everything i possibly could and in letting him in so close, he has become one of the select few who has the power to hurt me the most. 

and then there is the stress at work.  here is an example of a situation i get caught in the middle of:  the chief financial officer scolds me for allowing an ethiopian student to register for another course when he has yet to pay for the last but the student emails me telling me his monthly income to support his family of five is $250.  as the admissions coordinator for all 5 of our programs, i get to be the first to know the students and hear their stories and brainstorm ways to get them the resources they need in their region.  in doing so, i get way too emotionally attached and then all of a sudden i’m supposed to tell them there are limits to how much we can help?  (we are a nonprofit after all, and scholarship funds are limited)  TOO DIFFICULT.

as much as i love my job and my coworkers and the students (especially the students), it’s the most intense way to spend 8 hours of my day.  i am exhausted and maxed out and last week i actually got in trouble for taking on too much.  seriously?  who is supposed to do all this work then?  we are all at our absolute limits in our individual areas, and i’m the only one who understands the admissions and registration processes anyway.  sigh.

on a good note, i get to go to india for two weeks next year to visit the slums alongside our students.  and next week i leave for 5 days to represent the school at a community development conference.  my boss is doing some workshops on inner-city issues like gang violence and homeless youth, and i am so proud to be there beside him to talk to prospective students.  i get a beautiful hotel room at a resort all to myself, and i’ll get to meet people i’ve looked up to for years.  exciting stuff.

lately though i’ve felt as though i have so little energy to devote to things i really love.  the cafe fits in this category, and i’ve decided to just jump on every available training slot in the next few weeks before we open.  i’ve had my new sewing machine for weeks now but have lacked the time/energy to test it out.  and i’ve been spending way too much time hiding in my room listening to records and mulling over the looming decisions ahead. 

i think it’s time to just let the tension evaporate on its own without wasting any more of my attention on it.  quite frankly i just care too much about things that are undeserving.  in searching for a middle ground i’ve let the bad things overshadow the good.  this is pretty sad because there’s a whole lot of good in this city.

if you’re looking for me, i’ll be down at 3rd and cedar brewing the city’s best espresso (seriously perfectly roasted beans) with some amazing kids.  come wear in our comfy chairs.

love, LR

it’s been a long time since i’ve wanted to write again.  i guess this means the fog is lifting?  i guess i’m just an open book.  or at least words are some sort of catharsis for me.  what else am i supposed to do with this mess up here but map it out in sentences?  i’ve found little to no reason not to be perfectly honest.  i think this is the beauty of life: the universality of the experiences.  yes, life is quite different for each of us.  but we are also quite specifically the same in ways that all add up to what we can call humanity (thus, i have no secrets.  or at least we all have disturbingly similar secrets).

and this is what makes human connection possible, i suppose.  this makes it possible for me to sit on the couch and have hour-long discussions about life with people i’ve only just met and who have no idea who i am or where i’ve come from on any level.  and this makes it possible for us to find people in the maze of our years that we want nothing more than to hop onboard with, people whose presence in our days becomes as necessary as oxygen or a night’s rest.  yes, i truly believe that this human need is as crucial and basic as our need for food and water.  and the only reason i know this is because when taken away, the heart dies a small bit in the same way that to deny ourselves nourishment would be to cause our bodies to die a small bit (when i say “die” here, i do not mean completely… only to lose normal function to a degree).

we are hopeless creatures when left alone.  reading dostoevsky (specifically “notes from underground”) was a turning point in my philosophy on this issue.  what a terrible fate to be left to wallow in one’s own thoughts.  the soul fades leaving nothing but raw and ignorant emotion.  the beauty of our frail humanity is reduced to animalistic instinct.  and as much as we are instinctual beings, we also are intelligent and capable of so much more than blind impulse.  in a very abstract way, this could be metaphorically described by the domestication of certain wild species.

you see, i believe we learn how to be human by our interaction with other humans.  this begins the day we are born, when we first learn what it is to be touched by another, held by another, sustained by another (and this works in the opposite direction as well.  i’m sure you too have read those heartbreaking stories of orphans who were never held as infants.  what a horrible crime).  and as we grow, we learn about the power of language and expression and communication through further interactions with humanity.  it’s the most fantastic phenomenon.  we can all argue about circumstance creating who we become, but i really think it’s who we’ve been surrounded by since that first day.  we are more like our families than we are willing to admit.

at any rate, i have been thinking a great deal about these ideas.  mostly i’ve been landing on the issue of heartbreak (because it is so damn relevant to my life at any given moment.  and yours too i’m sure.  another terribly universal human dilemma).  as i mentioned above, humanity dictates that we form these connections with one another much like the rumble of a hungry belly causes us to eat.  we crave it, need it, seek it desperately.

and yet love becomes so horribly disfigured amidst our other contrary human qualities.  i, for example, am disgustingly selfish with my time.  i would die for any one of my family members on any given day, and yet, i rarely call.  and i have been known to up and leave on occasion.  leave after years of building relationships and sharing major life experiences and getting so closely intertwined.  you see, we learn from each other (from our first day on) how to need each other…. but not what to do when love is denied or taken away (unexpectedly or not).  sure, we learn to expect it from a young age (heck, just go to any middle school to witness the foundations of this drama.  we learn to expect disappointment too early in life).  but we never know quite what to do once the event occurs.

the old adage “time heals all wounds” is such a cruel lie.  i know this from experience.  i have waited and waited to heal, but i am still just as much of a mess as i was the day my biological father walked out the front door two decades ago.  despite my lack of understanding of the situation at the time (i was quite young), we are perhaps injured the most intensely by these crimes of humanity in our formative years (or at least turned into more fertile ground for the damaging events to come.  and these childhood events teach us to always feel like these new issues are only the same reccuring issue.  a.k.a.  ‘i am not worth sticking around for.  they all leave.  just expect it, lauren.’  ouch).

it’s true that we can heal in small ways, of course.  time does help with this.  so does space.  so does major life change.  so does new human interaction.  and yet the underlying issues remain, dormant at best, waiting to be awoken by even the slightest trigger.

although this seems like the grimmest outlook possible, i assure you there is hope.  you see, i would here argue that despite the horrible pain and destruction caused by our dysfunctional human crimes against one another, the general cycle of life has proven that growth and progress comes out of darkness and devastation.  it’s terrible, i know, and i have no idea why the universe works this way, but it is so deeply ingrained in everything.  the first step to planting a garden is to clear out the old growth and upturn the soil, no?  (as cheesy as that metaphor has become…)  none of these ideas sit well with me.  i hate being so broken in such similar ways (always similar).  a few months ago i found myself at the exact same impass with someone new.  and after he spoke the words, i realized they were true for me as well, which only made the pain more acute i assure you.  we are all capable of love, i suppose, but do not always have the luxury to give and receive it at will.  some figurative soil has yet to be upturned and readied (and perhaps some never will be again).

anyway, i would love for you to disagree with me.  please do.

love, LR

when circumstances become overwhelming, i begin to carve.

and as soon as i’ve made a little bit of new space to be creative, to be alone, to be quiet, to forgive myself, to rest–then i’m ok.

it’s not a complicated system, but i am a complicated human like all the rest.

basically if you’re ever wondering, you can judge how i feel by how much i disappear.  for instance, i moved to the other side of the country when i was broken the most and i’ll only casually avoid you if you’re upsetting me just a little.  everything else falls somewhere in the middle.

in the last two weeks of august, i had been to 7 different airports within 2 weeks (SEA, PDX, MSP, BNA, PHX ONT, ORD).  you can guess how i was dealing with things at that point.

in the middle of a 3 a.m. trudge through the chicago airport, i knew it was time to give it a rest and stay in seattle for more than 5 minutes.  but it was a lovely adventure while it lasted.  i got to sleep in a fruit orchard, dance in the california moonlight, drink wine at the ocean, reunite with long lost soulmates, and witness the beginnings of a new chapter in my best’s life.  almost too good.

here is what i wrote that night in o’hare:

“it’s 3 a.m. seattle time, and i am sitting in the F concourse at the chicago airport.  quite frankly i forgot how huge this airport is, and after 30 minutes of traversing the entirety of it (or what felt like the entirety of it) i can say with complete certainty that this would be the most perfect setting for a zombie movie.  and that weird blinking rainbow light hallway that almost just gave me a seizure would be the scene of the final battle between the survivors and the diseased.  ultra multicolored epic.

sometime around 1:30am, i was awoken by the lady next to me on that last flight having a discreet panic attack about the turbulence we were experiencing at the time.  the man on my right seemed unphased and continued to research everything ever, as evidenced by the 4 books he was reading simultaneously, pausing only to glance disapprovingly at the two of us.

this whole adventure has been very silly so far, the evening starting out with an irate girl on the bus wearing a My Chemical Romance shirt and ending here in the very crux of civilization (that is a very hard word to spell when you’re delirious). 

in a few hours i will be in nashville with my best friend and all of this will be something i can laugh about, but at the moment i feel more like curling up into the fetal position and properly mourning the lost hours of precious uninterrupted sleep in my own bed.  of course i’m not suggesting that 10 hours of travel on 3 different flights wasn’t worth it… simply that i have experienced more sensible logistical situations in my lifetime.  in other words: this is silly.

naturally the timing of this worked out pretty well since i have completely reverted to my old way of dealing with serious life issues: get the hell out of there.  so instead of staying in seattle and risking bumping into any one of the people i am currently avoiding, i am going to escape to somewhere that feels familiar and correct in very specific, necessary ways.”

sometimes i think about you still, about how it was in the very beginning.  i think about how you only get that once in a lifetime because from the moment it happens the first time, all innocence is immediately lost and all of sudden (and without your permission at all) you are completely vulnerable to all kinds of new emotions and fears and absolute heartbreak.  if fate ever asked us to survive that twice, we would all just hide in our homes and never come out.

you know i am secretly happy for you even though it would be tacky to admit that out loud.  sometimes when i see a friend going through what i went through, i break all over again and then i hate you again.  but only for a little while at a time.  i don’t think about you often nor do i write about you often, but tonight seemed appropriate if you consider today’s date.

in conclusion, the end.

 love, LR

this is the 4th or 5th time i’ve been sick this year, and i am just today feeling almost 100% well again.  a lady i work with from guyana who has a background in natural medicine is convinced that this has all just been a physical expression of where my heart has been at this year.

i am convinced too.

nothing has ever felt more unfair than having to choose between the new life i’ve sacrificed everything to build here and the old life there that even now still fits perfectly like a comfortable old sweater.

this last goodbye was the hardest yet.  i lost my cool out front of the nashville airport, as if throwing a little fit was going to make the universe decide to go a little easier on me.

i want to hire a consultant, to contract out this decision to someone else for whom the outcome wouldn’t be such a huge event.  i am too emotionally involved in all of this to think about it impartially.  but then again, should this decision be impartial?  quite frankly i am anything but impartial to both cities, both versions of existence.

i’ve talked this out with dozens of people, tried to describe the experience of arriving back on that familiar soil after an entire year of no visits.   but how can i explain the way it feels to be completely and utterly at home?  in my two years of living in seattle, i’ve felt that way few enough times to count on one hand, and even so it couldn’t compare to being surrounded by people who’ve been there for me when my heart shattered to pieces, who were the ones in the audience at college graduation, who helped packed boxes every time i moved, who let me sleep in their bed when i couldn’t be alone.  they’ve witnessed every milestone, good and bad.  we’re all on board, you know?  we survived those years because we had each other.

that last visit was like shedding my skin.  all of the guises i’ve tried on since coming to seattle have been little more than temporary facades to hide behind.  in one single instant, nashville strips all of it away.  i mean, there is obvious value to putting myself in situations that make me uncomfortable, that force me to grow and be risky.  but to what end?

i’m overwhelmed, clearly.

i want to put my old comfortable sweater back on, but i’m terrified of running away from the unfamiliar too soon at the expense of all i’ve yet to learn.

sigh.

love, LR

this has all been very entertaining but now i just want to be with my best friends again.  every single day instead of just once a year, preferably.

yes i do suspect that the one thing i never suspected would happen is about to happen.  i should have known better than to think in absolutes anyway.  we are very young.

there are 2 or 3 projects i need to see through to completion in seattle, but apart from that i’ve already begun the mental list-making that always precedes my huge life decisions.

soon it will be time to minimize my life to fit in my car again.  mixtapes are now welcomed.

love, LR

very few things in life hurt more than the realization that you are not important to someone who is important to you.  i’ve never had to struggle with this as much as i did last fall after the loss of a best-friendship of sorts, but this issue has reared its ugly head in small ways once or twice in the months since.  my usual tactic for recovering from the realization is to avoid the person like the plague.  unfortunately, fate (in its infinite cruelty) does not always allow this as an option. 

my life is little more than a bunch of sink-or-swim situations strung together in sequence.  i am constantly learning so many new things i am certain my heart and brain are about to explode.  in my experience, the constant movement and newness of circumstances is the best way to refine all these lists i carry around in the very core of my being.  i.e. what i love, who i love, what i hope to do.

as i’m forced to let go of things i love, i’m also forced to discover new things that i love and quite often these things turn out to be things i love even more than what i was forced to relinquish.  it’s almost intoxicating to get to a place where you can look back on a seemingly unsurvivable loss and actual feel thankful.  what more could i ask for than that?

of course the refining of the lists is the most painful experience in the world.  my poor parents call me once a week just to make sure i’m still breathing and to get updates on all of my crazy situations.  i think without this little support network i’ve spent 24 years building, i would have never even made it past the first loss.  fortunately i happen to know the most amazing people on the planet, and they are never stingy with their love.

what i find hard to understand is that some people have been dealt a life situation in which they lack the resources to even handle that first loss or to cope with the resulting chaos.  from a very early age we become aware that life is a quite different experience for each of us, but what are we doing about it?  on saturday i sat around a table with 12 people i respect immensely and discussed this very issue.  the theme of the day was “barriers” (which could be anything from lack of funds to lack of familial support to mental illness to addiction).  most of us are privileged in so many ways we hardly even notice anymore.  it’s this sort of thing that has been keeping me awake at night, worried that perhaps in failing to notice my own blessings so often i have completely missed the point of life as a whole. 

you see, here is what i suspect:  this is not the lauren show.

i figure i’ve got about 70 years (if all goes well and i finally buy a bike helmet) to figure out how to do something meaningful with the time i’ve got.  so far i’ve managed to get a college degree and find a job i love, but what else?  these things benefit only me, and nothing could be more sad than that.

and so i am currently in the process of discerning a new life philosophy.  this job has introduced me to a world of people who are changing circumstances for marginalized people groups all over the planet, and i can’t help but think i am in the beginning phase of what will be my life’s Big Adventure.

i’ve been dealt this particular series of chutes and ladders, but some people have been dealt so so many more chutes.

so, um, let’s get together and build some ladders.

love, LR

at some point i’m going to have to outgrow this… so i choose today.

in the great expanse that is 24 years of living (ha), i’ve found that at the end of the day all i need is each of you.  there will never be words to express the gratitude i feel for your constant love and support and forgiveness. 

what i am enjoying most about life recently is that i’ve discovered it all boils down to a series of choices.  life is not happening to me; i am living it. 

and yeah, small choices too:  i chose to delete his email this morning rather than respond.  in a little while i plan to choose to call someone i have been avoiding for a few weeks.  last night i chose to feel sad over it rather than let it turn into anger later on (anger almost always can be avoided if we allow ourselves to experience it for what it actually is: heartache/dissapointment/fear).

quiet down, silly girlish heart, and feel every second of it. 

i’m ready for things to be different now.  this year i choose to surround myself with just a few more like-minded people to balance out all of this.

this has been a fucking difficult year.  on to the next.

love, LR

man what strange times.

i keep telling myself i’ve survived so much worse than this… but life doesn’t work like some kind of sliding scale.  it doesn’t wait for you to be prepared to deal with something before unceremoniously dumping it on you. 

i mean, clearly i’m just making this up as i go. 

i’ve found that most of my important epiphanies don’t happen unexpectedly or all at once.  they usually take months to unearth and even then aren’t full revelations, just the tiniest hints that i’m onto something important in my newest train of thought.

lately i’ve been wrestling with so many ideas and disappointments and huge life changes that the realizations i’ve had are a bit grim.  it took a complete stranger to set me straight other day and to bring to light exactly what’s going on here:  death by comparison.

so i think the epihpany is this: a life is not lived in comparison to any other life; each life stands on its own, uniquely defined by its individual merits.

in fact it is impossible to live relationally and thrive in community when we are too preoccupied with comparison.  this has been a huge problem for me recently.  i’ve been my own worst enemy and self-critical to a completely demeaning level. 

growing up, it was important to be the best at everything.  i had a 4.0 average, started college at age 16, and finished up my studies while working almost full time and interning on the side.  perhaps i never actually dealt with this particular life crisis back then because there simply was no time.

these days, being the best matters so much less than being happy and doing something i feel is important.  this alone was a huge step in the right direction, but now i’m still trying to determine what that even means for me.  and so begin the comparisons…  i start looking at my friends’ lives, noting how focused they are on one particular thing (whether it be music or entrepreneurship or writing or the nonprofit world, etc.) and it seems so effortless for them. 

all of the focus i had back when i was working myself to death in nashville has just gotten lost in translation. 

as of yet, i can’t seem to jump on board with any one thing.  i’ve never felt more unproductive in my life.  and if you know me at all, you know nothing destroys me more than a complete lack of progress.

and so here has been my tactic so far:  focus on the small successes.  i.e. the fact that i survived these first two years in seattle, the recent promotion at work, the constant support of old friends, the lovely times with new friends, a home without any crazies living in it, an amazingly loving family, and so on. 

the quiet resentment i feel for people who seem to have their lives on track is pointless.  it’s just plain silly to assume that my life will ever progress in the same patterns as anyone else’s does. 

i’ve always done things a bit differently anyway, often choosing to take the proverbial scenic route.  i almost always prefer depth of experience over efficiency when given a choice.

and so in all honesty, i can say that though the experience has often been much too painful for a green heart to bear, it’s been rich all the same. 

anecdote: during my first year at community college all those years ago, a man called me fat and ugly for the first time in my life.  this is the worst possible thing you could say to a 16-year-old girl, and i had no way at the time to see through his insults and know his ridiculous motives in saying them.  i will never ever forget the look on his face as he said those horrible words out loud that first time: “no one will ever want you.”  his emotional/verbal abuse continued for 2 entire semesters before one of my professors finally intervened, but the damage was done.  for a long time i decided that if i couldn’t be one of the pretty girls i would at least try to be one of the clever girls.  i practically lived at the college, writing for the college paper and spending extra time with professors to discuss everything from plato and marx and dostoevsky to nutritional sciences to spanish poetry, and at one point i even gave a lecture on the biological risks of extreme dieting in front of a panel of local scientists. 

by the time i turned 18 and finally finished up my two years at that particular college, my self-esteem was at an all-time low.  as it turns out, all of the cleverness in the world doesn’t add up to self-worth.  moral of the story: sometimes so much good can come from destruction.  it’s impossible to rebuild until everything (every old idea and habit and belief system) has been demolished. 

i’m turning 24 in a few days, and there are still days that feel very much like that first day all those years ago.  those pretty girls always seem to get their way and every place on earth is full of people who seemingly have their lives together, but none of that has any bearing on my individual experience.  if nothing else, that’s entirely mine:  the unique thoughts and lessons that come from 24 years of life in this body and this mind. 

it’s standalone in that particular way, and that’s what i love about it.  i have pages and pages full of the crazy ideas that have come from my adventures.  at this exact moment in my life, i can’t imagine asking for more than that.

the rest will just have to be “in progress” a little while longer as i continue to sort out this tangled existence.  no more comparisons.

love, LR

one day i’ll start getting this right.  unfortunately, today is not that day.  

i woke up this morning and it felt like winter, and for a few blissful moments all of the current confusion melted away.  every year i hope that summer will present the sort of simplicity i crave but it rarely does.  the fact of the matter is that nothing has ever been more complicated than being 23 in a city that has yet to feel completely like home and is very far away from anything that felt familiar for the previous 2 decades.

on days like today when i still feel very much like a skiddish puppy in a new home, i have to remind myself of everything i survived to get to this exact moment on this exact day.  this is the 3rd city i’ve moved to alone since moving out when i was 18, and i can say with complete abandon that very few things in life (so far) have been more difficult or more rewarding.

in exactly 1 month i will have lived in seattle for exactly 2 years.  these 2 years have been a comedy of errors, to say the least.  i’ve gone through 3 roommates, gotten my heart broken by 2 ex-boyfriends (one of which broke up with me by telling me he’d been hooking up with his ex the entire time and was now moving back to california with her.  awesome.), visited nashville and jersey a dozen times, struggled with this new “career” and the end of the one i thought i wanted, gone through a ridiculous amount of drama with new friends, painstakingly worked at staying close with nashville friends while being so far away, tried my hardest to make ends meet every month when it seemed like there was no way to pay every single bill, let go of a million old emotions tied to the midwest, and rebuilt a new life from scratch without knowing a single soul and having absolutely nothing to my name but a few hundred bucks.

so in case you’ve ever wondered why i’m a total committment-phobe and it’s nearly impossible to nail down solid plans with me most days:  that is why.

sometimes i get so caught up in the heartache of the moment that i forget to feel thankful and accomplished and humbled by all that’s happened before, by all that went into this absurd adventure.  the truth is that i’m just scared still.  my footing here feels shaky at best.  i’ve never shared most of these things with anyone else for fear of reliving every painful emotion in the mere retelling of it all.  sometimes just thinking about it feels like pressing down on a bruise. 

and yet, even in our weaker moments, each of us equals much more than the sum total of our wounds.  if nothing else, growing to love so many new people has healed my heart in the most basic way.  i’ve learned so much from each of you and your stories and our shared days of bumming around the city together. 

so happy 2-year anniversary, seattle.  this has been very strange, indeed.  here’s to the next 2!

love, LR