Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Dear and Deep Love,


I've been beaten down, I've been kicked around, 
But somehow, love takes all of that for me.
When I loose my faith, in my darkest days, 
Love is the thing that makes it possible for me to believe Christ does.

When I want my ways, and I realize they are all in vain, 
Love is found patiently waiting.
Even when I am the same, all my mistakes and pride and shame
Love puts me back on my feet.

And when that world slows down, dear.
And when those stars burn out, here.
Love will always be there holding out through everything.

This is what people call love. 
And this true, full, and complete love, this is REAL love, and it is all I need.   
      
                                                                                               -adapted from a beautiful song by Parachute 

**********

real love means feeling more unselfish. real love means wanting them to grow. real love means seeing when they doubt. 

real love is forgiveness after years of hurt. real love is noticing I was in the wrong. real love is red even when missing them was grey and losing them was blue.

real love means starting over. real love means never giving up. real love means accepting that things are going to change. real love is loving them through all of it. real love is trusting someone with every part of me.

real love means knowing hurt. real love means never wanting them to. real love sometimes means hurting them to prevent further or greater hurt. real love is supressing urges to do things I know would hurt them. real love is trying my best at self control. real love is prioritizing. real love is being willing to. real love is doing what I need instead of what I want. real love means loving someone even when I don't like them.

real love is painful. real love makes me put up walls. real love is beautiful. real love makes me knock those walls down

*********

But I'm bad at real love. Everyone is. Because we are human. We only get parts of it. 

But we try. And when I do, or I see that someone else does, that makes all the difference.

-clo

outside the garden of gethsemane, jerusalem, israel

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Dear Facebook Generation,

I sometimes feel like we get a lot of smack. Facebook discourages social interaction. Facebook wastes too much time. Yeah yeah yeah. It's all probably true. But I think that perhaps below the complex layers of posting status hides deep desires of human beings: perhaps we all simply cling to the potential that it brings for us to "put ourselves out there." An innate desire to be understood. To be empathized with. To share. To want to tell someone how our day went.

This afternoon, I had a very intense scare as I looked into my cup of seemingly plain "fruit at the bottom" yogurt and thought that I had been lied to. My next thought was to make a Facebook status that went something like this: "It's one of those days where your fruit doesn't show up in your fruit-at-the-bottom yogurt and you are terrified that everything good in the world has been pulled from you." Because I knew it would be "liked." I knew people would understand what I meant.

Supposedly Taylor Swift has a line from a poem that she reminds herself of in her saddest moments, when she needs to know that someone else had felt that exact same way. That's a very beautiful thought, if you think about it. That we like knowing we aren't the only ones that have felt the way we feel then. It's ironic, because that's mostly the reason I listen to T-Swift at all. Because everyone experiences the same kind of stuff when they fall in love and when they break up. And perhaps the human mind simply needs to know that they aren't the only ones who feel.

Love you all, chloemichelle

Friday, November 9, 2012

Dear Connections,

I don't believe the world was meant to be lived through five-paragraph-essays, although I see the point they are trying to make.

Could it be that life is that structured? That I will grow up, go to college, get a job, be a mom in a successful, well-off home?

What if I think life is more creative than that? More beautiful then the expectation. What if I want to adopt children when I move to Cambodia? Is that allowed too? Or is continuing the system really what life is all about? Is being here, close to my parents, something I will always have? Will I ever find the lifestyle that fits me? Because I am starting to get the feeling that I don't know where I am headed. One of my very closest friends, Hannah, has a theory about multiple intelligences and she gets upset every time she talks about people who aren't really meant for this kind of school system.....and I'm starting to wonder if she is right. Perhaps I was not designed to write essays. . . . . . . . . . . . .but it's been a very long week. Who knows? Literally. When someone else figures my life-plan out for me, let me know. Until then, my friends, I'm going to keep chuggin' along,

trying to figure out where I want to be.

-chloemichelle