Chasing Cars

Sometimes you find that memories are too hard to escape, even the good ones. But then, why would anyone want to escape the good memories?

Driving around Tucson again, I’ve had an opportunity to see the world I once knew. The life I had. And when you get down to it and start thinking about things in terms of relativity, one simple thing really can change the path you’re on.

There are moments in my life that I recall, moments that changed the course I lived. That random message from a stranger opened up my heart in a way I never thought I’d ever have the chance to do.

One simple message.

I’m no stranger to heartache, but this town seems to almost swallow me in it. And maybe that’s what truly pushes me away from the place I call home and makes me unable to fathom the idea of ever calling this place my own again. For now, it’s a memory. One that haunts me and one that makes me recall every delicious detail of my youth.

My return is not about getting away from what I have now, but rather returning to what I once knew and trying to find an answer and resolution to the heartache that is Tucson to me. I need to find my peace of mind, as silly as that may be.

I try hard to understand how I think and feel. To gather where my emotions stem from so that I may look at them more subjectively, the way I feel is certainly not an accident.

Maybe some of my life I’ve just been a victim of circumstance, but why have I always felt like I could have changed the outcomes?

When I went to my grandmother’s home the other day it hurt, because I could no longer feel her presence. The house was bare, and lacked anything of any redeeming value. It was a skeleton of a life I once knew and a life I once fought. The echoes of my voice chilled my spine in a final realization of all that is gone. How do I find real closure and acceptance that I can’t just pick up the phone and ask her how to make Speedy Fruit pie? And how do I let go of the wrongs I’ve ever done? I always wonder if I’ll ever be able to make up for the things I’ve done. It’s hard for me to even articulate how badly I want to hear that I am enough, that I’ve finally made it past the rocky storm. I can’t seem to truly let go, and I wonder if that’s truly what’s keeping me from stepping forward.

I do not know what to think, I just know that the blow of the desert wind makes me feel alive, the cry of a morning dove can bring me to tears and the smell of the creosote bush crawls beneath my skin to make me feel my losses. It’s a bitter sweet feeling, one that continues to seep into my mind and leave me wondering where to go from where I’ve been. It’s hard to forget the past when one split second decision can truly change your future.

Life is always full of choices and somehow I believe that leaving Tucson was the best choice I could ever make.

But I still wonder what if I hadn’t?

"I need your grace to remind me to find my own.."

Teach me love, I know I’m not a hopeless case

A few days ago, I had a dream that a childhood friend of mine was murdered while meeting up with me in the city. She was strangled to death by a man, because she accidentally hit him with her car door when getting out of the car. It took me back that she was in my dream, particularly because of the way things ended and changed. And it struck me funny, that the tragedy happened over something so trivial.

What I took from this was that we, in life are so easily angered over the smallest things, we often react too quickly.

I am easily hurt I find, despite the rough exterior I try to present, I crumble fast and I fall hard. And for a long while, I lay lifelessly on the ground, refusing to have hope.

I sink.

And then you think you’ll learn from situations, but then you find yourself being tempted with the same question, and you pick B, when you should have picked C.
Interesting how words written a few years back, still reveal more of me than I could ever imagine. And what does it say about me that I continually find myself in these situations, a multiple choice test that I never seem to pick the right answer. In the end, I hope to find that the reason for this is for something good, something bigger.

Burned

A child knows not
the warnings that come.
The embers burn bright,
upon a slight graze.

But I have known.
Yet like a child,
I wrap my fingers 'round
and in its wake, blistered skin maps,
the lesson I'll never learn.

J.Crawford
May 12, 2009

And I am angry.
I am angry that I keep blistering myself; wondering why? So I look back over the situation, I churn and churn it around, inspecting every corner and crease to find where the center could no longer hold. I look back at all my mistakes and changes, and wonder what all the fuss was about.

So again I find myself, obsessing over details and thinking about that friend, as I watched the interview with Gabby Gifford’s on ABC.

“Very difficult” She says, of her struggles to come as far as she has.
And for me, it’s difficult to watch Gabby and not feel what she says and to not want to amend myself and behavior. She inspires me.

Gabriel Gifford’s story is one of hope, triumph and acknowledgement, because if she’s not angry about the wrong that was done to her, a bullet through her brain and a life forever changed, how can I be angry about a paper cut?

Because that’s all these mistakes are, tiny little paper cuts that shouldn’t be life altering, but hiccups or beats of a heart.

“Life is too short, thanks for thinking of me. I think of you a lot too”