Hope...?

PHOTO BY JOHN BARDUHN.  CIRCA 2006

"When you're lost in the rain in Juarez when its Easter time too, and your gravity fails and negativity don't pull you through..."

-Bob Dylan

I am quite touched to be a part of my best friend's book.

She has asked me to supply her photos that will coordinate with the chapters she has written.

We talked about it on Christmas Eve over Baileys and red wine.  Lots of things verbalized in her book flirt with tragedy, loss and hurt; topics for which I could easily supply photos.  However, there is one problem.  She spoke to me at length about wanting to include photos of "hope" in her book.

How the hell do I do that?

Ugh.

"At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me."

-Michael Stipe

I'm sick of "I don't want to hurt you anymore," as though ending things means that I'll stop being hurt.  What really should be said in that situation is, "This is the final time I'm going to take responsibility for hurting you."

I don't know...just something on my mind lately.

"I wanna hear you laugh like you really mean it."

"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment."

-Marcus Aurelius

Black Holes.

"It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value."

-Stephen Hawking

Raining in Baltimore.

"I need a phone call,

I need a plane ride,

I need a sunburn, 

I need a raincoat"

-Counting Crows

Day 1

"Hey, hey, hey, mother interstate, can you deliver me from evil, make me honest, make me wedding cake?"

-Conor Oberst

The Plight of the Giver.

"If we're growing, we're always going to be out of our comfort zone."

-John Maxwell

As always happens with heart to hearts with Love, I've gained a new outlook on recent (and maybe not so recent) events in my life.  

I came to her absolutely lost and completely empty.  I had no idea how to fix the way I felt...feel.

"I'm going to be brutally honest," she began, after about 45 minutes of our conversation.  Her eyes were wide as though they said "brace yourself."  She told me, kinder than she should have, a pattern that she has noticed in my life.  I have a tendency to try to alter my life for the the greater good of things which are beyond my control.  Things that I really haven't the ability to change or aid.  And she is absolutely right.  "You give too much of yourself, and then there isn't anything left for you."

"Thanks," I said tearing up in the middle of the PF Chang's bar (which tends to happen always in public places), "I think needed to hear that."

"I'm sorry."  She didn't need to say that.

I do need to change some things about myself.  Maybe lots of things.  Probably lots of things.  I need to start thinking about myself and myself alone.  And economy or no economy, things are going to be different.

Things NEED to be different.

Things will be different.