Katie Melua, Malboro Red and Love

It’s difficult to write, when you have no idea what it is you want to say. It’s actually quite silly that it’s an on-going circle, you want to write to understand yourself, but can’t write because you don’t. So the key I think, is for me to stop procrastinating, and just, start. I’ve even made a writing playlist, if I’m truthful it really is only all the sad songs on my phone that will put me in the proper head space to actually explain myself. I’m going to light a cigarette now. There, now I feel like the tormented writer I am, Katie Melua and Malboro Red to get me literate.

I’ve heard over and over again, how people only call upon God in their hour of need, I feel like I am completely opposite to that, both in prayer and in terms of writing. In my hour of need, usually it isn’t just an hour, rather it’s a long period of time that feels like a life time, I find myself shying away from things that make me face myself. I’m more likely to face myself when I’m happy, when there are good things to trip on. I’ve been drinking a lot, dancing a lot and kissing a lot, in order to rid myself of myself, but here’s what I’m trying to do, what we all should, just like Dain told me tonight, accept who I am.

You know about me, you’ve read my stuff, but there’s another component to me, one that I shy away from people because the idea of them seeing me, truly seeing me, frightens me so much. I spend a lot of my time, trying to figure this life out, what I’m doing here in fact. I’m very dark a lot of the time, but that part of me is hard to explain, you see – I have no intention of making it out to be that because I have God in my life, everything is fine and dandy, maybe subconsciously this is what I was doing by shying away from this for so long. But it is that, the fact that I have God in my life, that it is time for me to understand what I am and the fact that I, perceive myself to be someone broken and tormented by the people I’ve scared, the hearts I’ve broken and the minds I’ve poisoned.

You wouldn’t see it as poisoning minds, in fact I dare to say that those I have poisoned don’t think so either, but I feel like I have. I have given people, this notion of love that is never ending and everlasting, perfect and blissful and then taken it away, because in the end I realize how much I don't feel loved myself. That never was their fault though, I couldn't feel what I couldn't understand. I showed them this perfect love and romance, but in fact, even though I believe it exists out there, it wasn't real with us. I’m sorry to say that now, especially if one of them were to read that, but to me, I was giving them the love I thought they deserved, that everyone deserved but in fact I was robbing them, robbing them of what was real.

I have lived my life for a long time as if I was a character in a book, saying the right thing, doing the right thing, making the right gestures, and kissing the right way. I don’t even mean it metaphorically, I literally sit and plan out and write in my head, or tell myself the story as I say what I say, or do what I do. I was a liar and I hate liars. The thing about losing yourself to so many characters, is that along the way, you lose yourself completely. I no longer know who I actually am, whether what I feel or say is real, or if I’ve said something just because it is precisely what has to be said. You’d think it were absurd for someone to be so sure of themselves, but you’ve never been with me, or had a conversation with me, I’m just that good; that good at manipulation and that good of a writer and actress.

I don’t mean to say I don’t care for them; the people I have been with, that I’ve told I love you too. They know that I carry the guilt of their pain I caused with me for the rest of my life, that now I am connected to them and would do anything for them because I’ve done something so inconceivable, and they all deserved better. One of my exes once told me that I sold her a fairy tale, that that’s what I did, I sold a fairy tale that didn’t exist. And that hit me, because yes I do sell a fairy tale, but I’d left her not believing in its existence. And it does exist.

All in all, I am sorry to all those I’ve poisoned, and I pray they will find love, real true and honest love.

Our Father

It has gotten to that point in the evening, where I find myself sending my last goodnight text, when I lock my room door and I visit the toilet for the last time. I'm now sitting in the period that holds way word thinking, the type that gets people looking at you funny and awkwardly moving away from you to someone more, easy to understand. That's okay with me, because if you didn't understand me, I wouldn't want you here either way. I'm not a poet, and I thought I was a novelist but I'm not that either. I'm very misdirected in my writing, but I find myself writing best in conversation, when I'm trying to convince someone of something.

The way I see it, there is only one type of person on this earth. We are, however, defined by a number of rather trivial and inconsequential factors, such as race, language or intelligence. Now don't get me wrong, no one likes having a conversation with an idiot. But by intelligence, I don't mean how quickly you can regurgitate your textbook to me, but rather how quickly you can some up your own views on the world and what you see as your morality. It isn't easy, but I'm not asking, I'm telling you that that's what I identify intelligence as. You simply are not smart for being able to remember things. Now let me get back to my point, one type of person in the world and that is a sinner. We cannot say that none of us have made mistakes, and are flawed, that we did not step into a puddle of disaster of our own doing, or tried to retrace the steps to what we've succumbed to. When I say we're sinners, I mean it in the most beautiful term of the word, and that is in the sense that even though we are sinners, we're allowed this opportunity at mercy and grace, that we have the choice to rise above what we have done, and create a path for ourselves not overshadowed by disgrace and moral failure. When I say sinner, I mean someone with the ability to rise above everything they have done and repent.

For nineteen years, I've been sinning, and I will for the rest of my life, but it's only very recently that I've fully allowed myself to come to terms with this sin, this flaw in the beautiful creation that is me, and to start rising above it. Someone asked me recently if I've been saved, and I answered that I'd been saved for the last nineteen years of my life. Born with the sin of Eve, I was cleansed when I was baptized at a few months old. And don't get me wrong, that wasn't the last time I set foot in a church, for nineteen years, every Sunday I'd get out of bed feeling as if it were the biggest burden of my life to sit in those pews and it was a burden because I was fighting with every inch of my being to not truly see what I was. Nineteen years, every single Sunday, sometimes high and sometimes hungover, I'd nap and I'd feign illness just so I didn't have to endure the truth.

And then one Sunday I listened for a change. The priest said to simply say "I love you, I'm a sinner and I'm sorry." And I went home and I did it. I'd been going through a rough time and had an emotional breakdown a few days later. I sat in my brothers car in the parking lot of my university not being able to face anyone or move for five hours. And I cried and cried, but then I covered my eyes and I spoke to Him.

"Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name,
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us, And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil."

Over and over again, I sat there sobbing and praying, it was a plea, a plea for Him to take control of my life. I could feel the words opening wounds in my heart, wounds that had been repressed and badly stitched. I had been trying to fix my life, I had been trying to forgive myself for my sin, to salvage the strength from within myself in order to forgive those around me. But instead now I was begging for strength, for His will to take over my life. And I won't lie, I've been pretty messed up, I'm a bit of an addict and an emotional wreck, I had no where to go anymore, and the only answer that I kept having for years was getting "Out." But there in that parking lot, I found myself believing in something greater than my own ability, putting myself into the hands of a divinity much more powerful than me. And that's how I found Him.

I am no saint, I am a sinner. And that's why I'm just like you. Because none of this earthly madness has anything on His majesty and ability to take control of our lives.