pindrop

i signed my lease.

at the end of it, i will have lived here longer than anywhere else i've lived in my adult life. i laugh when i tell people that i've moved 19 times since moving out of my parent's home at age 22, quipping that i must have gypsy blood, or wanderlust, or a rambling bone. whatever you want to call it, no place i've lived, no matter how beautiful, how community-rich, how lucrative it may have been compares to the home i want so badly to believe that i've found here in austin. 

i knew next to nothing about austin when i agreed to move. i had vague memories of a music show on TV called austin city limits. i knew the phrase, "keep austin weird" and i knew there was this huge festival thing every year called SXSW. i also knew that it was home to some people whom i hold in high regard, and that they spoke very highly of the city. that's it. that's all i knew. in typical ann fashion, i dove head-first into this new adventure.

i'm home today, and in the unexpected stillness and silence of the day, i find myself looking around my home, wondering if it's been worth all the struggle and the strife that i've experienced on the journey that has brought me to this day, and the struggle that lies ahead. the honest answer? it's been a really high price to pay so far, and i don't know that i've gotten what i've paid for, as the saying goes.

i looked around today and i realized that, on some subconscious level, i've known this to be true. i've not hung one picture. not one curtain. nothing of permanence that would suggest that i have truly dug in my heels here, ready to settle into this place and call it home. maybe the rose-colored glasses have come off, maybe i'm just tired of the struggle, maybe i'm just lonely... likely, it's all of that and then some.

the silence, for once, is deafening, isolating, suffocating.

wildfire

my feeds are overflowing with pictures and exclamations of dismay and horror over the fires in the western US. may i offer another perspective?

ALL FIRE IS NOT BAD.

let me repeat that. all fire is not bad. one more time to let it really get past the reaction: all fire is not bad.

wildland fires are necessary and beneficial to the systems in which they occur. many of the western species cannot propagate without it. additionally, the fires consume fuel on the forest floor and recirculate nutrients back into the soil.

what's happening is scary and it's easy and understandable to react to it from a perspective of fear and anxiety. hear me on this - i understand your REACTION. we've been raised with smokey the bear telling us that, "only you can prevent forest fires." well, smokey, we need those fires, so shut the fuck up.

what we need is an appropriate and corrective RESPONSE. we are seeing the result of 150+ years of land mismanagement. these natural fires become catastrophic because there is TOO MUCH FUEL on the ground. why? because we SUPPRESS wildfires when they should be allowed to burn. if the smaller fires would be left alone, then the larger fires would occur with far less frequency and vastly reduced loss of property and life.

until we manage our lands correctly, until we realize that fire is not bad, until we focus our efforts on education and mitigation, we will continue to see these catastrophic fires. we MUST change course. we MUST allow the proper management of forests. we MUST concentrate our suppression efforts on saving lives and property. and we must use common sense when we allow the public to build homes in these fire-prone, fire-dependant ecosystems. until this happens, these catastrophic fires will not stop.

we, as land managers, must admit our mistakes, get past our professional pride and hubris, and manage our lands correctly. we MUST do this immediately.

WE MUST. THERE IS NO OTHER OPTION HERE.

in case you're wondering about my ability to speak with authority about this situation, my degrees are in forest management, with a specialty in wildfire mitigation and public perception of risk. i am happy to answer any and all questions, so please comment below and let's begin a conversation that invites calm, resolution, and change.

on the head of a pin

here i am. again.

i had hoped that, at some point, my life would even out and i would not be forced to make these hard, life-altering decisions as frequently... or at least have someone with whom to make them. alas.

the current dilemma:

i moved to austin in december 2015, full of hope and joy at the new life unfolding before me. it's been hard. there's no denying that. i've moved three times. i lived in an extremely unfortunate roommate situation for over a year. i've left a 20-year career in management. i've been sued. i've been in two car wrecks. i've become self-employed. i have a home of my own for the first time since 2009. i've lost many friends and gained a few more. but most importantly, it's also been glorious, because i've lived life on my terms.

enter texas governor abbott and 26 uber lobbyists. with one swipe of his pen, abbott has knocked me to my knees. he's effectively taken away my livelihood and my ability to support myself. i'm quite literally one paycheck away from losing everything.

~ the temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.

i've seen variations of this quote in my feeds and it ALWAYS pisses me off. what an arrogant and thoughtless thing to say to someone who is struggling to make difficult decisions. sometimes, the RIGHT answer, the GOOD answer, the ONLY answer, is to give up. it takes wisdom and discernment to know when a door is closing; to suggest otherwise is false, just as the passive-aggressive nature of this quote is manipulative and unkind. to claim that you possess such prescience is the height of arrogance, and to spout that sentiment to someone who is struggling is cruel.

so today, i find myself five days away from a major decision. do i renew my lease, betting that my income will return? do i put in my intent to vacate and move back to baton rouge? the question is that simple and that complex.

so here i am, standing on the head of a pin. one step in any direction alters my life in ways that i cannot possibly foresee. my christian friends will tell me to step in faith, trusting that jesus will catch me, that he only wants his best for me. my secular friends will wish me luck and wait and watch to see what happens. i find myself somewhere in the middle.

i saw this youtube video on FB a few days ago. i sat on my couch yesterday, laughing and sobbing at the same time. it's said that music is the language of the heart. if this is true, and i believe that it can be, then my heart is longing, languishing, defiantly expecting. at the same time, it's faltering, famished, forlorn. yearning, violently beating in protest and fear. vulnerable, flawed, glorious, hopeful. and that's how decisions should be made, yes? with hope.

so this is me, choosing to live with an open and vulnerable heart, choosing to make decisions, not out of fear, nor anger, nor stark pragmatism. this is me, choosing hope.

#lovewins #keepgoing #choosehope #AKF #YANA 

THE WOMAN WHO HAS BEEN TO HELL AND BACK IS NOT EASY TO LOVE.

to everyone - male and female - who has ever tried to love me - this is the most honest and transparent confession i've ever seen, and it exposes from what, for so long, i've tried to shield you:

THE WOMAN WHO HAS BEEN TO HELL AND BACK IS NOT EASY TO LOVE.

Many have tried. Most have failed.

The weak need not attempt, for it will take more strength than you even know you possess; more patience, more resilience, more tenacity, more resolve. It requires a relentless love, one that is determined and not easily defeated.

For the woman who has been to hell and back will push you away. She will test you in her desire to know what you are made of, whether you have what it takes to weather her storm. Because she is unpredictable – at times a hurricane, a force of nature that rides on the fury of her suffering; other times a gentle rain, calm, still and quiet.

When she is the gentle rain that falls in time to her silent tears, love her.

When she is the thunder and lightning and ferocious winds that wreak havoc, love her harder.

She is a contradiction, a pendulum that will forever swing between fear of suffocation and fear of abandonment, and even she will not know how to find the balance between the two. Because today, although she will never tell you, she will feel insecure. She will want you to stay close, to tuck her hair behind her ear and kiss her on the forehead and hold her in the strength of your arms. But tomorrow she will crave her independence, her space, her solitude.

For while you have slept, she has been awake, unable to slow her thoughts, watching clocks and chasing time, trying to make the broken pieces fit, to make sense of it all – of where and how she fits. She fights her demons and slays her dragons, afraid if she goes to sleep they will gain the upper hand, afraid if she goes to sleep she will no longer be in control. Tomorrow, she will be tired, and your presence will smother her. She will need only herself.

When she reaches out for you, love her.

When she pushes you away, love her harder.

New situations and places and people and experiences will make her anxious. She will be fiercely independent and long to overcome her fears, all the while as terrified as a small child alone in the big world. Sometimes she will need to be courageous, to prove to herself she has what it takes. Other times she will need you to take her hand and hold it firmly in yours. Sometimes she may not know what she needs, and you will need to read her like a book with worn pages and a tattered spine and be what she needs when she does not know herself.

When she is brave and steps into the world on her own, love her.

When she is scared, but refuses to take your hand, love her harder.

She will live in fear of being too much – and endless battle to find the middle ground. Ashamed if the scale falls one way or the other, ashamed to be herself for no one has ever loved her both when she is small and when she is tremendous.

When she feels too much, love her.

When she feels not enough, love her harder.

Sometimes she won’t hurt and the light will shine from her eyes and her laughter will be a rare and precious melody. But sometimes, she will hurt so much from the trauma still in her body; she will ache, she will feel pain and anguish. The light will grow dim and the music will fade.

When she is the light, love her.

When she is the darkness, love her harder.

She will always love you with caution, with one foot out the door. For she does not understand a love with no conditions, one that is powerful enough to withstand hard times. She cannot allow herself to fully trust in your love, and she will keep parts of her heart hidden – the parts of her heart that have been hurt the most, the parts she can’t risk being hurt again when she has worked so hard to stitch them together.

She will always watch, wait and expect you to leave first. And when you don’t, she has a truth written upon her heart that says you will – it’s only a matter of time, for everyone who loves her leaves her. And so she will seek to sabotage the relationship; she will seek to destroy it, she will seek to leave first, she will seek to hurt you. This is how she survives, how she will ensure she will not get hurt again.

When she wants you to love her, love her.

When she wants to hurt you, love her harder.

Being out of control terrifies her. Don’t ever make her feel powerless, trapped or without her freedom. She needs to dance barefoot under enormous blue skies, to feel sand between her toes, to run with wolves as the wind weaves magic through her hair, for here is where her healing is found. Never clip her wings, for if she has the freedom to fly, she will always come back to you.

Love her when it’s easy, and love her harder when it’s not.

Love her in a way that will defy all she has ever known love to be.

Love her because you understand with every fiber of your soul the gift of her love, what it has cost her to offer you her fragile heart.

She does not need you. She has chosen you.

Because you have what it takes to survive the storm.

Because even when she doesn’t know how to love, you know how to love harder.

~ Written by Kathy Parker

[but jesus. he and i are working on this. it's a battle, a saga, a lifetime of journeying toward one another. thank you for trying to love me well - you are so much stronger than i.]

cc: Jen Hatmaker Stasi Eldredge

fearless

i've had a hard week. maybe that's a bit understated; i've had a really, really hard week. even that's an understatement, but you get the gist. it's been tough, and it culminated yesterday into an all-out nightmare. in the midst of it, in my more sane moments when i am not gnashing my teeth nor rending my garments, i find myself reflecting on a picture a friend of mine shared the other day:

when i first saw it, i commented with a quip, "...am learning..." little did i know how quickly that little quote would come into play in my life.

in the deepest, darkest hours of last night, alone with emotions raging inside of me, my thoughts stilled for a moment on this quote. i was raging at HIM because He has asked too much of me this time; He has asked me to forgive someone... AGAIN. the echoes of people He's asked me to forgive ran through my mind, and the sheer length of the list left me breathless. it was staggering. it IS staggering. it seemed as though the images of those who have wronged me in my life were on a reel, and it was unraveling before me as their faces crossed my mind. my heart is skipping a few beats even recalling those moments last night, and even in the remembering of the names of those who have gone before, those whom He has asked me to forgive UNSPEAKABLE wrongs, i felt my heart quaking. i'm not gonna lie - i'm shaking again just writing about this.

here's the thing: you can't truly get past a wrong until you loosen your grip around their necks and release them to Him. His justice, His timing, His way. i know this to be true. but damn it all to hell, i want to be angry. i want to allow myself to feel the weight of the wrong. i want to... live in peace, undisturbed by those who choose to exist outside the Kingdom. here's the other thing: He won't let me. His life isn't peaceful; it certainly is not lived without being subjected to scorn, injustice, betrayal.

i wrestled with these thoughts for hours. and i mean literally wrestled, as in tossed, turned, flipped, flopped, beat the pillows, and yelled in protest as i fought my flesh and rode my anger into the emotion lying beneath it - fear. i was afraid. it's that simple, and that complex. if i have to put a name to what i fear, i guess i would most honestly say that i fear life with Him is too hard, and life without Him is unbearable. He asks too much of me.

the idea of living life fearlessly has been with me for awhile. in reflecting on what i went through last night, i realized that living fearlessly does not mean living without fear. it means living through the fear and into Life... but you gotta believe that Life is worth living - and that's where i got stuck.

(j.r.r. tolkien)

truthfully, i'm not fully unstuck, which is why the tenses keep changing as i write. as i was looking for the picture of the quote mentioned at the top, i ran across all of these other pictures first. notice a theme here?

i think i'm done wrestling, for now. i will always wrestle; it's in my nature to do so. thankfully, the length of the wrestling matches has shortened over time. last night was seemingly endless, dark, fraught with anger and fear. my hope is that tonight, i will rest in the knowledge of mercy and grace, both given and received, throughout this day. last night, i was slamming myself against the Rock. this night, i choose to rest in peace, with wayward thoughts held captive and firm reminders of His mercy and grace so evident in my life today held, white-knuckled, until they are no longer a mantra and a shield, but a place in which to dwell, safe in the knowledge that the Kingdom is not at risk, and neither am i.