Finding Kate

Slipping away..

2012-01-25T00:08:00.000-06:00

I thought I was missing something. That it was something that I had to seek out. To find. To add to my life. To change my life. But I don’t need something added. The truth is I am afraid. Afraid of our friendship somehow slipping away. Afraid of seeing you less. Of knowing you less. Things change as they must but that doesn’t erase the fear of losing you.

18 Thoughts

2012-01-20T00:30:00.001-06:00

1.) What Gets you excited about Life? Working towards a goal. Changing positively every day. Loving family, standing out at my job, making a difference.

2.) Who do you sometimes compare yourself to? ..read more here

Life in the Present

2012-01-14T21:36:00.001-06:00

“The present is never our goal: the past and present are our means: the future alone is our goal. Thus, we never live but we hope to live; and always hoping to be happy, it is inevitable that we will never be so.” --Blaise Pascal

Brokeness a Possibility

2012-01-13T19:05:00.000-06:00

When I was four, I used to sit at the top of the stairs spying on my mom and my older brother downstairs. So often, after I would be sent to bed, they would have their own movie nights together and I always wished to be a part. It was years later that I would tell her.. read more here

Peace

2012-01-11T20:39:00.000-06:00

Peaceful, soul-searching day today :)

2012-01-11T15:35:00.001-06:00

Sometimes it's amazing.. the journey you can make in just under 24 hours..

The Next Moment..

2012-01-11T12:48:00.003-06:00

“The next moment is as much beyond our grasp, and as much in God's care, as that a hundred years away. Care for the next minute is as foolish as care for a day in the next thousand years. In neither can we do anything, in both God is doing everything.”

C.S. Lewis

Two Sides

2012-01-11T10:26:00.000-06:00

It’s been a long couple of days. Honestly, I don’t know where I’m at right now. But if there’s one thing I do know, it’s who I am and what I’ve always been hoping for.

There are two sides of myself.. the side that leads with the heart and the side that leads with my head. I’ve often followed the latter when it comes to.. read more here

To Just Be..

2012-01-08T21:21:00.002-06:00

Circumstance shapes us-- our past and out future. Our desires, our passions.. our reason for being.

"You grow, you roar
Although disguised
I know you

You'll learn to know..

..I wonder if I'm allowed ever to see
I wonder if I'm allowed to ever be free

I wonder if I'm allowed just ever to be"

One Word

2012-01-07T20:46:00.000-06:00

I so fear being alone. It frightens me sometimes. I used to be so good at it. What happened? Now I so often sit alone in the coffee shop, watching everyone walking all about me past my table and I wonder.. if they’re just as lonely as I am. Even if they have others with them because honestly, what is a true connection?.. Read more here

Random Questions..

2012-01-06T23:56:00.000-06:00

Name 3 objects or things you love most and why? Okay so if this is actual objects and not people they would be this: My camera to capture beautiful moments, my laptop... read more here.

The Place They've Brought Me To

2012-01-01T14:52:00.001-06:00

Who are we really?.. if not people who change a little bit every single day…

It’s the New Year. New beginnings. 2010 was a bad year for me in a lot of ways. 2011 was just weird. There were a lot of ups and downs, though I’d like to think.. read more here

A Better Place.

2011-12-21T21:38:00.000-06:00

Wow.. tonight’s sexual assault advocate’s training class was great!

To be honest, I almost skipped class tonight. Today was really long and I had a horrendous migraine when I left work. I texted the person training us that I would be late. I wanted to grab something to.. read more here

What If..

2011-12-17T03:34:00.002-06:00

There is hope and there are dreams.. and along with those come the fear of.. read more here.

Promise..

2011-12-14T22:37:00.000-06:00

I find it difficult to describe where I’m at right now, the emotions running through me, all of the thoughts.

I woke up early this morning and I couldn’t go back to sleep. And it took me almost several moments to realize that... read more here

A Shifting of the Mind

2011-12-06T12:54:00.002-06:00

..And just when I’d thought I hated her, I realized that it had been me I’d hated all along.

It’s Christmas time.. and the first flutters of snow are beginning to fall where I live. It’s a season of joy, of giving gifts, of telling others you love them.. and best of all, it’s a season of hope :)

Lately, I’ve been feeling such a stirring in my heart... read more here.

Oh the Possibilities..

2011-11-11T21:37:00.000-06:00

I don’t know how I feel. It’s been one of those days.. one of those years really. People change. And it took a long time of looking around and then back again to realize that.. read more here

A life is a life is a life..

2011-10-19T21:53:00.000-05:00

I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve said it— if I only change one life—just one— my life will have meant something significant. And I think there are some who don’t understand it. Why one life? Why only one? And all I can say is that.. read more here

A Work in Progress

2011-10-09T14:53:00.002-05:00

So I had a dream last night. It was kind of strange but it got me to thinking about the many things that I have yet to work on within myself. We are, of course, a constant work in progress and I’ve certainly got quite a ways to go.

Sometimes it takes stepping back and looking at yourself to maybe see all of the things that everyone else sees whenever they look at you. Sometimes what it took to survive at one point in life is difficult to.. read more here

To Dare Mighty Things

2011-10-06T23:11:00.001-05:00

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

—Theodore Roosevelt

To dare might things— what powerful wording. I can hardly imagine a life without chance.. without faith. At one time I..read more here

Failure To Make the Turn

2011-10-05T21:35:00.001-05:00

“If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience.”

So I’m hard at work getting the photo business started. It’s a lot of work but I just know... read the rest here

What We Give

2011-09-30T00:10:00.001-05:00

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
— Winston Churchill

If there’s anything more boring than a life spent thinking only about oneself, I don’t know what that is. I used to think that change could be made in massive moments, powerful explosions of the miraculous, but it’s sometimes... read more here

One of those days..

2011-09-29T11:43:00.001-05:00

It’s a rainy looking dreary day which of course is my favorite kind. Especially when I don’t have to go to work, which sadly, today I do :/ Oh well..

I’ve been enjoying my morning anyway with.. read the rest here

18

2011-09-26T20:15:00.001-05:00

...6.) With the exception of the computer, what can you hear? My brother chatting with a friend on skype.

7.) When did you last laugh? About 10 minutes ago.

8.) Are you listening to music right now? Adele’s Someone Like You :)

9.) How many tattoos do you have? Zilch

10.) If you don’t have any, have you ever thought of getting one? Yep— Fearlessness or Joyful Heart in Gaelic.

11.) Do you carry a donor card? Yes

12.) If you could meet any one person (from history or currently alive)... Read the Rest Here

Past Life

2011-09-24T20:20:00.005-05:00

In a past life I was twelve years old. Naive, innocent, so sure she was right. Time changes people and in my case, I’m fairly certain for the better. The problem is that not everyone forgets. If there is one thing I’ve learned... read the rest here

Maybe

2011-09-19T09:42:00.001-05:00

New Post on Tumblr.---> Maybe

New Blog Location!

2011-09-13T20:10:00.001-05:00

My Blog has been moved here: http://lacylynnette.tumblr.com/
Please be sure to bookmark the new page to keep up with any future entries. Thanks so much!

Lacy Lynnette

It's the Little Things..

2011-09-13T14:44:00.004-05:00

A homemade smoothie :)

1/2 cup of orange juice
1 cup of ice
1 Banana
4 or 5 Strawberries

Hey You, It's Me..

2011-08-15T17:49:00.004-05:00

How the years fly by.. And I mean that in a somewhat sad sense. Tomorrow I will be twenty-four years old. I say it out loud and I almost can't believe it myself. I'm all grown up-- and I can't help but wonder, when you look at me, what do you see?

It's been eight years now since you left me then. I think about it now and wonder just when it ever was that I ever truly belonged to you anyway. And then I wonder just how lucky I've been since the cost of belonging to you is so great.

I love you anyway. I've always loved you. Somehow I doubt that will ever truly go away or even diminish. It's who I am and I suppose if you've ever looked at me and wondered about what you see, even in your blindest moment it has to be the very first thing that you would ever know about me. And I think you'd be surprised to realize just how little you now know about me-- your only daughter, all grown up-- and the person I've become.

I think back now on the years spent isolated, cut off from the world around me. At one time, it used to make me angry, now I just feel blessed because I couldn't have felt even half as grateful..

If I could tell you about the person that I am today, I would tell you about my strengthened faith. About the fewer nights I've spent dreaming myself to sleep because I just don't need it anymore. And I would tell you about the amazing people in my life because honestly, my twenty-fourth birthday will in many ways be my very first because it will be my first spent with them.

If I could tell you about the person that I am today, I would tell you about how I am now truly moving on. That every morning brings a new beginning. That every night brings promise of an even better tomorrow. That I'm learning now that I have to forgive-- not for your sake but for mine and for the sake of the lives that I can only hope to one day touch.

And I'm moving on without you, mom.

"Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future."

My Story

2011-07-23T16:02:00.002-05:00

When I was nine years old, I said it for the first time—“I hate you.” I was alone, no one could hear me, but I said it anyway. It would be my first experience with that word, with that feeling. It was the first that I realized that my parents didn’t love each other and that had to be someone’s fault. I would lay the blame on my father and it wouldn’t be until many years later that I would come to terms with not only parent’s relationship but also my father’s limited role in my life.

Growing up, I didn’t feel any different from anyone else. There was me and there were my three brothers. Bill was the oldest; he was already nine years old when my brother Nick was born. I was born two years later and my little brother, five years after that. He was unplanned. It wasn’t until much later that I would discover just how unplanned his little life was.

My parents both came from very damaged backgrounds; My dad, from a family that had very little to do with one another. His parents were the kind that would put up the tree on Christmas Eve and take it down on the 26th. I knew my father’s parents up until the age five. After that, we moved and they disappeared from my life entirely.
It’s surprising, the kind of things you remember when you’ve very few memories to fall back on. My grandmother, I remember, loved cheese popcorn. We ate it every time we visited my grandparent’s home. Every visit, when it was time to leave, it was time to give grandma a hug. I can still remember the smell of cigarettes when I hugged her. My grandfather loved chewing tobacco and I never saw him without a ball cap. That is all that I remember about him. He would pass away when I was nineteen years old having never spoken to me or even having seen a picture of me after the age of five.

My mom’s parents were involved in my life until a later age. The last time that I would see them would be when I was eleven years old. My grandfather on my mom’s side had a knack for making you feel special and then forgotten all in an instant. He was a difficult man who damaged my mother and her siblings to a very large extent in their childhoods. My grandmother on the other hand, was a quiet woman. To this day I have never had an actual conversation with her. She was very much under the firm grip of my grandfather’s hand all of her married life.

I was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania. A place I commonly refer to as “the hole.” I have been back one time since and I have no desire to ever return. You either die of old age there because you can afford nowhere else to go, or you screw up your life there.

When I was four years old, my older brother and I saw a lot less of our mom. We were too young then to realize the state of our parent’s marriage and when less than a year later our little brother was brought into the world, we had no way of noticing that our parent’s marriage had completely lacked intimacy for years. All I knew is that he was finally home from the hospital and lying in my parent’s bed that day that I slowly walked in and held him for the second time. I’d held him in the hospital once but this time, at home, it felt more real. At five years old, I felt so grown up and in a way, I looked at him as my very own baby and not just my little brother.

Soon after, my parents moved us out to Colorado. I was six years old and those were the happiest three and a half years of my life. Our first place there was tiny but my brothers and I never noticed. It was there that my parents began to argue. A lot. To my knowledge, I had never seen them argue all that much before but when we moved, it was terrible and almost daily. My dad worked a lot. I don’t think my siblings and I could fully understand the sacrifices that he was making to provide for his family financially. All I could think about was how I barely saw him and that bothered me a great deal. Secretly, I was a daddy’s girl. It was during this time in my life that I would begin to rely quiet heavily on my imagination. Every night after I’d been put to bed, I had difficulty falling asleep and most nights I would make up stories in my head to fall asleep. This became a nightly ritual that would go on for many years of my life.

Things got better for a time when we moved into a larger place but that was mainly because my father was working so much by then, that he rarely saw his family. When he did get home, he would often be so tired that he would plant himself in front of the television for the rest of the night. I do remember his putting us to bed nightly and those were some of my favorite moments at that time in my life. So many bedtime giggles. My parent’s most glaring difference was in their parenting styles. My mom was very rigid. She told me that she loved me often but she was very stern at times and believed very much in spanking and discipline. My father on the other hand, lacked any sort of discipline at all and I never received a punishment from him in my life. My father also lacked the ability to express his love for us in words but if there was ever a question in my mind of anything, it certainly wasn’t that.

At the age of nine and a half, my parents moved us to Dubuque, Iowa. My dad wanted to attend Bible College there. He never did. It was after this move that my parent’s marriage deteriorated completely. There were nightly arguments and shouting fights. And it was also at this time in my life, that I uttered those words for the very first time—“I hate you.” I knew I didn’t mean them, I knew it even then.

My parents would stay married for over seven more years until I’d turned seventeen and they finally filed for divorce—or my mom did anyway. The truth was, for many years I’d sided with my mother. I don’t know what it was. I needed that connection in a large way. Ever since the age of four or five, I’d envied my mother’s relationship with my older brother. By the time I was sixteen, my brother had moved out and his relationship with our mother had completely fallen apart.

He’d taken things so much harder—my older brother. For many years, I suppose being the older one, he’d been more aware than I’d been. Stronger in his faith than anyone I’d ever known, by the age of fifteen, he’d fallen away from it entirely. It would be years later that he’d tell me about the rejection he’d felt from our mother. And I had always thought him to be the favored one. I would feel that very same rejection later.

Growing up, my faith had been strong. I was four years old the day I first prayed that prayer but I was eight the first time I actually remembered it. My cousin had died and he was my age. It was the first time that I would come to terms with my own mortality and I wanted to be ready.

At thirteen years old, I attended a conference in Minnesota and went forward at the alter call to rededicate my life. This was to be one of the most life changing moments of my life and I remember it so strongly to this day. For several years after, I would turn to my faith on a daily, hourly basis. For the first time in my life, I was living my faith and not just leaning on the teachings and beliefs of my parents.

The day my mom filed for divorce was on the day of my older brother’s nineteenth birthday and two days after my seventeenth. I was attending College and still living at home. My little brother was only beginning to have difficulties at school. He was now twelve and beginning to display anger issues and difficulty controlling his temper with those around him. I can remember several very physical altercations with him at this time and there was more than once that I would find myself having to lock him out of the house out of fear and waiting for my father to get home.

Oddly, my mother never lifted a finger to physically punish my little brother—something that she had never shied away from when my older brother and myself where children. One of my darkest memories of this was when I was about seven or eight years old and my mother couldn’t find her pen. Somehow it ended in the accusation that I had either taken it or lost it. I was given sixty seconds to find it and as something my mom would often do, my mother began to count out loud each glaring second until time eventually ran out. When time did run out, I would have to meet her in the bedroom where she would use a belt to hit me several times. On this occasion, the belt contained metal pieces on it and I began bleeding as she struck me with it. This was not an uncommon punishment for my older brother and I to receive often. By the time, my little brother had grown however, this form of punishment had thankfully been lost.

In the year before my mother filed for divorce, I began to see a lot of changes in her. She lost a great deal of weight and began to really care for herself. She also joined several dating websites and began to chat with a number of the men who contacted her on them. Many of these men were sorry characters to say the least and lacking any sort of morals whatsoever. I began to fear for the choices my mother was making.

It was also in this year, when I was sixteen, that my mother began to drink. It started out harmless.. a few wine coolers here and there and developed quickly into something far more difficult. It wasn’t long before she was meeting these men she’d chatted with on the sites and going out to drink on a nightly basis.

Often times, I would lay awake at night waiting for the drunken call to come and get her. Every time she would get into an argument with whomever she was with at the time, and would need me to come and get her. And I would jump out of bed to “rescue” her every time-- a little out of duty but mostly out of the fear that if I didn’t, that something bad would happen and it would be my fault.

This was all during my senior year in high school and by the time I’d only started college days before, the divorce papers had been filed. It was during this time that my mom met the man that she would become involved with for years. He was from a small town called Mankato Minnesota and seemed harmless enough. It wasn’t until a few months in that his penchant for drinking heavily began to show. My mother already had a problem but it was as she dated him that this problem became much more magnified.

In 2005, my mom decided to move to Minnesota to be with her boyfriend. This was also the year that my mother came to me one night, crying and telling me that she had something to tell me that had been weighing on her for years. She didn’t even have to say it. My little brother was actually my half-brother. I’d been wondering for quite some time and feeling rather foolish to think it. Now I felt foolish to not know. My little brother had always been quite a bit darker than my brothers and I and one of things that I would come to discover is that his father was African American.

She told my little brother just days later, something that must have been so difficult for him to understand or make sense of. His father was not actually his father now. He’d always struggled with the feeling of being different, now he knew why. He didn’t want to meet his blood father.. or the other half siblings he had out there somewhere. He simply wasn’t ready.

Not even months later, my mother moved out and took all of the furniture. I went with her, mostly out of a sense of duty that I had to protect her. I had left school after one semester. My little brother chose to stay with our dad. The house was entirely emptied out but my mom’s boyfriend had brought a magic kit for my little brother. The image of my twelve year old baby brother siting on the floor of that empty room in that empty house playing with that magic kit is still burned into my mind as the last thing that I saw as I left for Minnesota. And the nightmare and burned images were only beginning. Minnesota would be the place I would soon want to forget more than anything.

When we got there, everything started out rather quiet but quickly developed toward something I could never have envisioned. My mother and her boyfriend began drinking more and more. First it was just on weekends, pretty soon Thursday and then Monday were included. After a while, it was almost every night and so was the physical fighting. There were nights that objects where thrown and broken, slaps and punches were thrown, police officers were called to our home and many scary moments where I found myself fending off a crazed, screaming person that I completely couldn’t recognize as my mother anymore.

My mother would often drink in secret even after she and her boyfriend had already enjoyed quite a few drinks together that night. On one night, I woke to my mother hitting me. I pretended to continue sleeping afraid that if I moved or retaliated that the situation would only escalate. She retreated to her and her boyfriend’s room. A few hours later, I awoke to screaming. She and her boyfriend had begun to physically fight once again. My mom came running out of their room and into mine only to attack me. When I grabbed her arms to keep them from further hitting me, she bit and clamped down hard on my face.

The police arrived soon after and questioned my mom, her boyfriend and I. I can still remember praying that the officer wouldn’t turn the light on in my room and see the marks on my face. He didn’t. My mom was arrested and taken away, and I was left alone with a man I barely knew but couldn’t stomach to even look at anymore. I locked myself away in my bedroom the way I had for months now. My mom came home days later and eventually went to court and paid a fine but less than eight weeks later, the cycle would only begin again.

By this time, I hated my life and began to take careless risks. Often times, I would walk around downtown for hours at night, my mp3 player blasting, never glancing for a moment behind me. I would step out into the street without looking for oncoming vehicles. In many ways, I knew that I was not yet ready to take that step to end my own life and prayed that it would simply be taken care of for me.
I was completely lost and felt no hope anymore. My faith hadn’t been discarded intentionally but had rather dissolved away gradually until I no longer held any strength for it.

Eventually I would have to make decisions as I held pills in my hand and another occasion, a blade to my wrist. Each time, something inside me held back. Something said that this wasn’t the answer and I knew deep down, that my faith was still in there somewhere. So buried beneath all of the hopelessness but never the less, still there.

My mother and her boyfriend’s relationship also dissolved and we moved back to Dubuque in 2006. By the time we returned, so much had changed. My little brother had holed himself up in my father’s house refusing to come out, even to go to school. He had missed school so many times that his junior high had kicked him out and he found himself in a program for troubled kids where they picked him up directly from his home. Even then, he missed often by refusing to come to the door.

It was when I returned that my brother’s mental health became so blatantly clear. He was bipolar. When he was twelve, I’d noticed the signs and spoken with my parents about it. No one then had taken it seriously. By the time my brother was thirteen, not only had he begun to skip school but he barely left home to venture outside anymore and would often complain that too many people were crowding the room if more than two of us where in the same room at the same time. Often times, if I did get him to come out and I would pick him up, he would sit in the passenger side as close to the door as possible while staring away from me and out the window the whole time we drove. It was disturbing to say the least that he couldn’t even look me in the eye anymore.

My brother eventually made it to the 9th grade but never beyond it and he never completed it. He has never held a job, never received a license and has never driven a car. When I see him now, it is so difficult because I see a shell of a person that was once there. At one time loving and affectionate, he slowly became an angry and bitter young man. Often times his anger is directed toward the person who comes in contact with him most, my dad. On one occasion, he took a baseball bat to my father’s vehicles. Another time, he assaulted him. The latter has happened on far more than one occasion.

Since 2006, it has been a long journey back. For the first year, we lived in a hotel—my mother and I. Both of us found jobs but as we looked for apartments, she managed to find something wrong with each and every one. Her drinking continued, often times with money my dad had given her to help us get by as we searched for a home or money her boyfriend had given her to be able to move all of her possessions back to Dubuque once we did find a place to live. It wasn’t long before all of this money was gone. In the summer of 2007, my mother crashed our only car on a night she’d been drinking heavily. It was on that night, I found myself in one of the most distraught moments of my life. My hours at work had been cut back drastically and I’d been looking for another job. I questioned now how I would find one and how I would get there. I began to look for jobs within walking distance of the hotel.

I applied at two places—Kmart and Shopko. Kmart called me first and set up an interview. I really didn’t want to work for them, but the hotel was practically in the parking lot. My interview went extremely well and I was told to expect a call with an offer likely before the end of the day. The day and evening came and went with no call. A couple of days passed before I received a call from Shopko. I felt that I likely still had the job with Kmart but went ahead and set up the interview anyway. For days I had wanted to call Kmart so many times but before my interview with them, I had prayed that God would guide me to where I should go and that I would not allow my lack of patience to interfere. I had promised myself that I would not call but would wait on God’s timing.

My interview with Shopko also went well. I was told that it could take up to three days to hear back with an offer so I returned to my room and prayed that whatever job I was supposed to take, would call me first. Less than 24 hours later, Shopko called and offered me a job and I accepted. One hour later, Kmart called. It would be years before I would realize the impact of that one hour.

Not long after I’d found my new job, an apartment came along that I took as my new home. I was living alone by now as my mother had returned to Minnesota. For the first time in years and maybe even my life, I felt truly stable, truly safe. It was almost as though everything had fallen into place. Answered prayer.

But history has a way of repeating itself, I suppose. And I eventually allowed my mother back into my life. She wasn’t going to drink anymore, she said, and she was going to look for a job. Three years later, I was largely supporting us as she still didn’t have job. Her drinking hadn’t gotten any better either. There were several nights there that my own things had been broken; items that I had worked so hard for. When my mother had spent all of her boyfriend’s money, we no longer had any way to get our possessions back down to Dubuque.

I can remember the night I moved into that apartment. Every item I had, stuffed into Wal-Mart bags and one suitcase. I also had an air mattress, a 13” television and a vcr. Over the next year, I would work so hard to turn my empty apartment into a home. Despite the financial difficulty in the beginning, I never regretted the place that I started from. I became so grateful for each and every supposedly meaningless item I managed to add to my home.

Eventually my mother and I’s relationship greatly deteriorated. I had grown so tired of attempting to save someone from a situation that I finally had to accept that I had no control over. We fought constantly. By 2010, my mother was only partially living with me. It was that year that I became very sick and began to see what would be a series of doctors to find out why. In a short span, I’d had bronchitis, an ear infection and pink eye. I became so physically exhausted that I found it impossible to even stand long enough to do my hair in front of the mirror in the morning. I also dropped quite a bit of weight and if I hadn’t already been rather thin before, it really began to show.

By my third visit to a doctor, my blood was drawn for some tests and some basic questions were asked of me. The doctor could find nothing wrong on the surface and by the end of my visit, I was handed a card for counseling. I realized then that she thought I was crazy and I began to wonder if I was too.

A couple weeks later, I found myself unable to complete simple tasks at work and my heart began to race so I left and checked myself in to the emergency room. It was there that some more tests were run and it was discovered that I had strep.. I’d now had it for three months. As I recovered, my apartment also flooded that year.
By August of that year, my mother was back and showed up on my doorstep one day out of the blue. I allowed her to spend some time with me off and on that month but didn’t allow her to on move back in with me. After getting through the cleanup of my apartment, I decided to move and thought this to be an opportunity to completely start fresh with no bad memories in a new home.

Slowly, my mother worked at trying to stay with me once again. I decided to give it another shot as she hadn’t been drinking since she’d been back and had also begun a new job. She moved along with me in late September. Within a couple of weeks, she lost her job and one night we began to argue. She became angry and shoved me back against the fridge. That was the night when I’d decided that I’d had enough. About a week or two later, she moved out for good and I didn’t see or speak to her again for months.

I knew the holidays would be the hardest. I’d never spent them alone before. I began to focus very much on work, taking on a second small job, often going in for it even when I didn’t need too and working long after my shift was over.

I’d always been so good at the act.. pretending that I was all right. In all of my time spent focused on my mother, I’d never thought to build a life for myself. At 22, I found myself having to finally look at the fact that no one truly knew the real me. That year I had slowly begun to share with a new close friend. It was the first I’d ever voiced any of the things I’d gone through with anyone.

Thanksgiving was the hardest day as I listened to everyone’s plans with family all the while pretending to have my own. I spent a lot of time away in my office because I didn’t want anyone to see what my face would surely give away. It was around this time that my manager began to also notice that something wasn’t right with me. By late December, with Christmas approaching, these feelings only began to cycle once again and if I hadn’t already begun to feel transparent before, I was certainly feeling it now. My manager, Nate, offered a listening ear anytime that I needed to talk, that was on the 22nd. On the 23rd, I accepted.

I can still remember that moment, as I clocked out and stood at my locker for what felt like two or three of the longest minutes of my life. All of my life, my whole entire life, I’d shared a little with one person. Talking about myself and my life felt so.. weak. And yet, I felt some sort of prodding to go forward. And as I sat in his office and began to talk, all I could think about was how crazy I must sound. I’d been thinking about counseling but I knew that there would be no answers for me there. My faith was still in there somewhere and I knew that was the part of me that needed to be fed.

I finished talking and to this day, I barely remember a word that I said but I do remember what he said—“Wow, I don’t really know what to say,”—and I just thought, great, he’s wondering why I’m telling him all of this. And then he said the most important thing to me—“and I wasn’t sure why but I really felt for the past few days that I should pray for you.” I knew then why I’d been led to that office.

It was over the next few months that everything began to just fall into place. I had people in my life that I wondered now how I ever lived without and I began to realize that as my own family had fallen away, God had filled that empty void with others to make me feel surrounded by those who truly cared about me. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t going it alone.

One day I wrote a poem to my mom:

I hate you, I love you
This back and forth emotion
This up and down feeling
This stop and start life
Breathing in and breathing out
Getting up and falling down
Hiding while crying
Living while dying
Believing in nothing
Questions in the night
My soul in shadow
No one in sight
Bitterness screaming
Hopeful dreaming
Lost and alone
No place called home
Hating you, Loving you
Saving, then losing you
Finally free
Saving me
Learning to breathe..

It took a very long journey, a loss of faith and discovering it even stronger and opening up to those around to find myself surrounded by a new family before my life could truly begin again. And you know… it’s far better the second time around.

Elegantees Look :)

2011-07-04T19:28:00.002-05:00

The Lacy Tee by Elegantees

maybes and failure

2011-06-28T02:55:00.001-05:00

What a long day. I just worked 12 hours.. I should be able to sleep tonight..

So many thoughts flood my mind as I lay awake though-- of my little brother. I talked to my mom today. My mom, dad (well, not really his dad) and I are going to sit down in the next week or so and talk about what we are going to do about the situation.

As I'm sure many know by reading my blog, my little brother is bipolar. Undiagnosed. Unopen to help. He is also now consumed by three types of addiction-- pills, alcohol, and drugs. The latter, we are only now discovering. And not only is he addicted, but it isn't unusual for him to feed all three all at once. I am worried for his life.

So much of this was failure on the part of everyone who should have loved him most. His mother abandoned him when he was 12, his blood father has never set eyes on him, has never known him for one moment of even one day. The man he knew as his father for his first 12 years never knew how to truly be a dad but took in and did the best he could. And his sister.. His sister has had to accept that she was only a child then, herself, and surviving then, in that family, felt like a solo battle to get to the surface and every man for himself.

There isn't a moment that goes by, that I don't wish that I could have left then and taken him with me. But then that would be saying that I might actually have saved him.. and we know how that goes. No mere man--or woman-- can save anybody. But I knew then that he had a medical problem. Who knew that at nineteen years old, after battling this mental disease for years, smashing out windows, being committed, countless trips to the hospital for imaginary problems, becoming reclusive and battling three addictions, that his mother would still be asking if he has a problem.

I think maybe that I might not have saved him but I do think maybe that he might have had a chance.

And so we must decide where to go from here though I have a feeling what that next step is, we all do, we just don't like to say it. Also, prayer is a given.

Elegantees

2011-06-22T16:35:00.005-05:00

The Elegantees Lacy Tee

Product Description: Lacy is clothed in Strength. She is upright and strong. But, it sure took some trials to get there. This fitted tee has the flattering ruching which creates shape and strength

*So much thanks to my good friend Katie for giving me such an amazing blessed gift as to have an Elegantee named after me :)*

As always, 100% of all dividends are donated to the valiant fight to combat sex trafficking

Half As Much

2011-06-20T22:07:00.003-05:00

For so, so long, I wished like crazy to not be needed even half as much. I felt that I'd spent so much of my life caring about others, caring for others that I'd felt that I'd begun to lose sight of myself somewhere along the way.

I longed for an evening to myself. To make even one decision that would benefit me in some way and not someone else. I wanted to feel what it was like to truly live and just-- breath.

One day I woke up, and there was only me and my life. So I spoke my fears aloud for the first time to someone who would listen, shared my worries and my hopes. Healing entered, faith renewed itself and hope reappeared. And then I woke up months later and found myself thinking-- I don't want to be needed only half as much anymore...

Randomness

2011-06-19T17:43:00.003-05:00

What is an experience you have had where you couldn't stop laughing?

Anytime I manage to get the drop on my little sister with a good prank... :)

What is the biggest purchase you have made in the last year?

My van... my unchosen soccer-mobile, what can I say? It chose me.

Tell us about something (a certain food, place, habit, item, experience) or someone that you miss.

Tasty Cakes, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Dexter's Lab, "Cigar" pretzels from Sarah's Candy Store, dancing in the aisle at church at 4 years old, playdoh and Light Bright to name a few.

What is an area of your home that desperately needs to be organized?

I have what I affectionately refer to as the "junk drawer." It's the drawer that contains all that I've given up on... :P

Tell us about something you accomplished this week that you’re happy about.

My new position at work!

How many friends do you keep in touch with from that time?

Many

In what year did you graduate from high school, and have you gone to any high school reunions?

2004 and no, not yet anyway.

What is the last thing you purchased?

kumquats-- which are amazing, by the way..

Do you like to shop? Window shop?

no and no.. but I do what I must to feed and cloth myself

Thursday used to be a Must See TV night. Name three shows you still think are “must see” TV!

Law and Order: SVU, Kitchen Nightmares, and Seinfeld

What is one piece of advice that was one of the best you’ve ever received?

That we can't always know what God has for us and that it's never too late to hear that calling. The best quote ever shared with me came from my best friend though:

Love your fellowmen, and cry about them if you cannot bring them to Christ. If you cannot save them, you can weep over them. If you cannot give them a drop of cold water in hell, you can give them your heart's tears while they are still in this body --Charles Spurgeon

Unsafe (video)

2011-06-09T22:07:00.004-05:00

The impact that bipolar disorder can have on a family is astounding, especially when denial is involved and there is no desire for treatment.

And as we recognize them less and less, we can only miss them more and more..

Time Flies

2011-06-05T20:39:00.007-05:00

My little brother turned 19 today..

I still remember when they brought you home-- how tiny you were. In my mind, you were my little baby and that very first time that I held you, I never wanted to let you go.

I miss you more and more every day, Shortshanks... Happy Birthday, little brother :)

A Turn of Events

2011-05-30T18:57:00.003-05:00

Wow, what a week I had visiting Nashville, TN. When it rains, it pours as they always say, and what a crazy trip it was.

For as many things as were tossed my way, the strangest thing happened. I discovered far more about myself than I ever have in such a short period time. The biggest being that I am far stronger than I ever realized.

So much has changed since last year when even the slightest change in my life felt so horribly monumental. But I now find myself so much more equipped to handle whatever comes my way.

As I've gone about my usual tasks, I find myself questioning everything, every aspect of my life-- in a very good way. What am I doing? Is this where I want to be?.. Where I need to be?

The old question of my life is one that I now have a better grasp of than ever-- who am I? Life is a constant renewal, a constant discovery, and a constant work in progress but that doesn't mean that we can't have certainties... one of them being that each day is a journey and it's when we become comfortable with that understanding, that life gets so much better.

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer. "

What Feels Like an Eternity..

2011-05-17T21:55:00.006-05:00

It's so, so strange. We come so far in our lives. We start out strong, maybe lose our way, misplace our faith, die a little-- only to return to find ten times the strength we began with. The most interesting part can be the journey and maybe, sometimes, it is the part we learn--or want-- to forget. The absolute worst that we can do is to forget. The journey, no matter how difficult, how painful, how vulnerable the entire experience may have made us feel, is exactly what we needed to get to the point that we are today.

There are many things that I longed to forget for so long. So many memories that I only hoped to see, over time, fade into the background. But being where I am at today and who I find myself standing with, I wouldn't take back a moment of any of it because in doing so, I would surely alter the person that I am today. Everything-- every single thing-- happens for a reason and I may have walked away from my faith and from Him but He never, ever walked away from me.

Recently, I stumbled across my old journal entries and found that they once again offered me a glimpse into the person that I was and the person that I longed to be. So strange to realize that the latter part really hasn't changed but the former, through the grace of God, truly has. And not only that but my entire world has changed.

A Glimpse of My Former Self:

I stand alone on the porch at night
And listen intently as the wind whispers through the trees
My mind wanders to thoughts of the past
As against my face I feel the breeze..

2/11/07
What a terrible day at work. It was so stressful. Thank God I have tomorrow off. It really sucks... being invisible. I think that that's the hardest thing that I've had to deal with-- being depressed and knowing that no one really knows or takes it seriously. I want to be heard. I want to be missed.. I want to be needed. Needed for me and not for what I can do for someone all of the time. Tomorrow's just another lonely day..

2/12/07
I'm sitting alone in a restaurant right now. I don't do it very often, it never feels right. We had a snow storm last night so everything is covered in snow. I hate snow. As a child, I loved it. It seemed magical and fun. Now all it is, is cold.

It's nights like these, I feel alone
Like no one exists on this world but me
It's nights like these that can no longer run
From the emptiness inside of me

2/13/07
Other people cope, so why can't I? I guess I am. In my own way. I shut everyone out, away from my thoughts, away from my hurt. It hurts less but kills quicker. People like you better when you're happy. One day, I'll help people who feel the same way, That's the thing about pain.. It's killed my hope but given me purpose. How strange is that?

2/14/07
This is my fault. It has to be. I've not done the right things. I've given up, lost hope, fallen down and stayed there. I'm in a constant fight with my own thoughts, with myself. The voices never go away and neither does the sadness or the anger. I wish I was free...

I feel alone.. and yet, I don't
As another's presence comes over me
The One who's there no matter what
Even when the pain blinds me

2/17/07
Mom wonders why I'm so angry all of the time. It's so strange.. to feel as though no one really knows you at all. I am just so weary of every morning. I don't really want to die but I don't want to live either. There's just no joy anymore. I hate myself for giving up.. and I hate myself for being so unlikable. People can just live without me so easily. I don't even know why I am writing all of this down..none of it's making me feel any better.

3/6/07
Life is just one big surprise. The people who love you most come and go like everyone else and in the end, you're on your own. Mom might move back to Mankato. I'm not going with her. There's nothing there for me. No life, no friends, no home. It's beginning to feel as though there is nothing here either. I'm lost. There's nothing here.. there's nothing there.. there's just NOTHING. And no one knows. No one wants to know. I'm alone again..

3/7/07
It's strange.. it's as though mom really can't see the sadness in my eyes. It couldn't be any more clear and yet no one seems to notice. Everything's fallen apart. There's just no hope, and nothing to dream about. I feel as though I am simply getting by these days. Just going through the every day motions.. and none of it means anything. Everything's gray, everything's bland, everything's gone..

My God, My God, I've forsaken You
And done the things I want to do
I need you now to cleanse my soul
Mend my heart and make me whole

-- "The Presence of Another" Lacy Lynnette

It was only a few months after writing these entries, that I would be led onto the long path to get to where I am at today. For the first time, I would feel surrounded, I would feel safe.. and even after I'd found that supportive place, so certain was I of it's temporary state that I couldn't breath it in.. and yet once did, I couldn't even consider a life beyond it, or what I would be if I were to lose it or grow beyond it..

That was me. I didn't know. I didn't want to know.

But as we all know. Things change.. hopefully for the better. My life has changed in so, so many ways and I find myself, finally, in that place of acceptance-- of who I was, who I am, and all that I am meant to be.

And I know what it is that I'm meant to do.. and that is to help others. I knew it then and I can feel it that much more strongly now.

Things change, paths veer off, people fall away.. things change, but His plan doesn't. And that's the most comforting, stable feeling in the world.

The Same

2011-05-06T20:25:00.003-05:00

It's one of those days, weeks-- months, really. After coming home for the hundredth time to the same exact place and the same exact emptiness.. the same exact quiet.. it dawns on you that you're just waiting for something to happen. Something's got to change.

And then comes that second thought-- do I make it happen.. or do I wait? So much time can be spent on controlling every moment, every outcome and you begin to wonder if maybe you're just supposed to stop, listen.. and wait. And that can be the hardest thing about it.

I'm not all that good at waiting when it comes to plans and decisions but I am-- or was-- very good at the very quiet moments in life.. too good. And all I keep thinking is-- I don't like coming home to the quiet anymore.

Part of the Process

2011-04-25T17:22:00.004-05:00

It's easy to walk away but so difficult to stay there. It's easier to pretend your strong than to let someone see the tears in your eyes. It's more comfortable to look away than to look someone right in the eye. My brothers became angry at a very young age. I didn't. Instead I hoped and believed that so long as I continued to fight, that everything would change and become right again.

It's hard to accept that nothing's changed but even harder to accept that you did everything within in your power and still saw just that-- nothing change. But the most difficult thing of all is to stop and see that the one thing that did change was you--- unless it's for the better. I didn't feel anger until I was twenty years old but it catches up, doesn't it?

Old habits die hard. We don't have to be strong 24/7. That's what friends and loved ones are for.. to help us get through it. To see us at our weakest and to allow us this moment to feel it. Every. Difficult. Moment.

Every day is a process until that one day when we wake up and later go to bed and realize..that it didn't cross our minds even once that day :] And when you look around and see who's still standing with you.. well, those are the people that you never-- for the rest of your life-- ever let go of..

Those Who Are Dead

2011-04-16T21:19:00.004-05:00

The song in this video is one by Coldplay and it describes the way I felt for some time. Even in the instances where that person we care about is not lost in death but in heart, soul and spirit, often times we make so many choices that lead us onto that very same path to follow them:

"Those who are dead are not dead
They’re just living in my head
And since I fell for that spell
I am living there as well

Time is so short and I’m sure
There must be something more"

I lived there with my mother for far too long that the alcoholism became as much my own burden as it was hers. And it took me a very long time to find that something more. Even that which we believed so strongly in can begin to fade from our minds until it is lost to us.. and we find ourselves not only among the dead but one of the dead..

Nikki's Story

2011-04-09T14:40:00.004-05:00

Nikki first messaged me through my blog a couple of years ago to tell me of the impact reading it had on her and I never forgot it. A couple of weeks ago, she contacted me to share a bit of her story so that I might post it to the website and on here. Her story is a true reminder to all of us that we are not alone in our journeys and difficulties because whenever I began to think so or to think that my shared thoughts and blog entries had little impact, I remembered Nikki and her message to me then...

Nikki's Story:

From day one it seemed like the world was always against me. The day I was born my family was going to figure out if I was a boy or a girl. My great-grandmother was praying hard for a boy while everyone else wanted a girl. I came into the world and to my great-grandma's disappointment I was a girl. "Oh great, another whore was just born into this family," was my great-grandmother's first opinion about me and I haven't even uttered my first word.

Years went by and I ended up being the apple of my great-grandmother's eye. I lived with her most of my life until I started to attend elementary school. The year before I was in Kindergarten my mother married my step-father and life was a roller coaster of peace and chaos from there. My mother began to be a heavy drug user along with my step-father. Drinking was everyday and normal along with the fights that began after the drinking. The fights would increasing get more and more violent and then it would get so bad that Mom would take me to my great-grandmother's house and I would live there for the rest of the year and maybe for the following year. This happened every other year of my life until I was in fifth grade. When I was in fifth grade my great-grandma got too sick for me to live with her.

Granny died when I was in eighth grade. I was devastated. My parents' drug use was beginning to rise again and I was scared. My mother totally abandoned her duties as a mother and I had to step in and take care of my brothers age two and twelve. I was fifteen. For many years I was fighting to be able to make the grades to graduate high school. At fifteen I was pulled out of school to take care of my two year old brother. It was almost impossible to keep up in school. By sixteen I was pulling two wonderful soul's attention to my way of life. For several months they were keeping a close eye on me by inviting me over on weekends and National Holidays so I wouldn't have to deal with them drinking and getting high. One week after July 4th I was asked to go see a movie with them on the way back their daughter also my best friend asked I could spend the night and they said I could as long as it was okay with my mom and step father. Amanda came into the house with me to help with the asking. My step father was no where to be seen except his bedroom door was locked. My three and ten year old brother was still awake and running around the living room outside my stepfather's bedroom door. It was very late around midnight. My ten year old brother handed me a piece of paper on it was a really long list of things to clean and according to the note I only have five minutes to it all. Yeah Mike decided to make a list of things for me to do. I asked Jesse the ten year old if he could help me with some of this stuff so I could get it done quicker. Like all ten year old kids he refused to help and Mike overheard our conversation. Mike then came storming into the room he grabbed me by the throat and started guiding me into the kitchen that adjoined the livingroom. “ I am getting sick and tire of your complaining. You are going to get in that kitchen and do your chores without anymore complaining right now.” He then pushed me forcefully into the kitchen sink where I fell against the kitchen cabinets. Amanda saw it all and was scared; Mike then yelled at her and ordered her to get out. Her parents heard the entire thing outside in their car. They then came outside and talked Mike into letting me staying at their house. Later they call Dept. of Children's Services. I was pulled out of the house and I finally had peace in my life.

I managed to graduate high school and got accepted into Harding University. I however had no life skills and had to withdraw. Another wonder soul allowed me to live with her for four years to learn how to drive, get a job and keep it, keep a checking account, and speak to other people. I then went to Tennessee Tech University while going through this four years of life skills training but didn't do too well and flunked out. After the four years was up I went back to Harding University. The first semester went beautifully. I had decent grades, made lots of friends, and even had a boyfriend within three months of arriving. Then Christmas break came and something happened to me that I wish to God I could take back. I was raped. I then went into a state of depression that lasted two years plunging my GPA from a 2.5 to a 1.0. I was in probation and appealed suspension ever since the second semester of my first year back bringing up my GPA little by little while still fighting off the depression. I was then engaged and then single within a few months of the engagement. It was the hardest feeling I have had in years. The feeling of failure once again.

I decided to move away with my new boyfriend and go to a different school. Which brings me where I am now. I am now married to the most wonderful man that I know and attending UALR and in May I am transferring to WGU so I can have a job and be able to attend school at the same time. Life is wonderful right now and I hope it never changes for the bad.

-- Nikkie

A Stone or Two..

2011-03-29T17:01:00.004-05:00

Dear You,

I've been getting this strange feeling the past couple of days.. like I've lost something, just a little. I think often about life a year ago and how different it was from my life today, and I mean that in a very positive way. Life has changed so much for the better and I feel so blessed.

I saw you a few days ago and I can't help but wonder.. what is this thing that happens? Ever so slightly. It's like I feel that spark pull within once again and I can't help but wonder if anyone notices but me..

I used to be so good at it-- playing two different people. Maybe old habits die hard. And it's not as though the wall goes entirely back up but maybe just a stone or two gets placed there. I have two lives now-- the life I share with everyone else, and the life I share with you. There was a time once, when I shared everything and watched as my hopes, my dreams, and even the smallest of touching moments were slowly consumed by yours. Now I all I feel is this tremendous desire to tuck my life away from your eyes. To protect the tremendous support and friendship that I've managed to accumulate in the short while that we've been apart.

So what do I do now?

From the moment I'm with you, I sense a slight shift, a change in who I am wanting with every fiber of my being to become. Just a short hour or two, a quick cup of coffee and I find myself back in the strange habit of not looking people in the eye.. and for as much as I don't care to admit it, I know why. I am still hurt. There are moments that I am still so vulnerable it scares me. That part of me is the new person that I am today and it isn't a bad thing. It's a road that must be walked and I am truly blessed to know that I do not walk it alone.

And I know that I can look those walking it with me in the eye even in my most insecure of moments.. I know it.. I'm just not quite there yet..

Things Change..

2011-03-20T11:12:00.006-05:00

2010 was a very interesting year for me. Mainly, I saw my life change in ways that I couldn't even imagine. I must have waded through a dozen disastrous moments, one hundred questions, and three hundred and sixty-five days of wondering-- what now? And yet, it will forever be remembered for me as the most life changing (for the positive) year of my life.

Maybe I'm one of the few young people who sees time as far, far too quick. Days seem like mere moments to me at times. It has been a good thing in many ways as I have learned to savor every amazing memory, and to understand that those bad days, months, even years-- they will pass.

Last year was when I began to feel it. This strange sense of urgency set in. I don't know what it was or why except maybe it all stemmed from these deep understandings that God had placed on my heart at a very young age. But life changes. We take roads that we never could have imagined. We step forward, only to walk away, only to return again. We change direction, maybe we stop and rest a time or two for far too long. Life affects us, it changes us, it molds us into entirely different people than who first started out on this journey. And in my life, I feel that's a good thing.

But if there is one thing that I am coming to fully understand about life and the changes it brings, it is also that timing changes. And maybe all that we once thought and held tightly to our hearts as truth are not lost by the choices we make (though sometimes I feel this may be the case). Maybe those truths are just a little further down the road.

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

For One Faint Moment...

2011-03-07T20:24:00.005-06:00

Hey you, it's me..

Do you ever think about how things could be? Do you ever wish that you could just step away, step back, reflect on the past, makes changes for the present and hope for the future? I do.. and I have. And as I make these changes and step forward towards my future, I turned and looked today-- and you still weren't beside me and I wonder how it's even possible for me to miss something that was barely even there.

For so long I wondered-- what can I do to make you see me? Until I realized one day, that I can't. For so long I wondered-- when would it be my turn? Until I realized that it truly may never be. Each family member, each sibling.. until it got to me.. so why did you keep going?

Do you ever wish that you could just stop for a moment, pick up the phone and call your daughter without stepping out into another room? Do you ever miss the occasional evening coffees, the quiet evenings, little chats about nothing? They've barely been a part of my life and yet I somehow miss them. I miss that spark of hope, that small chance that after twenty-some years, we might finally find each other..

I miss my dad...

The Blessing of an Open Heart

2011-03-01T09:43:00.003-06:00

Well, it's here-- the first day of March! Spring is getting so close and it really is an amazing time of year, a time for new beginnings.

This week is filled with nothing but amazing moments and trips for me. I will be taking part in things I never imagined-- walking in a fashion show-- and spending time with the people I love and care about during an amazing weekend in Green Bay.

I have been thinking about a promise I made to myself when last year first rolled around. I remember telling myself that 2010 was going to be my year. I would fix some problems in my life, maybe take a road trip, figure my life out. Things don't always go according to plan. 2010 was my most challenging year to date and 2011 has proven to be all that I once thought 2010 would be. It's not our timing.. it is His. And often times, we have to wade through a whole lot of crap before we find the good stuff. And that just makes those good moments, far better than we could have ever imagined for ourselves.

As I wrote in my previous post, an open heart can bring sadness as we learn to let others go and to fly and soar on their own but they are never far from our hearts and I have been blessed with a new family that will surely be a part of my life-- for the rest of my life :) And that is the blessing of an open heart. And I wouldn't trade it for the world.

The Trouble With an Open Heart

2011-02-26T11:55:00.007-06:00

The trouble that comes with tearing down walls and letting people in is all of the fears and sometimes uncertainties that come with it. When there is just you, there is just.. you. You may be miserable and lonely at times but there is never that loss you feel as you watch someone go somewhere else in their lives and there is never the wondering of what you are going to do now.

It's like that saying-- it's better to have loved and been hurt than to have never loved at all-- it's true, even in friendships and with family, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt like hell anyway.

And I have my faith.. to guide me, to carry me through and I just know that I am really going to need it. And I just can't help but to keep thinking-- it has been almost four months now since I removed myself from a bad, abusive situation-- a mere four months and I'm just not sure I'm ready for this...

Dusk to Dawn

2011-02-25T19:26:00.003-06:00

Sometimes I just want to run away.. but then I remember that this is life. And things will get better if I can only just keep dreaming..

Before We Were Men

2011-02-16T17:25:00.006-06:00

Memories of childhood:

Life in Colorado where it hardly ever seemed to rain. -Bike rides in the evening and my inevitable penchant to fall from my bike right wherever there was cactus growing. Laying awake Christmas night and whispering with my brothers imagining all of the wonderful things that awaited downstairs. Trips to the only store in our town of two thousand where the most excitement for me was in what paper dolls I would bring home to play with that week.

Waiting by my bedroom door at about 5am in the morning until I could hear my dad leaving for work so I could give him a hug goodbye. Watching his truck from my bedroom window until it disappeared from view. Raking leaves with my brothers, jumping into the pile, creating a mess and starting all over again. Racing through the sprinkler and trying not to get wet. Climbing the tree in our yard and not caring how scraped my knees got.

Trips to Fort Collins. That time we got lost and started driving up the Rocky Mountains. That large planter on the corner of the yard where I would stand up high and hold my hands stretched to the sky and just feel so happy to be alive :) Falling asleep to an 8 year old's dreams of my oldest brother coming to find me and commenting on how big I'd grown.. almost 16 years later and I miss those dreams...

The Eaton city parade, Potato Day-- not sure why we had a day for this in a small city in Colorado, lol-- lightening bugs, 1 cent gumball machines that if you turned just right, you might get extra, the local A&W, pretending to play Olympic events with my brothers, learning to roller blade, going sledding, playing superheros.

Asking my mom if I could have a sister. Finding out that I had one in Heaven. Thunderstorms, pillow fights, hide &seek. When miracles felt obvious and faith was a given :)

Passion or Stability?

2011-02-14T20:51:00.003-06:00

You can have both.. but I was having this conversation with my brother a few months ago and it being Valentine's Day, the thought of it just kind of made its way back in for me.

If I had to choose one in a relationship, which would I choose? Passion or stability? At one time, I really wrestled with this as I was contemplating what it truly was that I was looking for in a relationship. And if I had to choose, if I absolutely, positively had to choose.. stability. I've never felt it coming from another person.. and yet I can't imagine.. feeling passionate without that sense of safety just as I can't imagine feeling truly safe without the feeling of passion in the relationship.. I truly don't believe you can have one without the other and retain a lasting relationship.

And there will be quiet moments, trying moments.. and those will be the times that I would want the safety of knowing that it isn't over.. Stability...

Slipped Away

2011-02-05T12:00:00.005-06:00

My Dear Little Brother,

If I could do it all differently, I would. My mind often wanders back to the day that mom and I left that house on Ohagen street. The day that we left that empty house, filled with nothing but bad memories. I think so much about the little brother that I left there and I often think of it as the saddest moment of my entire life.

And I miss you so, so much. You have no idea. The sound of your laugh and that southern accent you would talk in for no reason that anyone could understand. The vocabulary you would use—words that were entirely too large for a five year old. Your stuffed monkey collection, each one with a name that no one else could have possibly thought up—Quimby, Mapossie… :) Still makes me smile…

I miss those late night Bonanza marathons, Twilight Zone, Little House on the Prairie; the way my favorite character was always your favorite character. I miss the way you got into my world the way my older brother’s didn’t. We could talk for hours about anything and we could cry and know that the other understood and not only did you understand, but you cried with me, and I with you. And I just miss you so much.

If I could do it again, I wouldn’t have left that day—or I wouldn’t have left with her. All of our lives, we were made to choose. There was him and there was her and there could never be both. If I could do it again, I wouldn’t have chosen her and I wouldn’t choose him. If I could do it again, I’d have chosen the only person in that room, in that entire house, who deserved choosing. I’d have chosen you.

Maybe I don’t say it enough but I love you with every fiber of my being. You are a part of me and I carry you in my heart every moment of every day. And if you ever have a day where you’re not sure of anything anymore, when it seems as though no one is in your corner, you call me and just remember that you have a big sister who loves you with everything she has. :)

16 Random Questions

2011-01-31T20:05:00.005-06:00

What do you have handy at your bedside? Alarm clock, lamp, bible

What's the first thing you thought about this morning? Work

What's the last thing you thought about last night? Work.. I'm very single minded..lol

Did you get enough sleep last night? wor-- I mean, nope

Are you afraid of the dark? Not so much these days..

Favorite Hangout? Anywhere I can get a good cup of coffee or read a good book

Three things you can't live without? My laptop, my imagination, my faith

What are your nicknames? When I was little it was cubby-- short for bear cub. Most people don't call me that anymore except my little brother who still calls me cub :)

Favorite color? It was always a toss up between blue and black but right now, definitely green

What did you want to be when you were a kid? A veterinarian

Do you still have your tonsils? Yes, but a doctor recently asked me if I'd had them removed after checking my throat.. so.. weird...

What are your favorite smells? Anything Cinnamon.

What was your favorite sitcom growing up? Seinfeld

Are you old fashioned? Yes and no.. I like to take care of myself and be independent but I don't mind having the door opened for me :)

What is your quirkiest habit and how long have you had it? I have a few. My day is very structured-- probably too much. I edit as I am writing so every two sentences, I stop writing and have to read back through what I've just written and make sure it sounds all right. I can be a bit germaphobic at times. I save shopping bags-- I use them in my wastebaskets but I have entirely too many.

What is your most treasured memory? Wow, there are many but one that I think of often is staying up late with my little brother watching old westerns, then building tents out of blankets in my bedroom and talking to each other through a very long vacuum hose... puts a different spin on the old tin can and string idea, don't you think? :)

The House That Built Me

2011-01-22T21:09:00.002-06:00

A video I created awhile back.. for my brothers.. Love em' :) Still makes me smile..

Far From the Sidewalk

2011-01-17T19:24:00.004-06:00

Dear You,

It's hard to believe, isn't it? It's been over two months since I last saw your face and so much has changed. Where do I begin?

I feel as though I actually know myself now... instead of hearing about who I am. All of those words and names I've never heard from anyone else in my life are beginning to fade into the background now. Do you ever wish that you could take them back?

My thoughts often stray to that scary moment on Christmas day, four years ago-- when he stopped the truck in the middle of that road, got out, and began to rummage around in the trunk. All as we sat in the front seat, me in the middle as you made me sit next to him on that ride home because you were afraid.. could you not see the fear in my eyes? It took everything I had in me not to run from that truck, every single ounce of courage not to leave you there. And we've never spoken of it since. I often wonder what he was looking for and I often wonder just how much God protected us that day.

"Because of you
I never stray too far from the sidewalk
Because of you
I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt
Because of you
I try my hardest just to forget everything
Because of you
I don't know how to let anyone else in
Because of you
I'm ashamed of my life because it's empty
Because of You"

How many times did we hear that song and you asked me if it made me think of my dad? It didn't. It made me think of you.

And so much has changed.

I am out in the middle of the road now. I have not forgotten, only forgiven. I am no longer ashamed for something that was never within my control. And, I am only discovering, that my life was never empty :)

"When you get into a tough place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time the tide will turn."

The Answer

2011-01-14T20:01:00.007-06:00

I must have asked "why?" dozens of times over the past few months.. heck, maybe couple of years. And every time, it comes back to that same question. You hold my life, my entire life in Your hands. My hopes, my dreams, my plans, the known and the unknown. I see You and hear You anywhere and everywhere. You give my life purpose even if I don't always know what that purpose will turn out to be. You loved me when I loved You with everything I had and when I turned away.. You loved me even more.

And of all the questions I've had, I've always known the answers to most of them, even if I didn't always want to accept them. The answers-- they were there-- right in front of me. Every answer but this one. It feels so stupid, so trivial in the grand scheme of everything that has been my life and yet it's the answer that I want the most.

And I just keep thinking-- am I missing it? Or is it a test? Or is it meant to simply give me hope? And then it hits me... Maybe I'm not suppposed to know that answer tonight. Maybe I'm not ready for that answer. And I'm okay with that :)

No More

2011-01-07T23:06:00.000-06:00

I woke up this morning
To a different world
Where everything is brand new
Every breath a new beginning

Peace within my grasp
Spiritual faith renewed
No more hidden shards of glass
As everything comes unglued

No more wondering where you’re at
Or what you’re bringing home
My life is taken back now
For only Him to own

No more crying to the night
Or feeling so alone
No more bruises, fears or questions
No more staring at the phone

And one day I will understand
Why this had to be
Why I had to lose someone
To finally discover me

Why it took laying there
And shivering on that floor
Why I had to give everything
Before I said-- No more.

Lacy Lynnette

Elegantees

2011-01-05T21:33:00.003-06:00

Elegantees: The Marriage of Elegant and Tees!

Click above to visit my friend Katie's website and the lovely clothing she designs. Proceeds go towards the noble fight to end sex trafficking.

A New Year

2010-12-31T21:34:00.002-06:00

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. ~G.K. Chesterton

Happy 2011, everyone! May we spend the year discovering a new side of ourselves and finding our faith renewed, surrounded by those who love us and those we love and becoming all that we were created to be :)

Lacy Lynnette

Breathe in Me

2010-12-24T08:27:00.001-06:00

You breathe in me
And I’m alive
With the power of your holiness
You breathe in me
And you revive
Feelings in my soul
That I have laid to rest

So breathe in me
I need you now
I’ve never felt so dead within
So breathe in me
Maybe somehow
You can breathe new life
In me again

I used to be
So sensitive
To the light that leads
To where you are

Now I’ve acquired
These callouses
With the darkness of
A cold and jaded heart

So breathe in me
I need you now
I’ve never felt so dead within
So breathe in me
Maybe somehow
You can breathe new life
In me again

- Breathe in Me by Michael W. Smith

Letting Go

2010-12-23T06:26:00.002-06:00

I am... the daughter of an alcoholic. I am strong. I am independent. And I am afraid.

So much has changed since October and so much for the better. And yet, I am left with so many mixed feelings, good and bad. I spent the last two or three years so, so angry and in a way, I almost needed that.. to survive, to continue forward day by day. But now that I have removed myself from the situation I can now process the sadness of loss, and I need that too.

"Some people think it's holding on that makes one strong, sometimes it's letting go."

And I am learning to let go daily. To accept the things I cannot change. To fix myself and not someone else. To breathe and believe and have faith again. To see all of the new family brought into my life instead of some of those lost along the way. To not be afraid to feel sadness or let my guard down. To bring down my wall and allow others to reach that other side.. to look in the mirror and see the real me staring back and to like what I see.

Christmas is a time for faith and I'm finding mine again. Thank you to those who have opened my eyes and helped me to see the beauty that is all around me :)

Dear You

2010-12-19T21:50:00.004-06:00

So I hear that you've been drinking again. Do you ever tire of it? The drowning, the darkness and the silence that now comes along with it as everyone just falls away? And it's so strange to think.. what it must be like to find yourself looking at that drink and knowing the price-- understanding the life changing cost-- and taking that first sip anyway. It's so strange to think...

I'm doing well, by the way. I'm braver now, and stronger. And there are some days that I just look around me and see.. all that I have, all who have come into my life and made it better and it's then that I just feel truly blessed and truly safe. And I suppose that that is the best part-- life without fear. I mean, there are still the unknowns, still the questions but it is in knowing that I am not alone in them that I can face them each and every day.

And, most importantly, there is hope. Because one day, I will wake up one morning and think of you and there won't be sadness, or anger, or loss. I will think of you and remember your laughter or a moment that wasn't so dark and I'll feel a comfort. Maybe I'll even smile..

Things I Remember

2010-12-17T22:05:00.002-06:00

Fade Out

2010-12-15T20:44:00.001-06:00

You’ve come and you’ve gone
Left destruction in your wake.
Never the one
To let go for my sake.

Just when I’d thought
This depth had no end
I woke up this morning
And breathed life again

And living takes practice
Fear is a choice
You’ve taken my childhood
But I’m finding my voice

Every day is stronger
Every moment brings faith
And as I become visible
You fade away.

Window

2010-12-12T17:32:00.003-06:00

I don't really look at people when I talk to them anymore. I mean really look at them. I was thinking about this earlier while I was busy with work but not so busy that I could quiet the constant thoughts that forever seem to run through my mind. Looking into their eyes means their looking into mine and that runs the chance of the betrayal of emotions. I don't want them to see what I am feeling, and so I look away.

"I'm not a stranger
No I am yours
With crippled anger
And tears that still drip sore

A fragile frame aged
With misery
And when our eyes meet
I know you see"

And I don't want people to see... Growing up, I was always so strong and so capable of handling almost anything. And now, as I find myself having to finally just stop, and breathe, and face, and accept.. I'm not so good at the lie anymore. And for as difficult as that is to accept, it's okay. It's all a process and I have to go through each and every emotion to reach that other side.

I will get there but I will have to accept the vulnerable me to get there and maybe, just maybe, I will realize that I don't have to always be so strong to be cared about. I know it already, I just haven't entirely processed it yet..

Random Questions

2010-11-29T17:10:00.004-06:00

If you could go anywhere in the World, where would you go?: I would definitely visit Ireland to learn more about my family background :)

Think of the last person who you really knew that died. You have the chance to give them 1 hour of life back, but you have to give one year of your life. Do you?: My Grandfather is the last person that I knew who died and I would love the chance for that one hour with him.. to meet him for the first time since I was five and to know him.. if only just for that one hour..

Do you have any regrets in life?: Living entirely for someone else and losing myself in the process.

What is your saddest memory?: Leaving my little brother behind after my parents divorced and we chose different parents to live with.

What is your happiest memory?: Sitting on the steps with my dad when I was five years old.. we were moving half the country away from all of our family and I could sense his unspoken sadness.

What is more difficult for you; looking into someone’s eyes when you are telling someone how you feel, or looking into someone’s eyes when they are telling you how they feel?: Probably the latter. I'm usually unsure of how to accept or react to what they are saying,even-- especially-- when it's good.

Happy Thanksgiving :)

2010-11-27T14:22:00.003-06:00

I hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving with friends, family or both :) I must admit that as the holiday approached and each of my family members found themselves unable to make it this year, I found myself feeling rather sorry for myself. But there is just so much to be thankful for in my life at the moment and I shouldn't allow anything to overshadow that fact :)

My new apartment is amazing and although I will likely be moving yet again, late summer, it has been a very good experience for me, forcing me to take my life back into my hands and rescue my spirit. I definitely want to go back to the West side of town but I will move with more savings then and maybe will even finally be able to realize my dream of moving into a home. We'll see.. but the stepping stones are in place :)

The number one thing that I have to be truly thankful for this year are all of my amazing friends.. my work family. Where I once found myself thinking about moving on, it took me coming to realize my own walls and my own reluctance to open my heart to realize that I was holding myself back. I was keeping every one at arms length and no one could change that but me.

There are a lot of hurts and shortfalls to overcome but we should never allow that to color our view so badly that we sell our own lives short and costs ourselves the warmth and love of friends.

Mostly, there was a fear. A fear of opening myself up to even more hurt but the idea of living my entire life walled in became far more hurtful a choice for me. And maybe, it really wasn't even all that much a choice at all. As I fell deeper into a state of sadness this holiday, I found myself emotionally touchy and struggling so desperately to hide it-- something I am typically quite good at but as I've slowly let down that wall, lost some of the ability for. And when I finally found myself snapping at the very people who have brought a previously unknown purpose into my life, I was met with more kindness and that was a turning point for me :)

"On Thanksgiving Day, we acknowledge our dependence." -- William Jennings Bryan

- Lacy Lynnette

Awakening

2010-11-22T20:26:00.002-06:00

I hate leaving work. I don't know exactly what it is-- the quiet ride home, the silence of the apartment. All I know is I hate leaving work and this is something entirely new to me.

I can remember not long ago, waiting for that moment when I was free for the day. Now I watch the clock with dread. And I just keep on thinking.. how on earth did I do it? For months, I locked myself away from the world.. afraid to come out, afraid to let that wall come down. Now, for the first time in probably my entire life, the stones have been torn away and I find myself unsure of what to do with myself.

I have a family now and people to believe in.. people who believe in me. And It's entirely worth the fear of the letdown..

Until I'd Reached the End

2010-07-10T16:01:00.002-05:00

A new video I created a few days ago about alcoholism and the thought process of those affected..

~ Lacy Lynnette

Letter to No One

2010-06-11T19:47:00.003-05:00

Lacy Lynnette. Daughter, sister, friend, actress. And I’m a good actress. Ask me how I am doing and I’ll tell you I’m fine.. Good, even. Ask me if I’m happy and I’ll tell you I’m content. Ask me if I ever feel afraid and I’ll tell you I’ve never felt so brave. Ask me who I am and I will tell you that I am a strong, intelligent, independent woman. A hopeless romantic, an incurable dreamer, a dedicated daughter, sister, and friend.

Now ask me for the truth.

I suppose we all act in some way. With each person we find ourselves in contact with, we choose that part of ourselves we wish to be seen-- the comedian, the bitch, the counselor, the listening ear, the peacemaker.. “the strong one.” I am exactly who I want to be in front of each and every person I come in contact with. So ask me for the truth.

The truth is that I am all that I have previously written but that would only be half of me. The part that I like. The part that I want everyone else to see. Who am I?

I am Lacy Lynnette Malady. The product of a loveless marriage, the daughter of an alcoholic. Strong because I have to be, broken though I don’t want to be. It’s my dreams that have saved me- bringing me hope- and my dreams that have killed me- visualizing all that I don’t and may never have.

I have contemplated both cutting and suicide more than once. I have attempted purging to become bulimic. I have held the pills in my hand and a blade to my wrist and I’ve talked myself out of each of those moments. I am a good talker.. And listener. I’ve had a lot of practice, I’ve been the only one talking or listening to myself for years.

They say things get better with time. They don’t. They get worse. The acting gets better and gets easier but the hurt definitely doesn’t. And then it all comes down to that sick moment when you realize you’ve just been conversing with yourself in your head for about eight hours and not only do you find that is scares you, but you realize it’s the most conversation you’ve had all week. I mean ‘real’ conversation and not that small talk bullshit.

Sometimes all that you actually want is to love someone and to be loved in return. That second part can be the catch. When I was little, I was in love with my dreams. In my adult life, I have felt love twice. Once for a man who already had a girlfriend and once for a man who was married. Neither were within the circumstance to reciprocate and maybe I actually found solace in that.

I am used to being alone, of knowing that if I don’t think for myself that there’s no one else in line behind me to do it for me. At one time, I found it terrifying, I now find it oddly comforting. There’s no one to screw up, no one to let me down but me and there’s a comfort in that.

But for all of the acting, all of the outward strength, there are those moments when the mask slips or the cracks begin to show. Your eyes tear up, you let your anger show.. You cry yourself into exhaustion, almost fall asleep at the wheel and blow out your tire. Everyone notices for about five minutes before going right back to their lives-- leaving you wondering whether to feel relieved or angered.

Sometimes I just wish that I could walk away from all of this, to drop everything, to feel nothing… absolutely nothing for a change. But then, I suppose, I truly would be dead. It is in my anger, in my sadness, in my sometimes suffocating depression, that I realize I’m even still breathing at all.

And sometimes it scares me-- the intensity at which I feel every emotion and every thought. My good days have me dancing in the car to the sound of the blaring radio and my bad days can be so crushing, I feel as though there is not a part of me left unbroken.

I’m just so tired. It’s like an overwhelming exhaustion now. Like I haven’t slept in years, and truthfully, I haven’t had a good night’s rest in about that long. I lay down at night, intent on closing my eyes and just forgetting it all but whenever I do close my eyes, I find that my mind races a mile a minute. Hopes, dreams, wants. Lately, I’ve been sleeping with the television on. That’s something new..

It seems absolutely crazy that for all of the hell, all of the dark thoughts, all of the sadness, I still want to believe with all of my heart in something. I want to believe that there’s more to all of this, that there’s meaning. In my stronger moments, I already do..

~ Lacy Lynnette

Ignorance..

2010-04-10T22:48:00.002-05:00

I was on twitter today and was just horrified to see a new trending topic on there called "ItAintRape".. a topic where many were finishing that sentence with what makes a rape suddenly not one in their eyes-- those who were actually replying to this terrible topic. Some of the answers?

ItAintRape cuz u said no but u never resisted
ItAintRape if the victim is a guy
ItAintRape if I wore a rubber
ItAintRape if that bi#$% commits suicide!

Some pretty terrible stuff on there.. it's amazing that there are people out there who could even say these kinds of things. No matter how much bad I see in the world, and how much I've been through in my own life, it never gets an less troubling or surprising even.

No one should ever have to suffer through an assault on their body and yet it happens in our country every two minutes. The ignorance and disgusting jokes of others are only a slap in the face of all of the survivors out there who have found the strength to take their lives back.. or not. We should be standing together to lift these people up. Every victim is different-- black, white, older, younger, female or male.. who are we to say what does and doesn't make a victim?

I had to say something, I've spoken my piece..

~ Lacy Lynnette

The Day Before the Day

2009-11-01T22:34:00.002-06:00

An absolutly AMAZING song by Dido about losing a loved one. In this case for the artist, her father. Many days she spent at his side as his life began to fade away until the day he finally let go, on the day she was not there... very tragic. -Lacy

The Day Before The Day

Dido | MySpace Music Videos

- The Day Before the Day -

Speeches won't be made today, clocks will carry on
Flowers won't be left in parks, work will still be done
People won't be dressed in clack, babies will be born
No flags will fly, the sun will rise,
But we know that you are gone

You who love to love and believed we can never give enough

It wakes me every single night, thinking through the day
Did you stop at any time have doubts at any stage
Were you calm or were you numb or happy just to get it done
I've lived my life without regret until today

You who love to love and believed we can never give enough

I didn't get to say goodbye the day before the day
Was trying to get to work on time, that's why I turned away
And missed the most important thing you've ever tried to say
I've lived my life without regret until today

You who love to love and believed we can never give enough
And you who hoped that underneath we all felt the same
That was until the day before the day

Click to Empower

2009-10-30T16:20:00.001-05:00

Comfortable in Acceptance?

2009-10-25T18:24:00.003-05:00

So I finally logged onto the Alanon website on a particularly difficult night a few weeks back and realized something while I was chatting with other members in the chat room... This wasn't what I needed...

Now, don't get me wrong. I have heard many say that this was the group for them. That alanon helped them through the most difficult times and that the group helped them cope with what was happening in their lives that they couldn't change. But this is where I found my problem.

From the time I was sixteen until an adult, I lived with an alcoholic who drank and fought. Who threw more than their share of items against the wall, who hit and shoved and tore at my hair. Who drank all evening, fought all night and cried their apologies all morning just for the next evening to come and for it to start all over again. And I lived like this for years.

I am now twenty-two and I know that I can't change this person but I don't want everything to begin and end with acceptance.

As I sat in my living room talking to these women in the chat room, I realized that acceptance is what they had but I wanted more than that. I may never be able to change the alcoholic in my life, but anger and sadness are emotions that need to be expressed for a time. Everyone must move on, but accepting one's hurts, including all of the pain and bitterness, leads to the path of acceptance and forgiveness.

A Child Lost was born out of my hope that others might find it a place to be completely real and unafraid to truly be them. With no judgement and someone with a listening ear to be their shoulder to cry on.

There is still so much work to be done and often times, there's no better form of healing than to help others find that which we find our own lives lacking. So take a moment, search through your own community directory or get involved in your favorite cause online whether it be volunteering or donating financially. You may find, it's just what you need to get your own life back on track...

~ Lacy Lynnette

Finding Me

2009-10-08T18:34:00.002-05:00

So I realize how long it's been since I posted anything on here but I've been going through quite a bit in my personal life. Seasons seem to come and go in the blink of an eye and with each one's passing, I've come to realize that I hardly know myself anymore.

Who I am.... what I want... who I want to become. The truth is that I really don't know. And the truth is that I'm afraid to know me and yet I'm afraid of never knowing who I am. All of my life, even since I was a little girl, I always thought so adult. I always felt time just flying by and so obsessed was I with it's passing that I never truly stopped and just... breathed.

So that is what I am going to do. And I'm not fully sure of what that will take. A trip?? I think I am going to take a couple of days off at the end of the month and I think I am going to just get in my car and drive. I don't know where I am going yet. I'll need my laptop and my camera and that's it, and in four days time, I would like to know a little something about myself. Not everything... just something. And when I do, maybe I will finally be strong enough to help someone else... to live in the present and not in the past. To live for the future of tomorrow and not just ten years from now...

~ Lacy Lynnette

Where I'd Hoped I'd Be

2009-04-02T21:12:00.000-05:00

It seems you have to die to find out how many people cared about you. Only then, you’re dead, so it doesn’t really matter anymore. I was thirteen the first time I wished I was dead. I didn’t wish it again until I was nineteen. It seemed the next natural step. I already felt dead. Soulless.

When you’re young you imagine all that your life might be, all of the things you might accomplish, and that one person who will love you through all of it. Things look so different when you actually get there and you discover one very apparent thing. Love is complicated, and elusive… and twisted. The man I love doesn’t exist, my secret girlish crush is married and the man who excites me, could never be right for me. Yeah, love really is complicated.

So I am alone… in thoughts, in dreams, in life. The daily task of going through all of the right, responsible motions. Breathing in, breathing out. That’s life. Love might be complicated but life is even more so. You can live without really living and you can stop breathing without anyone noticing. That’s what I’ve learned, and experienced.

So, is it worth it? I’ve asked myself this question countless times and the answer, for me, has always been yes.

I have moments where I feel crushed and can barely breath but the accomplishment for me is to have finally come out on the other side. To truly, finally know me, even if no one else does. To have reached that place where there are more good days than bad. And to feel comfortable and strong with only myself… and God.

And in the end, that’s really the only place I’d ever hoped I’d be.

~ Lacy Lynnette

Lonely Angels

2009-03-19T13:40:00.002-05:00

"I don't want to be old and sleep alone
An empty house is not a home
I don't want to be old and feel afraid

And if I need anything at all
I need a place that's hidden in the deep
Where lonely angels sing you to your sleep
Though all the world is broken
I need a place where I can make my bed
A lover's lap where I can lay my head
'Cause now the room is spinning
The day's beginning"

-- Atlantic by Keane

There's nothing quite like the wearyness of being alone... except maybe the exhaustion of being asked yet again why you are in fact alone. The stares, the pitty-filled lookes ...They feel so sorry for you and so why shouldn't you feel sorry for yourself?

I think I'm getting better though. Mostly, I reply that I've got my whole life to spend with someone else so why not enjoy the time that I have alone? Still, they think somehow that you must be sad... their accusing looks are right only part of the time.

It's hard to be alone but it's even harder to take care of someone else when you've yet to simply master taking care of yourself. Independence can be liberating especially if you've spent a bit of your life relying on someone for something they clearly can't provide.

To spend part of your life alone and finding yourself before discovering that someone somehow seems far better than discovering someone at a time when you've yet to know yourself.

There are moments when I feel like a freak knowing that I'm the only one among my friends who's still alone but there are moments when I feel so completely strong, indpendent, free... when I feel so much like a woman and those moments greatly outnumber the former.

~ Lacy Lynnette

Learning to Live

2009-03-02T20:14:00.002-06:00

"I have to admit when I called the alanon number and asked questions the lady told me alanon teaches you how to live with an alcoholic, she has lived with one 36 out of the 39 years she has been married... I THOUGHT OH NO I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE WITH ONE I WANT HIM TO STOP.I am glad I hung in there and found this place because alanon is working in a way I had never thought. I used to make my self sick worrying about how many beers he had, looking for his stash, yelling crying,begging,threatening, wishing for my life the one I wanted."

I read this comment on a board where they were discussing alanon and it's benefits and I realized that I'd never read anything more true to my own experiences.

My own nightmare lasted only a couple of years but in that time, I spent so much of it wishing so desperately for the life I'd always dreamed about. Trying to change this person back into who I wanted and needed them to be.

I looked into alanon but never went (out of fear, really) though I find it to be a very good idea. My own faith has seen me through in much the same way. It was coming to that understanding that it wasn't my choice, I couldn't change it. I had to accept the hand that had been dealt me and that my only responsibility would lie in my dealing with the situation and making something good come of it, whatever that might be.

My difficult situation never truly went away entirely though it got much better and so it's still a daily decision to let it go. I can't be that person, I can only be me. There can be no more dreams of who that person should be to me but of who I can be to myself and what I can give to those around me.

Al-Anon/Alateen

~ Lacy Lynnette

On Being Alone

2009-02-07T19:24:00.000-06:00

I should be used to this by now, you know? Being alone. Some days, it’s liberating… freeing to know that I’ve no one else to be concerned with but me (and my family). And on those other days, the silence is just so deafening. No one else to talk too but the ever present voice in my head telling me that I’m alone.

I used to think that by helping others, by building my websites, updating my blogs, writing my stories, my poetry, that everything else would just fade into the background and that I would be all right, happy even.

And I guess what’s scaring me most is that new voice in my head telling me that I’m not all right and that I need something more. And I wonder… am I wrong?

~ Lacy Lynnette

What I Care About

2009-02-02T22:07:00.001-06:00

So, work has been really stressful lately. So much to do, so much to care about. And it’s not that I don’t really care, it’s that I don’t want this to be what I care about. Something happened yesterday and ever since, for about the last thirty six hours or so, I found myself just obsessing about it… and fuming… and wanting so much to have been able to have done something about it.

So, I’m talking to my manager about this “incident” and about how my day had been shot in the process (more like my week, really) and all I can keep thinking is about how someone has just been sexually assaulted right now while I’m standing here talking about stolen merchandise. 720 women will be sexually assaulted before the day is out, 1500 people in the U.S will die of cancer, 1 person every 13 minutes will die in a car accident, and every 16 minutes someone will take their own life.

These are the things I want to care about.

I have come to know and greatly admire several friends who have shared with me their own sexual assaults as well as a close family member’s. I have watched as two family members, my great uncle and grandfather, succumbed to cancer. At the age of eight, I confronted my own mortality for the first time when I was told by my mother, that my little cousin of the same age, had died in a car accident. And what seems like yesterday but has now been about five years ago, I searched for words to consol my older brother at the news that his father had committed suicide.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that life is what we make of it. I don’t want to wake up thirty years from now and realize that I’d thrown my life away on petty things that will mean nothing when I’m gone. When I die, I don’t want to disappear. As a child, most of my life was spent living in the shadows, struggling so hard to keep from being noticed and, as I get older, that just isn’t good enough anymore.

I want even just a small few to know who I am and I would love to help just one, find who they are. Before I’d started writing, blogging and running my websites, I had no clue as to what I wanted or how to get there. And not only was I invisible to the world, but I was unknown to myself. But it was through sharing and reaching out, that I was helped by so many--- far more than I could have ever helped them and for that, I thank you. You know who you are :)

~ Lacy

RAINN / Joyful Heart

2009-01-26T20:40:00.004-06:00

So my life may be just beginning. I've finally begin to take the steps I need to take in order to become a rape crisis counselor for the organization RAINN. Their website can be found by clicking here.

RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network) is offering a much needed new approach to rape crisis counseling through on-line counseling. Counselors take all night shifts to provide someone to talk too no matter what time, day or night.

Also, on the same subject.... another AMAZING website for those who have suffered through sexual assault is The Joyful Heart Foundation which can be found by clicking here.

Joyful Heart was founded by Law and Order: SVU actress and my personal hero, Mariska Hargitay. They have a wonderful necklace for sale on there engraved with the word Fearlessness that I wear everyday to remember to be strong no matter what life brings my way. All proceeds from the necklace go towards the Joyful Heart Foundation and helping victims of sexual assault to swim with the dolphins. A truly beautiful website, make sure to check it out :)

~ Lacy Lynnette

What I Have Learned...

2009-01-12T20:35:00.002-06:00

There was a time when I’d thought that I’d felt every feeling, suffered every heartbreak, and cried every tear I had in me. Then I turned seventeen and everything fell apart.

I used to feel so close to God. Like He was standing right beside me, like I could talk to Him about everything. Then one morning I woke up, and He wasn’t there anymore. I can remember taking that wrong turn somewhere, running in the wrong direction to anywhere but home and anyone but Him. Somewhere in my subconscious, I believed that He follows you, reveals himself and brings you back. So when had I run too far?

“Dreaming comes so easily
‘Cause it’s all that I’ve known
True Love is a fairy tale
I’m damaged so how would I know?

Healing comes so painfully
And it chills to the bone
Will anyone get close to me?
I’m damaged as I’m sure you know.”

So many fears, so few answers and all of the years that have passed to find myself so much more confused and alone than ever before. So where is my rescuer and do I even want to be rescued? Stepping out in front of that car feels as though it would have been so much easier… and safer.

And what have I learned? That trust is precious and easily lost. That anger is slow in coming and hard to let go of. That people are fake more often than not. That love is nearly unobtainable. That dreams sustain and kill at the same time. That the people I love walk away. That you can’t make someone want to change… or live. That dying is easier than living......... That I am not alone. That I can choose to stand up. That I can choose to make a difference. That I can choose to make every tear, every dark lonely night, and every difficult breath worth it. That no one can tell me who I am or where I’m going. That I am a woman created by God for a purpose and he has not forsaken me. That I was never alone.

“I know You didn’t bring me out here to drown
So why am I ten feet under and upside down?
Barely surviving has become my purpose
‘Cause I’m so used to living underneath the surface

If I could just see you, everything would all right
If I’d see you, this darkness would turn to light

And I will walk on water
And you will catch me if I fall
And I will get lost into your eyes
I know everything will be all right
I know everything is all right.”

~ Lacy Lynnette

State of Acceptance

2008-11-29T23:24:00.003-06:00

(Letter to my Father)

I can remember when it happened. I was eighteen. I was grieving. I was alone. And then, I was numb.

There were so many things that you never told me-- That I looked pretty, that I was smart, that you were proud… were you proud?

I can remember the apology, what was years ago now. Standing in the kitchen. I was making my lunch and you’d just come home from church, from the place I’d lost all hope in-- because of life… because of you. Your shoulders were slumped, your eyes studying the ground and you said it. All that I’d wanted to hear all of those years in a few short sentences. How you’d never been there for me growing up. How you’d never made much time for me. How you’d neglected me more than your sons. I couldn’t look at you. I couldn’t even answer you. And I definitely wasn’t ready to forgive you. And you never asked me too.

It felt all too short, all too quick and so very fleeting. I’d never said anything then, almost sure there’d be time later. That time never came and it took so much time to realize that it never really would. It’s hard to admit our sins when all we want is to justify ourselves. I’m speculating, but you would know.

I don’t mean to sound bitter and it was only a short time that I ever was. Mostly I’d felt anguish, like someone had torn my heart out… as though a part of me was missing. I know now that it truly was. And that part of me stands empty, never to be filled. A part of me will always be missing and it took me five years to accept it.

There were so many feelings. First I hated you, then I hated God, then I hated myself. Hated myself for being so weak, for ever needing you, for ever allowing it to effect my life so profoundly.

“Because of you I try my hardest just to forget everything
Because of you I don’t know how to let anyone else in
Because of you I’m ashamed of my life because it’s empty
Because of you I am afraid
Because of you…”

You told me once that you hoped that one day I could forgive you. Do you ever think about it anymore? Do you ever wish that things could have been so different?

I can still remember that day you told mom that you’d accepted that you didn’t have a daughter, that you’d lost me and that you were moving on. Moving on?? How could you abandon your only daughter to a lifetime of struggling for healing? But it was easier, wasn’t it? Easier than fixing the problem.

Even now, just when I think that I’ve got it all under control… Just when I think that I’ve finally reached that “state of acceptance,” I feel it again… That old feeling of longing. The empty part of my heart and I realize… it’s never going to truly go away…

“I've been looking in the mirror for so long.
That I've come to believe my souls on the other side.
Oh the little pieces falling, shatter.
Shards of me,
To sharp to put back together.
To small to matter,
But big enough to cut me into so many little pieces.
If I try to touch her,
And I bleed,
I bleed,
And I breathe,
I breathe no more... "

Healing? You Have to Want It...

2008-11-16T14:57:00.004-06:00

I've come to a new understanding recently... I want to be happy. It sounds strange, wanting to be angry but that's pretty much how I felt the past couple of years. I was bitter and angry and I was going to be damned if I was going to give those feelings up so easily. I literaly wanted to remain furiouse. Being angry gave me purpose and told me that despite all that I'd gone through and all that had happened.. I was still alive. As long as I was angry, I couldn't be dead because a dead person can't feel.

The song Lithium by Evanescence puts it best:

"Lithium, don't want to lock me up inside
Lithium, don't want to forget how it feels without
Lithium, I want to stay in love with my sorrow
Oh but God I want to let it go "

Healing is hard work. I often sat around over the past couple of months as though, miraculously, out of nowhere, it just might come around. But healing doesn't just come, we have to work at it... and want it with everything we have...

~ Lacy

Tearing Down Walls

2008-11-07T17:48:00.001-06:00

I think that I am now coming to understand that all that helped me to survive the most difficult years of my life are not good for me now.

You know… we build that wall and learn to survive on our own, intending it only to benefit us in that we might breath even when we’re suffocating. And then, when it’s all over and the dust clears and life returns, sometimes we forget how to bring that wall back down.

During my late teens, I was so alone and survival demanded that I learn to live that way… by myself… and I was okay. There were moments I felt so isolated, moments I felt that I was barely alive but I got through it only because of that wall…

Now, in my search for healing and self understanding I’ve come to discover something about myself… I hate to admit I’m wrong. And it’s strange… My mom has pointed this out to me on so many occasions and it’s only brought about anger and then someone I barely knew seemed to notice and I suddenly wanted so badly to change it.

When someone has hurt us and brought about a negative effect in us, their pointing it out only makes us feel defensive and to feel that hurt all over again. It isn’t their right and it makes that wall become so visible once again.

So now I begin to truly be. So much has to change. I don’t want to merely live.. I want to live. I want to tear down that wall, admit when I’m wrong, and become everything I’ve ever wanted to be. And I no longer have to do it alone.. I’ have too many friends on here to do that :)

~ Lace

Self-Portrait

2008-09-12T19:37:00.002-05:00

In One Word
(Letter to Myself)

I wish that I could say that you just don’t know me… but you have to know me better than anyone else. Don’t you? It’s so easy to live life, day to day, moment to moment, and to lose ourselves in the shuffle. And somewhere along the way… I did lose you.

Describe myself in one word… where do I begin? Alone? Afraid? Ashamed? Lost? I’ve been all of these things in life and all of them at once. When I look in the mirror, what do I see? I see all that I’ve overcome and all that has overtook me.

Life didn’t get any easier. When I was thirteen, I used to lie awake and night and imagine where I’d be at this age and all I can say is, it looked a hell of a lot different than this. I still cry, alone, but less often. When you get older, everything gets colder and everything somehow begins to hurt less. It’s like a numbness, a sharp stabbing pain turning into a dull ache. I thought that this would feel better but it doesn’t. Now I realize that it’s almost like the quiet peacefulness that you feel just before death. I started to die three years ago.

I imagined so much… I imagined myself to be stronger, to be less-- fazed, by life but it didn’t work that way. Now I imagine what it would be like to die and it doesn’t scare me anymore. It’s scarier to be alive, to feel the pain at its worst and know that there isn’t a damn thing that you can do to stop it.

“I wake up, it’s a bad dream
No one on my side
I was fighting, but I just feel too tired
To be fighting
Guess I’m not the fighting kind.”

I’m writing this letter to myself, about myself and it feels so strange. The life I’ve created in my head- my dreams- saved me and killed me all at the same time. It’s all right to dream but to have to understand that those dreams will never be realized….

I think the hardest part is the feeling invisible. How can someone be dying and nobody notice? “I’m breathing in, I’m breathing out but I’m not alive.”

“Dreaming comes so easily
Cause it’s all that I’ve known
True love is a fairly tale
I’m damaged so how would I know?

…Healing comes so painfully
And it chills to the bone
Will anyone get close to me?
See I‘m damaged as I‘m sure you know”

So, how would I describe myself in one word? Damaged.

~ Lacy Lynnette

Casualty: Part II

2008-08-20T10:15:00.000-05:00

It feels so cold here. Alone in this empty room. It's hard to believe that it's you lying here on this hard metal table in front of me. It's hard to believe that you're here and yet not here at all. It won't be the same... It will never be the same.

You told me once, on that day which now seems like years ago, that if you could choose, you'd choose to die of cancer. Not because you were downplaying the disease. No, far from it. But because you would hope that you might have the time to prepare for this day. That you might say goodbye. That you might make that last bit of difference. That you might make that last bit of change. That you might be ready. This isn't what you'd ever imagined... but were you ready anyway?

What were your last thoughts? Did you remember those sunny days of your childhood. When moments this dark could never even begin to cross your mind? When you believed that time might continue on forever. When hope out weighed the difficulties. When dreams were bigger than all of the letdowns. Did you even have time to think at all?

You told me once that you believed that there was so much left for you to do in this world. That there was a major purpose for your life. That the dark times were a mere preparation for the difference you were meant to bring to others. And that, when you truly thought about it, there was nothing, not a moment, not a difficulty, that you would choose to be spared from in your life. Did you have the chance to even realize that your beliefs had been entirely crushed by circumstances beyond your control? Or did you wonder if things might have been different if I'd stopped for a moment to truly listen? Did you blame me?

What were your thoughts? Did you wonder about when it had all began to change? When our relationship had started to crumble beneath the pressure? Did you wonder if maybe you had been even slightly to blame? That you hadn't understood enough? Cared enough? Loved enough? I wish that I could tell you that if you had, that you were wrong.

You told me once that all you'd ever wanted was your family. That friendships, hopes, dreams and expectations meant nothing in comparison. That there was nothing that anyone could do to make you love them less and that you only expected the same in return. Did I ever tell you that I felt the same? Did I ever tell you that I could never love you any less? And did I tell you enough?

What were you thinking in those final moments? Did you think that I'd forgotten? That I'd simply let you walk off into the night, waiting your return, figuring you'd only needed to blow off some steam? Or did you know me better than that? That I'd come looking for you? That I'd worry too much? That I could never let you suffer if alone? Did I show it enough? Display it enough? Tell you enough? Did I ever say I love you?

You told me once that if I were to die, that you'd die with me. That you couldn't imagine life without me. That the mere thought if it brought you a deep sadness. I wish I could tell you that I'm feeling the same. That I wouldn't even be standing if it had truly hit me that it's you lying here in front of me. You look so cold. So pale. So peaceful. I wish that I could remember the last time that you looked so peaceful.

So what were you thinking about? They told me you fought like hell. I wonder if you knew just how proud I was of you. And I wonder exactly who or what you were fighting for in those final moments. Your hopes, your dreams, the lives you wanted so desperately to change? Or just simply your own future, no matter what it might be? And were you fighting for me? Did I ever tell you I was proud? That you'd already made a difference in the short time that you were here? And did I tell you enough?

You told me once that you kept so much to yourself because to let down that barrier left you feeling weak and vulnerable. I wish that you could have been more vulnerable around me. Maybe it would have helped that night. Maybe you wouldn't have left. Wouldn't have walked out that door, down the street, onto that path and out of my life. But you couldn't have known. You wouldn’t have wanted it to end this way. You were never given that time that you'd always hoped for. Or were you?

What were your last thoughts as you lay there violated and broken? Did you pray? Did you cry? Did you wish that I was there? Did you wonder if I'd begun to worry? If I'd come looking? Did you hear or see me at all as I discovered you on that path? They told me you were already gone but I can't help but wonder, did you feel me as I cradled you in my arms? Feel my tears fall from my face to yours? Hear me whisper 'I love you' before you breathed that final breath?

You told me once that so long as we carry each others memories, that we would never truly be alone. That our memories would one day be the only thing to keep us together. That our lives could continue on through the difference that we leave on another person's spirit. Is that why you so yearned to make that difference in the life of another? I wish that I could have told you that you needn't have worried. That that difference had already been made and that I wouldn't allow your spirit to die with you.

What were your thoughts? Could you see me? Could you hear me? Could you feel me? Can you hear me even now as I look upon your peaceful face and my eyes well up with tears for the first time since I held you that night? They said that you were already gone. You told me once that you believed that our spirits would forever be connected. That even if you could no longer hear me, that messages had a way of being passed from God to loved ones lost...

There's only one message through all of it, that I'd wanted to tell you. Did you already know? Did I say it enough? Did I do my best to show it? They said that you were already gone but did you hear it? I hope you were right. That God listens for our messages. I hope you were right... I know you were right... so...
'God tell her that I love her.'

Lacy Lynnette

July, 2007

Casualty

2008-08-20T09:55:00.002-05:00

It feels so cold here. Lying in the darkness. Like that time I went for a walk in the woods and got lost. Time had gotten away from me, the way it often did. I guess I'd always been a bit of a dreamer. But there you were. You found me. Where are you now? What are you thinking? It feels so cold here.

The night started off the way it always had. With an arguement. It seems that's all we do anymore, like we've grown apart or something. I've always been good at not saying mean, hurtful things that can't be taken back once said... But not tonight. I said it for the first time-- "I hate you." I said it... And I didn't mean it.

It's so cold here. I wish that I was there now, to take back what I said. You must be thinking that I'm just off venting somewhere. That I'm just off on another one of my walks, thinking things through. That I'll be back tonight and that everything will be okay again. That we'll hug. That we'll apologize. That we'll realize how much we mean to each other. But not tonight... at least not in that way. It feels so cold here.

I'd walked out that door the moment I'd said those ugly words. Slammed it, really. Wanting to get your attention and feeling as though I'd suceeded. Doesn't walking somehow make the mind clearer? It reminds of all those walks we'd taken together. I was a child and you'd held my hand. It felt comforting. It felt safe. So where did it all go wrong? When did we let go of each other?

It's strange... To be so broken and yet to feel no pain at all. So is this how it feels to die? It's far different than I'd imagined it... more peaceful. There's no pain. No pain it all. And it's so cold.

Did you follow out the door after me? Was I already to far ahead to catch up? Did you see me in the distance and decide that I was better off sorting it out alone? Or did you sit down in that empty apartment and try to figure out how it all went wrong? Did you sit in the silence? Did you scream? Did you cry? Did you wonder where I went?

A new feeling is coming over me. Is it fear? Remorse? Loss? I wish you were here to hold my hand and tell me that you know I didn't mean it. That you know I could never hate you. That you know I never wanted to leave you like this. That I never meant for things to end this way. And I wish that you were here to keep me warm because it's just so cold.

Where are you now? When did you start to worry? Start to go looking for me? Do you think that I've chosen to leave? That I've chosen to run and never come back? Or do you know me better than that? Are you feeling the same feelings? Thinking the same thoughts? Wishing that you'd never said even half of what you had tonight?

I wish you were here so that I could tell you that I know you didn't mean it. That I know that you love me even if it doesn't always appear that way. Maybe I've expected to much, dreamed to much, hoped to much. And maybe I just didn't understand the way I should have. The way I would have if it just hadn't hurt so much. It's so completely dark now... and so cold.

Are you in your car now? Driving up and down every street? Searching for me and wondering why my jacket is just laying on that sidewalk as though it had been ripped from me? About my purse and it's contents lying all over the ground? Are you beginning to panic? Calling the police? First noticing the path that leads into the woods?

My heart seems to be beating faster. This isn't how I'd imagined tonight to end-- My life to end. I wish that I could tell you how much you've meant to me. That despite how we've grown somewhat apart, that it hasn't erased the good times. That you've been the one to keep me going. That you've been the one to share my dreams. That no one knows me like you do. I wish that I could hold onto you and never feel so cold again. And I wish that I could tell you that I love you.

So what must you thinking now? Have you decided not to wait on the police? Have you started to search along that path into the woods? Have you noticed all of the broken branches? The torn blouse? The bloody crow bar? Have you noticed the dark form lying broken on the path ahead.

I wish that I could tell you just how hard I'd fought, for my body, for my life, for my future. I think that maybe you'd be proud. That you'd realize just how much I'd wanted to live. Just how much I'd wanted to tell you everything. I wish that I could tell you that you were the person I was thinking of as each breath became harder than the last. I wish that I could have admitted all of my regrets and told you about all of my dreams and hopes for the future. And I wish that I could have gone on to realize them and that you could have been there to see it all. But it's just so cold and my heart is beginning to grow tired of fighting.

Are you afraid to move forward? Afraid to discover that dark form lying on the path to be me? Can you sense the hopelessness? Sense the death? Are there things that you'd wished you'd have said too? I wish that I could tell you not to worry. That you never had to say them... only to show them.

Everything's fading away now. Like I'm falling asleep. But this feels different. Like the whole entire world is still running but me. I guess I'll never get the chance to write that book, to find my true love, to start that family. I guess I'll never have the chance to go back to school, to touch the lives I'd only touched in my dreams. The past is all that I'd lived in my whole life. My future was all that I'd lived for. There's none of that now. Only the present. And it's so cold.

Do you wonder if I've seen you too? Searching along that path? Finding the evidence of a life that had been fought for here tonight? And do you wonder if I can see you now, reluctanctly stepping forward? Afraid of what you might find lying on the path?

My eyes are closing now. Like they're entirely too heavy to continue to keep open. Like this is it. This is the end. I know now that I'll never have the chance to say half of what I was thinking but, do you know it all anyway? Did I do my best to show you? I wish I could tell you that it's in seeing you here tonight, in knowing that you searched for me, in knowing that you found me, that I can finally go. It's so peaceful now. And it isn't cold anymore. I wish I could tell you that I love you so much and I wish I could thank you... Thank you for loving me.

Lacy Lynnette

April, 2007

Eulogy

2008-07-30T20:58:00.002-05:00

Something I wrote about a week back. Long story but something happened that could have been serious and got me to thinking about what if....

________________________________________________________

Eulogy

It was quick, so quick. I barely saw the car, heard the blaring horn before the sickening sound of crunching medal and the smell of fumes filled my lungs. I barely had a thought, saw a memory, voiced a scream before it was over. Everyone says that they want it to be quick and I’d never really understood. Quick means that there is no preparation. No time to right past wrongs, no time to say goodbye to old friends, no chance to hug your family one last time. I’d thought about it so many times. What it would be like, what I might regret, if anyone would miss me. I’d thought about it but not today. Everything was beautiful, everything was right, my life was just beginning. And then I was gone…

-----------------------------

On Tuesday, July 21st, Lacy Lynnette passed away. She was a daughter, a sister, a friend, an author, an incurable dreamer and a hopeless romantic…

It doesn’t work like the movies. There are no sudden revelations. No sudden understandings. People don’t talk things out and then hug because they suddenly finally know each other. This isn’t the way it works, or at least not in my experience. But somehow it’s different in death. When someone dies, people suddenly start to understand them. Only now it’s too late and all they’ve left to do is to wish it all back.

Daddy said that I was smart. It was one of the only things he ever said to me, growing up. I can remember all the silence, the pain of being invisible. We used to walk right by each other, as though we were strangers. I guess we were.

And then there was my older brother. I so longed to be friends with him. I always told myself that it was just a “faze,” something that all brothers and sisters go through growing up but then moments went by, years passed… and nothing changed.

There were so many things that I wanted to do. Go back to school, study to be a medical secretary, continue writing and keeping up with my websites. And then there was that something that I really wanted to do-- change a life, change one life..

Life has a way of changing who we are or at least, helping us lose ourselves. So when did it all change? When did I lose myself?

I suppose my biggest regret is that I never gave love. Never held someone’s hand, never experienced my first kiss, never walked down the aisle, never felt a life inside me. No, I never gave love…. But what kills me most is that I never felt it either.

I knew what it was like to be loved. To be hugged by family members, to be cared about. But what must it feel like for someone to be in love with you? To love you despite your flaws. To love you because of them.

So much of my life, I felt alone, terribly alone. Sitting in the darkness, with that familiar feeling of being swallowed up by it. Talking to myself… What were the words to that song? “ Hello, I’m your mind, giving you someone to talk too..”

So much of my short adult life I’d been dead. Now I guess, I really am… “Has no one told you she’s not breathing?” No one ever knew. I guess I should have told them, or maybe they’d have known if they’d only taken the chance to look.

It doesn’t work like the movies. There are no dreams, no sudden waking up to find everything all right again. I’m really gone and I can’t help but wonder…

Does anybody miss me?

I’m Lacy Lynnette and today I passed away…

ACL

On Being Happy

2008-07-26T21:22:00.002-05:00

"True happiness does not come naturally, you have to work at it" (Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happiness).

And it really does take so much work, as I've come to realize in my own life. I'm okay with my life, I hate my life. I want a boyfriend, I don't want a boyfriend. I want to love, I don't have any love to offer. I want to be loved, I want to be left alone. Life changes, feelings change, from day to day, month to month.

It's all centered around peace. Feeling at peace with yourself, with your life. Accepting your life as it is and making the promise to change accordingly. But peace has to come even as those changes are only beginning. So much of my life, I spent feeling as though I would be happy only when I'd changed this or fixed that only to find out that I still wasn't happy.

"Slings and arrows are killing my inside
Maybe I can't accept the life that's mine" ---Weathered by Creed

Acceptance is the start towards peace which is the start towards happiness.

~ Lacy Lynnette

Sick, sick, sick

2008-07-19T21:21:00.002-05:00

Yep, that's right. I have the flue :( I've been up all night hacking and coughing before having to get up and head off to work of course. I guess I wouldn't mind so much if I hadn't had that flue/ chest cold/ inner ear infection from March until three weeks ago. I've been sick an awful lot this year....

Cleaned my apartment today and came across this book I had about healing the father-daughter relationship... Too bad my dad hadn't read this one years ago... and it talked about two very different responses to the absentee father. My mom's way, looking for love at every corner and every man she dated, or what has become my way, closing off and shutting them all out. Neither way works...

I'm currently trying to find that healthy balance, how to remain independent without appearing as though you need on one at all. It's so much harder than it sounds.

It's funny--- how you can feel so jaded before you've even really begun your search for 'the one.' It's really kind of sad.

~ Lacy Lynnette

School Plans and Writing

2008-07-12T15:30:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone... It's been an interesting week of contemplation. Where I want to go, what I want to do. I've been thinking and thinking and I'm starting to come to the conclusion that it would be really awesome to work for myself. I don't know. Maybe an online business, a small shop, whatever. Not sure yet... still thinking.

Also doing quite a bit in the writing department lately so be looking for a story from me shortly. No fanfiction... my own work. It's nice to be writing again. I took about a year's break there. Now I don't know how I went on without it. It's my favorite thing in the world.

The website's still just getting started. I'm currently working very hard on the promotion end of it. It's all new to me being that I virtually didn't promote Shelter In the Rain at all. Submissions are greatly appreciated so please remeber to check out ACL and let me know if you'd like to share :)

I'll write a bit more later so, until then,

~ Lacy Lynnette

The Real Me

2008-07-05T21:47:00.002-05:00

Foolish heart looks like we're here again

Same old game of plastic smile

Don't let anybody in

Hiding my heartache, will this glass house break

How much will they take before I'm empty

Do I let it show, does anybody know?

[Chorus:]But you see the real me

Hiding in my skin, broken from within

Unveil me completely

I'm loosening my grasp

There's no need to mask my frailty

Cause you see the real me

Painted on, life is behind a mask

Self-inflicted circus clown

I'm tired of the song and dance

Living a charade, always on parade

What a mess I've made of my existence

But you love me even now

And still I see somehow

But you see the real me

Hiding in my skin, broken from within

Unveil me completelyI'm loosening my grasp

There's no need to mask my frailty

Cause you see the real me

Wonderful, beautiful is what you see

When you look at me

You're turning the tattered fabric of my life into

A perfect tapestry

I just wanna be me

I wanna be me

But you see the real me

Hiding in my skin, broken from within

Unveil me completely

I'm loosening my grasp

There's no need to mask my frailty

Cause you see the real me

And you love me just as I am

Wonderful, beautiful is what you see

When you look at me

by: Natalie Grant

AChildLost.com

2008-06-29T15:19:00.002-05:00

Well my website is now up and running!! So basically I've started this new blog to share about my experiences particularly over the past couple of years--

When I first started writing on the net, I went by the name Lynnette-- my middle name I was only about 15 and still pretty shy, not very open about my life. All that changed when I moved to Minn. and went through some of the most difficult moments of my life.

Not long after moving there, I once again turned to the net to write and share but I began to write under the name Kate Taylor, which is what so many of my friends knew me as for so long online. As Kate, I felt so free to share everything that I was experiencing with no judgement and no anger from family and friends. It gave me such a strong voice over the past couple of years to be able to do so.

Until now. When I've now reached the point where am no longer ashamed to share under my real name, thus the creation of my new website. I guess a lot of what I'll be writing on here will be about the last few years journey for me, the name that gave me a voice, the healing that is still on going, and where I am today.

~ Lacy Lynnette

AChildLost.com