Bitter drink for the sweet heart

I don’t like being in the place of my childhood and early adulthood. While I have missed magical memories ever since moving away. Moving back was never my desire. Not really. I love being closer to family. I don’t know if I could move away again. Not right now anyways, not when I feel so uncomfortable. Not when they are my life line.

But I really don’t like it here. I like a couple of my neighbors. I like some of my coworkers a lot. I like the church I’ve found. Least for now. I like aspects of teaching enough to think I’ll pursue it.

But there’s a pull, a doubt, a desire to be cutthroat and tenacious enough to do the big scary right irresponsible things. Things far away from the rhythms I’ve landed in, from the tiredness, and feeling torn up. Far away from feeling unsafe to be outside after dark. Something I never felt in Chicago. Far away from not understanding and not wanting to learn.

I want to make lots of art, and thrive. To be financially stable, cup full, and writing, researching, learning, growing. I want to flow against the grain with smoothing grit, clearing a path. I want to be quieting in a noisy world. I want to not worry when I see people different from me. To not be bored when I am with people different from me. To not worry about finding people like me.

I want to press in and be energized by the work of getting my hands dirty with raw honesty. To call out in the wildernesses and know my words matter. To speak truth. I want to lift others up, pulling them towards higher ground. I just want to make things, grow things, love. I want to make bowls, gift baskets, windows into other worlds, moments, poetry, safe places, adventures, beauty. I want to grow flowers, love, integrity, and passions. I want to heal.

I want to not be so tired and tired of so many things. I want to open my windows and smell the lake mingled with the city sounds. I want to step outside and have a place to host late night conversations, early coffees, random picnics. I want familiarity filled with new discoveries. I want to be in love even if no one is around to know. I want to believe the sparrows can carry messages, that the ground receives my toasts to love when I pour my last sip out.

I want to make art that captures the full iceberg not just the tip. I want it to feel vulnerable and real and otherworldly, and like it can sit in your cupboard or on your wall, or hold it’s own in a gallery in New York or Paris, but maybe also like it should be kept a secret or else open a portal never again to be closed.

I don’t want suburbs, nor this edge of town. I don’t want small cities.

I want a yard in the middle of chaos, some how beaming with wildlife in unlikely places. I want flowers in the alley and sidewalk cracks, forgotten ground transformed. I want the space to carve out little sanctuaries. I want to be safe in a crowd. I want to never feel like the road is long between friends. I want 45mins to get me simply to the other side of my side of town. I want places to walk to, and a subway. I want corner shops and church basements.

I want a legacy in the making, something worth fighting for even if no one sees it. I want more than myself. I want to stop feeling like I’m babysitting or making ends meet.

I want to feel free. I want to give breath and life. I want to not feel so worn down by the darkness, like maybe planting seeds is more light than I know. I want the lines to make sense, the drawings to matter. I want to talk about composition and think about contrast, and texture.

I want my colors to say more than my words. I want my touch to be louder still, but gentle, warming. I want to drive away fear, and learn to laugh with my students. I want trauma to end and for scars to fade, I want to help the weak become strong. I want to not yell just to be heard. I want actions that aren’t so bogged down by record keeping. I want journey, and destinations, I want this road to lead somewhere else.

I want the energy to get going, to be so vividly productive. I want love multiplied. I want intimacy and to know God hears me. Feel Him holding my heart. I want rest that doesn’t feel like a nap after a three , seven, ten year war. I want the tension in my body to leave, and to be able to manage it to my liking on paper and in clay.

I want to just be allowed to talk about what is that happens when I make art, how fun, how serious, how holy, how magical and right it is.

I wish I trusted myself enough to work for myself, independently. Trusting I could create the routine I needed. To set up work space and systems. I wish I didn’t freeze, overwhelmed when faced with free time. I wish school didn’t start in Summer. I wish I had the capacity to can the tomatoes I finally grew.

I wish I could just start anywhere on any of these things… And that the holy work wasn’t in the laundry or dishes waiting for me, that the mundane needs to get done things weren’t so heavy. I wish that in this strange uncomfortable season, I knew I was building new muscles to be a better version of my best self. I wish I didn’t feel like all the best days were already lived. The best loves loved, the sweetest strangers met and lost, the last good poem already read.

I wish I lived more before I left. Said yes more, before I didn’t have anything to say yes too. Why does feeling so tired, uncomfortable and a little lost feel so old tinged with regret, when this is just a season gone on too long?

How do I move through this? I wish I could call back the potential therapist and tell her I didn’t call sooner because I am busy again which feels better, less time to think or feel, and I don’t know what to say. I just need to get over myself, settle down, make friends, accept that other life was cool, but it’s over now and this is the real deal. I wish I believed that. Well not really … But it would make it easier to swallow if I did. I wish I could remember how ugly the attitudes of my overly privileged students were, how honest I felt the disrespect of my current students is. But it’s taxing to give them options for more and better day in and day out .. And not be able to because they don’t have any idea how to be civil, responsible, their logic is skewed at best. But the raw ingredients are there, if they were more like house plants I’d say they just need some good dirt, water and sun. But they are children in a broken world.

Wish I could remember how cold and dark it got. How harsh it was. How impossible and loud and dreary. How difficult it was. How there were seasons so similar to this one there. How I left in the middle of a long hard lonely trying time. How I probably overstayed. Held on too long.

Wish I trusted admin. Wish keeping green things alive was more than a chore right now.

Wish I wasn’t so hungry or still awake at 1am. Wish I could leave town. Wish I could hide away.

Wish I didn’t feel like a failure. Or a bad joke. Or unmet potential. Wish I could accept I’m average. And trust that’s enough. I’m nothing special. And live content in the small things.

Wish my heart was smaller and not so soft. My spirit dryer and not so wild. Wish someone saw the sparkle in my eyes and that it stopped them in their tracks. Wish I knew better sooner, and was learning more faster. Wish my neighbors would go to sleep and go away. And that I could forget I love them. I’m called to love them.

I wouldn’t like myself any other way.

Drink are nice bitter, but hearts are not.

~ by Courtney Coleman on September 2, 2023.