sounds like home

i'm consistantly amazed at the wisdom i ignored as a teenager. occasionally, that old wisdom comes screaming back into my ears, and oddly enough, is carried in my own voice.

i remember laying across my brass bed, all of fifteen years old, wondering what it all meant. and i remember hearing neil young in my stereo speakers. the fact that his voice is not the best, that his lyrics sometimes are cryptic and bizarre, that no one i knew was listening to him, that made neil young that much cooler to me. i can see myself sprawled against my pink-striped sheets, agonizing over my journal, and feeling the "hurt-so-good"-ness of "harvest", and knowing that it didn't matter that i didn't have words to put with any of my feelings. it was enough to just feel them.

there was a time in my life when i pretended that i didn't have crushes, or unrequited loves, or ridiculous "cinderella"-esque fantasies. for most of high school, i pretended to be above that kind of thing, at least in my head. and for most of my 20's, i just worked myself into such a frenzy about...work, that it didn't seem like i would ever settle down, and figure out what my heart really, really wanted.

and so, here i sit, at 31, feeling all these gross and disjointed and angsty feelings that i should have felt fifteen years ago. you can only hit the snooze bar on parts of your life so many times, before they crawl into your bed and demand that you deal with them like a sane and rational adult. it's a hard reality to finally see. i always took getting married and having kids for granted, like i wouldn't have to try and be present for those things to happen. i'm realizing more and more that the more cerebral i made my ideas of love and loving, the less and less real those ideas became.

i know a few things, on this cold and rainy day. i want to marry a nice man who loves Jesus. i want to have lots and lots of babies, and live in a house full of music and good smells. what i have right now, is a head and heart full of a 15 year old who wants to listen to her records and figure out what all this means. even thought the pink striped sheets are long gone, and all that impossible hair is being shot through with gray, i think i'm going to let the 15 year old drive the heart bus for a while, because the 31 year old driving the head bus is making a pig's ear out of this whole "adult relationship" thing.

mil besos,
rmg