take a drive in the car with your scar

I know my blogs have been pretty heavy lately. And for some of you reading them, I may come across as the type of person who can talk very openly and honestly about my faith. In reality though, I am not like that at all. I tend to keep my personal spiritual experiences to myself. It is much easier for me to write about what I've been through than to openly talk about those things. I think partially because I fear that someone will respond in a way that diminishes what I have gone through. I am extremely sensitive when sharing personal stories and have close friends that still don't know what I've been through completely. I am to a place though where I feel the need to start opening up and sharing, but this feels safer and less intimidating to me that having to talk about it.

Thank you for taking the time to listen and forgive me for rambling. When you have so many things stored up inside for so long, and then slowly begin to open the door, they tend to flood out uncontrollably. Writing for me is something that I have done for as long as I can remember, but I stopped for quite some time. It is still new to me again, and I admit to not being the most eloquent writer and often use run-on sentences and forget to spell check, so I ask you to please be patient with me as I enter into this journey of healing.

In my life the physical and spiritual are so intertwined that it is difficult for me to write about one without the other. I am hoping to post some blogs soon that are a bit more light-hearted, but the winter gets to me with it's long cold days and my writing tends to take on the those elements. I don't want you to think that I'm a serious and somber person all of the time, because there is a lot more to me than that. But what I've been going through recently has been difficult and the playful side of me seems to have taken a backseat and is just riding along now, quietly staring out the window and listening..

It makes me think of that Alanis Morissette video where there are 3 or 4? of her in the car, all with different personalities. And I'm not saying that I have multiple personalities.. ha.. but that I have tried to separate the BC me and the AD me as a way of not having to deal with my past. I'm trying to get to a healthy place though where I can forgive myself for where I've been and allow myself to become whole again.

Speaking of, I do not listen to the radio often because Rachael Yamagata seems to stay in the car CD player for most of the winter, but the other day I caught a song by Katy Perry that sounded a bit reminiscent of Alanis during parts of it. It took me back to H.S. when a friend had just bought Alanis's first tape at Wal-mart (this was before the new Super one we have there now) and we drove around in her car listening to it. I remember thinking how cool Allanis was because she was so angry and not holding back what she thought. Then after that I was looking through my old issues of Organic Style (I was devastated when they stopped making that magazine and thankfully have kept all my copies to re-read.) Anyway, there was an article in the issue I was reading about how Alanis was chilling out a bit.

I've completely forgotten the entire point of this blog now, so I'm just going to make something up.

I think most of us carry around a bit of hurt inside, and it's important that we find healthy ways to let it out so we can heal. For me, it's listening to music and writing, for Allanis it's through singing or yelling. Sometimes I yell too. Crying seems to help as well. The point is that you can choose to cover up your painful wounds, or you can take the band-aid off and allow your wound to open up, breathe, and begin to heal. It's going to take time and it's going to hurt.. but eventually the painful sting will begin to dull and and what once was a deep cut will turn into a scar, a reminder of what you've been through. It's still visible, you are still aware of it, but it no longer controls your life and you are able to move on..

So, I suggest you rip off those band-aids, get out your old Organic Style magazines, listen to some Alanis, and take a drive in the car with your scar.