A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

There was me.

There’s so much in the beginning and I have no idea what the future holds, so for now I’m just going to write from where I am. I don’t know what this is going to end up being, but for now it will serve as a repository for whatever I write, and in some cases, what I’ve already written, good, bad, fictional, or painfully honest. The honest is the hardest part for me, at least for the deep cuts. It’s always been easy for me to be superficially honest with people.

If you know me well enough, you know I’ve spent the last three and a half years in a toxic and at times abusive relationship. I came home from a trip this week to find him gone, having left a note. After knowing him for more than a decade, there is some sadness, but most of what I feel is actually a lack of feeling. It’s more like a 50lb weight has been lifted from my chest and I can breathe again. I can read, write, listen to music, and visit with people that inspire me. As I’m writing this, I realize that what I feel is hope. For the first time in a long time, I feel hopeful that things could turn out well for me.

The last year has been especially exhausting and isolating. To the few people who have been unlucky enough to be considered confidants by myself, I am sorry and thank you. You have let me ramble on your bar stools, over coffee, and in your homes, answered many a late night text message, given me safe harbor, and even holed up in a hotel with me for a week when I needed to hide from the world. Thank you for giving me an outlet to tell somebody the worst of what was going on, without passing judgment. Thank you for calling me on my bullshit excuses for not leaving, not writing, and wasting my time. Thank you for reminding me that I am just as deserving of the love that I try to give to the people around me. Julia, Jack, Dave, and Kathy, you all kept me sane and gave me hope when all I wanted to do was lay down and die. I will forever be indebted to you.

I know the next few weeks present an incredible opportunity for me to lay a great foundation for what I want to accomplish. It’s amazing how much motivation I have when my entire world doesn’t revolve around somebody who detests me and everything I am. Hopefully you’ll see me around here more frequently.

I heard this song the for the first time a few days ago and fell in love with it. It’s been in my head today.

I’ve been casually rereading The Princess Bride and ran across this again. I can’t imagine ever being able to say it any more poetically.

“I love you,’ Buttercup said. ‘I know this must come as something of a surprise to you, since all I’ve ever done is scorn you and degrade you and taunt you, but I have loved you for several hours now, and every second, more. I thought an hour ago that I loved you more than any woman has ever loved a man, but a half hour after that I knew that what I felt before was nothing compared to what I felt then. But ten minutes after that, I understood that my previous love was a puddle compared to the high seas before a storm. Your eyes are like that, did you know? Well they are. How many minutes ago was I? Twenty? Had I brought my feelings up to then? It doesn’t matter.’ Buttercup still could not look at him. The sun was rising behind her now; she could feel the heat on her back, and it gave her courage. ‘I love you so much more now than twenty minutes ago that there cannot be comparison. I love you so much more now then when you opened your hovel door, there cannot be comparison. There is no room in my body for anything but you. My arms love you, my ears adore you, my knees shake with blind affection. My mind begs you to ask it something so it can obey. Do you want me to follow you for the rest of your days? I will do that. Do you want me to crawl? I will crawl. I will be quiet for you or sing for you, or if you are hungry, let me bring you food, or if you have thirst and nothing will quench it but Arabian wine, I will go to Araby, even though it is across the world, and bring a bottle back for your lunch. Anything there is that I can do for you, I will do for you; anything there is that I cannot do, I will learn to do. I know I cannot compete with the Countess in skills or wisdom or appeal, and I saw the way she looked at you. And I saw the way you looked at her. But remember, please, that she is old and has other interests, while I am seventeen and for me there is only you. Dearest Westley–I’ve never called you that before, have I?–Westley, Westley, Westley, Westley, Westley,–darling Westley, adored Westley, sweet perfect Westley, whisper that I have a chance to win your love.’ And with that, she dared the bravest thing she’d ever done; she looked right into his eyes.”

I am in love with this song at the moment. I know it’s not typical of John Mayer, but I love storytelling songs and this inspires me. I feel like I’m on my own submarine ride right now.

Walt Grace, desperately hating his whole place,

Dreamed to discover a new space,

And buried himself alive,

Inside his basement, tongue on the side of his face meant,

He’s working away on displacement,

And what it would take to survive.

Cos when you’re done with this world,

You know the next is up to you.

And his wife told his kids he was crazy,

And his friends said he’d fail if he tried,

But with a will to work hard,

And a library card,

He took a homemade, fan-blade, one-man submarine ride.

That morning, the sea was mad and I mean it,

Waves as big as he’d seen it,

Deep in his dreams at home.From dry land,

He rolled it over to wet sand,

Closed the hatch up with one hand,

And peddled off alone.

Cos when you’re done with this world,

You know the next is up to you.

And for once in his life it was quiet,

As he learned how to turn in the tide,

And the sky was a flare,

When he came up for air,

In his homemade, fan-blade, one-man submarine ride.

One evening,When weeks had passed since his leaving,

The call she’d planned on receiving,

Finally made it home.She accepted,

The news she’d never expected,

The operator connected,

A call from Tokyo.

Cos when you’re done with this world,

You know the next is up to you.

Now his friends,

Bring him up when they’re drinking,

At the bar with his name on the side,

And they smile when they can,

As they speak of a man,

Who took a homemade, fan-blade, one-man submarine ride.

“We didn’t get in a fight in a Circle K last night, did we?”

While I would hope that I always remember occurences like that, the insistence of the police officer had me questioning my own memory of last night and I had to ask my friend Jack if he remembered something I didn’t. He just looked at me like I was crazy, which is the look I normally get from him, so it didn’t do much to make me feel any better.

“I filed a police report for my stolen stuff and the cop was adamant that I was the girl she pulled out of Circle K this morning.”

“I don’t think so,” Jack replied.

“Good. I spent 20 minutes trying to convince her it wasn’t me. She said I was in there fighting with my boyfriend, who was tall and wearing plaid shorts. I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“I was wearing plaid shorts.” Jack suddenly looked a little scared.

“I know.”

Frankly, if somebody told me they’d seen the future and I was going to get into a heated argument in the middle of Circle K, I would assume it would be with Jack, so nothing about the cop’s story seemed uncharacteristic of me until she said the girl had taken her bra off and abandoned it in the convenience store. I’d never take my bra off in public. Except for that one time that I did..but that was just so I could throw it at Kiernan while she sang karaoke. So I might take my bra off, but I definitely would have put it back on. Plus, all of my bras are accounted for.

At this point, I’m left with two theories. One being that I have a twin on this tiny island or somehow Jack and I ended up simultaneously sleep walking, bumping into each other and getting into another argument. One is just as likely as the other down here.

A lot of people have asked me how and why I picked up and moved 1400 miles away to a place where I didn’t have any friends. I’ve talked and joked about it for years, so it didn’t shock anybody that knows me well, but mostly it comes down to love.

In the last year I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching. I’ve always considered myself a Christian, but I was never really dependent on organized religion. I never liked the idea of somebody else telling me what my relationship with God should be like. It seemed like that should have been between me and God. I have a brain and I can discern the difference between right and wrong…most of the time. If I can’t, there’s probably not a commandment for it anyway.

In the last year I’ve tried very hard to reconcile my personal beliefs with what I see happening in the world. I was raised with a pretty amazing mom who always showed me (not told me) that loving people, being kind and forgiveness were what it’s all about at the end of the day. They are the fundamental values of nearly every religion.

When I was in kindergarten in a small town in West Tennessee one of my best friends was a black girl whose mom knew my mom through nursing school or work. This is a town where even today I see racism that makes my skin crawl. When I was nine we were living in Austin, Texas, and one of my mom’s good friends was Sam. Sam and his partner were amazing and the day she took me to see them in the hospital as Sam was dying of AIDS has stuck with me more than she has probably ever realized.

Being different was never taboo to me, which ironically made me less tolerant of the intolerant.

When I started gravitating toward my gay friends at my first job, my mom initially wondered if I was a lesbian. I’m not, but I realize now it was because they were accepting and open. It’s been 16 years and I still call these people friends.

It’s not about what you are, it’s who you are. It’s all about learning to love people, all people, unconditionally. That love and tolerance of everybody is an amazing part of my new home. After being raised in the Bible Belt, I feel like I can breathe down here. The entire atmosphere has a more positive energy.

Granted, my friends in Nashville are some of the most amazing, loving people on earth and are in no way stereotypical, anti-gay marriage, Southerners, but that’s why I knew they’d be supportive of me now, and they’ve all exceeded my expectations.

This is all to say that I don’t understand people so full of fear and ignorance that they would modify a founding document to deny equal rights to people based on their sexuality. The last time they did something similar in 1875 it banned interracial marriage and we can see how that turned out.

If you’re so inclined to believe that God sent his only son to die for our collective sins, which frankly I don’t think I do anymore, why would you not be able to see the love he has for ALL of us? That love is what I do believe in. I can’t imagine doing anything that would make my mom turn her back on me and I can’t imagine God doing that to any one of us, either. Especially not because they chose to love.

I realize that my intolerance of the intolerant is contrary to what I’m writing, so today, instead of writing off North Carolina, I’m going to pray. I’m going to pray to the God I believe in that the people of North Carolina, and the world in general, will stop worrying so much about who’s right and wrong and start loving and treating each other as equals.

Thank you for the reminder, Nina. Love. Everyone.

(Update: 3/11/12) In relocating all of these early blogs to this URL, it occurred to me that I’m one month shy of purchasing the album in question below, and I’m just as in love with his music now as I was then.)

I must say that his cd is amazing. I haven’t been able to stop listening to it since I got it in April. He was incredible live, and I can’t wait to see him in September at the Ryman. I will be the first in line to get tickets the day they go on sale. I’ve turned a quite a few people onto him after seeing him at Riverstages here in Nahsville. Everytime I hear him sing a portion of the lyrics from Wonderland (see footnote below) I get the chills. He makes spending Saturday cooped up in your office tolerable.

Generally, by Friday mornings I have resigned myself to the idea that I won’t actually make any significant headway with my work and that I am destined to spend every other Saturday there for all eternity. Every other Saturday, and the week preceding it, are punishment for the sin of talking myself out of working the Saturday and Sunday immediately preceding said week. It’s scaring me that I’m starting to talk like an attorney at times…”said week”?!?! Who says stuff like that? Anyway, back to my own personal hell…I will spend all weekend trying to get caught up, and will pray that, by the time I leave for Hawaii on Thursday, that it remains as such.

That’s right people, I said Hawaii…for seven days. And just so you will hate me more than you do already, let me tell you it’s free. I won’t go into boring details about how I got the trip, although it was through a friend of a friend. We are staying at an incredible resort, and I leave for Honolulu on Thursday. God help the people on the plane around me. 18 hours of me and Dr. Phil books. I’ll have everybody on the plane in therapy before we land.