stick your heart inside of my chest

the past 2 weeks of my life have been a little hectic.
i am now working 2 jobs, interning, while trying to get prints done (fail), keep up with friends (fail), not getting really stressed out (fail), make music (fail) and actually sit down and think for a moment.
today was my first actual day off in weeks where i didn't really have something else to do, to go, some other obligation. i spent it at the mall with my mom and sister, helping them pick out easter outfits while i walked around in my black jeans, tegan and sara shirt and unwashed hair looking like a giant lesbian because i wasn't there to shop, i was there to spend time with them and listen to shitty college music at american eagle while madi tried on jeans (OWL CITY YOU ARE QUICKLY BECOMING THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE). then i came home, made some cd's and got some care packages together (you know who you are), ate awesome blueberry pie and watched fantastic mr. fox (FINALLY) followed by sherlock holmes.

here i am and since its my day off, here's what has been on the very intense forefront of my mind these past few days:

i went to the most wonderful show on sunday. it is inexplicable how incredibly wonderful it was. i had been waiting since i was a junior in high school to see Tegan and Sara live, and when they opened with The Ocean and stepped under those lights i literally cried my eyes out i was so happy and just incredibly overwhelmed by so so many things.
overwhelmed by the complete dissipation of suspense and the influx of relief.
overwhelmed that they opened with my favorite song off Sainthood.
overwhelmed by how incredibly beautiful and talented they were.
overwhelmed by my sister singing next to me and sharing it with her and britty.
and the show was fantastic. they played so long and they played so many great songs and they were funny and told stories and made fun of people who shouted at them,
and i'm in this giant auditorium of people in love.
in love with these girls. in love with the people they are with. their partners. their spouses. their significant others. the amount of couples there, gay, lesbian, straight, whatever was so immense and beautiful it was like all of lakewood decided that this sunday night was date night.
so the night ends and yesterday comes and i get up and i catch up with my mom and say goodbye to britty and drive to work and work and take breaks and come home exhausted and sleep and yesterday becomes today and these concepts and contemplations and witnessing's of love are floating through my head all day.

i have never been in love with anyone. there is a difference between loving someone and being IN love with them. IN love is like a place to be or go to, like hell, michigan or like how madi used to think wedlock was a place a couples went in and out of like a town to get babies the good way or the bad way. being in love requires communication, admittance and the ability to say things aloud. i've loved a lot of people, i do love a lot of people and all in different ways. i have never loved anyone in the same way as another because everyone is different. thats not rocket science. and i loved people requietedly, unrequietedly, knowingly and unconsciously in retrospect. i have been with people, i have cared about people immensely, i have been close to the town of IN love but not quite in it, sometimes just by fate and actually a lot of times by choice.
please understand, i say this because it is a valuable trunk in the root system of my current thoughts, not a pity party.
and so i have this great penchant for love songs. i love love songs. i am an admitted romantic and i love that too. and yes, that totally sucks sometimes because i know things are idealized and i know things don't work out that way but maybe people don't try for them hard enough. and it sucks because to be honest, i don't know HOW the hell i'm not more of a cynic or non-romantic because most of the relationships i have witnessed in my life have been really shitty: they have been shitty between my friends, they have been shitty for a close friend, they have been shitty between parents, other family members. they have not necessarily been what i see love as being.
so i go to this concert. and i listen to these songs by these wonderful girls whom i love. because they write about love. they write about being in love. people they love. every wonderful and fucked up aspect of caring about someone SO MUCH that they form into these classic concepts of selflessness, two hearts with the same beat, what we have is real and thank you for loving me when i am a monster, when i fuck up, when i'm at my best, as me.

this is what love is to me and i don't think it wrong or bad or too old school to want it. i want it, sadly i'm just not one of those people who doesn't go looking for it everywhere. i know where it is. i know where to find it. people just need to let me give it to them and i guess no one has wanted it yet because its not fucking around. does that make sense? i'm not the type of person to try things out, give a go, hurt some people and live to tell about it. for me, i guess i'll just know when i know.
love is selflessness.
love is something that needs to change you, whether that comes slowly and patiently or in a whirlwind of clusterfuck.
love is gentle and real.
love is confident enough to trust and wise enough to stay away from jealousy.
love speaks, love listens, love holds tight, love holds accountable, not for you but for someone else, out of itself.
love feels like home, peace of mind, and comfort in your own skin.
love is open minded, love lets you yell, love keeps pride down, love apologizes.
love is i want you to be happy and i hope i can be a part in that happiness.
love is keep me safe.
love has baggage.
love is just spending time, just hanging out.
love is i'm not walking off this fucking plank without you.
love is i have plans but i want you in them.
love is complex, no where near instantaneous.
love is forgiveness.
love sees the best parts and accepts the bad ones, helping them become better.
love needs room to breathe and a sense of humor.
love is laughing.
love is acceptance and sacrifice while still having enough energy to push when it needs to.
love is slamming doors and tears and talking through things.
love is communicating and genuine honesty.
love is reassurance.
love is the unexpected.
love is grace.
love is rivers and dirt and trees and stars and crescent moons and music and cigarette smoke and books.

as a romantic whose been shoving various loves songs down into her chest since she was a child, thats what love is to me. and thats how i want it because thats what the real thing is. and i know its not going to be exact and perfect and start right away and be gravy train. its going to be different for everyone. its going to take time, its going to take patience. its going to be me ripping my fucking hair out asking myself what the fuck is going on. its probably going to take some yelling by myself in my car. and i'm going to cry privately about it and be privately overjoyed and girly and hideously disgusting. and there will be times when its hard and its angry and ugly and bitter, when it wants to be left alone, when it will be you can't fix this, when it will be there is nothing you can do for me. it will be like that for me, it will be like that for whoever. and there will be times of knowing and times of 'stay' and 'this is really good'.

there is a lot i want to do with my life, things i want to accomplish and experience and i'd be a liar and a fool to say i didn't want someone else to be a part of that, to be nicely in sync with it. as my mom would say 'gabe, i really hope you find someone on the same wavelength.' i know i have the capacity to love a person like this. sometimes that capacity is just sitting there so heavily it becomes impatient and overbearing and bitter. most times its questioning, researching, patient, waiting to be discovered instead of forced out too early or out of false alarm. but its there, full and immense. and the truth still remains, as always, that i cannot truly love another person in this capacity until i realize that that is how God, how Christ loves me, how thats the way he needs me, how thats the way i need to love and need myself before applying that to another person and i know i've come far in that department but i'm not quite done yet. i don't think you can ever actually fully do those things either, we're too human. i think other humans needs to help you realize and act upon those things


so i listen to Tegan and Sara, thank the Lord that they are both virgo's like me, and i bask in their love chords and lyrics and i let myself feel what i need to and hold myself accountable for what i need to. a lot of the time, i guard myself and i leave myself be because in a way, i don't really know what i would do or what i'm doing. i don't think you should have to, you should just be and being should be genuine.


the hair is getting the guillotine tomorrow morning. goodbye year and a half of growing your hair out, it was real, it was great, it was really great. didn't quite make it to mermaid status but a lioness doesn't need a mane to show what she is, she just needs herself and well, its time to go short again.

bon soir.

you've got to be kind!

me and madi are becoming bob sledders.
did you know that bob sleds have wheels?
i did not know this. i am fascinated.
i'm going to steer and madi is going to work breaks because she's really great at tucking.
no i have yet to see cool runnings. working on it.



i've had a lot to think about these past few weeks but i've been really selfish.
i apologize.
i really have been in my own head way too much and when you have a lot to think about, its hard to give yourself breaks.
i struggle with fear a lot.
i struggle with love a lot.
i have a lot of fears about things.
i have a lot of love sitting here because i've been given a great deal of love.
i try my best to give it back out. it can't just been incoming you know.
i pass by the little catholic school i attended as a child and the church attached to it nearly every day to or from work. it looks a lot smaller now, when i was a child it seemed massive. the church has these beautiful stained glass panels all mosaic'd along the upper walls. when i was in school there, we had to take a religion class that had this little work book to help explain concepts lost on us young ones. i can't remember if i was in first or second grade, but i have this memory of this concept of love being explained to us in religion class. how God loves us and how Jesus loves us, how its more than we love any toy or any food or any tv show...etc. and how because God made us, we want to love him and that we have to love him because it's just a part of us, like our hair and the color of our eyes are, it just IS that way. and how there are all these ways we can show God that we love him (mostly by being good, wholesome boys and girls who obviously fulfilled all their sacramental obligations...ANYWEW) and how because God loves us so much and because God made us, he makes that love His and gives it back, and not just to us, but to everyone. He takes our love and shares it with everyone. He re-gifts it.
i've been given a great deal of love.

i'm a person who tries to collect and savour quiet moments in life. i TRY.
like when you're laying in bed, still awake and in the dark and the most beautiful, mysterious light is coming through your window and you realize it's the moon, even the slightest sliver of it. or when i walk to work and take the back path through the woods, next to the over grown train tracks and i come around the corner near the tiny clearing and i see a deer, with his antlers just starting to grow and get fuzzy, less than 100 yards away and completely still. or when i'm driving my old neighborhood at night, getting stopped on a side street so a ghost train can come slowly through while i listen to music on my stereo. i love cheesy stuff like that. very small, almost things that make you feel like the only human person for miles.

alex comes home this week. cannot wait. cannot.
i get to see 2 very old, very dear and very awesome girlfriends tomorrow where we will go to Tommy's (the greatest restaurant in the Cleve) and be in each others company.
i am thankful. so thankful. continually trying to be humbly and graciously thankful.
i am thankful for friends. i am thankful for family. i am thankful for my dog.
i am thankful for music. i am thankful for words. i am thankful for art.
i am thankful for orange juice. i am thankful for fried egg, bacon, cheddar and avocado sammy's. i am thankful for sustenance.
i am thankful for you. i am thankful that you are consistent. i am thankful for your indisputable longevity. i am thankful that you get it. i am thankful that you are comfortable.
i am thankful for prayer.
i am thankful for Your presence. i am thankful for Your comfort. i am thankful for Your patience.
i am thankful for faith.
i am thankful for kindness. i am thankful for selflessness. i am thankful for hope.
i am thankful for sleep. i am thankful for dreams. i am thankful for memories.
i am thankful for honesty. i am thankful for modesty. i am thankful for grace.
i am thankful for peace. i am thankful for stillness. i am thankful for quiet.
i am thankful for moments of certainty. i am thankful for comfort. i am thankful for self awareness.
i am thankful for love.