ITWD

i must have backspaced or cleared at least 18 messages to you in the past few days. life is very strange and i really want it to be different.

the heights are paved with daggers

i'm losing it. but then i'm solid again. but then i'm teetering. but then i'm fine for ahwile.

#finewhine #blah #woeisme #pityparty #actmyage

sealed

it's been my great and guilty pleasure to be of use to you, friend whom i love. i want to tell you that i can't wait to speak with you again, that i want you to text me all night long (all night), and that i feel so stupid for wanting these things... but i cannot, because blah blah blah and my situation et cetera and so on and so forth ad nauseam.

if i had anything new to say, i would say it, i swear.

i miss you and care about you, and i wish i didn't have to fetter myself so. i pray for one of these two things: a chance to tell you everything, or deliverance from this turmoil, this crazy little thing called eff. my. life.

God please help me

peace! be effing still!!!

the sea of isaialee is rough tonight.

i think it's all the recent contact-- phoning (like we did a couple times back when the friendship was still sort of pristine), being invited hiking, texting... it's just a lot. and Thursday is my first counseling session with her in years. very rough tonight.

two drafts sit in this blog waiting to be finished, but i don't have the energy. i need to write them. they are helpful for explaining myself to myself, which is extremely necessary in this chapter. perhaps it'll even become useful for explaining myself to you later on. i don't know for sure.

what i know at the moment is that 1) i'm fallen deeply for a certain turbulent moon-ridden girl, and even the mere memory of her arrests me, and 2) i'm still married to someone to whom i should never have become so vulnerable.

yea. the sea's rough, but more objectively, i'm neither more nor less effed than i was months ago. i guess not much time has really passed.

eff. where's this button for life? [FF>>]

announcing: the end of my sweet dream

last night i dreamt that you kissed my cheek. we were laying next to each other and you were telling me about someone you had prayed with and ministered to at school. i felt for a moment as though i were loved, truly and wholly, without reservation, and that sensation of being touched that way... if i had been awake, that feeling of peace and contentment would have surely sent me straight into pleasant dreams.

i woke up trying desperately to return to sleep, with Mraz asking me, "how can you sleep at a time like this, unless the dreamer is the real you?"

eff you, Mraz. eff you in the ay.

Eureka

i really enjoyed most of our conversation today. it felt great to have a normal talk about normal things, without chatting. it would have felt great even if not for my internal situation. i enjoy your company deeply, even from hundreds of miles away. weird how that works: sometimes i miss you more when you're at arm's length.

i wonder if you know i wanted to be there for you, to make the drive easier.

if i succeeded then i guess it doesn't matter.

i love you. always

DTR I

[August 30th, 2012, 10:21p] (Isaiah)

first, what do you want our friendship to look like right now? ideally. more detail is better. as in, i could probably take pages, single-spaced, and benefit from it all.

second, what do you want our friendship to look like in the future? ideally.

i ask these questions partly because i have been uncertain of the answer for years. like i said the other night, i feel like we had to deal with things that didn't exactly help us to be on good terms. i almost feel.. gypped. but i guess that's more selfish than not.
and i feel like, since our relationship has changed significantly, but we haven't talked about it much except to clear the air, i don't really know what you want out of it
i just sort of know *that* you do. which is weird when i don't know why. which i've said.
so your words, carefully contemplated and arranged (but with the same freedom of thought you used to answer that old PQ) would be a big fat boon.

[August 31st, 2012, 7:03a] (Isaiah)

i remembered part trois when i woke up this morning. so, for extra credit:

third, does my being married (in general; not to anyone specific) or unmarried have any bearing on your answers to parts un and deux?

[September 3rd, 2012, 10:28p] (Danica)

the idea of answering this question has been hovering over me this weekend, and it is difficult for me to answer because i am afraid. i am afraid that whatever my answer is, something will happen/be misunderstood/misconstrued and i will lose you. yes, it seems selfish and it probably is, but i really don't want to lose you because you mean a lot to me. (i'm going to try to use as many feeling words as i can to help both you and me get the best understanding of what i think)

before i answer the questions i want you to know that your presence in my life has had, is having and will have an impact on my life for as long as i'm alive. i know that because when i think of the last five years of my life, you are a part of it. you weren't in the parental, peer, pastoral, acquaintance or ministry pal category. you were just isaiah, my friend. we happened to have encounters that resembled some of those categories, but never characterized by one group like other people (even ones who matter a lot to me) are. you have felt like a peer-like friend, a mentor, a pastor-like figure, a fellow musician and music lover, older friend example person, etc. at one time or another. now, you continue to not be a part of any of those categories individually, but you have settled into a role that i'm not sure how to label. you are the continuation of the above roles you filled. the word legacy keeps coming to mind....i'll try to figure that out a bit more later...

in another sense, you (by the way i'm crying right now....so you have more of a context similar to if this was in person) represent SO many things that i would want in a husband. i want him to be a passionate lover of music, a thorough and grounded thinker, a hard worker who has the desire to craft with his own hands, a consistent rock, a persistent pursuer of knowledge of God and His universe and people, a man who inspires a girl to become a woman, unreserved in his care for his family and those who seek to know him. you have demonstrated these. never perfectly and probably some without you even knowing i was watching, but i saw it. i saw the man you are by your actions. not your words or past mistakes. please don't fight me on this. i am not trying to make you feel better (not that i wouldn't desperately want that for you), i am telling you the accumulation of what you've been for me and continue to be as you live your life. i am still watching and learning. and even when life sucks and you think you are sucking at doing anything right, you are a man of God that is honored and i am honored to experience your life with you in an interesting context. we're friends. and in my opinion, great friends. i feel both protected and cared for by you. you represent what someone i would be in a relationship would look like to me. i don't want you to be concerned that you are that person in my life. i am being honest here because i know how important it is. i hate having to say all this and risk the misunderstanding, but you are not that person in my life. i see you isaiah, as a brother who knows me deeply and longs for what i long for in my life.

i don't know what your marriage situation means for our friendship and i want to be as respectful and helpful as possible. that being said, my desire is to be the kind of friends that we've been for the past few months, but if that is going to cause problems then i am willing to make changes. to me our friendship would look like, having monday night dinners with you and brandon and jesse, playing music together at church, hanging out like we did at ryan's house when we drank bailey's and played a game, asked and answered PQs on facebook, went to the lake with jerad and ryan, had deep discussions.... there are a few changes i would actually be more comfortable with because i know that i so often make decisions based on feeling rather than on the knowledge of right and wrong/health and unhealth. i don't want anything to happen that would ruin our friendship. if anything outside of friendshipness, we most likely would never be friends again. my desire is to be friends for the rest of our lives. this would just mean not hanging out just the two of us (which i think we've been pretty good at), not talking privately about this kind of stuff whether in person or online (and jerad and heather have been a part of this so i feel comfortable) and not hanging out so much to where we hang out with each other exclusively (that's gonna be the hard one for me because you are one of the few people i actually want to hang out with).

in the future, our friendship, as i grow up more and hopefully enter into a healthy relationship and continue with my career, would ideally have you involved in a similar way until it was my husband's turn to help take care of me. i feel like, in that case, it would be time to allow that man in my life to take over. it kinda seems like a brother or a father of a girl when she decides to love another man. it becomes my husband's responsibility.

you being married gives a kind of safety to our friendship because i know that you aren't mine to put in the spot of main man in my life. it is scarier now because of the situation and that's why i think it is imperative that we do this. i agree with you in that these things need to be discussed in order to move forward.

my answers are probably unorganized and possibly don't even make sense. i am exhausted after spending an hour and a half writing this. if you could do me a favor and respond asking specifically for clarification and/or more answers, i would be really grateful. i tried my best in this message, but this is a heavy topic and i don't expect myself to be able to fit it all in in one sitting.

i hope i answered something.

[10:39p] (Isaiah)

i need you to understand that most of my reactions, both thought-wise and feeling-wise, i must keep to myself. not because i want to or because i don't trust you-- i do-- but for other reasons which i think you'd wholeheartedly agree with if we talked through them

as is the norm with me, every answered question spawns eight more questions. that's frustrating to most people; they feel interrogated. i hope you won't. i highly value your cooperation and openness and courage in answering as you have. unfortunately (and frustratingly; but i must deal with it) i must continue to withhold most of the questions i am collecting. but, after reading your words multiple times, i'm left with 3 questions that i can and will ask now

1st: you said, "there are a few changes i would actually be more comfortable with..." assuming i am NOT married in a month or two, what few changes are those?

2nd: you said, "my desire is to be friends for the rest of our lives. this would just mean... ...not hanging out so much to where we hang out with each other exclusively (that's gonna be the hard one for me because you are one of the few people i actually want to hang out with)."

i don't know what you mean by "hang out with each other exclusively." i actually don't even have a guess. what does that mean?

3rd: you said, "you being married gives a kind of safety..." what is the danger for you (not me) if/when i am not married? i do not understand this at all either.

don't feel obligated to answer within a timeframe; feel free to set yourself a timeframe based on your personal resources / needs


(Danica)

ok. i will continue to think about them, but my thoughts right off the bat are that i think the changes i stated would also be good if you are not married in the future. remember when we hung out for nine days straight? i loved that. i wasn't tired of you or anything, but it was too much. to hang out with a man (married or unmarried) that much doesn't make sense to me unless it was headed somewhere romantic. i don't think it is wise for me to personally put myself in a situation that even if i'm not pursuing a romantic relationship, could be drawn into especially because of what i said about you representing characteristics that i am drawn to in others romantically. by exclusively, i mean that most of our leisure hang out time in general is spent together.

the danger for me is that you would be "available" (i dont mean that's what you would say or anything, my brain would just transfer you from the unavailable to available side of the man spectrum) and despite what i may want or decide, i know that i would be susceptible to develop feelings based on what we have in common and our emotional connection.

(Isaiah)

that's the thing i am having difficulty understanding. why would you expect feelings to possibly develop for someone you did NOT want to be with romantically?

(Danica)

because my feelings develop despite what i want
that's why i have found myself drawn before to women romantically even though i don't want it. at all

(Isaiah)

i don't mean to insult or critique or call that inherently bad, but it really baffles me. if there is no underlying explanation for it that you are aware of, then perhaps i will never understand it

(Danica)

i think it's terrible! i absolutely hate it. the only explanation i have is that i have some serious issues in my thinking.
which i already know and am trying to work on them....i just don't know what direction to go and how

(Isaiah)

i am not convinced that it's wrong to be susceptible in that way. i lean more toward it being a vulnerability that's neither good nor bad, but still dangerous. like a cliff
you seem to know how to avoid falling off, and you seem to be making the decisions necessary to avoid falling off. in fact now that we're having this conversation, i can put past conversation in perspective. correct me if i am wrong: but you've been avoiding that cliff with me for years...?

(Danica)

i don't think it's wrong in the black and white sense. i mean, it is unhealthy and doesn't make any logical sense at all. it is a vulnerability and i also hate it and happen to want it to leave
oh yes. when valerie had that talk with me at starbucks, i immediately felt like oh crap i'm gonna eff this up aren't i

(Isaiah)

it might become a very useful thing when you find a person you DO want to be romantic with
wait what? what talk? about my past?

(Danica)

yeah. she just mentioned that you had a lot of fun with the worship team and she could tell that you and i had/have a strong friendship and she mentioned a very small bit about our past
im not exactly sure what she was trying to tell me, but i took it as kind of a warning for me not to try to pull you into to that or something....? im still not completely sure

(Isaiah)

and that prompted a fear in you because you see strong close friendships as potential sources of unwanted and harmful romantic feelings

(Danica)

before you guys were married. i think you were recently engaged.
i had absolutely no fear in you.

(Isaiah)

in you, i mean.

(Danica)

no. i remember feeling like that wasn't my sense of you at all. i felt like maybe she felt uncomfortable with our friendship, but i didn't. the fear in me was the same fear i have now, that i'm going to find a way to eff this up somehow

(Isaiah)

that's what i mean. it prompted a fear in you, of yourself; not of me

(Danica)

oh yes
sorry

(Isaiah)

np. this question is slightly more comprised of curiosity-- a shadegrown, if you will-- but i will ask anyway: what in the world do you think could you possibly do to eff up our friendship?

(Danica)

i knew at the time that i was susceptible to crushing on all kinds of people who represented want i wanted/lacked in my past/needed and in the last five years i have only been reminded of how strong that is. yes, i have made choices and taken steps to not act on every feeling, but my failures seem to carry much more weight in my head

(Isaiah)

lol i can relate with that
the last part
sooo it seems like your answer is, "i don't think i could. but i feel like i would be motivated to do something that would."

(Danica)

what in the world could i do to eff up our friendship? my brain automatically goes to extremes: what if during one of our deep talks i all of a sudden have a desire for closeness with you and i take it too far?

(Isaiah)

but you know i would disallow that

(Danica)

knowing myself, that does not seem like such a far off possibility if i didn't do things to protect myself
who knows man...
oh...i misread it again
sorry again.
yeah hopefully

(Isaiah)

hopefully.
i am always relieved to find the limits of someone's trust in me
because then i know what to expect, and can plan for it

(Danica)

i hope, but cant absolutely trust because you are just as fallen as i am
so there you go, that's where the trust would be in question.....but my trust in myself would be long gone by then

(Isaiah)

so is anyone, but some are more trustworthy than others. i suppose truly knowing what i'm capable of is partly responsible for your [possibly justified but i think not] distrust

(Danica)

distrust in...whom?

(Isaiah)

me
well it probably won't help you at all, but i'll tell you anyway, because i believe my words matter (objectively and to you): i would not allow you to do something to me/us that i knew you would regret
who i am now is especially certain of that
if i even sensed a possibility of it, i would begin disallowing it at that point

(Danica)

i only know what you are capable of because i know what i am capable of. (which stems from my own pathological belief that i infect the people i'm around with the bad that i'm capable of) it doesn't really have anything to do with your past

(Isaiah)

huh... that is also strange and baffling to me.

(Danica)

i believe you until my brain overrides it with my infecting complex

(Isaiah)

i don't know if i know what people mean when they say they have trust issues, but if you would consider that to be one, then i suddenly have a better understanding

(Danica)

for some reason i believe i have the power (in all the relationships that matter to me) to make others make different decisions. i know logically i dont, but because i sense that if i matter to them, they would somehow allow me to make decisions through them. it's a really effed up little thought pattern, but ive realized i've been living out of it for a long time
yup. and it has less to do with a person being trustworthy or untrustworthy and more to do with how much i gauge i matter to them

(Isaiah)

fascinating (unpleasantly... but still). wow. so... wow. in that case i hope you have NOT accurately gauged how much you matter to me
and perhaps i should not try to communicate it to you so much, or so fully
lol that's the first and possibly last time i'll ever hope such a thing for anyone.

(Danica)

well relationships i have with strict boundaries (like with my last therapist) (i was convinced that i would somehow get her to break her therapist code thingy to spend time with me outside of therapy), i slowly learn that they have a choice in the matter and that i dont have that power unless someone gives it to me (like danielle did)

(Isaiah)

i see. that helps me to understand how valuable your therapist was to you
is

(Danica)

i can trace some of it back to childhood and my dad and stuff and i can recognize it in friendships more often. i've just never verbalized (typed) it out like this before. i also can feel when i start to feel someone having the power of me
sometimes i resist and other times i'm drawn in to do exactly what i perceive them wanting
over*

(Isaiah)

i don't know how to type the sound i just made. i whistled tonelessly
what a combo of vulnerabilities
that is quite a... tight-rope.
with gusting winds.

(Danica)

now when i'm drawn in to someone (especially girls) i put up a huge wall for personal safety and immediately get down on myself and try to figure out why the eff i'm so powerfully pulled in by these specific people. i sometimes have to completely avoid because i am afraid of even beginning to entertain those thoughts
seriously. if i lean over to one side i verbally and emotionally attack myself (sabotage?) and on the other side i start to feel certain things about people and i shove myself back over to the violent side

(Isaiah)

=(  i don't want that for you
i hate that

(Danica)

me too. fortunately it's not with everybody. it was with a lot right after the danielle thing cuz i was hyperaware and sensitive, but it's less now

(Isaiah)

do you fully expect that if you & i adhere to your ideal friendship for us, that you won't have to worry about that with us?

(Danica)

i suppose it happens mostly with girls because i don't let myself get super vulnerable with many guys
fully? no. mostly? yes.

(Isaiah)

what would need to happen to get to the 'fully' descriptor?

(Danica)

i don't know if i would ever be able to fully expect or not expect something in this context
intense healing
especially because we've had this conversation i am closer to fully than before, but still prob only like 80%
you know what... i think i do trust you when you said you would disallow anything to happen in the scenario i created.

(Isaiah)

why the change in conclusion?

(Danica)

because i don't trust myself very much, i couldn't really trust anyone else theoretically. but after thinking about the way you run. you are more able to keep your commitments to yourself than i am. you say you will not do something and you dont. i rarely feel like i have the self-control/willpower to do that

(Isaiah)

that's generally true... but there is more to it in this case. my care for you is partly instinctive. honey badger don't care what threatens. the real danger is that i might over-react (in the process of protecting you) and hurt your feelings

(Danica)

if that's the danger, i'll take it

(Isaiah)

lol i'll do my best to protect sensitively. i am 100% confident in my ability to do so, partly from experience (not with this exact scenario but with related ones)

(Danica)

i am so grateful

(Isaiah)

LoL i really don't expect to ever have to do anything like that. the more i think about it the more i laugh out loud
i don't mean to downplay or minimize your vulnerabilities
but seriously... so, Valerie asked me the other night, "don't you think it's a possibility that Danica is and/or would be interested in you romantically?"
in that case i guess i failed to be sensitive, because i immediately laughed, and had to work hard to contain myself
others would say i downplay or even completely deny whatever attractiveness i may or may not have, but i don't see it that way
but that tangent is a bit too shade-grown for me tonight, i think
in the rare case that an indiana-jones-sized boulder is headed straight for you, Danica, and i just happen to be nearby, i promise to push you out of the way gently but firmly

(Danica)

so valerie has thought that all along?
great
she really doesn't/didn't trust me at all did she

(Isaiah)

valerie has been insecure all along, about most of my female friendships. that's partly her, but it's also me, because of my personality
and my mistakes
my personality is to invest heavily when i see a need i can meet. for whatever reason[s], i am able to meet some of the deep needs that females have. and i have done so honey-badger style since high-school, all the while quoting 1Cor13 and such, completely oblivious to the dangers
so she shouldn't be blamed fully

(Danica)

yeah i guess

(Isaiah)

and neither should you. in fact i don't see a reason to give you even a crumb from the blame pie
maybe if we'd had this conversation from day 1, and we'd known ourselves (respectively) then as well as we do now
but no. not your fault

(Danica)

i keep having to remind myself that i haven't done anything wrong. i immediately internalize the blame for all of this cuz i feel something on the outside blaming me, but i really didn't do anything

(Isaiah)

whatever you HAVE done, has been worthy of respect

(Danica)

it's making me feel like i have to defend myself for something i didn't do.

(Isaiah)

and has helped
except for that deoderant incident. but i still forgive you.

(Danica)

i don't forgive you for spelling it wrong
until you ask for forgiveness

(Isaiah)

i was staring at it thinking... "wait..."
but it was too late. alas.

[September 4, 2012, 12:00a] (Danica)

that's why i use a mac. automatic spell check

(Isaiah)

you mean for spelling it incorrectly, right?
(this is where you say "touche")

(Danica)

this is also where i say not automatic grammar check.

(Isaiah)

lol

(Danica)

but yes, touche
every time i see that word spelled out i read it "touch-y"

(Isaiah)

i read it as "tooshy" just for fun
or tushy, i guess

(Danica)

that's one of halle's words for her butt.

(Isaiah)

dang it. i had other questions or thoughts or something
lol

(Danica)

similar to queue i supposed

(Isaiah)

lol perhaps
oh i remember.

(Danica)

do you think i could answer/address your other questions/thoughts/somethings tomorrow? i have an early morning

(Isaiah)

=\   i forgot to ask about that. sorry

(Danica)

i chose to keep talking =)

(Isaiah)

i'm humbled
for that and other reasons
"thank you" is once again not really adequate

(Danica)

we need like a code phrase. like "dolphin elbow"
or something.........
O_o

(Isaiah)

maybe something more serious. like...     please words for "thank you"

(Danica)

"please words for thank you"?
or "please words"?

(Isaiah)

yea. please words = i very much want to speak but don't have a big enough mode of expression
so please words for 'thank you' = i very much want to thank you but don't have a big enough mode of expression

(Danica)

ok. i think i get it. but not the actual two words: "please words"
?

(Isaiah)

that's your invented phrase, actually

(Danica)

lol. kinda slow tonight

(Isaiah)

it's been a long one
longer for you than for me

(Danica)

yes i suppose so

(Isaiah)

at the picnic table with brandon you said "please words," which in that context meant "please give me words, because i want to express why you matter to me and why i still want your friendship but don't know how"
anyway

(Danica)

got it.
i remember now

(Isaiah)

then i relinqueesh you to Dreamica-land.

(Danica)

thank you ( for that, not those words for the rest of our convo tonight)
i'll talk to you soon friend

(Isaiah)

please do friend

(Danica)

night

(Isaiah)

i wish thee a good night

benembering

i can't decide whether scouring Facebook for old interactions is healthier or foolisher than the rest of this blog so far. either way i'm not stopping so i suppose i'll just have to get your opinion on it later. segue!

i must ask you a hundred questions regarding old notes you've written. this is merely a string around my e-finger.