“Spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart.”

Adam destroyed Eve with silence.

When the serpent enticed Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit, Adam was there at her side. The original Hewbrew text describes him as "elbow to elbow" with her. The seprent tempted Eve, and she relented. And Adam did nothing. He stood in silence and allowed her to bring about the fall of man.

"Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering." - Paul Coelho

Goodbye hurts. That's the way of things. But the lack of a goodbye...that's a wound that won't heal. It bleeds and bleeds, while the wounded lies caught between the need to let go and the hope that perhaps, someday, letting go won't be necessary.

Total eclipse of the heart.

Who watched the eclipse last night?

I was not overly enthused about the notion of dragging my aching ass out of bed at 1:45 in the morning to go out into the cold. But - once in a lifetime! How could I pass that up for something so fleeting as sleep?

1:45 found me in my flannel pjs, with an extra pair of pants over, a hoodie, and my coat, out on the cold concrete with my roommate, faces turned to the sky as the moon turned a coppery red. We made cocoa and watched for almost an hour.

And at that moment all over the world, friends and strangers were under the same sky, faces turned upward, watching this same celestial event with the same awe and wonder.

In this, I see God.

Happy, joyous, and free.

90 days sober today!

I am overwhelmed with blessings.

So many friends who fill my life with joy, love, and laughter.
An amazing roommate who helps me almost daily with my faith.
A patient and loving Father who is all too happy to manage the life I failed so spectacular at managing myself.
A good job with some of the finest people I have ever known.
An incredible family, and we'll all be together again within a year!

For the first time in my life, I know that no matter what happens, I will be okay, so long as I trust myself to God's care.

"This is a day I'll feel good to be me."

Can't boil water without burning a few angels.

My second week in the new place, and already a kitchen fire.

My tub drains slow. We poured some de-clogger down the drain. I put a pot of water on to boil.

Moments later, my roommate says "What's that sound?"

"I spilled a little water on the stovetop, it's just burning off."

"Um...are you sure?"

I go to investigate - and there's brown smoke billowing into the kitchen.

I turned on the wrong burner. Not the one with the teapot on it, but the one behind it. The one with the ceramic angel candle holder.

The house still smells AWFUL.

FailCat ahoy.

Freefall.

My stomach hurts all the time, no matter how the rest of me feels. I know it's an ulcer (I'm prone to them at times of high stress, this is my third) but it's also that feeling you get on roller coasters, at that moment when gravity takes hold of your outards but hasn't quite reached your innards. That freefalling sensation. I get chest pains, too. Like right now. Tachycardia - rapid heart rate. And my hands shake. Sometimes a little, sometimes enough that I have trouble holding onto things.

This isn't life on the edge, it's life in the air. There's no balance, only the freefall. And I KNOW there's a net at the bottom to catch me. There always is. I will be okay, just as I've always been okay.

But I'm not okay yet, and that's taking its toll.

I'm still suffering from the loss of my beloved Cadence - a wound that will never heal properly due to lack of closure. A wound inflicted by a man I thought I could trust.

I still feel kind of homeless. I'm living in someone else's home, what few possessions I have with me in bags or boxes, the remainder still in a place I no longer feel comfortable.

My poor Twinkie doesn't know what to think. First abused, then kicked out with his sister, then back home without her, and now living alone in a garage, seeing me only once or twice a day.

And just Tuesday I received some very bad news, unrelated to all the chaos of the last two weeks, but of the "Oh shit, what am I going to do now?" variety.

These things will work themselves out. God is with me, as are my friends. I will be fine, as I always have been.

But Lord, I'm sick of falling.