on five noble trees and monopoly

I sip from my coffee cup slowly and feel the cool air hit my face and play in my hair.

I like our deck, but sometimes it feels too big for me; like I'm out in the open and exposed. Without any buildings nearby I feel a bit naked in front of the crowd. There are five very noble trees facing me in a row that I sometimes think are watching me... sometimes keeping me company, and other times just making me feel more alone. The wind blows and I can hear chimes singing someplace distant and the trees look like they are waving at me. I pull my jacket closer and cling to my coffee cup.

I wonder of life and it’s tragedies, of love lived and love lost, and then I stop to wonder if life is a game and I am playing it wrong; if I’m missing a game piece or not passing ‘Go’ and collecting two hundred dollars when I should. It could also be that I think life is a game when it’s really very serious and shouldn’t be taken lightly. Most likely, it could be that I’m too analytical and need to just be present and live in today, and take what I can from it and move forward.

I wonder if I am wrong sometimes because I look too far ahead in relationships and in planning in general. Today someone’s heart is hurting because of me, and mine feels devastated and broken too, but I feel like I don’t deserve to feel bad when it’s my own decision.

All day, while moping around and being a general downer, I have been asking myself one question. Why do we love, anyway?

Why do we let ourselves open up and share our own humanness and vulnerability, when we have read the statistics, we have heard the stories, and we know how most of the stories end? Why do we put ourselves out there, risk our hearts and share our souls? It seems so funny that we are surprised when the honeymoon is over, because life is so full of endings as well as beginnings, and letdowns often seem to come more frequently than successes.

After dwelling excessively on this question all day, I have no answer except that which is my own. Maybe that’s the best answer, for me and for this weekend, and tonight, and all of the hours I have spent over-thinking and asking myself if I am really being wise after all.

I have loved before, and lost just as often, but I think what is beautiful is who I am becoming through all of this, and who I am turning out to be. I think love is a choice and not a feeling. It’s that broken thing that all those movies are talking about, that love songs on the radio are singing about, and that people spend a lifetime trying to find and then another lifetime trying to figure out.

I think the reason we were born looking for love is because we inherently know that we need it. In our humanness we know that most of what we need to learn in life is not of ourselves… that the lessons we have to offer up to others pale in comparison with what others can teach us. It hurts when we lose and are let down, but the reason we keep getting back up is so we can try again. We might fall, we might fail, but we persist because we are always learning things, and sometimes we walk away from a relationship with a newfound sense of self and of what is real and true in life. Some people have taught me to laugh. Some have taught me how to cry and how to fear being alone, and others have taught me to dance and to just be Dayna, in all of her beauty, depth and imperfection.

Pain is real and true, and as deep as the sea, and as I’m sinking into it I’m beginning to talk with it, to feel it, to swim in it and to know that even though it is haunting and piercing it is also turning me slowly into something more polished and beautiful. For now rest is far from me and I am sleepless and contemplative, but maybe my soul can find rest in that. Let’s hope it can.