Coffee

I always hated coffee. I would avoid that aisle at the grocery store so that I wouldn't have to smell the beans. I remember one year at Thanksgiving, the only time of year we ever pulled out our coffee maker (green, 70s style) my sister poured herself a cup claiming that she liked to hold it and smell it. Huh? But now I understand. Since Starbucks and such places took over the western world and everyone "meets for coffee" (I meet for hot chocolate) I've grown accustomed to and even enjoy the smell of coffee. Sometimes it's too strong. Sometimes Peet's coffee grinds make me want to throw up. But sometimes, when my roommate has been making coffee in the mornings, my apartment reminds me of my grandmother and of Thanksgiving, and that is nice.

Much

Hello, writing.
There is much on my heart. Much.

Things like how much of a failure I am and in what ways, how much ache there is in the world and those I love whom it affects.
But also, though not as much, how much beauty there is in the world and how simple yet complicated it is. Yet how I don't see it and how it is somehow unattainable.

I so do not live up to my potential, and I don't know which ways to stretch myself. Should I learn guitar or drums or relearn piano or clarinet or voice? Or none of those things? Or ALL of those things? Should I write more or read more or sleep more... or exercise, drink water, eat better, feed the homeless, serve everyone, be an artist, take classes, organize, clean, or budget? ALL of these things or none of these things? In what order? To what extent? Should I get back in touch with people/ keep in touch with people? Should I take more photographs/ organize photographs/ edit photographs/ print photographs/ scrapbook photographs? Throw out clothes, buy new clothes, rework my current wardrobe, return those red shoes, buy new shoes, go back to buying nice undergarments, change out my jewelry... or just not care and hope someone marries me for my charmingly obsessive personality?

Ache ache ache. Affairs and death and cancer and suicide. Unrequited love. Fear, failure, physical pain. Loss of hope. And even beauty can be painful, for oh the recognition that my mind is feeble to understand it. And also, it connects so deeply inside of me, to some long-forgotten God-image-- why does that hurt? For the disconnect? For the pain of healing? For the minuscule recognition of what was meant to be? Oh, beauty you are a mystery. Life, you are a beautiful, painful, aching mystery.