Through My Eyes: A Journal

By Liz Root

Contact Liz by emailing her at liz@vagrantcafe.com

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11/3/2001
well, i actually didn't wake up feeling like death this morning, so that's good. also, i didn't fall asleep until 5 a.m., and then got up at 10. totally awake. what's wrong with me?

"unseasonably warm" everyone is saying. i'm saying, hooray! how about it stay unseasonably warm until, say...december 1 when i pack my car and hightail it on outta here? winter has got to be the worst season of the year, and in nebraska...the longest. i'm just praying that i don't see snow before i leave. maybe i'll leave before dec. 1st. considering my last paycheck will be before that. hmm. just thinkin to myself..sorry. i'd just like to see the remnants of fall as i drive through the appalachians. kinda weird how should i choose to leave before the first (and it's only a possiblity, not a definite)...how it's only three weeks away. that's just craziness. another thing that's crazy is how i want to drive there all in one day. 18 hours. yes, i'm insane. but i figure this. i'll stay up like, the whole entire day before i leave, and then go to sleep at like 2 or 3 in the afternoon and sleep until 10 or 11, leave at midnight and just drive the whole way there. but that's only if i still leave on the first. if i leave before that, i'll probably split it up into two days like usual, with my stopover in nashvegas. which really would be the better choice b/c i could see my good friend Jose (hozer!).

why all this blabbering about when i leave and how i make the trip? well, you see...more than about anything in the world right now, i want to get back there, and i want to do it as soon as possible. and looking at when i'll be getting my paychecks from work...it seems i'd be able to leave earlier, giving me a few more days to re-immerse myself back into charlotte. i could just soak it all in again for a few days instead of feel so rushed. hmm.

quite a few possible scenarious have gone through my head.
-me pulling up to Morningstar, walking in the door and running into someone i know and them totally freaking out, giving me the hugest hug ever.
-me entering the main doors after getting hugs from people, and going into the main room and seeing countless other people i know...more freaking out, more hugs.
-the service starting, who knows who would be leading worship...but it won't matter b/c it will be what i've missed so terribly for the last five months.
-me going out afterward with everyone and having a grand ol' time.
-the next day spending all day in charlotte hanging out with everyone, and then going to church again and kind of making it a repeat of the previous night.
-me at the christmas party at the B & B (bed and breakfast) where I used to live last year that really became such a home to me. talking with ken (house dad last year) for awhile about all sorts of things and him saying things like, "well, isn't that just the Lord" and "well, isn't God good" and him hanging on every word i say b/c that's just the way he is.

i feel so incredibly close to all of that...to my whole life out there. i'm just a shadow out here. i've got these images of the way things will look and the way the trees looked on my drive to school, and the turns I'd take to get to Farrah and Jessie's apartment, and the feeling i got walking into MorningStar, and how good it will be to eat at a McAlister's Deli again, and how uptown Charlotte will still have nothing to do besides restaurants and bars, and how although i can't wait to see all that again...how good it will be to drive down to the small town in SC where I'm moving to live with Jessie, and get a job and begin to really do the tough work on the coffee house, and the drives to the ocean and up to charlotte, and wherever else i might want to go. savannah, atlanta, myrtle beach, charleston (my favorite city ever).

it's all within sight now, and i'll probably annoy everyone except my mom talking about it. =)



- liz r. - 11/3/2001

11/2/2001
so maybe i shouldn't have gone shopping today considering how sick i was...but when else am i going to be able to go when all of the high school teeny boppers are still in school? today's purchases: cool hat from the gap on sale, long sleeve black v-neck thick cotton shirt from old navy, rad black sweater from old navy, red long sleeve shirt from old navy. i am not too proud to shop at stores like these. they are generally within my price range and i'm sorry, but old navy sales are a godsend to poor kids like me.

sometimes i wonder why i'm so much more quieter here (omaha) than there (charlotte). then i realize that here i have the thought that no one is really interested in what i have to say. so i only talk about things i think others will be interested in. whereas there, i can talk about pretty much anything, especially the stuff i really want to talk about...and the people there would understand what frame of reference i'm coming from. (man, i end a lot of sentences with prepositions.) sometimes i just feel like i'm the super annoying person who won't shut up about my year spent in charlotte...so i've been pretty quiet about my upcoming return to the south. not to charlotte, but to a smaller town in south carolina, which i will keep undisclosed b/c who knows what weirdos could read this.

but you see, i am excited to get back. more than you could ever know. i left a part of me back there and i will be glad to reunite. i'm excited to see my friends from morningstar, to hang out and to talk about everything that's gone on in the last six months. i'm excited to get re-involved and immerse myself once again. i really wish there were words to verbalize this adequately, but there just aren't. one month from today i'll be there. craziness.


- liz r. - 11/2/2001

10/30/2001
my muscles ache.
my stomach aches.
my spirit aches.
i am ache.

ugh...there is something unnatural about standing for 8 hours a day with no break.

sometimes i think i should spend the night repenting of every last sin, especially the bigger more recent ones and when i go to somehow tell God everything...he's like, "hey...shh. i know. can't we just spend some time together?" he already knows of my conviction. he's the one who gave it to me. repenting is to turn away from. which is more than just saying, "hey God, i did such and such, won't you please forgive me." it is now my job to rely on his grace that is sufficient enough to help me turn away.
turn away, turn away.

ibuprofen do your magic.


- liz r. - 10/30/2001


(this poem of sorts is neither biographical or autobiographical)

get on out of here.
go as fast as you can.
whether by engine or by foot
please just go.
i think this self-destruction
is doing
just that.
it tastes so bad going down
oh, but once it hits its target
once the scab has been picked
once the chemical has reached
the center.
he will look at the clock.
he will wonder how that hour
simply disappeared.
he will fall asleep.
he will get on out of here.
he will go as fast as he can.
as fast as he can...
as fast as he can.


- liz r. - 10/30/2001

10/29/2001
~some quotes~

"What is our memory? What is our history? How much a part of us is the landscape, and how much are we a part of it?" - Douglas Coupland, Life after God

"That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy." Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

"It's not that 'today is the rest of my life,' but that now is all there is of my life." - hugh prather

"Hope empties our hands so that we may work with them." - Thomas Merton "No Man Is an Island"

"Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us." Hosea 6:1 NASB

***

"you know, I'm really glad I met her," he said quite seriously. jessie told me of these words that adam spoke to her last week. adam is glad he met me. and you know...perhaps that's all i have ever needed to know since about this time two years ago when we broke up. i just needed to know that i didn't leave a bad taste in his mouth. he's glad he met me. i'm glad i met him. somehow...maybe this is the closure i needed.

i'm not reading into anything (mostly b/c there's nothing to read into), but when jessie was here and brought the group photo of some people back in charlotte, one of the people in the picture was this guy from school who i was friends with. i wasn't really close to him or anything...but i mean, we could talk and hang out or whatever. i was excited to see him in the picture, because it meant that he was still there. that he'd come back. and so...for whatever reason, i'm getting excited to see him. he picked jessie up from the airport on her return and she told him that i was happy he came back to charlotte after the summer, and he seemed happy for my return as well. so it's nice to know i haven't been forgotten. however insignificant it may seem.





- liz r. - 10/29/2001


this weekend could be summed up in one word.
indecisive.
i feel like i'm going in 9 directions at once and i can't cope with it, so i lash out at everything and anything around me. i hate to blame things on p.m.s...but maybe it is. *shrugs* who knows.

is it wrong not to be looking forward to my move back to the south? or maybe it's that i'm secretly anticipating it so much that i don't want to get too worked up about it. i fear my subconscious is setting itself up for some kind of big letdown, which probably isn't so healthy. on the other hand...i really am trying not to live in the future. to an extent, what the future holds for me after december 1st (crossing fingers that i'll still be departing on that date) is so much more unsure than ever before. i have faith that i am returning to the south and to some of the things i was a part of before i came back to omaha. but it just looks and feels so far away. perhaps that's due to the fact that i've been back home for almost 5 whole months now...three months longer than originally intended. i'm just used to it here now. but not in a good way.

you see, i love my friends here...and i sometimes wish more than anything i could just live in the same city as every single one of my friends...especially the ones here. still, i must go. i must return. i'm extremely excited to get back, and although i know i'll get back with some of my friends there...i don't feel that i'm returning because of the people. i'm going back because for me...i know it's where Possibility lives. my own "land of opportunity".

sometimes i feel like i left myself back there. i'm the sea lion who lost the sea.

and for any of my omaha friends who might possibly be reading...well..i hope you know none of this is said out of any "i'm too good for this place" mentality. i'm probably being silly even mentioning it.


- liz r. - 10/29/2001

10/28/2001
moonset. that's what i saw tonight while driving home. it's the opposite of a sunset i suppose. when it's so late at night/early in the morning that you see the moon setting the same place the sun did about 10 hours prior. only...with a backdrop of stars instead of rays of light sneaking through the clouds. moonset.

it's 3:17. which actually means it's 4:17 b/c of daylight savings time being over with for the time being. no more daylight to save i suppose.

hot chocolate. stinky socks. the sound of jill's breathing while she sleeps. just got home from a friends. watched "what's eating gilbert grape." i've seen it a number of times, and tonight i actually came close to crying during a part of it. which is odd, because if there's one thing i'm known not to do, it's to cry at movies. but well...i didn't cry, so i guess i can still hold my reputation.

i miss me. where did i get lost?


- liz r. - 10/28/2001