This is Love

And the voice you need to hear is the true and the trusted kind
With a soft, familiar rhythm in these swirling, unsure times
When the waves are lapping in and you’re not sure you can swim
Well here’s the lifeline
(“This is Love”/Mary Chapin Carpenter)

Several months ago I started putting together my life story in the form of a scrapbook. Tonight, I pulled it out again and took a lovely stroll through my memory. I reached for the last set of pictures to go in the book and stopped at the very last one–my high school graduation.

The event was a little different for me. Basically, I withdrew myself from high school after the first semester of my junior year of high school. Between my mother’s deteriorating mental health and my desperate attempts to hold together the family I had left, I could find no significance to sitting in American Government discussing upcoming football games. High school life seemed so self-absorbed and meaningless…exactly what it should be. On top of all this, I was harassed daily in class and the hallways by someone, and it was just too much to deal with.

I worked full time during the day and finished my few remaining courses at night school. Those few months are still a blur, but in my typical fashion, I pushed myself to get everything done in record time. I held my high school diploma in my hands seven months early.

The adult school had a special “graduation” ceremony for students who earned either their diploma or G.E.D. Although, it was nice to be part of the event, I could help but feel depressed, wondering just what I had traded in my haste. While my friends were still writing term papers and going to club meetings, I was earning a paycheck. I was no longer a part of their club that consisted of study sessions and parties and summer plans. What did I have to show for myself?

On top of all this, this graduation was more low-key than I had envisioned. There were no caps and gowns or alma mater singing, but my entire family was there. My cheering section also included three of the most amazing people I’ve ever known–three of my best friends since junior high. I had no idea they would be there. It meant the world to me to see them there…to have them participate in the ever-so-important teenage rite of passage.

That’s what true love is all about. It’s standing by someone even when they don’t make decisions that seem right or logical to you. It’s holding tightly to relationships, and knowing that the camaraderie we share sustains our souls. It’s cheering for the milestones. It’s crying together in the depths of sorrow. And it’s that kind of love that I know twelve years later will last forever.

Bittersweet…More Than a Chocolate

I just spent the last hour trying to fax two documents to my new school district (yes, I accepted the “heart” position). It wasn’t pretty. The fax machine ate the paper like it was in the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, so I had the bright idea of seeing if any of my 17 email accounts has the option of faxing. They don’t, and it turns out the fax machine’s problem was a paper clip wedged inside. I did, however, find an old email I had saved. This email appeared in my email box December 10, 2000. I still don’t know who sent it to me, but it is a rather interesting note.

Dear Allison,
I’m not exactly sure how to begin. You were my biggest competition when
we were in high school. I always thought that you’re poetry was very profound
and that you have a very inspiring intellect. I was moved by the way that you
were able to paint a picture with the words that you used. So many poets try
to accomplish that goal,but fall short in the end. You should feel very
blessed because, poetry is not something that everyone can do. To be able to
wrap yourself up in a moment or a feeling and turn it ino a picture that
anyone can relate to is utterly fantastic. As in the words of the late ,
great Wiliam Blake ‘ tyger oh tyger, what immortal hand or eye could frame
thy fearful symmetry’ .
So few people can look beyond what lies before them in this world and
make sweet sense of the whole situation. So from poet to fellow poet I would
like to say thankyou for making this life just a little sweeter; because
within the words there is imagination and that can take us any where, any
place, any time that we want to be. Within the very lines that we write
people will find any fantasy that they dare conjur. And with that profound
thought, I ask you, do you realize the unique power with wich you’ve been
endowed?

I’m flattered…and just slightly stunned. For the life of me I cannot remember competing with anyone in high school in the writing field. That’s even weirder because I have this freakish memory. I can tell you who I sat next to in each class and describe each hallway I walked. I still know the birthdays of all my high school friends and most of their high school phone numbers. I can describe people down to the finest detail, but do not remember ANYONE competing with me as a writer.

Now that I am facing a move, I am really thinking about what we hold on to. Our minds and memories and closets are packed with all sorts of paraphernalia that in the end may or may not really matter. I need this reminder today as I’m trying to keep myself from succumbing to the feelings stirred in me from saying good-bye to my home and co-workers and knowing that someone else is saying good-bye to her home and beloved animals (including euthanizing one of her dogs). My life is bittersweet today, and for the first time in my life, I want to embrace the flavor.