Category: writing

Include…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay9 Comments

As an orphan, as a failure- both motherless, in relevant ways, and childless in the real ones, you include me.

You envelop me within the warmth of a family that is not my own. You tie me, bind me to souls sharing only the elements of brokenness and abandon. These things both awe me and further break my heart.

Perhaps they are supposed to.

While the world around me shuts me out, unrelatable to the vein in which their lives flow, you include me.

While many decided (and still do) I was not worth their time,

worth their love or support,

worth anything at all really- you breathed within me that I do have worth in you. I am more than their self-seeking destruction, but I am yours. Your daughter, your child, your plan, your purpose, your path taker, if only I choose to take that path you’re on. 

You have included my heart, my longings, my emptiness and my  very core in this path which you have cleared. You have designed an entire universe of purpose around my very soul. You include me within your warm embrace when others shut the door, whispering in my ear to let go and trust. No baggage, no past, not one lost thing to drag me down. I look ahead, make out a clearing and know in my core that if I continue toward you, inclusion in your loving warmth is what will come.

And so, I let go.

(this post is from this weeks prompt over at FMF.)

Stuck…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay1 Comment

I am participating in Five- Minute Friday again this week!

I am fasting from some things while fast toward some others.

I did this once, in the darkest and most dangerous part of my life, and two years later I am still overwhelmed at the goodness which came my way.

I am fasting because I want to grow closer to the God I love and be more of who I am meant to be, but also, secretly because my life is stuck. My location is stuck. So many things about my life right now feel stuck, and everyone has an opinion (me especially) about how much better things would be if the sticking were to get un-stuck.

I do not have a big-picture-view. I just don’t. So maybe I am missing a vital reason why here is the now. I am open to this, though honestly (and God knows this) the closed doors and remaining stuck is disheartening.

In this moment I am choosing movement, flow, breath, and intent- even though stuck I stay. I am flawed in my humanity and will likely embrace a meltdown and toddler-esque temper tantrum sooner than I would care to admit, but in this moment I’ll be. And that is literally the only power I personally hold in my sticky-stuckness: the choice regarding how I accept/face it.

And that has to be enough for me. (though admittedly fingers and toes are crossed and each prayer is post scripted with a please, oh please, oh please…)

on writing and authenticity…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay2 Comments

Something out of nothing.

That is what every day, as of late, has felt like. Mixed signals out of innocent responses, hail storms out of calm. An impomptu meal whipped up from a fridge adorned with scarcity. Something out of nothing. Like me. Like this. I wrote out my heart for years, for myself. I focussed on the numbers and paid attention to who commented on what, where they hailed from and what they’d said. Social media found ways to feed my need for something- but bigger. Once upon a time my heart beat for everything out of nothing, immediately.

I don’t want to go there again, to be that person needing the validation of anyone who wants to summarize my worth or value with an Instagram double tap heart or Facebook thumbs up.

I would like for this little piece of internet real estate to contain something of value, but lets be clear- I want to always be the nothing. I don’t want to crumble if no one leaves a comment and only seven people visit my site. I want to write, because I am a writer.

I want to dream, because I am an artist and a dreamer.

I want to make, produce, believe, become and put myself out there, not for the awe and applause but because it is what I do.

I want for you to read something which grew from {me} nothing, and I want for it so continue to happen. Down the road I want the same nothing to be responsible for books and more than I can comprehend. I want to be the voice which stands within the most imperfectly imprecise body, speaking to a room full of someones. I want my motivation for none of it to be based on the “love” I may receive, because attention is fleeting, but art does live on.

When did being a writer, a photographer or a creator of any kind become so much about the glorification and applause and not about the process?

Today I put the pen to paper for me, for my heart, for my passion. For my breathe…

Out of gratitude, because I have the ability and I am truly thankful for this.

The rest, it’s just noise. When I think about it, it blocks the flow and that is what needs to not happen…

Turn…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay6 Comments

This is the week when I plunge back into joining the FMF writing challenge. I used to participate every week but, well, it’s been a long season in my journey…

Start.

To everything- turn, turn, turn… 

There is a season- turn, turn, turn… 

Turning seems more like churning these days. I grow weary. Who am I kidding? I’ve grown weary and I am worn. Torn, and battle weak. With tears streaming, as I drove, voice cracking as I alternated singing along with Hillary Scott and asking God why it always has to be so hard. I read once that for some it is always hard, that’s the path for them. For others it is always easy.

Screw my path, then, because I want theirs.

To everything- turn, turn, turn… 

I’m ready for a new season. A season of something other than aching inside and out, isolation, loneliness, a never ending weather winter. I long for connection and conversations, face to face laughter till my side aches.

There is a season- turn, turn, turn… 

My faith feels weak these days. It isn’t. I am solid and I know what I know, and that isn’t being shaken, yet somehow I feel low-blood-sugar jittery about it all. Where I stand, who I am, what I’m worth. That deep rooted feeling of how things never work out for me, grips me tight.

I want to be, breathe, believe. I want to wait and not feel discouraged, and I think I did that once. For a long once. And then my years long life winter wore me down.

The churning feels destructive, though it won’t take me down I will honestly (maybe) wish it would. Maybe I do.

But turn, turn, turn…and a time for every purpose, under heaven- I’m ready.

STOP

 

When we listen… (and when we don’t.)

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

Yesterday I was sharing, with a friend, about this season in our lives when we made a wrong decision for our family. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter whose decision it was because I am a big believer in what’s yours is mine, and whats mine is yours, so yeah, we made a bad decision. With the magical vision of hindsight we will forever have the ability to reflect back and see the gigantic things trying to discourage us from this path.We are talking huge things that went beyond the nauseating gut feelings, things like apocalyptic storms, miles long car pile ups and a thousand other things which screamed into the universe TURN AROUND, GO BACK! We didn’t and in a lot of ways we still daily have the consequences of that decision.

We’ve all been there. We’ve all known better, and done it anyway. Most of us could probably attest to doing this more times than we can count. We can never go back. We don’t get a “re do”. There is no rewind and erase in life. Obviously this is not an isolated problem because, otherwise there would not be a plethora of film and books playing out these fresh-start-second-time-around scenarios.

This awesome podcast that I’ve launched with my lifelong friend is one of those things, but in the very polar opposite of ways. I have known (like KNOWN- no weather patterns, but definitely that gut feeling) that this was a direction I needed to go. There are so many aspects to this dream, from essays to books, visions of speaking engagements, etc. It is a BIG dream coupled with a vision my friend Katie and I have had, and this sweet little podcast was a step of faith, in the direction of those things. And then, totally beyond my control, so many little things fall in to place. It seems like every day, since the day of the launch, women and their stories are landing in my lap. (not literally, that would be awkward) Opportunities are opening up and this time the message being sung (not shouted) into the universe is KEEP GOING, THIS IS YOUR PATH.

I have no idea where this journey will lead, but I do know that I am loving every step of it now. (Episode two is available now.)