The "w" questions

Sometimes, I probably regress in my development. Back to the age of...I dunno 3, 4, 5.  That age of the "w questions".  It's actually described like that in some basic development books. What do I mean by this?  While, in my soul searching which I do on a regular basis, I find myself questioning some of the most basic elements of life that I perhaps have taken for granted.  For example- trust, What is it? Why should I trust you? Why should I trust anyone? How do you know if you can trust someone? When is it appropriate to trust and when is it more appropriate to express distrust? Who is really trust worthy...especially those people who are "supposed" to be trusted...are they really people to be trusted?  Just one line of thought that I go through....regularly.

Well, recently there have been two other lines of thought that go about like this and I decided to do art pieces about them and hang them on my wall.  You see, my move to a new home was one that was based highly on emotional need.  I found myself in a house with people that I thought I trusted and felt safe with.  I was away from home for a whole month and wanted to go back more than I could even express. I wanted to be in my safe place.  But when I got there, I found that it wasn't the safe place that I had left, and circumstances as they were...well...it's hard to live with someone who is emotionally based like I am and compromises to help rebuild that sense of safety provided impossible.

So as I moved I considered very deeply the concept of "home".  It's really a deep and somewhat confusing topic at times.  I grew up in home that was filled with the gospel, and siblings, and parents, and activity, and support, and love, and betrayal, and secrets, and pain, and belittlement.  And so as I've grown older, it's been really confusing to think of home and think great things like "home is where the heart is" and then to think...except that home is where I get the most hurt and where I have to hide my feelings. So I've searched long and hard and talked and pondered over the meaning of home. And most especially what I wanted and needed in a home as I created my very own home. One that I had complete control of and could make safe and happy or whatever I wanted it to be. I wanted something to hang on my wall to remind me of this home that I have been building and so I made this:

A bunch of pieces of cute paper, modge podge galore, a sharpie, a ruler, scissors and a whole lot of time and this is what I came up with. (In one night by the way...which was kind of stupid. It took a long time and I paid for not going to sleep). The quotes I included were especially meaningful to me:

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
Maya Angelou

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.
Maya Angelou

Where thou art, that is home.
Emily Dickinson

“Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.” 
― Sarah Dessen, What Happened to Goodbye

“Home is the nicest word there is.” 
― Laura Ingalls Wilder

There is one more quote by Maya Angelo that I ran into a couple years ago when I read her book Letter to my Daughter that I will include here, but it's long so it's not for the faint of heart. :)

Question number two came because I was dating someone the last few months (as you may have noticed.  We just broke up this week. I should still post some pictures. He was a general focus of my summer. Anyway- my relationship with him had me questioning love.  What is love? How do people fall in and out of love? Is it just this chance?  No...I really don't believe that. I believe it is much more a choice. I think that love is a feeling, but more importantly it is a feeling that leads to action. Maybe it even gets to be the verb.  So, I ended up doing another piece about love.  It's a topic I've questioned multiple times in life, usually when I'm dating somebody. It's another one that is hard for me because too often throughout my life I've heard people say "I love you", but then there actions say something different. Or I thought their actions were saying love, but I found out later that love doesn't have to be that way and doesn't have to make you miserable.  And so I came up with this:

I know- not the greatest picture.  Neither of them are. I decided that love cannot be expressed completely in words. No way.  So I gathered images of what love meant to me...not just romantic love, but LOVE, all kinds of love included.  Because I think that all those kinds of love aren't so different as we sometimes imagine.  Maybe the other feelings around love make it seem different, but love, in itself...I think it's really the same. 

Here are the quotes I chose to go with it:

"Standing beside you,

I took an oath

to make you life simpler

by complicating mine

and what I always thought would happen did:

I was lifted up in joy."

David Ignatour

"Love is my decision to make your problem my concern"

Robert Shuller

"The essence of love is kindness."

Robert L. Stevonson

"Love is our true destiny.  We do not find the meaning of love by ourselves, alone- we find it with another."

Thomas Morton

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear."

1 John 4:18

Of all fires, love is the only inexhaustible one."

Pablo Neruda

"God is love."

1 John 4:8

And so I continue on. And hopefully my therapist loves me for it. Because I still ask all those "w" questions.  And some days I think I've found the answer.  And the next, maybe not. But for me, it helps to know that I can keep on asking.. 

p.s. congratulations if you made it to the end! :)