Yesterday I posted a story.  I joined the {W}rite of Passage group, to which I feel woefully inadequate.  And my story yesterday?  Frustrated me.  It felt empty and hollow.  I’m pretty good at jabbering on about my life and my feelings, but making up a story…not really my forte.

It’s not that I don’t have an active imagination.  I do.  A strange, wild, crazy place inside my head.  And there are times that I broadcast my thoughts, but there are other times that I struggle.  Struggle to share what I’m thinking.  Struggle to get the words out the way I want them to come out.  Struggle to explain what I really mean.

That strange, wild, crazy place in my head?  It’s usually full of crazy and rather morbid thoughts.  For example, let’s say that I’m chatting with someone online.  We’re knee-deep in conversation, and all of a sudden they just aren’t responding.  What’s your first thought when that happens?  Maybe the phone rang.  Or they had to go the bathroom.  Or a child started screaming “I need help wiiiiiping”.  Or they knocked over a half-empty diet coke can.  Any of these are common, natural occurrences (at least at my house).  I should expect it to be something like that.  But no, not me.  I immediately think, “OMG! someone broke into the house and has them at gun point.”  and heaven forbid the next sentence they type be even remotely out of the ordinary. You know, something really cryptic like “had to let the dog out to pee and then got stopped by my neighbor”.  Does she really mean that she “had to let the dog out to pee and then got stopped by the neighbor” or is that code for “OMG!  Someone broke into my house and has me at gun point and I need you to call the police!”?

See, I’m crazy.  And definitely not lacking in the imagination department.

But for some reason, people don’t want to know about that kind of crazy.  People don’t want to know that you hear a weird noise and look at the clock so that when the police knock on your door, asking if you heard something, you can not only tell them yes, but the exact time the incident occurred.  Or what about when I memorize random licence plate numbers just because the car looks suspicious to me.  Or…well, there’s no point in airing out all my crazy.

So that’s my brand of crazy.  What’s yours?

**Hopefully I’ll do much better with next week’s challenge: The Lunch Box essay.**

That’s what the little cursor is doing.  Blink…blink…blink…blink…

And I sit and stare at it, and nothing happens.

I’ll have a post in my head, but it won’t come out.

Or I’ll write a post and decide not to actually post it.

Anissa’s stroke has shaken me.

The funeral I went to yesterday (the one for the 6-week old baby, with the tiny little white casket and paul-bearer handles) has shaken me.

A friend’s cancer diagnosis has shaken me.

And I’m thinking a lot.

And praying a lot.

And living and breathing.

And enjoying life, appreciating it more than I usually do.

But I can’t put it into words.

One moment, after hearing a particularly touching sermon, I’m on a spiritual high.

And then a funeral.  For a six-week old.  A child I’d never met.  The child of a guy I knew way back when, but haven’t talked to in years.

And then my faith seems to not be at a low point, but to be gone.

But then I read something that Peter has written about Anissa.  His strength, his courage, his love, his faith.

And my heart soars again.

Spiritual highs and lows, oscillating so quickly that I don’t even know where I stand.

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Starting next week, I’ll be participating in the {W}rite of Passage Challenge.   They did a trial run this past Monday, but I didn’t get my junk together enough to start it then.  It’s just a group of bloggers encouraging each other to not only write, but to write well.  And boy, oh boy…I may have bitten off more than I can chew after seeing a list of the other folks who are doing this.

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I’m also busy over here, taking the 31 Days of Giving Challenge.  (I apparently love a good challenge so much that I create my own.)  Please come join us.  It’s fun to give something every day!

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One last thing: make sure to come back tomorrow if you love music!  In lieu of an actual post, I’m going to be doing another giveaway.  (Possibly the last one on this site.)