heaven's lighting a candle, and i'm ready to break on through

I was sitting in Mass this past Sunday, and there was some song that the choir was singing. I wasn't really paying attention too much until I looked down at the hymnal in my hands and saw this line in the song:

Our Father, heal my jealous heart

and it struck a chord in me. I've been struggling a lot lately with my own jealousy in my relationship with Love. He's fairly popular with the ladies (and really, who can blame them? He's gorgeous and smart and stable and financially solvent and friendly and...) and it drives me crazy that they *like* him as much as they do. I've always been a little bit jealous in my relationships, and not without good reason. In every relationship in which I've been involved, my partners always ended up cheating on me. Whether it was with another woman or with drugs or what have you -- they all left.

Here is where my little negative Nancy pops up and yells, "WELL WHAT DO YOU EXPECT, WITH AN ATTITUDE LIKE THAT." And she's right. Self-fulfilling prophesies and all that. I generally don't voice my fears on the subject, because I don't want to be that nagging, nasty partner that accuses and suspects so much that her partners just up and do it so they can get the fun with the vitriol.

With Love, there's Something In Particular that's giving me grief, and I've had to do a lot of work to not be suspicious or angry or hateful towards SIP out of respect for Love and how he feels about the whole thing. After my last relationship, which ended in what can only be described as a fiery ball of lies and betrayal and just plain old shitheaded chickenbaby behavior, I am wary of situations like SIP and the sort of trouble they bring with them. 

So, I'm struggling. I struggle with it every single day in ways you wouldn't believe. I have to restrain myself from writing letters and sending them, asking why and wishing for it to go away and the like because I am filled with such anger and fear that, eventually, Love will realize that he'd be better off without me and who the hell wants to date that old bag anyway?

This is the part of my confession where I admit to you that I have crippling self-confidence problems with which I have struggled my entire life, made worse only by the fact that, Love excluded, none of my romantic partners have ever made me feel as though I were worth every ounce of trouble, every moment of loneliness, every bit of work that it took to be with me.

I am scared, every single day, that I will get that phone call or that email that will shatter my heart into a thousand pieces again and I will have to start over, again, building my life up from where this hole will have been blown in it from the person I love ripping themselves away from me.

It is my greatest challenge every day to refuse to let this fear control how I behave in my relationship. When Love told me about SIP, I had a miniature meltdown. I could only imagine that, since it was almost exactly like how it had been before, there was no way it wouldn't happen again because that's just how it works.

It took me several days before I could stop and think and remember that I needed to trust in the fact that Love was not and is not lying to me when he tells me, "I love you." I needed to stop doubting that he was serious and was never going to hurt me the same way everyone else had. That he wasn't going to be the same as everyone else. I had to keep telling myself that, over and over and over again, in spite of all my doubts about love (with a lowercase 'L') and people and fidelity.

I prayed, not knowing what it was that I wanted or needed but just that I couldn't go on like that. I knew I needed so badly to be loved and held and cherished the way no one ever had. Sitting in Mass this past Sunday, I realized what it was that I was trying to ask for, but didn't have the words. I need for the wound that is still very much a wound and not a scar to heal. The root of my jealousy is a very deep hurt over having been lied to with the words, "I love you."

I don't know how I'm going to go about healing it. I know it's going to take time and a lot of faith and a lot of patience on the part of Love, but hopefully he'll understand that this is something that I need to work myself through in order to be a better, fuller person. In order to be a better partner and girlfriend and hopefully, eventually, wife.



remembering your touch, your kiss
your warm embrace
i'll find my way back to you
please say you'll be waiting
together again, it would feel so good to be
in your arms
where all my journeys end
you can make a promise
if it's one that you can keep
i vow to come for you
if you wait for me
and say you'll hold a place for me
in your heart
          Tracy Chapman, The Promise

How to Make a Luigi Hat!

So, I decided I wanted to make a hat for my brother to wear so he could be Luigi for something we're doing with our friends. I couldn't find the sort of floppy hat I wanted (not for under $20, and for something he's only going to wear once, I didn't want to spend that much!) so I snagged a green baseball cap from Goodwill for $3.99. It was a brand new John Deere cap, and since I'm no stranger to removing embroidery I figured it wouldn't be a huge deal to remove it.

Then it was off to Hobby Lobby for some green and white felt (1/8th yard each, at $.79) and some Exacto blades ($2.49) so I could cut it.



Here, you can see my main materials all lined up. I wasn't too concerned with being careful when I removed the embroidery underneath what would be the patch, so you can see where I poked through a couple of times. You can ALSO see where I haven't removed the embroidery off the side, but I'll get to that later.


So, here's my white felt with my "stencil." I looked at a bunch of pictures of Luigi and figured out roughly what the size of it needed to be so it was proportional to the person who would be wearing the hat. Or at least their face. I found something that looked about right, and then cut around it with the Exacto blades.


Here you can see how I've gone and cut out my circle. It's obviously a little raggedy, so I'm going to trim it thusly:


Nice and neat!


I used a nail file to make the 'L' for the emblem. It was wide enough to cover the amount of white I needed so it didn't look lame, and was what I had available. I'll leave it to you to guess which reason was the real one.


White circle + green 'L'...


...plus some green thread...


...plus some hat and some pins to hold it down, followed by some white thread...


...plus a scruffy-looking dog-herder, and you've got a Luigi hat!