Less than 24 hours...

(this is a rambling ramble of a post...just sayin')

...until my CD release show.

My very first.

Not CD, but a CD release show.

I am excited. This album was born out of a lot of heartache and pain and love and grace and redemption.

I only blog here when I have things too personal to share over at my website. My website is new, completely redone with all my little collage-y designs that I like making so much.

Songs To Sail By.

I was interviewed by Paste Magazine yesterday for the podcast and website and the interviewer asked me where the album title came from.

"That", I said, "would take far too long to tell. Let's just say that when I was writing these songs I felt lost in an ocean, struggling to keep my head above water and crying out for someone to rescue me. And I unexpectedly was. There was this image in my mind of resting in a huge ship, the night sky above me, and these songs were the songs that came out of me while drowning and then sailing."

I don't know if anyone reads this blog. I'm not too worried about that. I'm starting to realise how cocooned I have been these past two years. Once I left my (now) ex-husband, I crawled inside a shell, in some ways without planning to, to keep myself from the hurts and to keep from having to see myself.

All that is changed now.

I have changed. Echoes of my life two years ago come back at me and I find myself pining away, not for the dead marriage that I mercifully am no longer in, but of the friends and people that I intentionally and unintentionally alienated.

How does one go back and try to retrieve something locked away? Can one do it? I want to apologise to so many people but don't know how to do it in a way that would even begin to scratch the surface of some of those deep deep hurts and misunderstandings.

"I was such a different creature, when I was lioness, and locked up in a prison, and pacing for the people."

Quoting myself. But it's true.

I've been in counseling now, talking about these things. And it was pointed out to me how I was like a cornered crazed animal, wearing a mask of "everything is fine".

I don't know where this post is going. And it really only makes sense to myself.

My darling Zack is across from me, both of us typing away. I have found, in this man, so much love and friendship and...healing. I could weep from the redemption of our story. There are some, I'm sure, who probably hate us and for that all I feel is deep sadness. If they could see how God has moved so mightily in our hearts and lives...and in typing that I see how I still have places where I need to let go.

I have nothing to prove anymore.

People will say what they will. I'm chuckling as I write this. It's precisely that I CARED so much before what people thought that I got myself into so much trouble. I was always trying to prove that I was okay and had my s*** together.

I hope that tomorrow night goes well. It's been a bit like being with child. So many women I used to know are pregnant. Something I LONG for. I LONG and literally dream of children I don't have. I tend to dream of the three babies I miscarried. One before Phoenix and two after. This album is the closest thing I have to another child.

That seems pathetic to write. But it's true. I am called to this. God has been very clear with me on this fact.

"Keep your eyes on me. Don't listen to the naysayers. This is what I would have you do. I gave you a spotlight mouth. I gave you heartsong melodies. Eyes on me."

I am trying, Lord. Reading Kelle's blog challenges me to dig deeper. But honestly, I am finally at a place where I KNOW that I am not damaged goods. I've walked around for 2 years now thinking that I wasn't able to be fixed and that I was to be written off. So digging deeper with God wasn't even an option for me.

A lot to get off of my chest. I see that as I type.

Zack is calling me to come and spend time with him on the porch and, when love calls, I go there.