I feel like jelly without a jar right now. I am stuck to all these ideas, like how when you spill jelly it'll stick to every crevasse of the barstools sitting in your kitchen. Though I am firmly rooted to those ideas, like the jelly to the barstool, I am still without my jar. I have no defining shape.
This is upsetting to me.
This is true, particularly in the area of romance. I have attempted several blogs of late on the subject. I haven't been able to acquire the proper words with which to express myself. Despite that fact, this has been a subject heavy on my mind since I began attending Fresh Start. I believe that was like November of last year. So here we go again, attempting to exorcize my thoughts without having them emerge mangled and disproportionate.
I am a romantic. Most of my favorite movies are romances: Casablanca, Last of the Mohicans, The Fountain, The Village, The Painted Veil. The list goes on and on.
However, I have positively no experience in the area. In fact as a kid, I always swore I would never marry. My mind was focused on more important things, like life-threatening adventures, exotic lands and epic battles between good and evil, (y'know, the standard make-believe stuff.)
At church we had those purity seminars and I adhered myself completely to those promises. Dating anyone before I was at least in my junior year of high school was illogical. There was no purpose to do so. It was not as though I would marry a person I started to date in junior high, or high school. The chances of that were so very slim.
That doesn't mean it wasn't freakishly difficult. I hated myself at times for deciding to not date. There seemed to be a reoccurring theme in my life, where I liked a boy and, since I would not date, my best friend snatched him up. That happened a couple times, several different friends. My friendships have always recovered neatly, however. I had no reason to be angry. It was my decision in the first place.
I was always torn between my desire for a remarkable romance similar to the ones in all my movies, (there's a certain element to adventure in a romance, y'know,) the affection I saw in the culture around me, and what I believed was right way to operate.
It has been a while now since my graduation. I’ve considered myself free to date ever since I got my heart all patched up at Fresh Start. And now a whole new door opens, beyond which is the unmapped terrain of just the possibility of relationships.
I have no idea how to operate.
This fact makes me angry at that barstool of ideas that I got myself stuck to at such an early age. Although, I shouldn’t be angry. It’s not as though the barstool had any say in the matter. And it is not as though anything happens on accident. Being stuck to the barstool has also kept me from falling on the floor. Jelly gets stuck on the bottom of people’s bare, stinky, morning feet when it falls on the floor. Or it will get particles of crushed Rice Krispies permanently attached to its surface. Or dust bunnies.
It doesn’t change that I am completely awkward around men. Actually, the word awkward doesn’t even begin to describe it. And man, do I hate being awkward. It just makes me mad. It makes me wonder if I will drive everyone away with my stupid awkwardness. I hate that stupid thought.
(As a side note, I have words I could use other than “stupid.” But they are equally uncreative. So I’ll stick to the G-rated version.)
There isn’t one can really do about these things, I suppose. All the jelly can do is be happy where it is and wait. Maybe on a boiling summer’s day it’ll get hot enough, and the jelly will drip free all of its own accord….Role on down that barstool.
I apologize for that metaphor. That was ridiculous.
Anyhoozle. I believe that someday that might happen. And if it doesn’t, God obviously has another plan for me. And it’ll be good either way…I just have to keep repeating that to myself.
In the mean time, I know what I do not want.
I don’t want to be saved by a knight in shining armor; Jesus has done that already for me.
I don’t want to set out in search of husband. I will not put my lipstick smile on and parade myself around in search of the cure for loneliness. The suggestion that I should do so is quickly becoming my new pet peeve. God will provide and that’s all there is to it. I will not wake love before it desires so.
I don’t want to be the house-wife. With her apron on, a feather duster in one hand and a baby in the other. I don’t mean to offend anyone by saying this, but I simply refuse to conform to this lifestyle. Not because it’s prehistoric like all the feminists in all the movies say, not because it’s necessarily wrong, but because I would go crazy doing that. I would shake the baby and stab someone in the eye with the feather duster. It may be all well and good for some people; not me. I have a gypsy heart. I will move where I need to. And if a man is going to hold me down, I am sorry but my parents are going to have to wait a little longer for grandkids. That’s that.
If I am going to get married, I will be taking a partner in crime, so to speak. I will not be retiring my personality. O contraire. It will be to reflect one another, thereby making the personalities brighter.That's probably idealistic and naiive but at the moment I don't care.
I know there’s more, but I took a break to watch Jack Bauer and now my thoughts are all jumbled….Crud.
Well for now, that’s all I have to say about that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe1_N7v6Wlc Newest romance movie that I heart. I've been watching this clip over and over for the music, which is from Last of the Samurai.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
i must be getting better cause i am crying all the time lately....or maybe that has something to do with my hormones...but even when i was hormonal before, i didn't get emotional constantly. And y'know what? I don't mind. I actually prefer crying regularly. i figure if i cry all the time, one of these days it won't be any big deal to cry in front of strangers...which is something i have vowed to never do. i don't know why.
I want to get over that particular fear of man someday.
We watched The Rescuers the other night. I love that movie. Not like, love. And had to multi-task while watching it to keep from, yet again, crying. Because, well I don't know really, it reminds me of being a little kid. And also because it's about an orphan in awful circumstances, and what help does she get sent? Two mice.
But isn't that just like life? At least, in my case, the catalysts to my salvation was never in the screaming wind or in the roaring sea or in the growling rock slide or in the rumbling fire, but in whispers while I slept.
Sometimes kings aren't the ones to destroy evil, it's hobbits. Sometimes it isn't warriors that take down a tyrant of a queen, it's children. And in this case, it isn't secret agents who save the day, it's mice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpP8bNxVdyU
A few things come to mind when I watch this video. One: The look on the croc's face, right about 36 secs in, is exactly what my dog Bella looked like when she caught the scent of a rodent of any sort. (Rest in peace, Bella-girl. Chase as many heaven-squirrels as you like.)
Two: That Crocodile should consider quitting his guard-dog job in favor of an organ playing gig. He's quite talented.
Three: I relate to the mice. Not that I've been chased by crocodiles or hidden inside organ pipes, lately. But I relate to the feeling "Man, someone is out to get me!" And also, I feel mouse-like when it comes to helping people. Seriously, what can I possibly do to help anyone?
But the mice do help. And yes, I am aware that this is just a Disney movie. But at the very same time, God is bigger than my weakness. It's a fact. A beautiful, wonderful fact of life that makes me want to weep again for the second time today.
It's amazing. And so much bigger than me, and man, am I glad. Cause if everything depended on my spiffiness, we'd all be in trouble. A lot of trouble. Many of the trouble.
I have more to say about this.....but my brain has much snot in it. Uuuuuummm.
I relate to Penny, the orphan girl too. Sometimes I think I will always feel like a little kid in a world that's too big for her. And oddly enough, I'm okay with that.
And in a way, we're all orphans. Humanity is in search of meaning and a place to belong.
So the entire Rescuers movie is gripping for me to the point of ridiculousness and hilarity.
I'm sure I had something else to say, but i don't remember it now. I'm sposed to go to bed soon here any way. I apologize for this blog if it's impossible to understand. I blame the snot in my brain. I'm listening to Flyleaf at the moment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXJbO9GmQMM
It's also a new-ish thing for me to care about the people at church. (What?! Caring about church people?!??!) I've always been concerned for my best friends, but it's different for me to care about acquaintances and even just people who aren't necessarily best-ies, but still friends. I think it's cause I have put some much energy into worrying about myself and the people very closest to me that I shut out everyone else.
It's so cool to step back and say 'Whoa God, you did that too!'
Anyhoo, I am loving the lines "If one part is hurt, the whole body's sick. If one part mourns, we all mourn with Him." from that song.
I want to get over that particular fear of man someday.
We watched The Rescuers the other night. I love that movie. Not like, love. And had to multi-task while watching it to keep from, yet again, crying. Because, well I don't know really, it reminds me of being a little kid. And also because it's about an orphan in awful circumstances, and what help does she get sent? Two mice.
But isn't that just like life? At least, in my case, the catalysts to my salvation was never in the screaming wind or in the roaring sea or in the growling rock slide or in the rumbling fire, but in whispers while I slept.
Sometimes kings aren't the ones to destroy evil, it's hobbits. Sometimes it isn't warriors that take down a tyrant of a queen, it's children. And in this case, it isn't secret agents who save the day, it's mice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpP8bNxVdyU
A few things come to mind when I watch this video. One: The look on the croc's face, right about 36 secs in, is exactly what my dog Bella looked like when she caught the scent of a rodent of any sort. (Rest in peace, Bella-girl. Chase as many heaven-squirrels as you like.)
Two: That Crocodile should consider quitting his guard-dog job in favor of an organ playing gig. He's quite talented.
Three: I relate to the mice. Not that I've been chased by crocodiles or hidden inside organ pipes, lately. But I relate to the feeling "Man, someone is out to get me!" And also, I feel mouse-like when it comes to helping people. Seriously, what can I possibly do to help anyone?
But the mice do help. And yes, I am aware that this is just a Disney movie. But at the very same time, God is bigger than my weakness. It's a fact. A beautiful, wonderful fact of life that makes me want to weep again for the second time today.
It's amazing. And so much bigger than me, and man, am I glad. Cause if everything depended on my spiffiness, we'd all be in trouble. A lot of trouble. Many of the trouble.
I have more to say about this.....but my brain has much snot in it. Uuuuuummm.
I relate to Penny, the orphan girl too. Sometimes I think I will always feel like a little kid in a world that's too big for her. And oddly enough, I'm okay with that.
And in a way, we're all orphans. Humanity is in search of meaning and a place to belong.
So the entire Rescuers movie is gripping for me to the point of ridiculousness and hilarity.
I'm sure I had something else to say, but i don't remember it now. I'm sposed to go to bed soon here any way. I apologize for this blog if it's impossible to understand. I blame the snot in my brain. I'm listening to Flyleaf at the moment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXJbO9GmQMM
It's also a new-ish thing for me to care about the people at church. (What?! Caring about church people?!??!) I've always been concerned for my best friends, but it's different for me to care about acquaintances and even just people who aren't necessarily best-ies, but still friends. I think it's cause I have put some much energy into worrying about myself and the people very closest to me that I shut out everyone else.
It's so cool to step back and say 'Whoa God, you did that too!'
Anyhoo, I am loving the lines "If one part is hurt, the whole body's sick. If one part mourns, we all mourn with Him." from that song.
I got this song going pretty constantly too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPKDfBdxkMM
Snow Patrol puts out some awesome tunes. I like em.
Monday, January 25, 2010
thinking out loud, as usual
*deep breaths*
When a person surrenders their addictions, that don't stop being an addict, right? It's my understanding that an addict is always an addict.
Confession is like detox. It's an exorcism and a release....and slightly more humiliating than I had originally estimated. But not in the way I had guessed it would be. I thought I would be rejected and looked down upon, encouraged to attend more therapy sessions, ostracized.
That's not what happened. I was accepted into a community of people who are dependant on the Blood of Jesus, just like I have chosen to be. A community of people whose pasts are wrecks that they have been rescued from and that they walk independently from today. Their burn outs and rock bottoms don't define them anymore. Just like how my past is. It's a community that sees all my missteps and says that they have been there too. All isn't lost....(Oooh, there is some awesome LOTR quote that I am dying to post here, if I could just remember it. This sounds like a good reason to have a marathon.)
The humiliating part is good. Because I don't ever want to get myself into a situation like that again if I can help it. I know that I'll mess up at some point, but I am trying extra hard now to remember to ask for help...I have a whole strategy to employ now when I'm tempted. And I fully intend to use my entire arsenal to keep from falling in that marsh again.
I didn't feel bad about what I was doing. I didn't. It wasn't out of guilt that I was compelled into action, I am an expert at explaining away my actions to myself.
It was because of the breath-halting knowledge that God was silent in my life. And I had moved on. It was only at night that I laid in bed and tried not to think about it, that I realized how horrified I was.
(I think I know how the prodigal son felt. It's so very odd to me that God call me daughter, when I don't deserve to be a servant of his. It hasn't quite sunk in yet.
The justice half of me is fighting it. There is no way this should be possible.
The other half suggests that perhaps I shouldn't worry about the justice of it all. It defies logic, yes, but if He's giving freely maybe I should throw myself into this and think about logic when the work is done.
I dunno...and I don't think I'm meant to know, right now.)
I didn't feel bad about what I was doing. But I do now....I feel awful. I know this is an answer to prayer because I was asking Him to make me feel terrible about doing this. And I do now. It keeps me from doing it again. I don't feel guilty about it. I feel sad. It makes me want to cry that I was ever involved in it to begin with.
I just have to keep remind myself that it is as far as the East is from the West. My new favorite verse is Romans 5:1. It says that I am justified, which means it is as if I had never sinned.
Still a little big for me to fit my head around.
I've been suffocating my addictions this past week or so. I didn't purpose to kill them all at once....that's just kind of how it went.
I started out with Facebook, reasoning that it should be easy enough. I knew that I would have to get rid of the stories that play in my head constantly, because they are my escape. I am dependant on them. Those are gone now. I knew I would have to do it soon by didn't think it would be this soon, honestly. Fanfics, also gone.....My days have suddenly become unnaturally long....
I can't be sleeping for hours on end because my stories helped me do that. I'd drift in and out of sleep with them riddling my dreams. It's difficult not to think of them, it keeps me awake in the mornings.
Darn, right? I was having sleeping problems anyway. But I do get to sleep at night faster, last few days. And I've been more refreshed. So it's not all doom and gloom.
It's occurred to me that I should be filling my days with something to replace the things I'm distancing myself from. Reading my Bible has been one of those things I should do...But I am one of the most unmotivated people on the planet. I procrastinate until I can procrastinate no longer. I is lazy. I am slightly interested now, though. I've read little verses here and there, lately and it's like I've never read any of the Bible at all before. It all seems new and purposeful to me now. So I am interested, which is new for me.
I need to be careful that my addictions are replaced with the right things and not the wrong ones....like blogging, for example.
signing off-
When a person surrenders their addictions, that don't stop being an addict, right? It's my understanding that an addict is always an addict.
Confession is like detox. It's an exorcism and a release....and slightly more humiliating than I had originally estimated. But not in the way I had guessed it would be. I thought I would be rejected and looked down upon, encouraged to attend more therapy sessions, ostracized.
That's not what happened. I was accepted into a community of people who are dependant on the Blood of Jesus, just like I have chosen to be. A community of people whose pasts are wrecks that they have been rescued from and that they walk independently from today. Their burn outs and rock bottoms don't define them anymore. Just like how my past is. It's a community that sees all my missteps and says that they have been there too. All isn't lost....(Oooh, there is some awesome LOTR quote that I am dying to post here, if I could just remember it. This sounds like a good reason to have a marathon.)
The humiliating part is good. Because I don't ever want to get myself into a situation like that again if I can help it. I know that I'll mess up at some point, but I am trying extra hard now to remember to ask for help...I have a whole strategy to employ now when I'm tempted. And I fully intend to use my entire arsenal to keep from falling in that marsh again.
I didn't feel bad about what I was doing. I didn't. It wasn't out of guilt that I was compelled into action, I am an expert at explaining away my actions to myself.
It was because of the breath-halting knowledge that God was silent in my life. And I had moved on. It was only at night that I laid in bed and tried not to think about it, that I realized how horrified I was.
(I think I know how the prodigal son felt. It's so very odd to me that God call me daughter, when I don't deserve to be a servant of his. It hasn't quite sunk in yet.
The justice half of me is fighting it. There is no way this should be possible.
The other half suggests that perhaps I shouldn't worry about the justice of it all. It defies logic, yes, but if He's giving freely maybe I should throw myself into this and think about logic when the work is done.
I dunno...and I don't think I'm meant to know, right now.)
I didn't feel bad about what I was doing. But I do now....I feel awful. I know this is an answer to prayer because I was asking Him to make me feel terrible about doing this. And I do now. It keeps me from doing it again. I don't feel guilty about it. I feel sad. It makes me want to cry that I was ever involved in it to begin with.
I just have to keep remind myself that it is as far as the East is from the West. My new favorite verse is Romans 5:1. It says that I am justified, which means it is as if I had never sinned.
Still a little big for me to fit my head around.
I've been suffocating my addictions this past week or so. I didn't purpose to kill them all at once....that's just kind of how it went.
I started out with Facebook, reasoning that it should be easy enough. I knew that I would have to get rid of the stories that play in my head constantly, because they are my escape. I am dependant on them. Those are gone now. I knew I would have to do it soon by didn't think it would be this soon, honestly. Fanfics, also gone.....My days have suddenly become unnaturally long....
I can't be sleeping for hours on end because my stories helped me do that. I'd drift in and out of sleep with them riddling my dreams. It's difficult not to think of them, it keeps me awake in the mornings.
Darn, right? I was having sleeping problems anyway. But I do get to sleep at night faster, last few days. And I've been more refreshed. So it's not all doom and gloom.
It's occurred to me that I should be filling my days with something to replace the things I'm distancing myself from. Reading my Bible has been one of those things I should do...But I am one of the most unmotivated people on the planet. I procrastinate until I can procrastinate no longer. I is lazy. I am slightly interested now, though. I've read little verses here and there, lately and it's like I've never read any of the Bible at all before. It all seems new and purposeful to me now. So I am interested, which is new for me.
I need to be careful that my addictions are replaced with the right things and not the wrong ones....like blogging, for example.
signing off-
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Facebook Withdrawal
This...is more difficult than I expected. Various illogically fearful questions have zig-zagged through my brain such as "what if I think of a brilliant status update?!" and "what if someone important sends me a friend request and they think I'm ignoring them?!?!" and "how am I sposed to write my research paper rough draft without the moral support of my facebook friends?!?!??!?!!1!!"
And then I realize that this is all pathetic.
I have resolved to wait a week before returning to the lovely facebook. Just to prove to myself that I would indeed survive if zombies attacked FB headquarters. That means that on teusday of next week I will come back.
One day down!
I have considered recording all the statuses I come up with between now and then and recording them somewhere....but have thought better of it. I don't suppose it will do anyone any good having a notebook full of phrases like "Bree Reno likes to tear up paper." and "Bree Reno is writing this blog instead of doing her english homework." and "Bree Reno will most assuredly die of exhaustion one day, because she thinks instead of sleeps."
No one really wants to read that. Not if you're being honest.
While I am here, I may as well tell you that I am completely disgusted by how my female mind works. (I write all this in the most playful way possible, mind you.) I crush on someone and immediately, my mind flits ten years into the future and pictures us married and in a foreign country of some kind with lots of dust and days that rival the inside of a cookie-bakin' oven. That is so irratating to me! Obnoxious!
Why on earth would I think things so improbable and presumptuous about people I barely know? I have no clue.
I think it's cause I'm a girl. Similar to how guys can't help but use their eyes to judge things, I can't help my brain from getting ahead of itself.
The problem is that after I've thought these things, I always feel bad that I've dared to picture someone else's future. I don't know why. The future is just so out of my hands and not something I could predict if I tried, so I very rarely think about my own. . . But to consider someone else's seems almost like a sin. Like I'm breaking my own Cardinal Rule.
That probably makes no sense.
I guess it's because by picturing my crush in a future of my own imaginings I disregard whatever his dreams may be and set unrealistic expectations for everything that might be in store for us. Gosh, even using the word 'us' feels wrong.
Anyhooos....there's not much else i can justify putting off my paper to write. I leave you now with the lovely Gabe Bondoc. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmHBu-pncmA awesomeness
au revoir ..... i guess ..... man, i don't want to write this paper.
And then I realize that this is all pathetic.
I have resolved to wait a week before returning to the lovely facebook. Just to prove to myself that I would indeed survive if zombies attacked FB headquarters. That means that on teusday of next week I will come back.
One day down!
I have considered recording all the statuses I come up with between now and then and recording them somewhere....but have thought better of it. I don't suppose it will do anyone any good having a notebook full of phrases like "Bree Reno likes to tear up paper." and "Bree Reno is writing this blog instead of doing her english homework." and "Bree Reno will most assuredly die of exhaustion one day, because she thinks instead of sleeps."
No one really wants to read that. Not if you're being honest.
While I am here, I may as well tell you that I am completely disgusted by how my female mind works. (I write all this in the most playful way possible, mind you.) I crush on someone and immediately, my mind flits ten years into the future and pictures us married and in a foreign country of some kind with lots of dust and days that rival the inside of a cookie-bakin' oven. That is so irratating to me! Obnoxious!
Why on earth would I think things so improbable and presumptuous about people I barely know? I have no clue.
I think it's cause I'm a girl. Similar to how guys can't help but use their eyes to judge things, I can't help my brain from getting ahead of itself.
The problem is that after I've thought these things, I always feel bad that I've dared to picture someone else's future. I don't know why. The future is just so out of my hands and not something I could predict if I tried, so I very rarely think about my own. . . But to consider someone else's seems almost like a sin. Like I'm breaking my own Cardinal Rule.
That probably makes no sense.
I guess it's because by picturing my crush in a future of my own imaginings I disregard whatever his dreams may be and set unrealistic expectations for everything that might be in store for us. Gosh, even using the word 'us' feels wrong.
Anyhooos....there's not much else i can justify putting off my paper to write. I leave you now with the lovely Gabe Bondoc. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmHBu-pncmA awesomeness
au revoir ..... i guess ..... man, i don't want to write this paper.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
I realized today that God does not operate like Superman. I also realized that in the past I've expected him to. And, as it turns out, God doesn't whisk down and save the day all the time. He is a little more subtle than that, in my experience. He also has a bigger plan that Superman does. All Superman does is react. God has a strategy, a master plan...
Interesting.
I am at a cross roads. I am nearing the end of my Passport program at Metro. I have one and a half more semesters there...or quarters...whichever. I am finishing with the swim school after this session. And a large gaping hole is left for my future to take place in. And, as is usual with me, I have no plans.
Recently I've been uncovering reality. I've been discovering how I cannot live my life halfway. I can't be a good kid part time. And I can't keep controlling particular parts of my life.
Certain things are easy to give up while others make me feel like that guy in the Bible who asks Jesus how to get to heaven and Jesus tells him to sell everything he owns and follow him. The dude couldn't do it. He walked away...miserable.
My everything that I don't want to give up is difficult to describe which is partially why I believe it's so hard for me to surrender it.
My imagination is my escape. It's my entertainment and my outlet. When I am upset, I write. When I am bored, I write. When I am confused, I write. It's my solution to many things.
Imagination has always been something that I've never truly given up to God. And I know it's become an idol for me. I've always shrugged it off, telling myself that it was impossible to know how much was too much. No one can preach much of a sermon on this type of thing because it's so personal.
I am always spilling my guts on this blog...and none of my guts are capable of lying. So I am being completely honest with you when I say that I do not want to give this up.
I know that it is not an option. Surrender is unconditional.
My feelings suck. My head wants to want this. I'm not sure what my deal is. Maybe I'm afraid that I won't have anything to fall back on. Or maybe it's just a horrible habit that has built up. I don't know. I probably don't need to know.
Right now, I'm praying that God would change my heart, that He would help me want to please Him. Because right now I am too comfortable.
That's the other thing. I think I might be meant to be a missionary somewhere. And I know that I'm just plain scared to do what I have to here. I am scared of phones, for one thing. I can't drive. I am a writer, not a doctor, not a language teacher, not a preacher, not a wife, not a business woman. (That's a funny order of things to be, is it not? It struck me as funny. But that's how they spilled out. *shrugs*) Heck, I don't even know the Bible that well. Anywhere I would go, I would be a burden.
I want so very badly to help someone with something. And I have accepted that at this point in my life I will accept the help from the people God sends my way as graciously as I can. And perhaps later I can give back. But as of now I have no money. No experience. And no confidence.
At the moment, I am rather overwhelmed and feeling on the hopeless side of things. There are so many problems that need fixing. So many hurts that have not been kissed better. Even if I was everything I wish I could be, I wouldn't know where to start.
There was a brighter side that I was going to right about, but it's late and I can't think of it at the moment....Oh, yes. For the first time in years, I am seeing stars in my dark night of the soul. I am catching glimmers of the God I was so close to as a child. It's not that he wasn't there before, I've just been blind for a really long time now....Or what seems like a long time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnDvRRY5eT4 I am still listening to this gal. Brooke Fraser is awesome...Quite frankly, it is down right upsetting to me that no one knows about her. I love almost every one of her songs on her Albertine album. This is a completely different topic of which I will not even start on other than to ask why on EARTH Christian radio stations play the same ten artists over and over and over and over again? I do not know, George.
the end
Interesting.
I am at a cross roads. I am nearing the end of my Passport program at Metro. I have one and a half more semesters there...or quarters...whichever. I am finishing with the swim school after this session. And a large gaping hole is left for my future to take place in. And, as is usual with me, I have no plans.
Recently I've been uncovering reality. I've been discovering how I cannot live my life halfway. I can't be a good kid part time. And I can't keep controlling particular parts of my life.
Certain things are easy to give up while others make me feel like that guy in the Bible who asks Jesus how to get to heaven and Jesus tells him to sell everything he owns and follow him. The dude couldn't do it. He walked away...miserable.
My everything that I don't want to give up is difficult to describe which is partially why I believe it's so hard for me to surrender it.
My imagination is my escape. It's my entertainment and my outlet. When I am upset, I write. When I am bored, I write. When I am confused, I write. It's my solution to many things.
Imagination has always been something that I've never truly given up to God. And I know it's become an idol for me. I've always shrugged it off, telling myself that it was impossible to know how much was too much. No one can preach much of a sermon on this type of thing because it's so personal.
I am always spilling my guts on this blog...and none of my guts are capable of lying. So I am being completely honest with you when I say that I do not want to give this up.
I know that it is not an option. Surrender is unconditional.
My feelings suck. My head wants to want this. I'm not sure what my deal is. Maybe I'm afraid that I won't have anything to fall back on. Or maybe it's just a horrible habit that has built up. I don't know. I probably don't need to know.
Right now, I'm praying that God would change my heart, that He would help me want to please Him. Because right now I am too comfortable.
That's the other thing. I think I might be meant to be a missionary somewhere. And I know that I'm just plain scared to do what I have to here. I am scared of phones, for one thing. I can't drive. I am a writer, not a doctor, not a language teacher, not a preacher, not a wife, not a business woman. (That's a funny order of things to be, is it not? It struck me as funny. But that's how they spilled out. *shrugs*) Heck, I don't even know the Bible that well. Anywhere I would go, I would be a burden.
I want so very badly to help someone with something. And I have accepted that at this point in my life I will accept the help from the people God sends my way as graciously as I can. And perhaps later I can give back. But as of now I have no money. No experience. And no confidence.
At the moment, I am rather overwhelmed and feeling on the hopeless side of things. There are so many problems that need fixing. So many hurts that have not been kissed better. Even if I was everything I wish I could be, I wouldn't know where to start.
There was a brighter side that I was going to right about, but it's late and I can't think of it at the moment....Oh, yes. For the first time in years, I am seeing stars in my dark night of the soul. I am catching glimmers of the God I was so close to as a child. It's not that he wasn't there before, I've just been blind for a really long time now....Or what seems like a long time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnDvRRY5eT4 I am still listening to this gal. Brooke Fraser is awesome...Quite frankly, it is down right upsetting to me that no one knows about her. I love almost every one of her songs on her Albertine album. This is a completely different topic of which I will not even start on other than to ask why on EARTH Christian radio stations play the same ten artists over and over and over and over again? I do not know, George.
the end
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
In which we talk about weird dreams
couple nights ago, i had a really, really weird dream. I want to write it down before I forget.
So it started out on a ship...Set in early 1900's. I wasn't myself. I was someone else. This someone else was in love with two men, but she didn't know it yet. She ignored the one and adored the other. But the ship set sail and she left the man she adored on the shore. The man she was trying to ignore was on the ship with her, and she had insulted him so they didn't talk much. But it was a gradually closing distance. They watched each other from across the ship. Then, one day he was playing chess with someone and happened to look up at her and she knew. Like I had known the whole time, that she loved him.
It is so weird how dreams let you feel that. I haven't crushed on someone, like really crushed on someone for years. But I felt it here.
The dream changed. I walked on an ocean that was a path. From my left and from my right the wind gusted at me. My hair stood strait up, it didn't have time to fall because the wind was so constant. The ocean path was narrow. On either side of it was a grave yard. And I could hear my mom in my head telling me how very morbid this all was. So I pulled out my ipod and picked out an Evanescence song. . .because it seemed appropriate. (is that random? yes.)
I turned from the ocean path to wander into the graveyard. it was yellow. the grass was all dead. there was a certain air of unrest that i got. Normally graveyards strike me as eerie and heavy with history, but peaceful. This one was different. There were cats all over.
(I hate cats. It's a hate that's been growing since my youth. This Christmas Eve, my g-ma's cat pushed me over the edge and now I can say I -udderly- loath cats. Anyhoo, that's a story for a different time......heh, udderly.)
I knew I was somewhere in the Southern states, and I knew that I lived with these two old ladies who owned tons of cats and were keepers of the graveyard. Our house was like a modified crypt combined with an old farmhouse.
Elly was visiting me there. We were eating breakfast and she thought it would be funny to put catnip into my milk....which I didn't notice till halfway through the meal. By that time I had catnip stuck all over the inside of my mouth. I went over to the sink and began to dislodge it from my mouth. It was stuck on the roof of my mouth and underneath my tongue. (ew.)
And then I woke up and promptly realized that the top half of my retainer was no longer in my mouth. I must have taken it out, thinking it was catnip. It was 6:45 am. I searched unsuccessfully for it and laid back down. I thought about how I hate the orthodontist until I fell back asleep.
At noon, when I woke up for realsies, I found the retainer in the crack between my bed and the wall. Thankfully it was not squished or covered in cobwebs of any sort.
The End.
I don't tend to think my dreams mean anything. They are more often random than not...but the whole ocean and graveyard thing was so abstract and so different from what I normally dream....usually my dreams are a bit more of a down to earth brand of weird...i don't know how to explain it, it was just a strange dream and I keep thinking about it.
I feel funny. Odd. Like I've been thawed from carbonite. Or like I've been pulled from the hole in the ground and escaped from Wonderland. Like that talking doorknob was finally opened from the other side, and I was pulled out. I feel like I had fallen asleep and very gradually my fingers and toes are getting that prickly sensation you get when the blood is having a hard time getting to them. And like my dream, I do feel like the wind is coming at me from either side and my hair's standing on end. But I love it. The wind is reminding me that I am alive. As cheese ball as that sounds.
My life has a new meaning lately.
I haven't gone outside much this winter. The last couple of years, I've made a point to. Me and winter like each other. This year, I just haven't...dunno why.
There's this John Mayer song called Half of My Heart that I'm in love with right now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xlOQ0ySpVY
It talks about loving someone half-heartedly. And if I'm honest, that's how my attitude is right now towards God. I wish it wasn't but there's still that half of me that says "Uh, we ain't doin that again. Look at this, it's easier."
The problem is that I am not a half hearted kinda person. I tend to be more of an all or nothing kinda gal. And what happens is I end up living two lives.
I'm not saying I want to be this way, but reality often contradicts our wishes. Whenever I think of it, all I can do is throw my hands up in surrender. Because I know that if I try, I'm gonna mess it up more. It's a strange and new "I am nothing" concept for me.
I could keep writing but I think that's enough for today considering I dumped all the crazy dream stuff on ya. Apologies.
What is a dream that sticks out in you memory? Do y'all think dreams have meaning?
So it started out on a ship...Set in early 1900's. I wasn't myself. I was someone else. This someone else was in love with two men, but she didn't know it yet. She ignored the one and adored the other. But the ship set sail and she left the man she adored on the shore. The man she was trying to ignore was on the ship with her, and she had insulted him so they didn't talk much. But it was a gradually closing distance. They watched each other from across the ship. Then, one day he was playing chess with someone and happened to look up at her and she knew. Like I had known the whole time, that she loved him.
It is so weird how dreams let you feel that. I haven't crushed on someone, like really crushed on someone for years. But I felt it here.
The dream changed. I walked on an ocean that was a path. From my left and from my right the wind gusted at me. My hair stood strait up, it didn't have time to fall because the wind was so constant. The ocean path was narrow. On either side of it was a grave yard. And I could hear my mom in my head telling me how very morbid this all was. So I pulled out my ipod and picked out an Evanescence song. . .because it seemed appropriate. (is that random? yes.)
I turned from the ocean path to wander into the graveyard. it was yellow. the grass was all dead. there was a certain air of unrest that i got. Normally graveyards strike me as eerie and heavy with history, but peaceful. This one was different. There were cats all over.
(I hate cats. It's a hate that's been growing since my youth. This Christmas Eve, my g-ma's cat pushed me over the edge and now I can say I -udderly- loath cats. Anyhoo, that's a story for a different time......heh, udderly.)
I knew I was somewhere in the Southern states, and I knew that I lived with these two old ladies who owned tons of cats and were keepers of the graveyard. Our house was like a modified crypt combined with an old farmhouse.
Elly was visiting me there. We were eating breakfast and she thought it would be funny to put catnip into my milk....which I didn't notice till halfway through the meal. By that time I had catnip stuck all over the inside of my mouth. I went over to the sink and began to dislodge it from my mouth. It was stuck on the roof of my mouth and underneath my tongue. (ew.)
And then I woke up and promptly realized that the top half of my retainer was no longer in my mouth. I must have taken it out, thinking it was catnip. It was 6:45 am. I searched unsuccessfully for it and laid back down. I thought about how I hate the orthodontist until I fell back asleep.
At noon, when I woke up for realsies, I found the retainer in the crack between my bed and the wall. Thankfully it was not squished or covered in cobwebs of any sort.
The End.
I don't tend to think my dreams mean anything. They are more often random than not...but the whole ocean and graveyard thing was so abstract and so different from what I normally dream....usually my dreams are a bit more of a down to earth brand of weird...i don't know how to explain it, it was just a strange dream and I keep thinking about it.
I feel funny. Odd. Like I've been thawed from carbonite. Or like I've been pulled from the hole in the ground and escaped from Wonderland. Like that talking doorknob was finally opened from the other side, and I was pulled out. I feel like I had fallen asleep and very gradually my fingers and toes are getting that prickly sensation you get when the blood is having a hard time getting to them. And like my dream, I do feel like the wind is coming at me from either side and my hair's standing on end. But I love it. The wind is reminding me that I am alive. As cheese ball as that sounds.
My life has a new meaning lately.
I haven't gone outside much this winter. The last couple of years, I've made a point to. Me and winter like each other. This year, I just haven't...dunno why.
There's this John Mayer song called Half of My Heart that I'm in love with right now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xlOQ0ySpVY
It talks about loving someone half-heartedly. And if I'm honest, that's how my attitude is right now towards God. I wish it wasn't but there's still that half of me that says "Uh, we ain't doin that again. Look at this, it's easier."
The problem is that I am not a half hearted kinda person. I tend to be more of an all or nothing kinda gal. And what happens is I end up living two lives.
I'm not saying I want to be this way, but reality often contradicts our wishes. Whenever I think of it, all I can do is throw my hands up in surrender. Because I know that if I try, I'm gonna mess it up more. It's a strange and new "I am nothing" concept for me.
I could keep writing but I think that's enough for today considering I dumped all the crazy dream stuff on ya. Apologies.
What is a dream that sticks out in you memory? Do y'all think dreams have meaning?
Friday, December 11, 2009
Will you know me?
Bare with me here. I just really want to post this. I realize it's not the wisest thing to do but to paraphrase a brilliant person (during Dollhouse), freedom is being allowed to make your own mistakes. This very well may be one of those mistakes. This crazy person likes to publicize their mistakes as much as possible.
This is a sort of letter, in a series of letters written to a lost friend of mine.
I am not publicizing so that they see it, necessarily. But because today I remembered what it was like to hug someone. Without going out of my way to seem any more emo than I already do, this is my way of letting you all know me. I want so very badly to be known by someone. I wish I could walk around with an x-ray all the time so you all could always see my guts. To hell with the radiation side effects. It would be worth the extra heads I'd grow.
Please, please, please do not mistake this as an act of bravery. I am a coward, a desperately lonely one.
I woke this morning and remembered I dreamed of you last night.
I don't think you'll ever know how disturbing that is to me.
Not because you were mean in the dream, cause you weren't.
I can't remember what I dreamt, but I think you were trying to make me better. To fix me.
I am broken, you know. I don't know how I got this way. Don't worry, all my theories lead me to believe it was my fault.
I'll tell you why the dream is upsetting to me.
It's cause I'm trying to move on.
Honestly trying. Not half-heartedly, sorta doing it. I have surrendered to the change, the reality of not seeing you everyday but still wishing to. And I am shooting my thoughts of you out of the sky, so that maybe one day I won't think to wonder where you are and what you dreamed about last night.
I'm letting you go, so that I can breathe again.
I've been doing well. I've been succeeding in a strange way that feels akin to amputating an arm. Then I dream of you and I have the phantom pains, like I am on the outside of the window looking in on your life and you looking at mine. And God knows, that dammit, it hurts. But He isn't telling why.
In my mind you are the same person who looked at me silently, doing everything in your power to make it better. To undo it from the very beginning.
Perhaps that's why it hurts.
The end.
I try to post a link every time I update. On So You Think You Can Dance this week, on of the girls, Kathryn, used this song for her solo. I tried to find video of that. (it was beautiful) It's actually not letting me post anything for some reason right now, so go to youtube and look up Brooke Fraser's Shadowfeet. It's my song of the week.
oh, and i've decided not to apologize for my written language. I think the words all the time, and my writing exposes my heart of hearts. I only speak da bad words when it's fitting and in the right company. cause i work with kids, live with an 8 year-old sister and I don't want to form any sort of verbal habit...or give my mom a heart attack. However, it's already a mental habit and is manifesting onto my pages. o wells. there are worse things.
This is a sort of letter, in a series of letters written to a lost friend of mine.
I am not publicizing so that they see it, necessarily. But because today I remembered what it was like to hug someone. Without going out of my way to seem any more emo than I already do, this is my way of letting you all know me. I want so very badly to be known by someone. I wish I could walk around with an x-ray all the time so you all could always see my guts. To hell with the radiation side effects. It would be worth the extra heads I'd grow.
Please, please, please do not mistake this as an act of bravery. I am a coward, a desperately lonely one.
I woke this morning and remembered I dreamed of you last night.
I don't think you'll ever know how disturbing that is to me.
Not because you were mean in the dream, cause you weren't.
I can't remember what I dreamt, but I think you were trying to make me better. To fix me.
I am broken, you know. I don't know how I got this way. Don't worry, all my theories lead me to believe it was my fault.
I'll tell you why the dream is upsetting to me.
It's cause I'm trying to move on.
Honestly trying. Not half-heartedly, sorta doing it. I have surrendered to the change, the reality of not seeing you everyday but still wishing to. And I am shooting my thoughts of you out of the sky, so that maybe one day I won't think to wonder where you are and what you dreamed about last night.
I'm letting you go, so that I can breathe again.
I've been doing well. I've been succeeding in a strange way that feels akin to amputating an arm. Then I dream of you and I have the phantom pains, like I am on the outside of the window looking in on your life and you looking at mine. And God knows, that dammit, it hurts. But He isn't telling why.
In my mind you are the same person who looked at me silently, doing everything in your power to make it better. To undo it from the very beginning.
Perhaps that's why it hurts.
The end.
I try to post a link every time I update. On So You Think You Can Dance this week, on of the girls, Kathryn, used this song for her solo. I tried to find video of that. (it was beautiful) It's actually not letting me post anything for some reason right now, so go to youtube and look up Brooke Fraser's Shadowfeet. It's my song of the week.
oh, and i've decided not to apologize for my written language. I think the words all the time, and my writing exposes my heart of hearts. I only speak da bad words when it's fitting and in the right company. cause i work with kids, live with an 8 year-old sister and I don't want to form any sort of verbal habit...or give my mom a heart attack. However, it's already a mental habit and is manifesting onto my pages. o wells. there are worse things.
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