sing along.

Here are some words that have been keeping me going lately…

“Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard, and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. I’m telling you, amazing things will happen.” -Conan O’Brien

I am the Lord’s servant, and I am willing to accept whatever He wants. May everything you’ve said come true.  – Luke 1:38

I’ve been honestly kind of proud of myself this past month.  I was extremely anxious and hesitant about moving back to Clifton, and starting classes again, but I don’t think anything could have been better for me.  This Fall was so strange.  Take my hair for instance- on October 23 I dyed my hair dark auburn from it’s natural light-honey-brown color, and I got bangs cut for the first time in my life.  I basically tried to enter in the witness protection program.  And that metaphor just keeps going.  I honestly think I was so traumatized and ungrounded from what I experienced over the summer and early September that I just didn’t want to be associated with that identity anymore.  I was so lost. I’ve never felt more abandoned and confused in my life.  I’ve never been left to decide the schedule of my day for such a long period of time, and that may sound like a dream come true, but it was truly a nightmare.  I don’t think I went through an actual depression, but I did shut down somehow.  I watched a lot of TV. A lot. Seasons upon seasons of TV.  My only solid memory of October is just watching TV.   In November I tried to get my life on some kind of track, and that just resulted in me getting really sick for weeks, and to top it off I had a panic attack while driving that still to this day is haunting me every time I get in the car.  December I just gave up all ambition to stay on a schedule. I stopped taking care of anything, I knew it would be over soon.  I sort of pulled the pre-emptive strike card on my home.  I knew that my time there was fading fast, so instead of treasuring time with my family, or security of my town, I just became resentful and angry toward it, to make moving away and starting all over feel less overwhelming.  But shocker! I still ended up having several break downs/ tantrums where I cried to my mother about everything I was afraid of.

But now I’m back.  And I can finally see this past fall objectively, from a distance.  I’m not sure what lessons I learned exactly, but I know that I don’t feel lost anymore.  I’m beginning to feel that sense of God directing me again.  I don’t know what toward, but I finally just don’t care about that. I don’t care about guessing what his next move is before he makes it.  I know what’s before me right now, and I feel this amazing motivation to just work my ass off and stop believing these terrible lies being fed to me by classmates, or relatives, or society, or history.  I KNOW THE TRUTH.  And I am SO glad.  As Brian Tome says, I’m in the “Lucky Sperm Club” and I’m just sick and disgusted with feeling so pitiful all the time.  Feeling sorry for myself didn’t do anything to change my situation.  I have ZERO things to be so pissy about.

Yeah, life sucks sometimes. Crazy, insane, unfair shit happens that plows us over. It makes everyday after it different and foreign. And to deal with it most of us go numb and get angry. We let each day blend into the next, while we build and and build frustration that we eventually take out on the people who are closest, and the most likely to survive our mean insensitive tantrums. When I think of all the times I went off on my mother, father, or even my Heavenly Father, I want to fall to my knees. But fortunately for me they love me enough to see what I was going through and bare it the best they could.

I take back what I said before about not knowing what lessons I learned.
I learned that when God wants to make significant change in your life, to change your soul, to change your attitude, He is going to strip you of every comfort or sense of purpose you’ve ever known. For me that was no longer receiving my worth from being a student, and employee, a roommate, or a daughter. I know being a daughter will never end, but I didn’t belong to my parents the way I did the last time I lived at home in high school. God broke up my heart. Just the same way a gardener does before planting new seeds. He broke up my heart so he could change me. So I would come crawling on my knees back to him. To the cynic, this might sound patronizing or mean for a god to do. But that’s a lie. God loves me so much, that seeing me slip further and further away from him broke up HIS heart. He knows his plans for me, and He loves me so much that He wants me near him all the time. He never left me unprotected, or in need of anything. He simply showed me even after following him my whole life, I still, still, still wasn’t putting my trust in him. I wasn’t putting my worth in him. I wasn’t honestly believing that He could show me love in ways that might differ from my plans. In other words, deep inside in a place I chose not to acknowledge I still wanted God to prove how much he loved me by giving me an awesome co-op job, or finally sending me a significant other, or somehow miraculously help me lose 20 pounds in a month. I neglected the most significant, extravagant love he shows me 24/7. Because on earth we call it “mundane”. “normal”. “basic”. “minimum.” Having the freedom to drive, bathe, eat, speak, sleep, relax whenever I want, with no fear of being kidnapped, beaten, starved, raped. I know these things exist, and that they break God’s heart while at the same time being a huge role of his love story for the world. But he has shown me extravagant grace and mercy by not including me with that chapter. I’m not saying God desires for evil to happen, I’m saying that we will all be rescued by him in his own time, and I believe he put me on earth to help do some of that rescuing for him. And that makes me so excited!

So back to now. I’m proud of myself for getting my shit together. I’m thrilled that the Holy Spirit encouraged me to do this by first spending time with God daily, and dealing with my struggles and stress with him directly, instead of only running to him in final desperation. He’s healed me in significant ways. He’s helped me be better organized, more punctual, and much much much more productive with my time. He’s given me a kind and patient heart for people and frustrations that would be easy and simple to dismiss or ridicule. And this has led, just in 4 weeks, to better sleep, better eating, better inspiration and creativity for school, and most importantly better and even new friendships.

I should really start journaling so I don’t explode in thought like this again, but I felt compelled to share authentically and honestly. Make of it what you will.

“Oh praise the one who paid my debt, and raised this life up from the dead.”

please show me.

I can’t even express what this book is doing for me right now.  People have told me to read it for years, but I refused, purely out of obstinance.   But basically, if you’re a woman, you NEED to read this.  There’s a life changing message waiting for you in it.

“Over the years we’ve come to see that the only thing more tragic than the things that have happened to us is what we have done with them.

Words were said, painful words.  Things were done, awful things.  And they shaped us.  Something inside of us shifted.  We embraced the message of our wounds. We accepted a twisted view of ourselves. And from that we chose a way of relating to our world.  We made a vow never to be in that place again.  We adopted strategies to protect ourselves from being hurt again.  A woman who is living out of a broken, wounded heart is a woman who is living a self-protective life.  She may not be aware of it, but it is true.  It’s our way of trying to “save ourselves.”

We also developed ways of trying to get something of the love our hearts cried out for.  The ache is there.  Our desperate need for love and affirmation, our thirst for some taste of romance and adventure and beauty is there.  So we turned to boys or to food or to romance novels; we lost ourselves in our work or at church or in some sort of service.  All this adds up to the women we are today.  Much of what we call our “personalities”  is actually the mosaic of our choices for self-protection plus our plan to get something of the love we were created for.

The problem is our plan has nothing to do with God.

The wounds we received and the messages they brought formed a sort of unholy alliance with our fallen nature as women.  From Eve we received a deep mistrust in the heart of God toward us.  Clearly, he’s holding out on us.  We’ll just have to arrange for the life we want. We will control our world.  But there is is also an ache deep within, an ache for intimacy and for life.  We’ll have to find a way to fill it.  A way that does not require vulnerability.

In some ways, this is every little girl’s story, here in this world east of Eden.

But the wounds don’t stop once we are grown up.  Some of the most crippling and destructive wounds we receive come much later in our lives.  The wounds that we received over our lifetimes have not come to us in a vacuum.  There is in fact a theme to them, a pattern.

The wounds you have received have come to you for a purpose, from one who knows all you are meant to be and fears you. ”

– Captivating

Προσευχόμαστε για δικαιοσύνη

“May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart. May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people. May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy. May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really can make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God’s grace, to do what others claim.” -The Franciscan Blessing

NotFashionable.com

“Sometimes the idea of living as a hermit appeals to all of us.  No demands, no needs, no pain, no disappointments.  But that is because we have been hurt, or worn out.  In our heart of hearts, that place where we are most ourselves, we don’t want to run away for very long.  Our lives were meant to be lived with others.  As echoes of the Trinity, we remember something.  Made in the image of a perfect relationship, we are relational to the core of our beings and filled with a desire for transcendent purpose.  We long to be an irreplaceable part of a shared adventure.”

-Stasi Eldredge   Captivating

” Looking back, it was the thing in his life that shamed him the most: the times he was purposefully and calculatingly mean to Alice.  It was those moments, and there had been many of them, that indicated to him that he was not a good person.  He got mad at her for many things, but it was always really for the same thing: that she possessed his love and he couldn’t seem to get it back.”

– The Last Summer (of You & Me) Ann Brashares

Like calendars dying.

A little late, but a small cliche countdown recap of my 2009:

10…  People that didn’t recognize me after I changed my hairstyle.

9…  Times I saw him.

8…  Rent checks paid.

7…  Days spent in New Orleans.

6…  Interviews.

5…   Dresses sewn.

4…  Seasons of Dexter watched.

3…  Funerals I went to.

2…  Weddings I attended.

1…   Baptism. Mine. 

I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.” The Enthroned continued, “Look! I’m making everything new. Write it all down—each word dependable and accurate.”

Revelations 21: 3-5

The smell of hospitals in winter, and the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters but no pearls.

All at once you look across a crowded room to see the way that light attaches to a girl.

“That’s my daughter in the water. I lost every time I fought her.”

This post goes out to my dad, the internet’s newest Facebook stalker.

 

10/29/09:

Woke up at MEO’s house at 10:45 AM. Fed J&G and took them outside.  Came home and checked my e-mail. BJD and S were still asleep.  Cleared up details about my trip to SF,CA  with AGS on the phone.  1:00 PM Watched TV from the DVR.  3:00 PM Started packing for SF,CA.  Did not finish.  4:30 PM Went back to MEO’s house to take G&J outside again, and feed them.  5:00 Left for the Tanger outlets with JCD.  Bought 3 shirts and 1 dress at J. Crew.  $70.  9:00 PM Picked MRD up at DYT airport.  10:00 Went back to MEO’s one final time to take out G&J.  10:45 PM Returned home to continue packing, print boarding pass, procrastinate getting ready  to go in 6 hours by writing a blog.

10/30/09: …

I wanna be the one who gets to change her last name someday to something that sounds something more like yours.

We just came for fun.

These days I'm left to howl in tune.

I could write my name by the age of three, and I don’t need anyone to cut my meat for me.  I’m a big girl now, see my big girl shoes.
It’ll take more than just a breeze to make me fall over, fall overboard just so you can catch me.

But as strong as I seem to think I am my distressing damsel, she comes out at night when the moon’s filled up and your eyes are bright. Then I think I simply aught to fall overboard just so you can catch me.
You can catch me.

I watch the ships go sailing by.  If I play the girl will you play the guy?  And I never thought I’d be the type to fall.
To fall over, fall over, fall overboard, overboard.  Fall overboard just so you can catch me.

I watch the ships go sailing by.  If I’ll  be your girl will you be my guy?
And I never thought I’d be the type to fall, to fall.

Fall overboard just so you can catch me.
You can catch me, you can catch me.

(Thanks Ingrid Michaelson.)

Everybody scream.

Halloween is in two weeks.  But I’m basically starting to celebrate it now.

In my mind Halloween is the beginning of the holiday season. Like, when I was little (hell, probably until I was 15) I thought when people’d say “This holiday season…”  they were talking about Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s.  But it turns out it’s just a politically correct way to to say Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, what ever.  I still like my definition better. Call me incorrect.

But Halloween also begins this merciless battle inside me to top the year before.  For instance, Halloween last year was arguably the greatest day of my young adulthood, let alone of just my previous Halloweens.  So this year, how am I trying to top it?  I’m going to San Francisco, and I’m hoping by that fact alone I won’t spend the whole day wishing it were the year before.

But it’s not just Halloween I have to top.  No! It’s the whole “holiday season”.  I already know this Thanksgiving is going to be different than the past 10, not for bad reasons, but sometimes tradition really bites you in the ass, right?  As soon as you come to count on it, it burns you.   Christmas should be better (fingers crossed) since my mother won’t be a menopausal graduate student this year.  And who are we kidding?  Moms MAKE Christmas.  Maybe not the spiritual aspect or side of it that I’ve come to embrace and celebrate more and more each year on my own, but  d e f i n i t e l y the Hallmark-y, warm and fuzzy, cinnamon rolls with cocoa Christmas we all long for.  If your mom ain’t on her game, there’s no hope. Trust me. Been there, done that.

And finally New Year’s Eve.  Who doesn’t want to annually top the year before?  If you’re reading this and thinking, “Not me,” you my friend are lying to yourself.  For the past 4 or 5 years I’ve clung tightly to the saying, “The way you spend your New Year is the way you’ll spend your year.”  Why did I choose to endorse this philosophy? Because all of those New Year’s Eves rocked.  But what happens when you spend a New Year’s Eve choking back sobs, and self medicating a splitting headache while you shiver on a stranger’s porch step?  I will tell you.  You ditch that old philosophy like it’s on fire.  Needless to say, I’m pretty sure no matter what I do this December 31st, it will hella sure top the one before.

I don’t remember the point of this ramble anymore. Make up your own. I’m tired.

Boys and girls of every age, wouldn't you like to see something strange?

Now that I think of it, that saying might not have been too far off.

“In all the things I wish I’d wrote…”

Lately I’ve become slightly obsessed with googling quotes.  For some reason I feel like finding proof that other people have experienced what I’m feeling now. And I guess I want to see if they can phrase it better than me.  They usually do.  Except, annoyingly, I don’t feel any better or more fulfilled after I find the right philosophical reference.  None of them tell me what to do next.  It sucks.

Either way, here are some that I like:

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.” -C .S. Lewis

“I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar.” –Robert Brault

“All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.” –Ellen Glasgow

“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” – Victor Hugo

“None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.” –Henry David Thoreau

Favorite:

“Some stories are true that never happened.” –Elie Wiesel

"Before you gave me your sweater, I don't think I realized I was cold."