Here we go again.

Well, here we are again, at the dawning of a new year. A fresh start, new things, hopes, dreams, expectations etc. etc. etc. And of course, New Year's Resolutions. Those goals that most people tend to forget about within a month of the shiny new year. Well, I wouldn't say that I have New Year's Resolutions, but I do have some ideas about this next year, and the things that I will be doing. There is the requisite Ultimate Accomplishments of Awesome! List, that I have complied as usual. But. But, it's a little bit different this year. I have two of them, you see, the normal one (rather shorter than previous years, but that's okay) and a special one entitled - Ultimate Accomplishments of Awesome: Christian Edition. That's right, it's a whole list of things that relate to my faith that I want to accomplish this coming year. Some of them are a bit, well, ambitious. But I've realized recently that I'm too ambitious in all the wrong ways, and not ambitious enough in all the right ways. So I'm trying to change that. The impetus behind both of these UAoA lists is the desire to put more effort into relationships that I have, with friends, with family, with God. That's my goal this year, I guess, to connect more, to connect better with those I care about. And to not do things that I don't care about. To not waste my time on things I wish I cared about more, but to put time and effort into things that I already care about, you know? So, here they are, my UAoA lists, with commentary.

Ultimate Accomplishments of Awesome: Christian Edition '13
[] Share Gospel with someone
This is something that I've actually never done. Not really. And it's something that I want to do. I've been so afraid of it for so long, but I'm tired of fear dictating my life.

[] Fast fiction books and movies for a year starting Jan 1st.
This is the ambitious one. If you know me at all, you know that I am a voracious reader. I love books. But they suck up all of my time, and it's not good for me. I spend so much time ingesting other people's ideas of how the world is, taking in their paradigms and ideals, when I actually don't believe in how they see the world. I don't think that it's true. And so I've decided to stop feeding myself that poison. Which leads me to my next item:

[] Work on Heart Issues
I've always prided myself on how I didn't get caught up in the culture's obsession with beauty and sex, but I find that I did swallow, hook line and sinker, the idea that true love conquers all, and is all, is the purpose for life itself. And that is true, but not in the way our culture sells it (i.e. Twilight) and the way I bought into it. So that is the biggest thing that I see God wanting to work with in my life in the coming year, but I am so sure that there are others. Instead of falling in love with the idea of falling love, I want to:

[] Fall more in Love with Jesus
Pretty self-explanatory. I've been through some of the array of aspects of God; He's taught me about Him as Lord, as Father, as Brother, and a myriad of others, but right now, He's working on showing me Himself as Lover of my Soul.

[] Go on a Spring Break Trip with New Life
This is something I really feel like God wants me to do. And I'm trying to stop arguing with him over things that I know He will win in. (God is really relentless.)

[] Do LT
Something I did two years ago, and feel like I should do again this year. (I probably should have done it this past summer as well, who am I kidding.)

[] Read C.S. Lewis (and other theologians)
As I will not be reading fiction, it would be a good idea to read good books about God by smart people who have thought about it a lot. You know.


And here are the other Ultimate Accomplishments of Awesome: 2013 Edition
[] Learn how to drive
I know, I know. I still don't know how to drive. And it would be a good thing to know.

[] Go Camping with friends
Maybe. We'll see what we're all doing in August.

[] Burn old writings.
Something I've been talking about for a while, but I actually want to do it. And if, at the end of the year, they aren't burnt, well, I'll just throw them in the trash. I actually don't care about them really. They are worthless, but not OH-MY-WORD-THEY-ARE-SO-EMBARRASSING anymore. They just are, and I want to get rid of them.

[] Secret Project, Code Name: L
[] Secret Project, Code Name: T
Obvs these are secret, so I'm not going to tell you about them.

[] Finish NaNoWriMo novel
The one I've been writing for over a year? Yeah. I actually want to finish the story.

[] Learn how to crochet
New Hobbies!

[] Go sledding in the Arb
This would be a whole lot of fun.

[] Have fun with googly eyes
VandalEyes anyone?

[] Learn how to tie a tie (bowtie and regular tie)
A good skill to have, doncha think?

[] Learn how to french braid hair
Another good skill

[] Finish Pippi bag
A sewing project that I started several years ago. I just need to finish it.

[] Learn how to use the sewing machine
Yet another skill that I wish to acquire.

I'm going home tomorrow!  How exciting!  I just need to get through like, ten more pages of this paper.  I CAN DO IT!  (It's not due till Thursday anyway, and I'm supposed turn it in online, so I will probably finish it at home.)  BUT TOMORROW!!  Also, my birthday is tomorrow?  Which is kind of strange.  I don't know if I feel like I'm 21 yet, even if I do feel like I'm an adult now.  Hmmm...

I read the news today - oh boy

I read the news today
and cried silent tears
between the words that I wrote
about racism and spirituality.
I heard the president speak
saw him wipe tears from his eyes
and cried with him
for the newly-broken families.
I cried again and again,
tears full of a deep, deep sadness,
too personal, too heartfelt to share with another,
even when asked how I was.
I cried for the sadness,
I cried for the waste,
and I cried for your useless,
useless anger with all the wrong people.
In the end there are no words to be said.

I can forgive myself for my sins, but I find it hard to forgive my folly.  And regret eats away at my insides, like a disease intent on destroying me.  Oh Lord, all my fountains are in you.  And to you and your promises I will cling.

Thoughts from Youtube

I'm pretty impressed with myself.  I've watched over 6,600 youtube videos since getting an account two and a half years ago...  I wonder if it counts videos that I've watched multiple times.  And I wonder how much time I've spent watching youtube videos total?  Hmm...

Good Tidings

I'M COMING HOME IN TEN DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FOR A BIRTHDAY(I'm going to be 21 in ten days o_O)/COMING HOME/TEMPORARY GOODBYE/CHRISTMAS PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND I'M SO EXCITED!!!! I hope that there is snow and we can go ice skating and sledding and sing Christmas songs and make hot coco and eat cake and drink tea and laugh and laugh and play board games and everything good and exciting and happy. =D

A Rite of Passage

I just looked into a mirror and realized that I am not a child anymore.  I am not a child.  I am a woman.  I am grown up, I am an adult.  There are days when I act like a child still, a slave to my own petulant whims.  But I am not a child, or a teenager, or an adolescent.  I am an adult, with my own life, and my own choices about how I will live that life.  It is mine, to do with what I will.  I think I've finally passed that point that I've wanted to have for a while now.  That moment signifying a passage from child to adult.  And I'm not sure what it was, exactly, just that it happened this evening when I looked into a mirror and acknowledged without fear that I am an adult now.  And I am sure that there will be days when I am childish, and days when I will be wise.  But something's changed.  Something has shifted.  And I'm glad for it.

One of my favorite songs ever.  And the video is pretty freaking fantastic as well.  16 more days.

The amount of "Oh my word I don't want to get up I just want to sleep forever and ever" this morning was kind of astronomical...  Which is why I got up three hours after my alarm first went off.  And I wish I was still sleeping.  Weh!  17 more days.

Apparently tonight is a "Hannah is full of nostalgia and angst" kind of night... Weh.  Why?

(Listening to Relient K and Death Cab for Cutie is probably not helping anything....)

Taking a break from studying and The King's Speech is on Netflix.  I may just be kind of emotional and stressed right now, but I was pretty much crying.  It's such a good, inspiring, beautiful movie.  And now I need to take some of that inspiration, and go write a paper with it.  19 more days.  I can do this.

Argh!

My French class makes me want to cry and yell and throw things.  I think they're doing something wrong to make me this frustrated with everything about the class.  The bright spot?  It'll be over in two and a half weeks.  And then I'm not taking another French class for at least another four months.  Because if I did, I probably would cry and yell and throw things.  And I don't want to do those things.  So I'm going to give myself some time to chill out and teach myself the things that the book and teacher seem incapable to teaching me in a way that doesn't make me furious with them.

I'm listening to John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman right now, and it's making me want to cry.  Oh my word.  It's so hauntingly beautiful.

Reflections from the internet this week

Sometimes I am reminded  that Jesus calmed the raging sea

and I remember that my heart is a lake

a sea that has been raging for months

with storm clouds and sea monsters

and the rare days when it is calmer, the gray clouds still dapple the surface.

Sometimes I remind myself that those I love and do not know

are people with feelings and fears and loves of their own

that they can touch my life in deep and unexpected ways

and I have a welling desire to reach out and touch theirs back.

Sometimes I remember that the words I say,

I give to others, an offering of myself

a way of saying thanks for living my life with me

for sharing the same air,

for smiling at me in the morning when I'm not ready to say hello to you yet.

I remember that life doesn't have to feel like I'm struggling to stay on top of a wild animal,

like I am barely in control of a living, bucking thing.

I am reminded of peace.

Thank you for your words.

Joy on a Monday

I found out earlier in the evening that my favorite author of all time, Robin McKinley, became a Christian two months ago.  Like, for real crazy conversion experience.  And the amount of joy that this news gives me is incredible.  Like I have no words, and all the words that I have tried to use to explain it to people all fall short.  I've been reading her daily blog for about a year now, and it's like I know her.  I know all about her hobbies and her dogs and the things that annoy her and the things that make her happy, and I know how she thinks, how her brain works, how she strings words together to create stories and tales.  And the way her brain works is so similar to mine sometimes.  Because of the weird world of the internet, I love this stranger who lives thousands of miles away and is forty years older than I am.  And now she has a for real personal relationship with the God that I know personally as well.  And I'm so happy about this.  :D

Hello November

So I've given in, and I'm kind of doing NaNoWriMo this year.  But not completely, because I'm working on the story I started last year, and only got about 25% through.  So yeah.  That's happening.  And I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit.  I went back and read what I had written, and yeah there are rough spots, and words that I need to change.  But overall, I like it.  Which, has only happened once or twice to me.  That is, liking something I had written a year after I had written it.  It's like, not horrible writing.  But yeah, I'm kind of insane for doing it.  I'll probably fizzle out, but even if I do, I'll still have gotten farther than I was a couple days ago.

I'm so proud/happy

Good job, guys.  This brings me joy.

I also wanted to say that I started this blog exactly three years ago, tomorrow.

Mmmhhh

I had really strange dreams last night, full of adventures and weird mathematical baths.  I didn't want to wake up, not even necessarily because I was enjoying my dreams (some of them I was and some I wasn't) but because I was so deeply asleep.  I slept so well last night, and yesterday was wonderful.  It was the most relaxing day I've had in months and months.  And it was really great.  I read books and drank tea and watched musicals and put together puzzles and went to the library.  And it was so, so nice.  And I think today is going to be nice too, even though I have commitments and homework to do. :)

I'm in this mood right now that I think is best described as "joyfully nostalgic."  I was flipping through an old journal from my Junior year of high school, and I kept going "Oh, little Hannah," even though I wasn't that little, and it wasn't that long ago.  It was just that the entries had this feel to them, this kind of joyful, carefree tone even when I was writing about things that I was stressed about.  And that was a good year.  And I kind of miss it, not wishing I was there again, but just missing it despite being content/okay with where I am now, if that makes sense.  It was just so... something good and all-encompassingly okay.  I miss that feeling, or that mindset.  And I miss that me a little bit, while being happy for my personal growth since then.

I... really miss summer

Here.  Have a video that makes me feel all nostalgic and stuff for summer and things.

What is this nonsense?  Free time?  Being done with homework?  Doing things other than homework and not calling it a break, but just something that I'm doing?  Whoa.  Craziness.  I'd forgotten what this was like...  It's nice.  It's really nice.

Tonight...

Today...

I was in a weirdly fantastic mood.  But now I'm just sad.  So... there's that.  And I have two exams tomorrow.  Which is not helpful, you know.  I think that it's bedtime now, because it's been a really long day.

Another post brought to you by homework

Trying to do homework... It's not going super well.  I have to write two papers by tomorrow.  But I don't know how to structure either one of them.  So that's frustrating.  And I don't want to do it, so I'm trying to come up with some incentive to entice me to work hard.  But I can't think of anything.  Bah!  I don't particularly like writing papers, but I guess I am kind of good at it.  Given the number of them I have had to write in my academic life, I definitely should be by now.  And now I'm just rambling about whatever because I don't want to write these papers or study for these tests or do these readings.  Yay! Fun times that aren't actually very fun!  Whatever.  I'm going back into the fray.

Too much homework

It is so easy to fall into the trap of living in my own insular little world, forgetting that there is more there if I would just reach out and offer my hand.  But I'm afraid that I'm never going to remember this on a daily basis, and I'm afraid that I'm never going to measure up, not to other people and their achievements, but to myself.  And I'm afraid that I'm never going to be okay with depending on other people and asking them for things that I need.  I'm afraid that I'm never going to find a job or a career that will make me feel fulfilled, that I'm never going to love what I will spend my life doing.  I'm afraid that the people that I love don't love me back the way I love them, and I'm afraid that so much of the time I am unable to articulate how I feel about others.  I'm afraid that I fall into bad habits too easily, and fall out of good ones too easily as well.  And I'm really tired of being afraid.

It's only 2:15

And it's already been one of those days...

(via)
Nine hours to go. *Whimper*

I'm going to go wrap myself up in my beautiful homemade quilt, listen to TSwift, and sleep until my next class.

Tonight is a night for listening to chill/sad songs and drinking tea.  Though, let us be honest.  There are very few nights where tea is not a welcome addition.  I'm not even sad, I just want to listen to sad songs.  I suppose it's because school starts tomorrow, and so tonight is the last night of summer, although I said goodbye to summer a week (six days) ago.  Goodbye summer.  You were a good one.  Actually, no.  You weren't just good - you were a pretty perfect four months.  I will miss you, but I'm excited for the future, for this fall and beyond.  And so tonight is bittersweet, but more sweet than bitter.

I can't believe it's August

Oftentimes when I'm not feeling happy, I'll stop and ask myself "What do I want, right now?"  And often times I'm able to answer that question with something like "sleep" or "food" or "tea" or "chocolate."  Tonight I find that I have no clue what I want right now.  All I know is that I want something.  Or rather, I know exactly what I want, but I have no clue how to get it, or if it is even possible to gain via concentrated effort.

On moods and happiness

"The worst thing that could happen had finally happened.  And there was a kind of relief in it, maybe. " - John Green

It's hard to be a human being

Sleepy Sleep Sleep

It's late, and I should be in bed.  But I don't want to go to sleep.  Not for any reason, or anything.  I just don't feel like it.  But I am tired.  But I equally don't want to go to sleep.  Which is a bit of a problem, isn't it?  Luckily I don't have anything planned for tomorrow...  I should still go to sleep, unless I want to watch more Doctor Who, which is a bit of not the best plan, especially in the dark because of scary monsters.  And my sentence structure is going screwy, so I think I will go to sleep before I commit any more grammatical crimes.  Goodnight all.

The Swing

Summer nights

swinging gently

in my backyard

crickets in the background

your voice in my ear

the clouds above

hinting at rain

your thoughts

and my thoughts

melding into one,

fitting into each other

comfortably,

oh so comfortably.

I forget,

sometimes,

how this is,

what it feels like.

The relief of sharing

the comfort of talking

the absence,

nay, banishment,

of fear.

The amount of tired I am right now is excessive.  I haven't had a proper night's sleep in several/many days.  I don't know how many.  For several really good reasons that I am not going to get into right now.  So that is all sorts of fun.  The lock-in will be interesting as a result, probably.  But I am very well acquainted with my normal response to being really tired (I tend to get really cuddly.  Like really cuddly).   Anyway.  I am going to bed, and blah blah blah.  I don't even know why I am informing you of my exhaustion.

Miles to go before I sleep

Just finished Dragonhaven, again.  This might be the fourth time I've read it, but that's not important.  Tonight, I feel like the protagonist, exhausted and tired and still so much to do before really resting.  And I should explain that to my mother, and tell her that is why I really, really don't want to wash the dishes, but I don't really want to have that conversation, and I have probably like three other important things to do before work tomorrow.  And I am so, so tired.  Not physically tired, or mentally tired, but tired with the weight of responsibilities, given and assumed.  I just want to sleep.  Or cuddle with you.

Seeking closure more than a year later.  I don't know how well this will go.  Or if I will ever actually send the letters that I keep writing and rewriting, if I will ever say the words that are inside of me.  How far should I go?  How honest should I be?  Do you say the things that you know will not be well received even though they are important and hard and should be said by someone sometime?  Do you? And how do you do it?  How do you communicate in a way that will be understood correctly when there is such a history of misunderstanding and miscommunication?  How?  But write I must, and send I should.  (I think.)  It's time.  (I think.  I hope.)

Found

The feels.  All of them.  Good and bad and happy and sad and so full of everything.  I want to sing and cry and sit quietly in a park and stare at the stars with everyone that I’ve ever loved.  I want to dance in the street in the middle of a sudden summer storm, and I want to write poetry and stories about everything in the world, and many things that aren’t in the world.  I want to sit with my best friends in a pile of love and laughter and just be together.  I want to cry and rage and emote, pace up and down and rant to my second self about the things that upset me and then go throw things in the Arb.  I want to ride my bike down the steep, curvy roads in my hometown late at night, feel the wind rush past my chilled arms and face and just feel so alive.  I haven’t felt this alive in months.  I think I finally found myself again.

Thoughts from last night

Was I loving today?
Did I bless others?
Where is my heart?
What is the price for being in control?
Fear and fragility
Where is the path to freedom?
In giving up control
I've missed you.
I'm not in control.
And I have found freedom instead.

Tired is not sleepy.
Should does not equal can.
But I can create.
I am a words-smith, and fashion places for emotions to exist.
Will you come and sit with me?
Will you share my space?
Exist and feel my emotions?
Will you?

Things follow others.
Nothing new.
Nothing here, nor there.
All old.  All recycled.  All moments on a string
Like a necklace of pearl beads.
One, two, three, four...
My love
My pride.
Which is closer to my heart?
Indecision, waffling, confusion.
I choose my heart.
I choose your heart.
I love you.

It's been a day

So tired.  So very, very tired.  But not sleepy.  Tired, but not sleepy.  I'm watching Lost in Translation, again.  And enjoying it, again.  This is probably the fourth or fifth time I've watched it.  It is a good movie.  And perfect for the mood that I'm in right now.

I love you all.

Brave

I heard a word today,

which resonated deep inside my soul.

I opened my defenses,

let the echos resound deep and low.

You are brave,

they said.

You are Brave.

I let the syllables fall

deep, deep, deep

into my stomach,

past the shame

and the fear

and the little scurrying creatures that whisper lies when I can't sleep at night,

until it fell into the stinking cesspit where my deepest hurts lie.

It sunk, glowing with a soft radiance,

into the black muck and grime,

purifying and changing the fear into hope as it sunk ever deeper.

You are Brave.

You

Are

Brave

I'm always disappointed in myself when I want to go back and read a journal entry about a specific event, but find that I never wrote anything down about it.

It is hard to explain just how amazing the past ten days have been.  So I won't even try.

I love you so much, and I'm so glad that we've been able to hang out multiple times in the past week and a half.

As always, thank you for listening.

Sometimes life gives you a perfect moment, where everything just aligns and fits together and you are filled with such quiet happiness at the universe.  And sometimes, you get a string of them, hours or days of perfection.

The last four days have been filled with many of those moments.

AAARGHHHHHH!

My stomach is once again unhappy with me eating food.  I am really getting sick of this.  Though, I suppose part of the problem is that my mother needs to go grocery shopping, so there are only odds and ends in the house, and I am rather a picky eater.  My requirements for food: it tastes good, it does not have a strange texture, and it is not too spicy/flavorful (that makes my stomach unhappy).  Also, my stomach only lets me eat a certain amount of one kind of food per meal, so in order for me to eat an adequate amount, I need to have two or three things that I will eat and will not make my stomach unhappy per meal.  Which is occasionally difficult in our house, when my mother has not been grocery shopping in a while.

Just another summer day.

Good days.  Long days.  Relaxing days.  With good friends, and enjoyable things to do.  Hours do not hold power over me as they once did, as I can do whatever I like for however long I like.  I love summer vacation so darn much.

I made a new friend today.  Her name was Maggie, and she was four years old.  She shared my picnic in Bronson park and told me all about herself as her mother sat on a bench twenty yards away from us.  And then someone thought that she was my daughter...  Yeah, it was good times.

Sometimes I look at myself and shake my head at my idiosyncrasies.  I am kind of a weird person sometimes.  A lot of the time.  Yeah.

An Update

For all of you who were worried about me and my mental health - I seem to have found my normal positive outlook on life again.  I guess the best way to describe it would be to say that I had been thinking about the world and everything in a way that didn't reflect the way things actually were.  And I managed to recognize those things, and recognize the truth.  So I'm back to my normal, usually cheerful self.  Which I am quite glad of.  I am out of the pit of despair I have been trying to claw my way out of for the last several months, and I refuse to be dragged back in.

Things today

I have cried more in the past 24 hours than I have since... watching Passion, about a month or so ago... So that's not a great way to put that, I guess, if I was going for dramatic effect.  Anyways, it was all the dramatic movie crying, with the tears rolling silently down my cheeks.  And it was cathartic, and good.  I'm feeling better than I was last night.  I'm remembering things that I had forgotten, good things, helpful things.  Everything is going to be okay.  I've said it enough to other people, I might as well start believing it (deep inside of me) again.  I'm going to be okay.

I'm feeling really weird tonight.  And I don't know completely why.  I mean, I have a few hunches, but... I think I might be a little depressed.  My normal state of happiness and anticipation for the good things that are going to happen in the future has been suspended since at least mid-March.  I don't derive much happiness from the things that I used to love.  And everything is so gosh darn hard and complicated.  I don't know if I know who I am anymore, and I'm desperately clinging to my identity in God, but it's so hard when I can't feel anything.  I need someone I can depend on.  And I'm not talking peers.  I need a mentor.  And I need one bad.  I don't know if I've ever really had a mentor before, except for one of my friends at school.  But this past year, she was dealing with a bunch of stuff of her own, and couldn't pay much attention to me.  I just want someone to take an interest in me, really pursue me and initiate a deeper relationship.  Because sometimes I feel like I do all the initiation in so many of my friendships.  And I know that I have some childhood woundings, a history of friends betraying me, and not pursuing me, but me pursuing them.  And it's completely possible that my friends do pursue deeper relationship with me, and I can't see it because I take it for granted, or because I've been stumbling around in a foggy place mentally and emotionally, and spiritually too, for a couple of months.  Why does everything have to be so hard?

How can I ask my friends to support me, when they are dealing with stuff at the same time as I am?  When they need me to help hold them up, how can I ask them to hold me up?  And I want to be wise, and mature, and a good role model, and not burdensome.  But I'm not as wise as I want to be, nor as mature, nor as good a role model as I dream of, and I hope I am not a burden.  But we are supposed to carry each other's burdens, aren't we?

This is what was in my head tonight, along with a few other things.  I would say don't worry; I'm okay, but I think that wouldn't be the truth.  I'm just clinging to the promise of God:

Isaiah 32:15-20.

till the Spirit is poured on us from on high,
and the desert becomes a fertile field,
and the fertile field seems like a forest.
16 The Lord’s justice will dwell in the desert,
his righteousness live in the fertile field.
17 The fruit of that righteousness will be peace;
its effect will be quietness and confidence forever.
18 My people will live in peaceful dwelling places,
in secure homes,
in undisturbed places of rest.
19 Though hail flattens the forest
and the city is leveled completely,
20 how blessed you will be,
sowing your seed by every stream,
and letting your cattle and donkeys range free.

Hannah being home apparently means no blogging...  Sorry about that.  I don't have much to tell you.  I've basically been sitting around all day.  I organized, and threw things away (which is very hard for me to do, as I like to hoard things...  Throwing things away is so hard.  Until the thing is in the trash bag.  And then you wonder why you're held on for so long.), and cleaned, and unpacked, and moved many pounds of books from the house to the garage.  I also sat on facebook for several hours.  Yup.  And took a nap, and played video games.  I guess I did a lot of things today, actually.  They were all just things that aren't impressive/interesting.

I did flip through a couple of my old journals today, as I was looking for a specific entry from four years ago.  It was... amusing... or interesting... or a little cringe-inducing.  Reading them back, I was so young.  Or naive.  I was trying to figure out who I was in this world, and it's a little embarrassing to read that.  Especially as that was the year of my first huge crush (actually, I think my only huge crush... no, I guess there has been one other since then.  Maybe....  And Aaron doesn't count as a crush, because I was never infatuated with him.  Infatuation does not equal love in any sort of way.)...  Oh dear.  I was so... young.  Even though I was sixteen, I was still so young.  So that was interesting.

Tomorrow I get to hang with one of my best friends!  Yay! for summer vacation.

I am home.

And I am happy.  I slept about eleven hours last night, after hanging with Aaron for nine hours, which was fantastic.  I got a little sunburned, because we have a habit of hanging out in parks, and I forgot to put on sunscreen, but that just meant that I slept long and deeply last night.  I am regaining peace and normalcy, after this past semester when neither of those things were a part of my life.  I am so happy to be home.  And I get to hang out with Gwen tonight, which I am pretty jazzed about.

Thoughts in my head tonight

Endings are sad, even when you know that the next beginning will be so much better than the thing that is ending.

I need to start a list of projects for the summer.  Have I turned into someone who is only happy when they are busy with a project?  Oh dear lord, I hope not.

I should go to bed.  Or pack more.  Or go to bed so I can get up and pack in the morning before my mother gets here.

My room is sad and empty.  I am sad as well.  But it is a transient sadness.



I'M COMING HOME TOMORROW!  ARMFLAIL!

Lalalalalala

Instead of writing my take home final, I've been watching things like this...



1 day!
Happy Dance!

Float On

2 (Two!) More days till finals are over.
3 more days till I'm home!
4 days till I get to see some of my favorite people in the world!

So....

I was sitting on my bed an hour or so ago working on my paper, thinking about how great it is that my mind is cooperating and supplying me with lots of words and sentences and ideas, and that I've actually learned stuff from this class, and how cool that is.  And then I realized I was clacking my hands together in a pincher movement, rocking back and forth, and quietly chanting "wordswordswordswords".  O_o What is wrong with me?

5 days!

How I feel this morning

(apologies to Gwen.  Oh wait, she doesn't read peoples blogs. Nevermind)

Spamming, Shenanigans, and Spiels

I wrote a long blog post this morning that I didn't finish.  And I'm still not done with it so you're not getting it tonight.  Oh well.  Today was a good day, once I embraced the fact that I wasn't going to get any work done at all.  I was on facebook for hours and hours.  Most of the day, in fact.  I watched one movie and part of another.  I played many, many games of solitaire.  I listened to a sermon.  I tried to write a blog post.  And I enjoyed not having class and not having a ton to do.  I still have some things to write and study for, but the end is actually, really in sight.  Finally.  And I am regaining my normal positive outlook on life.  Yeah.  Life is good again.  That isn't to say that in the midst of writing a paper tomorrow, I won't be all "WAHHHHH PAPERS ARE OBNOXIOUS!"  But things are better, and more normal.  I think.  I hope.  I believe.

I can do this!



6 days!

I like this poem

LINES COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON REVISITING THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR. JULY 13, 1798 by William Wordsworth

      FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length
      Of five long winters! and again I hear
      These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
      With a soft inland murmur.--Once again
      Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
      That on a wild secluded scene impress
      Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
      The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
      The day is come when I again repose
      Here, under this dark sycamore, and view                        10
      These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
      Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
      Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
      'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
      These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
      Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
      Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
      Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
      With some uncertain notice, as might seem
      Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,                     20
      Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire
      The Hermit sits alone.
                              These beauteous forms,
      Through a long absence, have not been to me
      As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
      But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
      Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
      In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
      Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
      And passing even into my purer mind,
      With tranquil restoration:--feelings too                        30
      Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
      As have no slight or trivial influence
      On that best portion of a good man's life,
      His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
      Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
      To them I may have owed another gift,
      Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
      In which the burthen of the mystery,
      In which the heavy and the weary weight
      Of all this unintelligible world,                               40
      Is lightened:--that serene and blessed mood,
      In which the affections gently lead us on,--
      Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
      And even the motion of our human blood
      Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
      In body, and become a living soul:
      While with an eye made quiet by the power
      Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
      We see into the life of things.
                                       If this
      Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft--                        50
      In darkness and amid the many shapes
      Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
      Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
      Have hung upon the beatings of my heart--
      How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
      O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,
      How often has my spirit turned to thee!
        And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
      With many recognitions dim and faint,
      And somewhat of a sad perplexity,                               60
      The picture of the mind revives again:
      While here I stand, not only with the sense
      Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
      That in this moment there is life and food
      For future years. And so I dare to hope,
      Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
      I came among these hills; when like a roe
      I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
      Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
      Wherever nature led: more like a man                            70
      Flying from something that he dreads, than one
      Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
      (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
      And their glad animal movements all gone by)
      To me was all in all.--I cannot paint
      What then I was. The sounding cataract
      Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
      The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
      Their colours and their forms, were then to me
      An appetite; a feeling and a love,                              80
      That had no need of a remoter charm,
      By thought supplied, nor any interest
      Unborrowed from the eye.--That time is past,
      And all its aching joys are now no more,
      And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
      Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts
      Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
      Abundant recompence. For I have learned
      To look on nature, not as in the hour
      Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes                    90
      The still, sad music of humanity,
      Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
      To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
      A presence that disturbs me with the joy
      Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
      Of something far more deeply interfused,
      Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
      And the round ocean and the living air,
      And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
      A motion and a spirit, that impels                             100
      All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
      And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
      A lover of the meadows and the woods,
      And mountains; and of all that we behold
      From this green earth; of all the mighty world
      Of eye, and ear,--both what they half create,
      And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
      In nature and the language of the sense,
      The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
      The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul                  110
      Of all my moral being.
                              Nor perchance,
      If I were not thus taught, should I the more
      Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
      For thou art with me here upon the banks
      Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
      My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
      The language of my former heart, and read
      My former pleasures in the shooting lights
      Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
      May I behold in thee what I was once,                          120
      My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
      Knowing that Nature never did betray
      The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
      Through all the years of this our life, to lead
      From joy to joy: for she can so inform
      The mind that is within us, so impress
      With quietness and beauty, and so feed
      With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
      Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
      Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all                    130
      The dreary intercourse of daily life,
      Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
      Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
      Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
      Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
      And let the misty mountain-winds be free
      To blow against thee: and, in after years,
      When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
      Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
      Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,                       140
      Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
      For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
      If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
      Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
      Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
      And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance--
      If I should be where I no more can hear
      Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
      Of past existence--wilt thou then forget
      That on the banks of this delightful stream                    150
      We stood together; and that I, so long
      A worshipper of Nature, hither came
      Unwearied in that service: rather say
      With warmer love--oh! with far deeper zeal
      Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
      That after many wanderings, many years
      Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
      And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
      More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

Tonight I wish...

8 Days, not counting the hours left today until I sleep.

Meh

I wrote this a couple of days ago.  I'm actually feeling happier today, which is good.

***

I am sad tonight, for no reason whatsoever (freaking hormones).  And I hate that.  And there is no way that I can think of to make myself feel better.  I just have to endure.  I am getting tired of enduring, of waiting, of patience.  I am getting tired of accepting that this is the way things are right now.  I am tired of all the crap in my friends' lives.  I am tired of my mind being fuzzy and not focusing.  I am tired of fear.  I am tired of being tired all the time.  I am sick of it all.  And I am sick of my coping mechanisms.  How I take my feelings, my tiredness to books and stories instead of to God.  I seek healing and life but settle for numbness.  I run away instead of engaging.  And I am so sick of it, and so sick of watching myself make decisions that I know are bad ideas, but which I have too little self-control to not make.

God!  I need you.  So much.  I am so inadequate.

***



9 days

Feeling Better

Sometimes, you think you need sleep, but what you really need is God.

God is good.

What is motivation, and where can I download some?

I am sitting here, staring at my computer, knowing what I need to do before tomorrow, and unable to summon any motivation to do it.  At all.

And I am sad, oppressed by a meaningless sadness that has no actual cause other than some stupid chemicals produced by my body going out of whack for a couple of days.

I freaking hate hormones.

Especially because I know that what I am feeling is a lie, and yet I still cannot summon up happiness or motivation.  I am still slouching here, my face slack and my eyes sad.

10 days.

Hang On, by Guster

Hang On :
Here we are inside a novel
Waiting for an end
We don't know the authors of the book
Maybe someone's writing chapters
For us while we sleep
From a million miles away

Stuck without a captain or a chart
No one seems to know just who to follow anymore
Hang on
Hang on
There's a twilight
A nighttime and a dawn
Who knows
How long
Just hang on
Hang on

If we fell inside a forest
Would it make a sound
Doesn't seem there's anyone around
Days are long and carry on
We still don't understand
We're a million miles away 

Stuck without a captain or a chart
No one seems to know just who to follow anymore
Hang on
Hang on
There's a twilight
A nighttime and a dawn
Who knows
How long
Just hang on
Hang on

Hang on
Hang on
When all is shattered
When all your hope is gone
Who knows
How long
There is a twilight
A nighttime and a dawn

We break
We bend
Hold my hand
Pretend
When your hope is gone
Just hang on
Hang on

13 days

Homework schmomework

I seem to be having trouble with my homework.  See, I know that I need to do it for tomorrow.  I know that.  And yet I cannot seem to make myself get up off my behind and actually work on it.  I did look at it, went "My brain doesn't want to" and then I didn't do it.  There is just so much more interesting and fun and amusing and great things to be doing.  Life demands to be lived, not filled with things I don't care about.  And yet I don't seem to be doing those great things instead of doing things I don't care about.

15 days

"You know some days are aces, and some days are faces, Well some days are twos and threes."

Paper writing, etc.

So even though I'm in the middle of writing a paper, I'm actually in a pretty good mood right now.  I'm wondering if my mood of death for the past couple of days has been partially caused by dread of writing this paper, and now that I'm actually doing it, I feel better.  I mean, there are obviously other reasons as well (more deaths in the past week, Alyssa's grandma and Lisa's great uncle), but I'm thinking that the paper actually had a larger impact than I thought.  Also the presentation I have to give in a week and a half, but now that I've seen a couple of my classmates do theirs, I feel better.  So yeah.  I'm actually kind of happy right now.  All those shenanigans on facebook didn't hurt, even though I didn't participate in them because I was writing this paper.  And I'm coming home tomorrow to see you lovelies!

Also, because patterns in numbers make me happy, there have been 2323 page views on this blog, and I've written 432 posts :)

It's been one of those days

Except I'm both Calvin and his parents.  If that made sense.  I'm exhausted and at some point you need to know when to give up.  I'm going to bed now, and hopefully things will be better in the morning.

Yeah...

Time. Ahh, time.

Waiting for things to come
Waiting for days and minutes and hours.
Sometimes I feel like my whole life is waiting.
Waiting for the bus,
waiting for class,
waiting for a reply,
waiting for my appetite to come back,
waiting for sleep,
waiting for my emotions to settle
waiting for you
waiting for me.
One would think that all of my busyness would fill up this empty time spent waiting.
It doesn't.
And so I wait.
For rest
For summer
For you
and for me.

I don't even know what normal feels like anymore.

Reading you

I have trouble reading you sometimes
When we're on the phone
and you're quiet
and I've had a hard week
and my people energy is low.
I have trouble communicating sometimes,
or at least I feel as if I do
my words shrivel up
turn into empty husks
with no meat, no meaning, inside.
But even in the midst of such trouble
such internal difficulties,
if I can make you laugh,
I know that you're going to be all right.
And if you're going to be all right,
then I know that I'm going to be all right too.

Fizzylimon is my favorite

On heros (and heroines)

I've been thinking about the concept of the hero, recently, thinking about what heroics mean, who heros are. I've spent much of my life reading stories, and much of those stories are about heros. Granted, some were bildungsromans (coming of age novels), but many of the books I've read over the years involved a hero. And those books and stories are all well and good. The hope, the wish to be a hero is a good one. We are all unique, and we all have a unique role to play in the story that God has created, and who's to say that I'm not being a hero to someone, just by living my life the way I am, just by keeping to the course that I've set for myself? Who's to say that my smallest decision will not affect someone's life for good forever?

I've turned my back on the classical idea of the hero. I can never be that kind of person, who is so certain and sure about their mission, who sweeps in with strength and courage and saves the day in a flash of glamor and prestige. I'm not the protagonist in a typical fantasy novel, who has adventures and is constantly within an inch of their life, but in the end is victorious, like you always knew they would be. I just am not. I am too unsure, too full of messiness, too tired, too something to be that kind of hero. But. But, there is a kind of hero that I can be.

I've read most, if not all of Robin McKinley's books, and I would recommend them to you if you like fantasy (not Sunshine, or Deerskin, though. Those have bad parts). Her heroines (as well as the hero or two she's written about) are not in the typical hero mold. Not strong, in the typical sense of the word. Not confidant (in fact, often small and insecure). Not certain, or glamorous. The people they help often see them with distrust at first. They are outsiders, they are different. And they only do what they can because they must; there is no one else there, no one else to even try to save the country, village, dragon, world, community. They do what they can, because they must, and it turns out to be enough. They endure, because it is the only thing they can do, and they act when it is the only thing they can do.  In their heroics, they utterly expend themselves. They give up every last bit of their energy in pursuit of their goal, and if it is not enough, then they are dead, but the goal was important enough to them to warrant their last strength. I can't be a typical heroine, but I can be a Robin McKinley heroine. I can't face my fights with certainty in my own prowess, but I can face them with courage and because I must. I can't fight my battles with hope of winning every single one of them, but I can fight them. And I don't know what I'm doing most of the time, but that's okay. God has made me to be me, and my actions flow out of my character, and I have to hope that is enough. I have to hope that my actions, even actions filled with uncertainty, will be enough. And if I am tired all the time, then that is the price I pay.

Who's to say that my life, living quietly for the ones I love, is not more heroic than a man who rescues someone from a burning building? Who's to say that every time that you chose to deny yourself and do the harder thing, you are not being a hero? Who gets to decide?

Who is more heroic, the man who does one courageous deed one time and is forever hailed as a hero, or the man who lives a quiet courageous life, holding out hope in circumstances that tempt him to despair?

There are so many unsung heros in this world, and many who deserve awards and accolades and plaques from their local authorities never receive them. But they are still heros.  James, who has a plaque from the city of Kalamazoo honoring him for his heroic actions (if you don't know the story, ask me about it sometime), doesn't believe that he was the real hero in the situation. He applauds another, who didn't get recognized, but who, he believes, did more to save a life than he did.  The thing is, he was just in the right place in the right time, and did the right thing. And got called a hero for it. His friend, who was also in the right place at the right time and did the right thing, didn't.

How do you know that you are not a hero? It takes courage to face your demons over and over again. It takes courage to live your day-to-day life without despair.  

It Never Rains But it Pours

More bad news, as if Sunday's wasn't bad enough.  Allison's grandmother died this morning.  She's been unwell for a while, but it was still a surprise.  I haven't talked to Allison in ages, actually.  I've seen and talked to her mother, little sister, and brother more recently than I have her.  It still hurts.  Actually, hurts isn't the right word.  It just made me a little more numb, a little sadder, a little less enthusiastic (though at this point, I am on the negative side of neutral about my homework) about forcing my brain to study.  I am enduring these last three or so weeks until summer vacation, because the show must go on.  The why is irrelevant, it simply must.

And I suppose that I am okay, or at least, the most okay I could be in the midst of things in my life right now.  And I am sorry if that is vague, and if you are wondering what news I got on Sunday, but I am not ready to say it, even to you lovely people who read my blog.  Aaron knows.  Alyssa knows.  And I haven't really talked to anyone else this week, about anything, really.  I suppose the term would be preoccupied, if you wanted to describe my mental state right now.

I also have a headache.

On the brighter side, tonight I am going to sign a contract that will give me a place to live next year.  So that's good.  Also, it's beautiful outside.  And I'm wearing a skirt that I really like that swishes when I walk down stairs in a way that makes me think of the way cuttlefish move.  So life is kind of okay right now.  And the weekend is so close.

[I'm pretty sure I'm okay.]

I'm feeling better now than I was earlier.  I slept (kind of) for a couple of hours in a sort of nest thing made of blankets and stuffed animals, shed a tear or two, watched a movie, and ate an astoundingly unhealthy dinner (which I'm regretting).

Today, I am the kind of tired
that originates in your mind and soul
and permeates your muscles and movements
until you walk slow and sad
feet shuffling
on broken pavement.
Today I am the kind of sad
that hot chocolate and movies cannot fix
even though they make it a little better
for a little while.
Today, I am the kind of cold
that requires a jacket or two,
even though the sun is shining,
trying to warm the chilly air.
I want to curl up in a ball,
lay in the sunlight slanting into my room
sleep
forget all of my responsibilities.
I am afraid that I'm isolating myself,
but I can't seem to stop pulling away.

Blogging things

So I just switched to the new blogger.  And I'm not sure if I like it, yet.  At least I understand why Blogger has been acting up periodically for a couple months; they've been implementing new code and stuff.  So that makes sense now.

I also imported all of my posts from my other blog into this one.  I mean, the reason I started the other blog in the first place was because I was shy about sharing my poetry.  Because some of it was mushy and about Aaron, and I was being super shy about him.  But there's not really a reason for the other blog now, so I'm merging the two, and will probably delete the other one, since all the posts (and comments) are now here.  I do want to say that it was super easy to import my blog (once I realized that Safari, not blogger, was the problem), which was nice.

My day has been:

Happy things.
Sad things.
Bad things?
Good things.
Lovely things.

Lovely friends.

"Before my parents left, I remember being slightly alarmed by how indirectly news flowed to and from Clare, Da, Raphael, and even William.  But now, this business of giving and receiving information through third parties makes sense.  Or feels familiar."
I am slightly sad tonight.  Happiness does not always counteract sadness.  They exist, side by side, neither of them affecting the existence of the other.

I am sorry.
I am sorry for your sadness.
I am sorry for your tears.
I am sorry for the way your life seems to be falling apart around you
And the way I do not know how to reach out to you.
Despite how close, we are still so far away.
Despite wanting to bridge the gap
The gap remains.
I love you.
And I know that I don't say it enough, but it's true.
I love you.
We all do, you know.
Know that we love you.
Know that we care.
These tears, tonight, are for you.
And I pray that in your distress, you would reach out to the God of comfort who longs to bring you peace.

Today

It's been another day in which I didn't get what I wanted to/needed to get done done.  Another day of failed opportunities.  I'm tired of this pattern, but I'm starting to wonder if the problem is not my pattern of being unable to get things done and being lazy, but rather my attempts to be someone I'm not or do things that I can't.  Maybe the problem is the fact that I'm trying to do this on my own, too much of the time.  Maybe the problem is that I am not a machine and thus cannot function as one, no matter how hard I try to force myself to.  I try to be efficient, and that's good, up to a point, but it's not everything.  And human beings aren't naturally efficient anyway.

I don't know.  I didn't spend enough time with God this morning, and it showed all day.

And Alyssa's three friends are here this weekend, which is fun and all, but is a little hard on me, cause I'm not really getting true alone time.

And I have homework things that I really need to get done this weekend.  And I haven't really done any work on them.

Things are hard sometimes.  But I know that everything is going to be okay in the end.

It's hard to put into words how much I really, really love my friends.  I just appreciate them so gosh-darn much.  I am so very fond of them.  And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we're going to be friends for the rest of our lives and beyond.

Personality Tests Revisited

So one of my favorite Youtubers (I have a lot of favorite youtubers), fizzylimon, just made a video about his personality type, INFJ.


And I was watching this, and I thought, "this sounds a bit like me (especially the internalizing of stress).  I think that I'll retake the Myers-Briggs test."  So I did.  Turns out that I'm actually an IXFJ (or an IS/NFJ), which means that I'm pretty much equally strong in Intuition and Sensing.  So that's interesting.  I guess I'm both a Guardian and a Counselor?  Hmmm.

I miss you.
I miss hot summer nights.
I miss the first time I heard this song and loved it, in the practice rooms behind the band room, when we were supposed to be playing piano, but instead we sometimes snuck out to the park instead and played hooky.  You played it for me, and even though I had heard it before, I loved it because you loved it.
And now, it embodies perfect summer nights.
All the people I've shared secrets with while the cicadas sang.
All the love I've felt while sitting outside under the summer sky.
All the breaths of muggy night air I've breathed.
This song embodies such beauty.
Such love.
Such quiet promises.
(I love you) it whispers.
(I love you)

Everything is all ajlfoahgprnaglbsdfpahwfohwalfghwaohfwoei in my head right now.  Heavy thoughts, friend's burdens, intensity, and yeah.  Only by God's grace are we still going right now.

Another Youtube video!

This is mildly entertaining until 3:42, when it becomes fantastically hilarious and awesome.

Mmm... Words.

The fear* is speaking tonight; AKA An open letter to my friends, but especially to you; AKA Muddled

This was the only video I easily found on youtube with the original of this song.  It's going on your next mixtape, obviously.

Play it while you read this.  It will enhance your reading experience.

*actually, I think everything in my head is speaking tonight.  This is basically unedited, just everything in my head out for your reading pleasure.  Note: A lot of these things, when I'm in a different mood, I don't believe.  Or they don't seem so bleak.  What I'm saying is that you don't need to worry about my mental sanity right now.  But at night, at the end of a day when it seems that despite being productive, I have done nothing worthwhile, the fear speaks.  The worries I have pushed down into my subconscious rise to the surface all muddled and writhing.  Actually, that's their greatest power, the fact that they lie just under my conscious reasoning, and have direct access to my moods and the neurotransmitters that change my emotions.  Once fully examined and worked through, they have no power.  But I have no time, nor energy to deal with them, because they are sapping too much of my time and energy.  A classic catch-22.


So often I find myself unable to form thoughts into words.  The things that I want to say always sound so flat, so uninspired, so insipid and useless, so empty of all of the force and emotion they carry in my mind.  I find myself reading other people's words, and sometimes they help, but so often they don't.  And I long for connection with other people, and when I find that, true connection, I never want it to end, even though I'm an introvert.  Because true, good connection with people who constitute my good friends, that's as good as or better than alone time.  And I spend a lot of time alone.  But yeah.  One of the reasons I'm so cuddly sometimes, why I desire and appreciate physical touch so much, is that sometimes, people only seem real if I'm touching them.  Like I need that tactile sense of their existence.  I pour so much of myself into school, because it demands so much.  I pour myself into my friends, into their needs.  And I keep a little for myself, as a hopefully untouched reserve for those terrible days when nothing goes right and everyone is miserable, and everything is just wrong, wrong, wrong.  Some days I go through life, my brain and heart running on almost empty, but I have nothing to fill it with except rest, which is so far away sometimes.  Some days I go through life with a vague sense of unease, and I am learning to turn to God with that, to ask him what I'm uneasy about, and then pray about it, and give it to him.  But it is so hard sometimes to give those things and people to God.  I just want to hold them tight, to keep a mental and emotional grip on them when I cannot physically be with them.  But I am learning to give them to God, and keep giving them to God, again and again every minute.  I am learning how to live life without using myself up completely, and it mainly means relying on God.  I literally could not survive without God.  I would go completely insane, like mental breakdown insane, sit in a nice room and draw pretty pictures.  We read an article for one of my classes today about a man who cannot remember anything prior to the thought that he is currently thinking, who lives in an eternal now, and who doesn't even realize that he can't remember the past fifteen years of his life.  And for a moment, I envied him.  He had no stress, because he had no memory.  "How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! / The world forgetting, by the world forgot / Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! / Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd. "  And yet.

All of this makes it sound like I'm in an almost bad mood, or just depressed, or sad, or something.  But I'm not.  I actually had a pretty good day today, and have been on the good side of neutral the past few days.  It's just that all of this comes into my head some nights.  When I am here, and you are there, and it feels like none of my words will ever bridge the gap satisfactorily.  All the words I can summon end up being a prayer asking God to be with you.

And I am aware that most of the time, I am worried about nothing.  I worry all the time, though I try not to, and so it goes subterranean, deep inside of me it accesses my subconscious, and comes out in funny ways, in my eating and sleeping habits, in my late night rambles that I try not to write or say because they are always full of such fear, and I spend my life battling fear.  Fear of being childish, of being unwise, or immature, of not being responsible, of failing in a big way, of not being able to sustain myself, of, I suppose, depending on others too much.  I am so afraid, so much of the time.  And I am so sick of it.  I was talking to one of my friends earlier, and she was talking about how sick and tired she was of all of her issues, those things that she has to fight against every day just to keep functioning.  But God didn't call us to a life of just functioning.  He called us to a life of living, of abundant living.  I get so frustrated sometimes, because I know that I am not living life abundantly.  I know that there is more, but it always seems so far away, so out of reach, somewhere I can just glimpse it but never grasp it.  And I suppose that if I could grasp it by my own efforts, I would forget about God, so he constantly frustrates my attempts to gain real life by other means than himself.  But as I try to access it through him, I run up against my own human frailties.  Which is frustrating and annoying and throughly exasperating.  I honestly cannot wait to shuck off this frail human body, with its ridiculousness and hormones and the muddiness it gives to my thoughts.  The closer I grow to God, the more I see that I am a soul, and I have a body.  And my soul wants to be with God, and my body wants food, sleep, immediate gratification, often things that I know that I (my soul) really doesn't want.

Everything is so complicated sometimes, or rather, is so muddled sometimes, so full of non-clarity and deception, so full of muddiness and messiness and so many darn rules and stupid things.

And so often I wish I had the time to sit down and think all of my thoughts through, to follow them to their conclusions instead of losing the half-finished bits in my dreams.  I wish I had the time to take to craft my sentences, my vowels and consonants, the flow of the words that I speak, so that they maximized the amount I could communicate to others, especially you.  I'm sorry that sometimes I don't take the time.  I'm sorry that I'm only human.


And as I finally decide to go to bed, an hour after my bedtime, I will leave you on a more positive note.  Happy Pi Day!

A hopefully coherent blogpost

Well, it's late(ish).  It's late to me, who normally goes to bed by 12, but I'm not ready to go to bed yet.  I just finished watching The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang from Doctor Who, which are immensely satisfying and just so good, and have so many fantastic lines and exchanges of dialogue.  Mmmm, so good.  I've spent the afternoon reading and lounging around, watching youtube videos, talking to my friend Ria, and generally relaxing.  And it's been so fantastic to just chill, and try not to think about all of the things that I need to be thinking about.  This evening was about me, and it was just what I needed.  I'm going to sleep well tonight, and won't have an alarm set for the morning.  Though I will probably get up early, because that's what my body is used to, and end up taking a nap later on.  Mmmm, that sounds rather lovely.  I'm comfortably tired, and looking forward to sleeping a long time.  Goodnight, my lovelies.

This is why I appreciate this man so much

I feel mixed up today.  It's beautiful outside, and my window is open.  I'm wearing a dress, which I'm excited and happy about, and I'm listening to some new music that I just bought.  But I realized this morning that the last two times I've gone to the ATM to get money out of my saving account, it took it out of my checking account, which has resulted in my overdrafting my account.  I immediately transferred some of my money from my savings to my checking, but still.  Really Bank? Really?  Stupid.  Ah well.  And I guess this as well.  So I am a mixture of good things and bad things and happy thoughts and sad thoughts today.  But it is gorgeous out, which kind of trumps everything else.

It's going to be a good day, I've decided.

Internet, you are failing your job, which is to amuse me.  I suppose I could go do my homework, which is what I'm trying not to do right now.  I don't want to!  But I know that if I don't right now, I will regret it later.  And I don't want to regret it later.  But I don't want to read about the varied meanings of liturgical processions in 12th century Rome when I'm on Spring Break!  And I am not exaggerating.  That is the exact subject of the articles I have been assigned to read.  Blah!

So basically your life is incomplete if you don't watch this.

Hank Green tweeted it, and I can't stop listening/watching it, because it's so amazing.




Also, I have the best friends in the whole wide world, and I just appreciate them so darn much.

Things thusly

So far, Spring Break has been meeting and surpassing all of my hopes and expectations.  Mmm, I do love breaks and chances to relax.  And friends.  And relaxing with friends.  Yeah.

It's been a fantastic thirty hours since I've gotten home

Yeah... :D

This was in my sub-box right when I checked youtube after changing my relationship status on facebook.  And it made me very happy.

I don't want to play

I don't want to do homework, and I don't want to spend more time searching for information that doesn't seem to exist.

I was sitting in class today, listening to my classmates talk about thinking about thinking, and I just didn't care.  I didn't agree with the article we had read, thought the author was kind of a jerk, and honestly just didn't want to be there.

And I was thinking about something that they tell you when you go to college: you should spend 3 hours of studying/homework for every hour you spend in class. According to that estimate, I should be spending 42 hours, in addition to my 14 hours of class, every week on school.  Which, quite frankly, is a giant load of bullcrap.  Show me someone who can spend 56 hours a week on mentally challenging work, and I will shake their hand.  Because I couldn't do it.  I can't do it.

All this to say, that I wish it was spring break.  I wish I was home, and not worrying about this stuff (though, let's be honest, I will have homework over break, so I will be worrying about it.).  I just want to be able to complete this homework, without feeling like I'll let down my teacher if I can't find what he wants me to look for.

Remember how a long time ago, I promised pictures of my room?

And then I didn't deliver?  Well, here's a virtual tour of my room :)
Here is Alyssa in our (Christmas tree) tent:

The mirror next to the door.

The door of my closet.

The view when you first walk into our room.

The lovely Happy Birthday sign Alyssa made me.  Every picture on it she colored with colored pencils, and they all have some significance to me, or are an inside joke.

Another picture of the sign.

My bookshelf, which currently has no books on it

Alyssa's closet and dragon (He's festive).

Alyssa's wall and the tent with its samurai newspaper hat.

Looking at the Christmas tree and my bed area.

My desk and Christmas lights.

Above my bed.

This is above where I often sit on my bed.

And finally, looking at the door.

I am allowed to rest and take breaks from busyness

I am currently surrounded by letters, journals, chocolate, a teapot, teacup and saucer, my bible, hole punch, tape and scissors.  I'm listening to seven hours worth of playlists that I've put together over the past year and a half.  I'm happy, calm, content to rest and think happy thoughts.

Here's a shot of my bed:

And here's some of the walls around my bed: