-a brief reflection on 2009

This picture depicts two things that make my heart smile=Alicia + Glee


2009 brought about many new experiences. I met a lot of new people. People who were very different from me, but people who have helped me learn, grow and become a better and more accepting person. People who have been there through my new experiences and helped me see a different side of things. I can only say that I'm very thankful for the many new friends I have made, and those friends that I've become closer to in 2009. I'm thankful for the lessons that I learned in 2009. I've had a very topsy turvy kind of year. That's the best way that I can describe it. I only hope that 2010 will bring me even closer to my new friends and bring about many more experiences to help me learn and grow and become a better person.


Bring it on 2010.



Peace and love.

--ponderings--

Lately I've been feeling sort of blah. I've been feeling like my life is going no where. I've felt hopeless and just sort of sick of my life. Not sick of living...just sick of the monotonous life that I've been living for the past months since graduating from college. My life has no frills or excitement. I've been going through the motions every day. I wake up, go to work, come home, go to bed...the cycle continues. I have various things that I'm involved in like choir, praise team, teaching two year old Sunday school. But other than that I have no other hobbies or distractions from the 40 hour a week job I have. I don't look forward to work, in fact, I dread it. I have mixed emotions about my job. For the most part, I really don't like it. I don't like the drama, the set-up, and a couple of co-workers...and it can be super stressful [especially when you have 9, 3 year old, kids all to yourself and some of them become very defiant and do not want to listen to you] I've come close to my breaking point several times in the past few weeks when I've just wanted to scream at them and spank them. But of course if I did that, I'd be fired. I certainly do not need that. I need this job. I need the money. I need the experience. But I'm so unhappy with it. Yes, it is giving me an income, and experience. Two positive things. But my heart is not in it at all. Sometimes I enjoy the kids. They can be silly, and loving...at times. I do not know the background of most of these kids, but I know many are from very broken living environments and not so good homes. I don't know if these kids experience the kind of love that I can give them. Sure they have parent(s), but I don't know how that "love" is shown to them. I could be the one warm thing that they get every day. I just don't know. But other than thinking that might be the only reason why I'm working where I am, I don't want to be there. I want to feel like I'm doing something great. Something meaningful and extraordinary. I don't feel like I'm really living a meaningful life. My heart is not in any of the things that I do. I try. Not hard enough though I've found. This is obvious in the way my attitude is reflecting on the things that I'm doing. I'm not happy with what I'm doing. I want to do something different. I want to quit doing some things and not have those responsibilities anymore. I want to move on. I want to move away. I feel like I'm being squashed into this tiny box of a life. I feel very limited. But I get scared when new things come along. But I need something new. I want to feel something new. I hate to sound like such a pessimistic person and all, but I just don't feel like my life is full of meaning right now. Why am I where I am? Why am I doing what I'm doing? Why do I feel the way I do? I feel so far away from where I feel like I'm suppose to be. If that even makes sense. I hate that sometimes I feel like I'm completely alone when I'm surrounded by people. I hate feeling like no one else understands what I'm going through. Then I get mad at myself for feeling like my life and situation is so much worse than everyone else around me. I'm so selfish. I'm so narrow-minded. Both very true things. I can also be very two-faced. I saw one thing and do the other. Or I say..."I'd never do that" but then turn around and do it. Man have I ever changed in the last year on certain issues. I don't feel like I'm a bad person, but I do feel like there are some things that I need to keep on the down low. It's funny as I write this one of my favorite Switchfoot songs has come on and it goes like this:

I wish I had what I needed to be on my own...cause I feel so defeated and I'm feeling alone. And it all seems so easy and I have no plans...I'm on a plane in the sunset with nowhere to land. And all I see it could never make me happy..and all my sandcastles spend their time collapsing. Let me know that You hear me. Let me know Your touch. Let me know that You love me. And let that be enough.

The song matches my mood completely. These are words that I would write. I've felt very far away from God for quite a while. I've tried to get closer, but all to no avail. I've failed miserably. I'm in this state of wanting to be independent. I need to feel independent. Maybe it's because I've always done the "church" thing and I was brought up in a Christian home. I'm not bashing my upbringing, my parents, the church, or God at all. It's just something I feel like my life has always been "caught up" in but has gone through many dry periods. Maybe I'm in a rebellious phase right now. Maybe I need distance, but can't get it...so my moods and attitude have been terrible for quite a while. My last year at college was one in which I sort of rebelled from the whole church scene. At school, I had freedom. I had to make the choice to get up and go to church on Sundays and be involved in Bible Studies. Now I will say I did remain faithful to Monday Night Bible Study, although, my attitude did not reflect one of a servants heart and it was more of a chore for me to go every week. That did change though about 6 weeks from the end of the year. We changed up worship. We did worship in the stairwell. For some reason, that changed how I felt about MNBS worship. It was so incredible. And it touched my heart. But the whole church thing was very up and down. I was not happy where I was. For various reasons. It had lost the feel it had my first two years there. Then my third year I feel out of going there for a couple of reasons. Then I went back again Senior year and did not feel completely comfortable so I left again. But I really didn't ever find another permanent church to attend my last semester of college. There was a period of several weeks where I just did not go at all. This was part of my "rebellious" stage if that's what you want to call it. I just felt like I had gotten stuck in this pattern of going to church when my heart was really not it in. I was going through the motions of church and playing my part in the stain glass masquerade every week. I didn't feel like anyone really knew me or my struggles and those that might have cared...didn't take the time to really ask...or I wouldn't let on that I was struggling. I was drowning without a life raft, so I decided to get out of the church boat and try life on my own. Still kind of doing that right now. I'm floating on the broken pieces of my life raft. Just floating and not really going anywhere and not really flailing about screaming to be saved. It's more of a silent struggle where I am trying to do life on my own. Now that I'm blogging about it...it's out there. But it doesn't mean that I'm going to change. I hate asking for help. I don't want to be needy. I just want to be free. Independent. I know all the right things, and I know what I'm suppose to do. But I just don't want to. Maybe I'm waiting on something else to happen. Something big that will change me. But maybe I'm missing what that big thing is. Maybe I'm already there. Maybe I'm just living day to day and not realizing what extraordinary things that are there for me to do. To become. I want to be remembered as someone who has done things. Not great things, but extraordinary things. I want to be remembered as being good. Bold. Courageous. Kind. Loving. Honest. Loyal. Caring. Selfless. One who reflected her Creator in everything she did or said. Right now, could I be remembered as that type of person? Is my life reflective of those characteristics? Am I putting my all into what I'm doing and being the person that God has planned for me to be? I know that I'm not. It makes me sad. But I can't seem to change it. I'm in an endless, dry desert. I've come to a point where it just makes me want to just give up and get out. Start over. There are no do-overs. I wish I could go back and change some things. Undo choices that I made. That's it, I need an undo button. Or a time traveling machine. That way I could go back and undo the things I wish I hadn't done, and also see my future. I'd love to know where I'm going to be this time next year, 5 years, 10 years, and so on...

What kind of person am I going to be? Am I going to be doing something extraordinary with my life? Am I going to be a wife? Am I going to be a mother? Am I going to be someone great? I would really like to know. I hate not knowing. It's like when you watch the season finale of your favorite TV show and they leave you with this incredible cliff hanger...or you're reading a book in a series and you have to wait for the new season or the next book to come out. I also really don't like movies or books that leave you with an unresolved ending. There is nothing else to tell you what happened. You just have to imagine. That leaves me with too many options. I want to know the ending. I have to know or it just irritates me. I mean your imagination can take you in so many different directions, but which one is the best one...the one that has the most meaning to add to the end of the story. It's like my life. I want the ending of my life to have brought about the whole story of my life....to add meaning to it and be beautiful. So that when I'm remembered, my life was not one that just fizzled out and meant nothing. I want my life to be a beautiful story that someone could tell after I'm gone. To tell how my life began and all the struggles that I went through and how I overcame them and how I added something to the world. That I made a difference. That my life helped to change others lives. I want to be someone remembered like that. I want my life to make a difference. So that brings me back to where I am today. As I think about the "cons" of my life. The monotony of my life. How I feel like I have no meaning. I know this is not true, but it's just how I feel. I want to change. I want to be bolder. I want to do great things. I want to be a good person.

I want to be the ordinary person who did extraordinary things because she took what God gave her to do amazing things.

It's time to bring on the challenge of a new year. 2010, here I come.

--venting, sort of...--

So I hate when I go to holiday parties and see people that I haven't seen in years. For one, they're all like "oh my gosh you've changed so much" and asking a gazillion questions about what I'm doing these days. I also hate it when you see people who bring up things like the guy you were in love with in high school. Yeah, I hate that. I had that experience on Sunday. I was talking to someone who is the mom of the "other" girl from my high school serious crush. The mom was like well they[her daughter and the guy] didn't stick but he's now got this great girl who he'll probably marry in a couple years. And PS he lives here in town with this guy I know[who happened to be at this same party]. Yeah, so....I've been having this problem lately of having reoccurring thoughts/memories of high school--mostly the end of my senior year when this whole boy thing happened--...this has all occurred in dreams. Makes for not so great sleep and waking up depressed. Well it certainly does not help when this happened at the party. I mean, I thought for sure I was over him. I mean I am, right? Doesn't seem like it when things like this happen and kind of mess me up. I wish it didn't. Why did I let it affect me so? It was a pretty serious crush. Never have I ever felt like that for anyone else. I mean I know that he and I were not meant to be...but that was my "first love" or whatever....and there's still a part of my heart that has his name etched on it...you know what I mean? So the old wounds get opened back up at the mention of him or what he's up to now a days. I just don't need to know. So please don't tell me...especially when I'm pretty sure this mom knew how I felt back in the day. I mean it just was known. I made it obvious, I'm pretty sure. So yeah. I know you reading this may not care and be like seriously get over it/him/the whole situation entirely. It's just one of those things. He will always be "that" guy. Thank goodness I didn't have that experience in college....never got close to liking anyone that much....although I made doozies of choices in my crushes. They all turned out to be dumb. Well not all...at least I'm still friends with a couple of them....the rest are dumb. Haha. :) Boys are complicated. They're not all dumb. Some are really nice. Some get overlooked. Especially when I'm the one looking....I think it's because, and I'll be honest, I think a little too highly of myself. I think a lot of girls do that though. We think we are so super attractive that only other super attractive guys are worthy enough to be our boyfriends. Well, I'm working on this whole I'm so super attractive needing only an attractive boyfriend. We all have narcissistic tendencies. Not saying everyone is a narcissist but we[meaning the majority of the human population] does think more about looks than other characteristics...like personality, compatibility, etc. I mean, I'm not stupid and do realize that there needs to be some attraction...but you know what I mean. Ok, so anyways. Yeah. This has been a ramble of a bunch of silly girlness. Because I am a silly girl. Yes, silly, awkward....and a host of other things. And sometimes I get a little too boy crazy. I'm just being honest.


Sheesh.

a secret

ps. sometimes things happen that you don't ever expect happening. like maybe crushing on someone you didn't think you'd ever crush on....we'll see what 2010 brings.

--falling behind and trying to catch up

how can it be that 2009 is almost over?

how is that possible? my mind is blown away by how fast this year has gone by. december always seems to sneak up on us...even though in july it seems as if december is so far away....you blink and it's december. sometimes i hate that...and other times i think of how it means that i'm not stuck in one thing for too long. i don't know if that makes sense. but to me it just equals me being that much closer to the things that i want to happen...like being done with school, getting a job...and those other things that are on the "dream" list. i have a lot of things that i want to happen. for some reason i expect all of these things to happen in a short amount of time. well as each year passes, only 1, maybe 2 things happen. i guess i can check off graduating from college and finding a job off of my list. but there were other things that i wanted to happen this year too, but they haven't. and then there are things that happen that i don't like thinking about or even dreaming about happening. that's the loss of people that you are so close to and then being forced to grow up and learning how to move on to new stages of life. sometimes my fears get in the way. ok. i'll be honest almost all of the time my fear gets in the way of what should be excitement for having moved from one stage of life to another. i wish i had a preview for the years to come, so maybe that would give me time to prepare myself for the future. but i do not have that luxury. many times i pray that God will just come back now, because i'm tired of things. it's the times that i get really down and having those constant pity parties because i'm not experiencing certain life things that others are experiencing. even though, i know, that i'm not ready completely for those life things to happen yet....even if there's more excitement about those things than actual fear over the thought of those realities coming true. for those that know me really well, you know exactly what life experiences i'm talking about. how i've tried so hard...or am still trying to learn how to be content in the place where i am now, i cannot seem to get there completely. i feel like i'm being left behind, but logic tells me it's that much closer for me. maybe not as close as i think or want it to be....but it will be here in the blink of an eye. just like life and how fast it seems to go by. the passage of time never allows me to really enjoy the time that i'm in because i'm always worrying about the future and thinking about the next thing. i need to focus more on the here and now. it's funny how things happen. how time goes by and you don't even realize it. you just live day to day...and the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months....just go by. the moments just pass you by. if you're not careful you'll miss out the special little moments. an amazing sunrise or sunset that testifies to the awesome hand of our Creator. the waves crashing on the sand at the beach. watching birds fly south. enjoying a drive with beautiful scenery. the change of the leaves. a good song on the radio that warms your heart. little things. rainshowers. snow days. day trips. playing a board game. laughing with friends. the culmination of these little things add up to make up a sweet harmony to go along with our lives. i always seem to picture myself in a movie with a song playing in the background. the music in my head always seems to mirror whatever situation i'm in. sometimes the song is sad, sometimes it is mad, sometimes it is bitter, sometimes it is frustrated, and sometimes it is happy. all these things add up to the soundtrack of our lives. it's funny how when i hear certain songs now i attribute them to a particular time in my life and how that song seemed to match whatever i was going through. sometimes those songs will make me laugh and even sometimes cry. i seem to be very emotional lately, so there might be more crying than laughing. although i tend to laugh at myself a lot. just because i'm random, awkward, and silly. so i have to laugh at myself. :) ok, so 2009. it's coming to an end. Christmas is coming. i'm nowhere near ready. i have yet to buy the first Christmas present. i seem to have no time...i really hate clocks. i swear they are going faster than time really is, just like the sun....it's playing tricks on us and setting to early. oh well. now i need to attempt to catch up to my life, live for the now, look forward [in hope] to the future. and finish my soundtrack for 2009 and start working on the one for 2010...only because i'm a procrastinator. ;)