“…it’s worth fighting for”

I just want to write off last week as a bad week. I am feeling a little better.

I can be so easily and incredibly discouraged. It doesn’t take much. But just the same, I can be so encouraged and uplifted. It’s hard to live like this. It’s nice during an up trend, but during a down trend I can get so very down. I need a lot of encouragement. I need reassurance every once in a while. I know I don’t get these things because I don’t give them. I don’t offer or initiate. But I never want to share my burdens, even though they’re dying to get out. I withdraw and go into my shell instead. I can be a fake person. I feel like very few have seen me as truly real. For me to open up about the serious things is a big deal and speaks volumes…

I enjoyed back to back hanging out with people this weekend and *trying* to talk. I miss friendship. I’ve been so apathetic. I’m sorry for that. I really suck at life sometimes.

I think I’m going to be okay. Not smooth sailing, but at least I feel somewhat stable. Last week just seemed to aggravate my already unstable state of mind. A lot on my plate, a lot on my mind…

Nostalgia (part II)

This is mostly unrelated to the last post, but incidentally still falls under the subject of nostalgia (welcome to my mind).

I had an excuse today to walk around campus. I am only taking one of my classes on location this summer (aerobics) which is on the outer edge of the college. Usually I head straight for the parking lot after wards, but today I needed to visit the bookstore. As I was walking through, the strongest reminiscent feelings came over me.

When I think about it, this college holds a lot of important memories for me. I started attending in fall 2007 after Steve and I first married. I’ve learned so much here. Many minutes spent on reflection and contemplation. Many of my thoughts trapped within its enclosure. I remember daydreaming about life, and thinking about all the people in mine. I remember being in my child development class thinking about little Laelia who had just been born, and wondering when we’d have our own. I can still recall specific conversations I had here that now serve as markers for certain milestones or occasions on my life’s own time line. Like walking through the same walkways of today when Adam called to tell me he liked my song for Christmas Friends that first year he put it together, feeling so proud. And I still remember rushing home on a busy day to prepare for the community group we used to host in our first home. I remember meeting Nicole after school to look at engagement rings, and walking out of class as Lauren texted me excited to find out if the little one I was carrying would be a boy or girl. I remember sitting in my history class during a lecture writing baby names over and over just before I got pregnant. I remember finals week at the close of fall 2008. How it felt being 8 weeks pregnant, sitting in my biology class looking at the calendar and marking how many weeks I would be when…

That by far is one of the fondest memories, and the closest I have to the present; being pregnant while finishing up my last semester. The last time I really made this walk that I walked today was when I was still carrying Penelope. This was the thing that really caught me. I stepped into a true deja vu moment. I was suddenly aware of myself and realized I didn’t have my large belly. It was as if I was suddenly in the spring of 2009 again – it wasn’t me or my life as I know it now. The weather felt the same. Everything. Pregnancy was such a happy time for me. I really cherished that era in my life.

It’s so interesting how large of a roll the most common places can play into our fondest memories. How certain scents and sights can just capture you in the moment all over again. The way the campus captures the morning or the sounds of scattered voices echoing off the concrete. Maybe it is because places are more permanent. The buildings are still there. The trees and the grass landmark the same sites. The wind feels and sounds the same whenever it blows through the branches. Places have the ability to remain virtually the same while we do not. So when we revisit a familiar place, it may be the closest we will ever be to connecting with our past selves…

Nostalgia.

And when we get home, I know we won’t be home at all. This place we live, it is not where we belong. And I miss who we were in the town that we could call our own. Going back to get away after everything has changed. Could you remind me of a time when we were so alive? Do you remember that? Could you help me push aside all that I have left behind? Do you remember that? (Everything has changed.) So we stand here now and no one knows us at all. I won’t get used to this. I won’t get used to being gone. And going back won’t feel the same if we aren’t staying. Going back to get away after everything has changed. It’s taking up our time, we can’t go back. We can’t go back at all.

I think

I might just be the biggest procrastinator in the world, or close to it.

Pe-moth-ah

I created a new page on the topic of “pemothah” here for those who were ever curious.

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Love knows no fear, so why do I?

I suppose this is a continuation of my last written thought, which quoted song lyrics. This has been on my mind a lot lately. Rather, it’s been on my mind a lot throughout the entire course of my spiritual walk in general – though it tends to peek in different phases, hence the focus. I have quite a few thoughts whirling in my head about this, but for now I will let the question sink in until I can direct these thoughts more tangibly…

1 John 4:18.

Have I run out of words?

And I get so close
But I run away,
I run away
The things I fear the most
Keep me hear to stay…

In my unowned words

Bat your eyes girl, be otherworldly,
Count your blessings, seduce a stranger
What’s so wrong with being happy?
Kudos to those who see through sickness
Over and over and over and over…

She woke in the morning
She knew that her life had passed her by
And she called out a warning,
“Don’t ever let life pass you by”

I suggest we learn to love ourselves
Before its made illegal
When will we learn?
When will we change?
Just in time to see it all come down
Those left standing will make millions
Writing books on the way it should have been

Floating in this cosmic jacuzzi,
We are like frogs oblivious
To the water starting to boil,
No one flinches, we all float face down

She woke in the morning
She knew that her life had passed her by
And she called out a warning,
“Don’t ever let life pass you by”

The past may not define your future…

…but it isn’t necessarily stagnant. We always say, ‘what’s in the past is passed.’ And yet for a second time my past has come up – but not in a negative way at all; in a positive way. There are two separate but major incidents in my past where people have hurt me and affected my state of stability involving relationships all around. My self worth was questioned, my heart began to close off to people, and I was left with some scars that still affect me in ways. But little did I know those same people would eventually be the stepping stones to a better me. Painful experiences will grow and shape who we are, even when we thought we had already learned everything we were going to learn out of the experience.

I once had a college group leader who would always say, “God can use the negative to get to the positive; he can turn it around into a blessing.” I think it is so neat that even though I’ve stepped away from the past, he has brought the past back to me because I needed it; because it wasn’t finished. It sounds backwards; usually we say “when it’s done, it’s done and you move on” but sometimes there’s more to gain; more to resolve, even if it’s just as simple as a confirmation of forgiveness. He always sees the bigger picture.

- Melissa