Just Slow Me Down
Don’t those look yummy? And so pink! That’s the only reason I picked this picture. It has nothing to do with the rest of the post. Yes, I love that color. I admit it, the “Barbie aisle” was a beacon of shimmering pink bliss for me when I was growing up.
Sometimes I feel like every post I write has to be a treatise on an important topic. Now, writing about things that matter is a big reason why I started this blog. But I still think writing the next 95 theses every day is a silly expectation for me to have of myself. So although my lack of more “meaty” content may bore you at times (or vice versa), remember: you always have the option of not reading! Yay!
I do love writing. I’m so glad blogging was invented. It’s the only way I can really write for myself nowadays. And by saying “for myself” I don’t mean selfishly. I just mean that I’m writing what I want to write, not what my classes are making me write. Self-motivation does make a difference.
People, I am trying not to freak out about next year and the rest of my life. I need to ask Jesus more often what He wants me to do. I get bored by so many things, intimidated by so many others. I’m no longer even sure what my ideal circumstances in life would look like. Good thing He knows me better than I know myself. I can trust Him in this. Crazy concept. We’ve made it cliche. But it’s still amazing. He knows.
I babysat today. They napped for awhile, then they got up and it was crazy for about an hour or so. They are really cute. But they can’t really talk yet, being that they’re ages 2 and 6 months, and the 2-year-old doesn’t entertain herself very well. I was so bored for the last hour and a half. I hate to admit that! I’m supposed to love working with kids! But I’m just not an inherently creative and “fun” person so sometimes I have trouble with kids that don’t generate their own fun. I can join in all right; I have trouble coming up with it.
You know, I should get a new purse. The one I use, I’ve had since I was about fifteen. It’s so outdated. And the inside is a little stained and ripped. I’m looking at it right now and realizing that I may have to sacrifice ten or fifteen dollars every five to six years so I can update my purse collection. I really don’t like wasting money on purses. I’d rather spend it on books! Last week I went to a Christian bookstore to “just look.” Oops. I left with A Proper Pursuit and Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart (see my “Currently Reading”).
All right, that’s all the rambling I have for this evening. I need to straighten things up, do a little homework assignment, and get ready for roommate night! My roommates and I purposefully hang out together on Tuesday nights. It’s one of the highlights of my week.
Au revoir… ciao… hasta lavista. Is that you spell that?
Waking from Dreams
“That was an autumn of cold winds that stripped the leaves from the trees and blew them in clouds through the street. I would wake from dreams and hear the leaves against my window.”
(My Name Is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok)
In a way, autumn is like waking up from the dream of summer. Today is the first day that’s felt like autumn. The skies are gray, the trees are wind-shaken, the air is chilly, and the semester is well underway. It’s time to work and be focused and settle into the routine. I love, love, love autumn. And to think this may be my last school year ever. To me, fall and the beginning of school are so inextricably intertwined that I can hardly imagine one without the other. Either way, though, I’m soaking in this beautiful season.
And this week, and today in particular, for me will hopefully be like waking up from the stupor I’ve been in for the past two weeks. I don’t know what the reason has been, but I’ve had very little motivation, and very little zest for life, if that makes any sense. I haven’t been really sad or anything. I’ve been enjoying myself in a laidback sort of way. I haven’t been homesick at all – although I did experience a twinge of homesickness today when Kayla and I were talking about old times. It was more like nostalgia than homesickness, I guess. But anyway, even though I haven’t been sad, I also haven’t been very excited about anything. I’ve been viewing each day as something to get through, and I don’t think that’s how this life was meant to be lived.
This weekend I got a lot accomplished homework-wise, and today has been a pretty good day so far. Quiet, tired, but good. I’m about to gather my homework together, drop by the financial aid office to get my work study paperwork, and go to a coffee shop to study for a couple of hours. Then tonight I have my public speaking class, which is actually enjoyable as long as I don’t have to give a speech (which I don’t this week). Tomorrow I start babysitting. I’m a little nervous because it will be my first time with this family, but I’m excited also.
Enjoy your day!
looking at it
things have been feeling a little undone lately. time for some refocusing, some reordering. i’m not sure how or where. i just need to think about it, how all my puzzle pieces fit together. and how a loss of tunnel vision might be best in the long run. there’s a lot more to see when the blinders are off. solitude and community, they both carry good. lost in one, forgetting the other, unhealthy either way.
to look back, it seems like i was so young. and now i’m… what? old? wise. not hardly, but just a tiny bit less naive, maybe.
i’m tired, and stream-of-consciousness seems like the easiest way to go. because it gets old, forcing everything to be just so, like painting still life. sometimes i like to get a little impressionistic, or maybe, dare i say it, even abstract. everything is more blurry in real life anyway, not as precise, not as measured, not as sunny and perfect. but still art that could maybe even be beautiful if you looked at it the right way.
Where I End
I couldn’t put it better:
“I still have the luggage tag tied to my messenger bag. I can be stubborn and sentimental like that, but I know I should move on. Life is more than a destination. If I would put myself aside, I’m sure I’d find scandalous paradoxes here or anywhere.
Where I end, He begins.”
I’m stubborn. I’m sentimental. My people, my Peru, you’re in my heart and always will be. But life is more than a destination. The pieces of beauty I saw there are scattered everywhere here as well. There’s work to be done here as well as there. Maybe someday, I will have a destination again. Maybe it will be Peru. But for now, I am here. Right here. In my feeling of being overwhelmed in my studies, my textbook that hasn’t arrived, my jobs that won’t start, and my sickness that won’t go away. I’m here, He’s here. My fear can disappear. I want myself to end. He will begin.
Hearing Music for the First Time
One of the Xangas I’m subscribed to is written by a sweet lady who has been deaf her entire life. She recently underwent cochlear implant surgery, which put a device in her ear that would allow her some level of hearing for the first time ever. I’m reading the first blog she wrote since the device was turned on. It’s mostly pictures of what happened just after, and this is the one that moved me:
I thought of it as a parallel for heaven. When we get there, won’t its wonders be so amazing that it will be like hearing music for the very first time? Something we could never have possibly have imagined, no matter how far we stretched our brains to do so? Beauty we could never have invented? Awe and joy at the absolute fitness and rightness of it? And most of all, complete amazement at how great our God is.
