Hello- Goodbye!

I’m going to detox my life.

I started with facebook. I deleted over 2/3 of my “friends”, going from 900+ to around 300.

Then I cleared some clutter out with people I needed to not know anymore.

And here I am, finally ready to be physically healthy.

Ok- here’s the plan… (In case you want to make fun of me or help keep me accountable. Either one is acceptable.)

Week One: Raw fruit, at least one type highly acidic at each meal. Brown rice and fruit with dinner. 10 glasses of water each day, at least 6 containing high concentrations of lemon. Lot’s of exercise. No cheating.

Fruit choices this week: Strawberries, kiwi, oranges, lemon, lime, blueberries, blackberries, pineapple, bananas, apples

Week two: Repeat fruit, adding steamed vegetables to on meal a day

Week three: Repeat fruit and vegetables, introduce proteins back in small portions to one meal a day.

I’m not sure how it will go. I’m obviously not a dietician, but I followed a 10 day detox plan pretty close for my first two weeks. I feel once I make it past two weeks, that’ll be a milestone for me. The main focus is the detox, the rest is just my playing with ideas.

We’ll see how it goes. Wish me luck.

 

Something inside me is slowly breaking. It’s like walking tenderly on shards of glass, knowing eventually one of them will come piercing through my skin. As gingerly as I might try, it’s only skin, it is not invincible. I’m not invincible.

You got through to me. I wrestled and I tried and still I can’t escape you.

My thoughts are a clouded mystery. I’m trying to sort and sift and wade and even wager through them but each leads me down a trail, winding and narrow to  places I think I’m afraid to go but rush in unabashedly, dropping bread crumbs along the way thinking they’ll somehow help me out. These are the places I keep you.

 

“And come January…”

January 2, 2010

It’s a new year. I welcomed in 2010 by being asleep at 10:30 so I could get up and arrive at work by 8:30. It’s not that I completely chose to go to bed then. I just didn’t have anything to do, or anyone to do it with. I was alone.

There is one thing I’ve found to be the most haunting about life after graduation- how lonely it is. I’m not just sure if that’s because everyone I would spend time with is on Christmas break and therefore not in Florida or if this really just how it will be. I guess time will tell in the next few weeks. For now, it’s just an empty apartment and me.

I need to make some new years resolutions so here they are:
One. I want to get back into that place of being intentional with God. I guess I didn’t realize how much I depended on the “lifestyle” of Southeastern for that until I got on my own and realized that I don’t have those same pressures anymore. I don’t have chapel or a “loving Pentecostal community” of friends, fellow students and staff to get that from. I have to do this on my own now. I don’t just stumble into “God moments” anymore, I actually have to seek them out and become more intentional. It’s strange to feel this way, so separated from what used to come so easily.

Two. I am going to finish my budget. And then, I’m going to live by it.

Three. I want to really volunteer more and I want it to be somewhere that matters. I think I’ll call Peace River and see if they could use some helping hands.

Four. I have some “carol issues” I need to work out. Like how to be a better friend, how to get a grip on my emotions and honestly, just figuring out who I am now. College is over I am not really that girl anymore. So, who am I?

Five. Find the man of my dreams. Just kidding, I want to really start chasing my dreams though. I want to learn Russian and create a “five year” plan to provide some guidelines.

Six. Journal more. Starting, later.

… we’re frozen inside
Making new resolutions a hundred times.

 

Feels like whiplash to me.

December 28, 2009

I am two weeks out of graduation. I’ve actually been texting a friend of mine and thought this was worth putting on paper.

He mentioned how he was avoiding adulthood, so I gave him the following advice:

Stay in school as long as possible. Then, graduate single. Take some time to breathe after the fact and then really start figuring out who you are.

Let’s be honest, college is not real life. I thought a million times I was “discovering myself” in college and that I was growing and changing so much. And while in reality I was, it didn’t count until now.

So I’ve only been a college graduate for two weeks now, how in the world does such a short time qualify me to make such a statement?

Here’s the thing: I’ve come to the realization that at some point in our lives, we will all have this moment. The moment where we wake up one morning and go, what am I doing and who the heck am I? The moment where we realize that we are blatantly unaware of who we really are.

For some, this moment happens fast; usually when life has happened fast and is going at such a pace that the person can’t afford to not figure it out. For others, it’s come to be affectionately known as a mid-life crisis. Yes, we all realize at some point we don’t know who we are. The reality is, everything I need to know in life I never actually learned in college.

I think the reason I’ve come to this place so fast is because everything changed so quickly for me. College for me was a time of stability. I was overly involved and fiercely dedicated to what I was doing. SBLC was my everything and I loved it. But it all ended very abruptly and when the book slammed shut, I got my fingers caught. It was literally everything I ever knew.

So the equation is simple for me: what do you get when you take a comfortable person and remove from their life very suddenly everything they’ve known for nearly 4 years? Let me answer this one: a very lost individual.

I’ve come to the place where I have to figure out who I am because I have no other choice. I have nothing to turn to or hide behind. I am exposed.

 

6 days in a hurricane

Thursday December 17, 2009.

I can hardly believe I’ve been a college graduate for six days now and four of those I’ve spent working. This past week, well- make that my past two weeks, have been a whirlwind. I can still remember being a freshman and thinking this time would never come. Let alone I couldn’t imagine that in seven days I would not just have a new job, and a diploma, I’d also be moved into my new apartment and starting full time 2 short days after crossing the stage. It had all started on Monday when I got the call. I couldn’t believe they had made up their mind so fast. I had only interviewed on Thursday and done my testing Saturday morning. There was no way they could have made a decision so quickly. But by 9:40 Monday morning I had gotten the call that would change everything. I had less then 6 hours to accept. I finally did that afternoon and things only began to spin faster from there. That week I was torn between finishing finals and packing as I hurried to move everything into the apartment by Wednesday night. Class ended for me Thursday night and Friday morning was met by graduation practice, cleaning and then family all evening. Saturday happened even faster. Before I could breathe I was walking across a stage, shaking hands and getting my diploma- 3 and a half years of hard work came down to one thought: don’t trip. And just like that, it was over. I took lots of pictures, I hugged lots of people, I saw all I could see, and then I left. No tears, no heartbreak. I was simply, done. The next two days were filled with family and friends. A few good-byes, but mostly I’ll see you later. After all, I was staying.

I started my new job Monday morning. Exactly a week after I had accepted, I found myself standing in an office full of unfamiliar faces. It’s been crazy.

I get to work at eight-thirty – I leave at five. Thirty minutes for lunch, no cell phones, no window, just my cubicle and a lot of things I don’t understand how to do.  I don’t have computer access yet so half the time I have nothing to do. I feel like I bug Brenda constantly for stuff to work on, but what else am I supposed to do? I’m probably the youngest in the office and it feels very strange. I often feel under qualified and overwhelmed when I think about my workload and all the things I’m supposed to be learning. Brenda is trying to teach me but often assumes I should know stuff I don’t. She has this manual she wrote that she said should be my “bible.” But quite frankly, I can’t understand it. I’m not a read and learn person anyway. It’s the kind of job that needs to be taught hands on but no one seems to have time to just teach. Plus not being able to log into my own system doesn’t help any.

When I finally get home at night, I’m quite often just exhausted. Twice this week I’ve eaten and crawled into bed to watch a movie. I haven’t been up past ten all week. I don’t want to do anything, I don’t want to see people, and I don’t even want to think. My brain is just mush.

I can’t understand how people do this and have time or energy for a relationship. I don’t even want to spend time with myself when I get home—let alone someone else. I literally come home with barely the motivation to cook dinner. I hope it gets better soon. I can’t spend the rest of my life like this.
I should have stayed in school forever. Even though I was one of the “lucky ones” to actually have found a job in this economy before I graduated, doesn’t mean it’s all it’s cracked up to be. Sure the money will be good, I just can’t believe this is what I’ll be doing for the rest of my life.

It’s funny how well I thought I knew myself, and then I graduated. I learned more about where my personality comes from in a weekend with my family then I have my whole life. My mother makes me needy and controlling. My father gives me my “planner” genes. And in the midst of all these new realizations, I still feel lost. I barely know myself. I know what I’ve loved the past almost four years because it’s been all I’ve known. I’ve been safe, spoon fed and blindly unaware of just how the rest of the world operates. I feel so naïve and yet, so exposed. It’s a confusing thought really.

So to all soon to be grads I say- stay in school. It’s not worth it.

 

Spring.Cleaning

Time to turn over the cushions, brush out the dirt and start this thing again with some elbow grease and diligence.

I’m going to be posting a bunch of stuff I just typed out when we didn’t have internet so please be patient while I simply unwind a few months worth of thoughts.

You may want to prop your feet up, there’s a long winded story ahead.

 

Tough.

I’m so tough.

Nobody sees me when I break.
I’m so tough.
I might as well be invincible.
Or invisible.
I’m so tough.
You’ll never get the best of me.
At least, you’ll never know it.
I’m so tough.
I don’t need tears or heartache.

I don’t need you.

I’m so tough it’s tearing me apart inside.

 

Paper Dinosaurs

I laid on my bed with the notebook sprawled open across my lap. I was playing aimlessly with the fringes I had torn from it’s binding, wadding the scraps together. I laughed and remarked on how I was making paper dinosaurs as that’s what they looked like to me.

There’s never been anything typical about us.
You know my secrets and I think you hung the moon. We laugh together and talk about the adventures we’ll have when we see each other again. I’ve known you so long we’ve become perfect friends, I see you so little we could almost be perfect strangers. But every time I get a moment with you, it’s just like nothing has changed. It’s like days and months and sometimes even a year haven’t happened, like time froze while we were 1500 miles apart.

Until today, now every moment will change. Every time I see you will be different, every time we talk the words will be stranger then before, the letters loosely stringing themselves together to create fumbled words that will settle on the surface. Yes, everything is different now.

I couldn’t understand why you did what you did, until I too had to do it. I thought you were selfish and it made me bitter, confused, and hurt. But you weren’t, were you? Everything you did was for me, so I could grow and live and experience life away from you. And without that experience, I don’t think I could have found the strength to face this trial now.

I wanted to hold on to you so tightly because I was terrified of letting go. I just thought that maybe if I could pretend I didn’t feel the way I do, I could fool myself into making it go away. That I could care for you selflessly, instead of selfishly. But the four letter difference in those words, makes all the difference. And now here we are.

I had to let you go because I had to do what’s best for you. I had to clench my teeth to hold in the tears as I told you this is good-bye. For today, and tomorrow and next week, and God forbid, maybe forever. I had to rip out my heart to lay it on an alter of consuming fire, to let the one who loves me most know, that no price is too great.

I once heard a line in a song that explains this all so much better- you mean more to me then being with you. You always have, you always will. So as we sat there in silence, there were only a few words that made any sense.

“I can’t take it back and you can’t make it better.”

And we hung up.

Were there once paper dinosaurs there were now just three separate shreds of paper. There would never be paper dinosaurs again, everything is different now.

 

A year ago…

It’s funny to think back to a year ago…
I lived with entirely different roommates.
I attended a church I didn’t like.
I was a very different girl.
I was applying to work in Seattle for the summer.
I was also moving rooms to have a new roommate in the spring.
I was getting ready to go home for a month for Christmas.
I was dating a boy a who would break my heart, piece it back together, become my best friend, break my heart all over again…and stumble in and out of my life over, and over and over.

It’s funny, really, to think about… the way we fall for the ones who seem the worst for us. But they’re the ones we can’t forget…the ones who hold on tightly without ever knowing it. I always loved the idea of you but never rationed that it would come to this. I always loved the thought of what could be but never figured there would be so many strings. So many questions. So many moments.

It’s crazy the way we fall. The way we justify every action. The way we craft motives to be near someone, even if they never see us.
But you still see me just like I still see you… in a battle fought, a word spoken, a memory recalled, a dream occured, a tear shed. You are very much so there with me. I feel one day I may escape this…one day, yes you will too.

 

Here’s to…

Laughing until you cry
Playing in the rain
Growing up, without getting old
Dreaming big
Giving all for what you believe in
Living with passion
The color pink, high heels, and being a woman
Believing in the best in people
Sacrifice in the name of love & justice
Good friends, good food, good nights
Hot chocolate on snowy nights
Coming home to family
Leaving home for adventure
A life well lived, a story well told
Dancing because you can
The little things that make it all worthwhile
Change
Taking too many pictures
A cup of coffee shared with old friends
Million star nights
A love that defies all odds

Hope.