What to Say

I'm feeling a bit...disappointed.
Things have actually been going pretty well lately, and certain concerns I have had about living situations and whatnot are getting taken care of. So, ya know, I should be feeling pretty good. On the contrary, I've been feeling a little anxious, and I have had a hard time sleeping this last week. The past couple of days I have just kept myself so busy, so that I didn't have enough time to stop and think about things that I didn't need to think about. If that seems vague, it's intentional.
So on to the disappointment...
I have been pretty lucky in my life as far as friendships are concerned. I know so many amazing people. I have done a decent amount of traveling, always meeting new faces, always forming new connections. Moving here was the same. New friends, new things.
People slip in and out of your life, and this is the way of things. You are happy that you have the chance to know them when you do. Friendships enrich the soul. Long term ones and short term ones. Let's face it, we are all different; We have different hopes and dreams, and pursue different ends. We have to enjoy the times we have, and let each other move on.
Sometimes I just don't want to let people go though.
Some people I just want to hang onto. I guess that's normal.
In this case, it isn't only my wanting to hold onto someone, but also just feeling like...I haven't gotten to know them as well as I would have liked, and now that might not happen. Which, of course, is something that I need to accept and I have known that all long.
*sigh*
I also have my own ends to pursue. I didn't move here to work at Starbucks forever. Yeah, I like my job. I actually do. Even so, eventually I need to take some writing classes and look into some other things...not because I know what I want to do with my life, but because there are a lot of things I *could* do. Something creative would be nice. There are just a lot of options and I am certainly not ready to be matronly; Just get comfy and settle in and never go anywhere again or whatever.
So...we come, we go. We make friends and we lose touch with friends. Life evolves. It's supposed to. Change is good.

So why does my heart feel like this?



**Currently reading: His Majesty's Dragon/Naomi Novik

Babies

First of all, for anyone reading this that does not know. I am an Aunt this week. Okay, yes, its' true that I have been an Aunt before...I have a nephew who is six. Even so, this is my first niece, and every baby is a blessing.
I can't say that there are not circumstances surrounding the baby and it's caretaking that I am not worried and upset about, but right now let's just look at the miracle that she is, and be glad at least, for that. Her name is Hailey Anne and she was born on Friday. 5lbs, 10 ounces. Very adorable.

I also found out today that one of my dearest most wonderfulest (yes, I know that's not a word) friends, is having TWINS!! It is soooo exciting!!!! They just had the ultra sound this morning.
Many people close to me have twins. It's like....I spread it around or something. haha. My cousin Sarah has twins. My very close friends James and Lisa have twins. My good friend Angela has twins, and now Karla is having twins. It's a bit uncanny to be honest...it really really is.

I am 30 and single, so there is no fear of me having my own twins any time soon!! haha. Plus, after everyone else has all the twins, I will most likely not. :p
I have been so excited after talking to Karla today, and seeing the ultrasound pictures...I was calling and emailing everyone who might not have gotten her initial email.
Now I am feeling kind of tired, and other things are creeping into my mind.

For example, how I am worried about my little sister, and nobody seems to care what's going on with her, since it is overshadowed by babies, and the trouble my brother gets into. I am far away, and I don't know what to do, or what I can do.
It's been a great last couple of days, and now these things are creeping up on me, and I just feel like weeping.
*sigh*
I think I need to go have a nap now. Sometimes that helps me be calm when I start getting overwhelmed.

I am going to start doing this when I post;
*currently reading: A Knight of the Word/Terry Brooks

New Friends and Stuff

I seem to have a couple of new commenters of late. Hello new commenters! (Is that even a word?) Anyway, interesting to me that someone besides those who liked me already would want to read all of my passionate tossings of words. hehe.
This isn't just about the appearance of new people at my blog though.
I have new friends in *real life* too. :p
Actually, I have started to hang out more with a couple of coworkers...it's not that I usually am at a loss for making friends...but, ya know, I am not as in a hurry as I used to be. I want to genuinely be able to communicate with the people I hang around with. :p

It's been fairly interesting lately.

You know, there is this one person I am friends with...and I am almost loathe to say this, because who really knows who is reading my blog, and I wouldn't want anyone to take it the wrong way...even so, I want to vent.

The other day I was laying in my bed trying to go to sleep, and thinking about a conversation I was having with a friend, and at the same time, kind of arguing with God, when I realized with shocking clarity: "Criminy! You are using me in this persons life, aren't You?!?! Despite how much I suck or whatever is going on with me, through no choice of my own, You are still doing it aren't You?!?! You are ALWAYS doing it!!!!" RAWR!
Okay, not like I can actually, legitimately be mad about something like that. In fact, at another time, perhaps I would be glad to know that He uses us despite ourselves, but I confess, that I was really thinking of what I was getting out of the friendship. Not that I didn't care about the other person. Of course I do! A lot! It's just that...I guess I was feeling....drat. I don't know how to explain.
There was sort of this level playing field. This person and I became friends, and certainly christianity affected it, but didn't dictate it. I wasn't their intercessor, they weren't the person that gave me sage wisdom, we were just friends. Then, all of a sudden, through no fault of my own, I realized that God was speaking to them, through me. You know, which does not neccesarily mean that its not still a level playing field..but once that inner me realizes that there is something lacking there for them, that unconcious intercessor starts stretching her legs.
Of course I pray for my friends....or at least....in theory...I mean, I always have, just not quite as much at the moment.
And, you know, my friends pray for me as well, just the same. That's level. But it's just....different. Of course, this person may be way more mature than I know yet, and maybe secretly they are saying a prayer for me. I hope so. I don't want to be the big sister right now. That is not what I was hoping for in this situation. *sigh*
Call me selfish. Maybe I am.
I just wanted to meet this someone eye to eye. If its not doable, it just isn't, and I will deal with that when I know it for sure. I am still holding out for hope though.

There is this point I hit before...in the midst of a lot of things...where I really resented the whole "straight and narrow." I don't mean, living a good and prudent life either, because I have always mostly done that, before I ever got involved in church or leadership. What I mean is, this whole higher expectation.
I think I wanted to know what it was like to sink back to a normal level of personhood, where I could be friends with whoever I wanted, and hang out with them wherever I wanted. You know, while we were having drinks, while they were smoking pot...whatever my conscience dictated was alright for that person at that time. No restraints placed on me by my tightrope of leadership.
I don't want that kind of attention anymore. I just want to be another one of the huddled masses. Making a difference in some way...sure, but I don't care if hardly anyone sees that. It's just the individuals that matter to me now. I don't want to be any big thing. I don't need any pedestals to fall off of. I want to have friends to walk with, who also struggle, and we struggle through it together, but we are all the same, and none are better than the others. We are all playing in the mud.
So I guess...I just wanted to peek out from the mud, and see this other person muddy next to me, rather than finding myself clean, sitting on the side of the playpen, looking in at them and seeing their filth, and finding that feeling in myself slowly grow, that I am somehow different than they are, and maybe somehow better.

That's all for now.

Nighttime and Words

This is how I know that I am a night person...Nighttime is when I do most of my writing. Nighttime is when my brain kicks into overdrive, and random thoughts start spewing out all over the place.
Of course, I can write in the daytime too, and I used to go every morning to get coffee and sit and write awhile. I like to do that too....but there is something that happens at night that I cannot explain. With that said, here I am again.

A very long time again, when I was in 10th? maybe 11th grade, I remember being very upset over something, I can't now remember what. In any case, I was in my room, and I was crying, and that's what I remember. I also remember that I chose that moment to say something, which was maybe partially a request as well, to God. I wasn't much of a praying person back then. I was kind of coming into the whole thing on my own though. Just starting to get there. So as I was crying, my sentiment was something like this; Whatever it's like in the future, however much it hurts or whatnot, I always want to be able to feel it....because I would rather have it hurt....I would rather weep like this, than feel nothing. After awhile of feeling nothing, I think you grow even more numb, and I never want to be numb.
Naive huh?
Sometimes now, I am numb, and I do want to be. Mostly because, being a person who feels a lot of raw emotion takes its toll over time.
I havn't been to church in awhile, and the last church I went to was Mars Hill. Now, Mars Hill is a fantastic church, but they don't have a traditional worship service.
One thing I really love about a more traditional worship service is that you might get a lot of repetetive, but you don't have to learn new words every week, and the music is usually fairly easy to follow. This is nice if you want to just be able to sing, and worship, and not worry about the details.
So anyway, I have been meaning to visit this church in town, and I just asked my friend if she would go with me. We're going to go this weekend I think.
Saturday of course, no, I am not missing the playoff game. (haha)

Last week, before I asked my friend, I was just imagining that this was going to end up being one of those worship services where, for whatever reason, I felt particularly touched, and spent the ENTIRE time sobbing my eyeballs out. I am RIPE for this sort of occurance, and it is one that I do not want to have my first night in a new church. Call me crazy, but I don't want to field those sorts of questions, and it might sound crazy, but that sort of encouragement.
Frankly, it is just sometimes annoying when people you have never met before want to give you comfort, as if they have any idea what's going on with you. I just need a good release, okay pal?!?!?!

I know I've mentioned in the past that I am looking for some kind of consistency in my life, as far as, the kind of person I am in public, in private, wherever. Integrating everything that I believe in into one me. Rather than having church Amanda, who is acceptable to those folks, and Starbucks Amanda, who is acceptable to those folks, and so on and so forth. Somebody who speaks a language that is relevent all the time, not just in the bubble that church can be. I am done being that person. I don't understand Christianity to be that way. It's not supposed to be!
I cannot reconcile myself to that anymore.

So right now I am dealing with things on my own...I've been afraid to go back to a church, fearing that I will be sucked back into that culture. Maybe I will just go here and there, I don't know. The thing is, God really can move in churches in crazy ways, and having the encouragement of worshipping with all those other believers can be amazing. Church isn't all bad, it's just that there must be more balance.
So...yeah.
I feel somewhat torn. I know in some ways I could use it, and in others....yeah.

I find myself in this place with God where...we really aren't communicating so much. Well, I am sure that He is communicating all the time!! haha! It's ME that has the problem!!! :p
There are these things in the back of my head, and things that I am struggling with sorting out, and I know that I really can't do it on my own, but I sort of hope He will just miraculously intervene without my having to ask, or rather, that at least He just will keep my together so that I don't have an emotional breakdown! :p
The thing is, if I ask Him, and He does nothing (or I percieve He does nothing), then I get letdown. I can deal with the situation, better than I can deal with the dissapointment, so I don't ask.
I don't pray about relationships, a spouse, or any of that mumbo jumbo, because of essentially the same thing. I can deal with being single and not having too many friends where I am, that is usually totally fine, only sometimes hard. Admitting that I want it though, and talking about it to Him, and being completely open about what's deep down inside, brings all of that to the top, for my occassionally shaky emotions to deal with. Then I just feel raw for awhile. I get over it, I mean, until the next time I have to deal with it, but it's still horrible.
I feel like I am just walking around with this gaping wound in my heart. This is my life. I get somebody that I think I need to pray for...and they start doing all this lame ass crap, and the more I pray for them, the more of a heart I have for them, until I have heartache over every stupid ass thing they do!! Is this fair?!?!?! In order to pray so honestly, does it require a constant broken heart on my end?!?! This is how I have begun to feel over time. This is why I have sort of taken a break from praying for people....as horrible as that may sound.

I used to deal with it a lot better. I mean, I understood that place so well, and the ups made it all worth it. Over time and dissapointment though, I have started to feel very selfish, and very tired. Perhaps I will snap out of it. Who knows. I would like to say that I can be an intercessor, regardless of what it costs me, but in order for that to happen, I am going to have to come back to a place of seeing the greater good. Essentially, of having what we like to call in the church, an"eternal perspective." Knowing that you are storing your treasure in heaven, or whatnot, and that its really not about here at all. Knowing that there is some reward for your efforts. I don't mean, reward as in; My mansion is bigger in shinier than yours!! That is a bunch of B.S.! Like we earn it or something...we don't. I mean, more like an eternal reward in people, and in being with all of them in a better place.
Maybe it sounds lame to some people.
Anyway, I used to have that perspective, and I have lost it. It rolled away under the bed or something I guess. :p
Once in awhile I think...Okay Lord! We are going to have it out tonight...but to me that means that I am going to cry, and talk to Him about all of this stuff that he already knows I am feeling, and nothing is going to change, except for tomorrow I am going to feel better for awhile. So, a week or so from now, I am going to be dissapointed again, because I need real answers to some of my questions, like, last week.
And why go through that? Why not just leave everything in the background, and focus on the important things like...Oh, finding a place to live, that is incredibly cheap!
*sigh*
Oh to be 22 again. When I believed and that was alll I needed. I miss that place.

LOL!
I talked to an old friend the other day, and he asked me; Hey!? Done any more of your crazy 40 day fasts lately?! And I was like..Umm...no. And he said; I tell everyone about that! My crazy friend who fasted for 40 days!
And I can't even believe that that girl and I are the same. If I could meet her face to face, I wouldn't know what to say.
That was ten years ago right now. Ten years ago right now, I hadn't eaten anything in nine days. Isn't life weird? The way it twists and turns?

But hey, after all, this is me being real. So at least there is that.

All That Grown Up Stuff

I confess that I sometimes have my doubts about my competence as an adult.
What people do these days, all you have to do, is everything on your own. All you have to do is be, and have a decent job that pays all the bills, and squeak by somehow. Lord, how do single parents do it? I can barely take care of myself, let alone having the responsibility of caring for a child.
Ack!
Once in awhile, I get emotionally overwhelmed. I mean, I deal with it. I can deal. I know what I need to do when that happens, and I get by...but so far I've had roomates, and other people helping me out. So when I got emotionally overwhelmed, I felf like I could take a day off....even though I usually never do. Now, its like...not even an option, and knowing that kind of stresses me out.
Knowing that its all on me....and with my track record....a little scary. Of course, I think it is also good for me, but in the back of my mind I have this fear that I will just get so overwhelmed one day that I will break down completely.
Grrrr! I am so not the girl I always thought I was!!!!!!
I hate that!!! :p

Anyway...that's all I have to share today.