Life is a beautiful mess

1:07-1:38 am

Day24.

            It’s 1:07 am and I’m too excited about life to sleep. No, I haven’t been drinking. In fact, this is an incredible feat for many reasons, one of them being that in my old age (insert awkward laughter here) I’m not longer up past midnight without a real good reason.

            I should be exhausted after today. Instead I need to unload my thoughts from my brain. I’ve had a revelation. I’m happy in Seattle. After talking with Dad today and relishing in his fountain of wisdom, I had some things to ponder. Dad challenged me to look for something that will make me grow in the next year. He pointed out that I’ve had some adventures already, with Italy and then hopefully Portugal coming up, I’ve done that. While it’s not all bad to have more adventures, in fact hardly bad at all, Dad made the point that I know how to do the traveling thing. Moving somewhere for the sake of moving is something that would be difficult, yet something that I could also adjust to with relative ease. It would be purely an adventure; not so much a conscious attempt to grow as a woman of God. While I love the thought and possibility of picking up and moving, I’m not sure that’s what I really want and/or need in life right now.     

            The fact is, as anxious and restless I may be about the future, I love numerous aspects of my life right now. I have some of the best relationships with people that I’ve ever had. I have incredible women as roommates and friends right now. And not many of them are leaving next year. I also have a church that I am proud to call home and look forward to going to on Sundays. There’s a pastor that makes me think and really is reconnecting me with God. With looking ahead to the fall, it’s been easy to think “right now is the best time to do something like this, pack up and leave and see what happens.” However it dawned on me, quite abruptly, that now is the time to cherish these incredible relationships. The next 6 months and year will be different, there’s no denying that. But maybe then I don’t need to be as radical as I might think. Perhaps staying put would be more of a challenge than moving around for me. I could live in Seattle, keep nurturing these relationships in a more focused way, grow in my faith with God, work to pay bills, and still start devoting my time and myself to something greater and harder than I necessarily want in order to push myself.

            Tonight has solidified my conversation with my dad a bit more. I got home after a long day of going, going, going from 8:30am to 9 pm. Not that unusual in the college life nowadays, nonetheless draining. I walk in the door to Sara and Kels chatting. My first thought was actually, “crap, I’m not going to sneak, shower and go to bed anytime soon.” My mind then begrudgingly switched to gearing up for another hour of chit chat before anything in the unwind department would occur.

            Thank goodness I’m wrong. Instead, I was rewarded by their love and compassion, laughter, and conversation. Sara soon had to get to work, but Andrea walked in and soon her, Kels, and I had sat down and started discussing rings and weddings. Much more fun when you don’t have to answer any questions yourself. A bit later Em came home and joined us. Talking with Kels got me excited about the possibility of her getting married come August, and hopefully living up here. I realized that I don’t really want to miss out on seeing her and Brandon grow as a married couple, and to be honest, for the entertainment it would provide. Sitting with these girls, I saw how much I’ve come to love and appreciate Andrea, and can’t quite imagine not living with her next year while know it’s an option (meaning she’s not married yet). Same thing with Em. I realize that we’re all at a point in life where I want to be here cheering each other on as life twists and turns and these are the people I want by my side as I hop on the ride too.

I hope that Katie is a part of my life in some way, shape, or form but I think it’s an unspoken in many forms that the next year may find us apart from her. I hope and pray that it would be a good/growing thing for our relationship. And if we do get to keep living together, I hope that without school in the equation we could both pour more into our relationship rather than being the courteous old married couple we are now. Another thought for another day.

Another thing, I don’t see grad school happening in the next year of my life. However it probably will be soon and odds are good that it could mean moving when the time comes. The thought came to me today, “what if I move somewhere next year, apply for a school somewhere else and the next year am in another place for 2 years. That’s time that I’m not with all these people I love. And three years is way more than one year in a place, and two more years apart from people than I think I’m willing to be right now.” I got so sad when I thought about how these next few months literally could be the final chapter of my relationship with people. Not in a sad, depressing way, just in a way of knowing that three years means a lot in our lives right now when a lot of huge transitions are already naturally occurring. And yes, three years is exaggerating, however I do feel like that’s a reality I would have to consider if I leave Seattle now. There’s also the reality of ‘if I leave, would I ever come back?’

I don’t think this has determined anything about the near future of my life. However, today I’ve rethought my priorities a bit. I feel like today was preparing me to think in a better light about what the next year may hold. It’s not been a day of solving all these crazy things. God used today to tell me to take a breath, step back and look at the bigger picture before running and blindly jumping off a cliff into the unknown…as fun as that may be.

A New Year

Words can’t describe what this past year has been like for me. What a year. Sitting down last night I got to thinking that while I’ve never been much of a ‘new years resolution’ person I am indeed a list/goal person. So why the heck not this year? Some how I feel like if I post this it’ll be more legit….

I have decided to go for 2 catagories: Habits, and checklist. The first one being things that startng this year I want these all to be a more permanent part of my life. The second, well just things to actually accomplish.

Part I: Habits

1. Daily Devotions: at one point I had this down pat about a year ago, lasted 3 months and then I came back to the US of A and left that routine behind. I want that comfort back

2. Prayer: once again another habit I lost at some point. This christmas I realized that are a lot of people in my life that need someone to be a prayer warrior for them, and heck I need it myself. Get ready God, here it comes!

3. Eat one vegetable and fruit a day pretty straight forward right?

4. Tithe, to go with the theme, I need to give all my worries to God, including the financial ones and not think twice about giving back to God.

5. Stick to one form of a calendar this may not be hard for most people yet somehow I usually end up with about 5 different calendars and therefore not very good of keeping them all up to date. Still deciding if I want to give into the electronic (comp/phone) one which is very practical, yet there’s something so sentimental about having my trusting art one that I can look back and see just what I did and when with whatever thought was there.

6. Art journal once a week this was something my high school teacher ingrained in us, no matter what project you had, if you were in the midst of something or stuck with no ideas, you had to do an entry. I loved this and the 3 I have are some of my most precious belongings to me. Being an art major I think I’ve forgotten about the simple joys of doing art for arts sake and for my own. Not for a project, but for memories and a place to put them, paint them, draw or write them.

7. Start writing more either blog/tumble/or journal. I realize once again that’s a bit of my sanity that I forfeit this past year. And I wonder why I can’t make sense of my life some days….geez

8. Work out/do something active 5 times a week basically sweat enough to warrent a shower asap.

Part II: the Checklist

1. survive my Senior Show and not only survive but feel that I did a kickass job of it. It’s going to be a crazy 12 weeks to get there, but i’m optimistic that I can be on top of my schedule and lose my mind but feel proud of the end result.

2. Go to a new country wherever that may be, I want to see some place I haven’t before

3. Go up to Vancouver B.C. pretty sad that I’ve lived in Seattle the past 4 years and have yet to go back up there.

4. Graduate college at first I thought this was a funny one to put up because it doesn’t seem like a huge deal. Then I thought about the fact that for many people this is something that would never make a checklist. I had to step back and realize that this is no small resolution for some and it shouldn’t be for me.

5. Read one classic novel a month I’m a huge reader yet some how I’ve apparently missed out on some of the ‘greats’. I suppose I should figure out what some of these books are all about.

6. Go on a mission trip this needs to be a priority this year, there’s too many oppourtunities that I neglect because of thinking about my own schedule or financial state.

7. Write a letter once a week because let’s face it, everyone loves snail mail. There’s a lot of people that I think ‘oh, I should message/text/call them’ yet I never do for one excuse or another. That’s only 52 letters, I can do that.

8. Have my artwork up in a show, that’s not my Senior show, even if this is a coffee shop I’ll take it. I realize I’m always really nervous about people seeing my stuff. While confident in many things I lack confidence in my work and I don’t want that to stop me.

9. Make a t-shirt quilt/blanket this has been a goal since high school. I have lots a t-shirts that have meant a lot to me. I couldn’t wear them any more but I didn’t want to part with them because of what they meant to me. So i decided that I would cut them all up, saving my favorite part of the shirt, and then buy an awesome plain sweatshirt blanket and start sewing all these pieces of my shirts onto them. Hopefully I won’t complete it. What I mean is, I want this to be a project I start, use all that I have right now, and still have more space to add to it in the coming years. I’m quite excited about it, I just need to finally start….and learn to sew…

We shall see how this works out. I feel like it’s decently reasonable for me, or at least it should be. This is a new year, lots of things have changed and it’s time for me to strive to be a better me. It’s fascinating looking at something I wrote a year ago, about where I thought I could potentially be right now. It made me laugh and cry. So 2012, here goes nothing.

double whammy

my parents left today = sad

saw a bunch of people’s pictures of italy, not only do i feel territorial like that’s my adventure but also really bummed because I would give anything to be back there right now, all that = sad