"Say something, I am giving up on you"

I have been thinking a ton about being alone…why is it so painful? 

I feel like I am changing into someone I do not like in my loneliness. I want to simple feel alive. I suppose I am realizing that I do not feel alive when I am alone…

Human interaction is beautiful and so essential to our lives. 

I feel like my relationships are so shallow and surface level at the moment from only floating in and out of the lives of the people I work with…I am realizing how much I crave to have a deep connection with someone…and that being the person I want to combine lives with. 

Because in my loneliness I have become somewhat more of a cynic toward relationships. They seem messy and they seem overwhelming to me. How do you tell someone you are not interested? Can you continue a beautiful and meaningful relationship with someone who it will never work to be together? 

Are we all just grasping for something and someone…I mean what draws us to other people…why in my loneliest time of my life do I find myself being drawn to flirt more than ever before?

And how far do you stray away from close relationships with someone of the opposite sex to whom you know it will not lead you down the road of a happy ending…doesn't someone always get hurt…isn't that why relationships are so messy?

I keep finding myself thinking that I am being absolutely absurd in what I want in someone to date and figure out life together…I keep realizing that maybe what I want doesn't exist or maybe I do not know what I want…

And so why am I so pulled to draw attention to myself if the one thing I want to do is figure myself out before I drag someone else into it?

I do not think that your life begins or ends with anyone else…I think it is just a journey you are on by yourself and someone else comes in with their journey and you walk together and then when your journey together ends then you keep on journeying. 

I want someone to walk in stride with me…like hiking the AT. I don't want to have to try to drag someone along or worry about wether they really want to go or if they are going to want to hang in town all the time…I want to walk…and whoever ends up walking next to me…well it's because they are walking along the same pace. 

But what happens when we meet people walking different paces…

And my question is…who is responsible for the pain that happens with relationships when they do not work the way we want…

I have been told I over communicate about where I am in life or why I won't date someone…but I can't help it…I just feel the overwhelming need to be honest and open…and to gain from the relationships in front of me and around me. Mystery doesn't help anyone…but I suppose what I am wondering is does honesty make continuing to poor into people around you a good thing. 

If I tell a guy that I am not interested but hang out and talk with them all the time…has my honesty made that relationship healthy?

I just feel an overwhelming weight in the responsibility in how my relationships with other people have the most terrifying possibilities. 

I feel like I am supposed to know how to perfectly deal with a relationship in which my actions control the other person's reaction to the situation. 

I try to walk so delicately because i don't think we realize how much our actions and words impact others…

But I can't seem to get it right and I am terrified of getting hurt but mostly I am scared out of my mind to hurt or cause damage to someone else. 

I wish people thought more…and that I wouldn't keep accidentally sleeping through church. 

The End.

Alice and Wonderland

"Why is it that you are always too small or too tall?" -a quote from Alice in Wonderland.

    There always seems to be something that gets in the way. The way of my goals, my happiness, my faith, my friendships, my getting in shape...so why is that things just are always going awry. Getting sick, saying goodbye to so many good friends, the dogs getting out so I am late to work, working but never having money...things just never seem to go smoothly. The last few weeks have been a dazzling example of this fact...

But something else I have been thinking of in the mists of feeling discouraged and overwhelmed:

“I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” 

By the time I finish this blog I will be a different person. I love that. I love that I get the chance of becoming more...more then I was a few seconds before...

So what is the more that will be a part of who I am?

Emotional maturity...emotional discipline.

80 YEARS AND CAKE

I just wasted an absurd amount of very valuable sleep time watching a stupid TV show...I remember now why it is nice to not have a working laptop or internet. And now I cannot sleep...it is the same thing that has happened every night I watch TV in bed before I sleep...and yet here I am once again.

Then it occurred to me: Remember this moment...

Reminder #1 for my future self: Don't watch TV in bed before bedtime.

And here it is...life is so fast. It's hard to keep up...and yet so often I put myself behind...and for what?

How much of my life am I setting myself back? One day you have to grow up. One day you have to choose between what is permissible and what is beneficial.

God is full of love and patience but what grief at the loss of the glory He tries to get me to live in.

Am I Gatsby? Am I full of fanciful hope and passion to reclaim the past? Am I asking the world for an unrealistic outcome...while spending so foolishly the hope and passion I have on something that is just as unsteady as myself?

It is hard work to achieve your dreams if they have not decided to crawl easily into your lap...but when did I become so despondent that I stopped trying to crawl into my dream's lap?

Satan does not have to be insane and pushy...he just has to be simple and close.
Am I Samson...did I give my powers up? I want that last surge of strength to push through what seems like an unbreakable surface.

Why has hope forfeited with so little a fight? And why am I so content to give into the empty comforts. The ones that keep me from fulfilling my dream and yet that I use to console my heart so broken from unfilled dreams.

Life is too hard, to demanding, and moving forward too quickly for me to continue to repeat the past. Yes Gatsby, you can relive the past...but it is never something charming to pursue. I cannot reclaim anything...I can claim what is ahead.

Just as I cannot go back and sleep the last 5 hours...
...I won't pine the loss...I will learn from the loss.

Pick up from where you are...not where you want to be.

Use the fork to eat some cake!!!

Oregonized

Mountains to forrest to the beach. My heart has been stolen. Portland is beautiful and the people there are so kind. 

I needed a vacation more then I realized that I did. And seeing my most cherished friends Lauren and Mille was magical. I miss them so much. It is rare that you find such sweet friends who you can be so much yourself with and feel so loved no matter what...I want to never stop appreciating that gift. 

Visiting Portland made me think a lot. And I am still thinking so I won't share all my thoughts...but one thing is it has made me realize what Nashville was all about.

I moved to Nashville with grand expectations and the intention of healing. But something else happened instead...well along side...I have found healing...but healing looked a lot like finding myself. I think that God knew I needed to stop long enough to have to see that I lost my way. For the last 7 years I have side stepped...a funky dance with God, family, friends, love...one move after another that was not forward...and these dances have been beautiful, joyful, healing, painful, harmful, and a myriad of other things...

I think that God knew that the healing I really needed was to see what I have been doing and how lost I had become. He is beautiful and loving and so big. He knew that I needed to meet Him and dance alone with Him. 

I think that what Nashville has brought to me most...is the reminder that I must trek into the world doing what God has passionately placed deep inside of me. I am me...I have passions and dreams and paths to take. I have been so afraid to do the things I know are rooted deeply in me to do...I am afraid because I do not want to do them alone. I want to be where the people I love are...but the people I love are everywhere...I cannot be with everyone...and yet...I feel that where I am supposed to go is where no one is. A place where not a soul is known to me...and for the first time in 7 years...I am eager to start this journey. 

God has given me the most beautiful community of people. Friends in Portland, in Nashville, in VA, in NJ, in Scotland, in Kentucky...everywhere. These people are so beautiful and I think that God would have me learn to appreciate them to the fullest. The thing is...that if I am not taking care of me...and doing what is me...then I will always be doing something that is someone else's...

This may not make sense to anyone and yet this is the biggest thing. I am me. And I am almost okay to be me. I am strong and I desire to be with God in the woods. So perhaps you may find me hiking the Appalachian Trail sooner then later...or you may find me up on a mountain top standing in awe of the God that I am eager to meet...

I am eager to be me...even if being me takes me away from all the people I most dearly love...

I am eager to meet God...away from all the confusion of what others say about Him or how to be like Him...

"I wish I could be more like the mountains."

I don't know what all of this means or will bring...but I know it's big...and something inside of me is waking. And I am afraid.