We meet our destiny on the road to avoid it

Sweet home Chicago.

Yesterday Chris and I spent the day bumming around Chicago. I had forgotten how much I love that city until we were there walking around. I’m beginning to think UIC is the best place for me. We went into this store that is part of a non-profit orginization that works with kids in Chicago to improve their writing/creative writing skills. It was such and interesting program and they need volunteers. I want to do it; even if it’s just once a month it seems like it could be a great thing to be a part of. 

Besides all that, yesterday was one of the best days I’ve had in a long time. It was completely wonderful from start to finish. I’ve never done anything like that with a boyfriend- it was so out of the ordinary and like a mini vacation. Chris really tried to make it special for me; it was fun and couple-ly, but so easy and stress free.

After taking to a good friend this weekend, I was thinking about how maybe Chris may not be the right choice for me; my friend who knows me so well didn’t seem to “get” Chris, or our relationship. We’re fine, though. I am happy and loved, not just in the happy moments, but also when he is outside in the freezing cold rain changing my break pads for me. 

I am in love with a city and a man and it is awesome. 

Loving those who are hard to love.

Whenever it is brought up that we should those who are hard to love, I often wrack my brain trying to think of someone in my life who I have trouble loving. If someone was to ask me, my list would consist of people who cut me off and that one bossy woman at work. That’s pretty much it.

Except that it’s not. 

There is a whole group of people that I find it almost impossible to love.

The friends from my past. I don’t think about it very often, but there is so much hurt and anger and pain left over from that time that I cannot get past. I soar when I hear stories of how they are making mistakes in their lives. How they are not doing well.

The older I get, the more I realize the damage done by those “friendships”; how I have become bitter and resentful. I also become more aware of how much of my own self doubt spans from those poisonous relationships. 

Why I have so much trouble believing people like me.

“they tell you things because you’re there, not because they like you”

I will never know how much of that statement is true or not. It probably shouldn’t matter since none of the people involved are in my life anymore.

That I am both figuratively and literally so far from that place. 

I am not the fat friend. I am not a slut. I am not stupid. I am not secondary to anyone. I am loved by God and my boyfriend and my friends. Friends who know me and think I am great exactly how I am. If I ever doubt this I should remind myself that I could call Isabella right now, and she would confirm that I am going to be a bridesmaid at her wedding- just like we talked about when we were 11 years old. 

I need to let go of the hurt that I’ve been carrying. I need to learn to love those who have been in my life who are hard to love. I need to love them and then never think of the them again. 

Because I am not any of those things they told me I was.

“Boy, you’re going to carry that weight, carry that weight a long time”

A lot of the people I know are graduating this week. Class of 2012.

I was suppose to be. 

I got lost somewhere and I feel like I don’t know where I am or what I am doing.

I feel like I should be so happy about the art show, about the award, about being asked to do a commission. I mostly just feel disappointed that my life is where it is right now though.

I don’t feel like I’ve won anything. I feel like I’ve been given a consolation prize for failing life up to this point. 

My life feels very hollow right now. 

I feel disappointed in myself.

I need to learn to doubt myself less. I also need to learn to doubt my relationships less.

“We accept the love we think we deserve”

It’s time that I start realizing that I was made to be loved, and I am surrounded by friends and family who do just that.

… love never fails.

Someone that I use to know.

I want to be courted. I want to be showered with affection.

This may be petty and selfish. Sometimes it’s hard to feel like I’m worth the effort, if the effort isn’t being made.

I don’t have lofty expectations. Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I should be expecting the best and allowing nothing else. 

I feel like there is something wrong with me. I don’t really have cute stories of guys doing sweet and romantic things for me. I feel like I haven’t had anyone put that sort of effort into being with me.

It hurts. 

I don’t like playing games in relationships and I think that it’s always a bad road to go down; sometimes I have to wonder if it is something I should do more of. That other girls do that and it gets the results they want. I know it’s not the answer. I know it’s one of those things that you just don’t do.

I want someone to do something big for me. It doesn’t have to be fancy it just has to be special. 

I remember the first time I saw David after that relationship ended; it was the Fourth of July and he was watching the fireworks with friends and his new girlfriend. Everyone was standing around talking and he had wrapped her in their blanket and had his arms around her. 

It hurt so badly to see. It was something he never did with me; it was something that he would have never been okay with in our relationship. It was me. It was something about me that he wasn’t okay with. 

That’s how I feel right now. Like I’m not special enough for the effort to be made. Even worse, it feels like there is somebody out that that is worth the effort. It’s just not me.

I was someone to be passionately in love with me. To feel all sorts of flowery things. I don’t know if that is something I can continue to completely compromise on like I have in the past. 

If it’s the beaches.

We’re not perfect or anywhere close.

We tried not to rush into anything. I think we both say what we mean, and mean what we say.

I often think about my future and what a future with you would be like.

I think about how you are nothing like I thought someone I’d be in love with would be. How that doesn’t bother me. How, when my best friend asks me if we communicate, if our relationship is more than physical, I laugh and say of course.

I don’t have to pause and think about it. 

I am endless grateful for the advice given and how you seem to point things out to me that I never noticed. Even things about myself.

More so than that, though, I am grateful for how you’ve taken me into your life. Shared with me friends that I can now call my own. Brought me to a place where I am happier than I’ve been in years.

You don’t make me feel beautiful; you make me not care. For me, that is so much more important.

Casey is right, love is scary. It’s big and important and matters more than most things in life. As I’ve said before, my heart is in the palm of your hand. You can do whatever you want to it, and I just have to trust you to be gentle. 

Sometimes, I think you won’t be. I think that you’re going to be careless and clumsy, or see it as something that isn’t important enough to protect.

And it makes me want to run away.

Sometimes though, when I’m so worried, you hold me close and cuddle into me. You run your fingers through my hair. You wink. You wear a button down shirt because I like it. You make sure there is a pillow under my head, so my neck doesn’t hurt the next day.

I don’t know what I’m doing- this pretty much describes my entire life right now. I get scared that you are going to see this. I get scared that you’re going to figure out that you are fantastic and I’m just me.

Most days, I’m just happy you’re mine. 

I could be more clever, I could be more strong.

This weekend was amazing. I don’t ever remember having such a great birthday. I love my friends; I love that they don’t create unnecessary tension. This weekend wasn’t particularly stressful, which I needed. 

The Poland trip isn’t going to happen. I’m disappointed, but not nearly as much as I expected to be. At one point Chris and I were talking about life stuff and I mentioned how this is the best my relationships have been in years; he said how that was the important thing in life. I think that is something that I lost sight of a little bit. I spent the weekend surrounded by people who love me… that’s pretty darn awesome. 

I need to learn to be less spazzy. I worry too much and I don’t trust other people in the way I should. I need to work on believing that those who are in my life want to be and are not going to run the other way screaming.

I am happy with Chris; I’m happy in a way I didn’t know you could be in a relationship. I keep trying not to get ahead of myself, but some days I just like to sit back and bask in everything. He makes me laugh in the most random ways, I feel like I spend a lot of time smiling when I’m with him (and I am smiling right now). 

Things are still not where I want them to be. But they are inching closer. And that’s pretty neat. 

I suck at giving myself over to God. I am a control freak and it is so hard for me to trust in something that I can’t control.

I want this Poland thing to go well. I want it happen. For it to happen though, I have to take a big leap of faith. I have to put money into it and that is scary. I am terrified that this may not work for me.

I feel like my life is a mess. Friends and my relationship with Chris aside, nothing else is how I wanted it to be. I feel like I have stalled. Even worse it feels like I am spinning all these plates, trying to keep it all together, but the “all” is just day to day life. 

I am mad at myself for letting things get like this. Circumstances haven’t been the best the last few years, but I feel like I’ve just played dead. I feel like I am in this deep hole and I don’t know how to get out of it.

The answer is giving it over to God. It’s asking the people around me for help. Doing both of these things scare me in a way that I cannot even explain.

I wrote this a few years ago after reading “Stuff Christians Like” and it still rings true today. 

I’ve been looking for a reason for why I go into most things so half-heartedly. In the book, Stuff Christians Like, he ends the book with this story, and whenever I read it (or think about it) I get emotional, and I’ve been trying to figure out why. The story serves as an analogy for how Christians often put so much effort into trying harder in their lives, rather than handing it over to God and letting him heal them. In the story this kid messes up the ice cream bar with the hot dog bar, and ends up with mustard on his ice cream; rather than letting someone get him a mustard-free ice cream, the kid repeats that it’s fine and stirs the mess harder and harder. He then goes back to his table to eat his sundae of misery. 

I get why it’s an emotional story; I think everyone at one time or another has tried to stir their mess of a life to the point that it’s exhausting. I don’t think that was the part that made me upset though. I think I feel like my life is the untold end of the story. I feel like the little kid once he gets back to the table and is staring down his terrible sundae. I see that kid sitting there, trying to hide the fact that his sundae is a failure, trying to pretend that he is enjoying it and happy, while internally panicking, hoping that no one notices what a mess he’s made. Embarrassed that he ruined it, worried that someone is going to question it, and not having an explanation, but feeling like saying it was an accident isn’t really enough of an answer some how. Because he should have known better, paid more attention to the labels, and what he was doing; maybe he shouldn’t have been so excited about the ice cream that he let himself get distracted. So he pretends that he meant to do it. That he loves mustard ice cream.

I just feel like that so much of the time. That I am eating this mess that I didn’t want and pretending that it’s ok, because I don’t want anyone to question it. Because I know it’s my fault and some how, ‘I messed up’, doesn’t seem like a good enough answer.

That’s where I am at right now. I am stirring and stirring and so tired. But something in me won’t let me hand any of my problems over to anyone else. 

What have we learned, Charlie Brown?

What a week it has been. 

This week I was proud to be a Christian. I was proud of the love shown and prayers given. 

My heart breaks for what happen to the Sanchez’s. They had lived there for almost 15 years, and in a few hours their home was destroyed. 

I feel helpless because there is so much that I feel like I just can’t do- I want to fix this for them and it’s just not possible. 

After Mike Fischer died a few weeks ago, I was really thinking about how things can change in an instant. How it is important to share your life with the people you love, and if you feel something, say it. 

I love my friends. My life is not exactly where I want it to be, however, I’m discovering that the people in my life make it so wonderful. 

I am loved. The most I can do is share that love with everyone else I encounter. 

I don’t have an answer for why bad things happen. I wish they didn’t. Maybe this is why it is important to focus on the little things. 

I love you. Pass it on.

You’ve got to swim.

I have been in a weird place for the last little while. Socially, I am happier and feel more loved and accepted than I have in years. I have friends, who I talk to and keep in constant contact with. I feel loved and wanted in a way that I haven’t in many years. 

Everything else is still not where I want it to be though. For me, the Poland trip is proof to myself, as well as the rest of the world, that I haven’t given up my dream, that it’s just been a rough patch. I feel like I need it, for me, for what it is. Part of me feels like if I go on this trip, even if my life doesn’t go where I want it to, I will always have that trip. It is accomplishing something. 

Chris has a way of pointing stuff out that other people don’t. In so many ways it’s good for me, because it pushes me to do better, to try and to do things I would never do on my own. I feel like he sees me, which is so great, because I haven’t been seeing myself lately. 

I want to do better; I want to start running for my life.

I feel like that is so much easier to do when I know that I have people in my life to support me. I am not alone, I have people running along with me.