not nothing i hope.

so...i think i might join the peace corps

this is a frustrating thought to me because believe it or not i'm a person who overanalyzes everything. (shocker i know)  i could explain alot of my anxiety by going back to just before i graduated college last may and explaining how i got into the situation i'm in now or rather how i failed to rise out of the situation i'm currently in but that would be quite the long blog and for those of you who actually read my ramblings and musings and whatnot would probably not be the most interesting or thought provoking of reads.

so basically my situation is that i am now the proud owner of a liberal arts degree but am working part time in fast food. 

i keep repeating in my head that its a blessing to have any kind of job at all.

i am now as we speak becoming the proud owner of a car.  my first that will be/is in my name officially. 

these both mean something very serious, and that is that i have to start paying off student loans (this coming month actually!)  and paying off this car that i've bought.

in the mean time i'm left to ponder on if i'll ever be able to get a job that is actually within the skill set i'm paying so highly for that is doing some actual good in the world.

not that i don't think serving fried foods to seniors is necessarily a bad thing...but...its not what i'm called to do!

the peace corps makes a lot of sense for who i am and where i am in life.  but i don't trust things that make sense. 

so i guess i'm going to make a pros and cons list now....

pros-

• i would be doing some good for humanity,
• i would get to travel,
• i would get some great experience in the social justice sector,
• i would meet new people and go to new places and possibly make new contacts for the future (yay networking!),
• when its over with they would set me up with a modest "life starter" fund, deferment of student loans...

cons-

• two years away from my loved ones!,
• i could get stationed (and would likely be stationed) in a country that isn't china (not that other countries are bad or don't need helping but i'm really passionate about china),
• and if the previous happens all my chinese i've worked hard to learn and i'm quickly forgetting would go to waste,
• i might get a job i don't like,
• i would be putting all of this money into a car that i would wind up not using

well it looks like pros and cons are equal, but if you'll notice all of the cons are basically my fears.  i'm afraid of being away from the people i care about, i'm afraid of being forced to deviate from my passions, i'm afraid that all my hard work will come to nothing, i'm afraid of being stuck in an awkward or uncomfortable situation.

so basically over all, i am afriad of doing the wrong thing!  and this makes me very mad at myself because this is sooo typically me.  this is why i stressed so much over changing majors in college, why i've neglected choosing so many opportunities because it might close the door to other opportunities that i don't have but would like to have. 

and as a tv show recently so poigniantly pointed out to me (a poigniant point he he) the only wrong thing is to do nothing, is to stay where i am...

that is of course unless God is telling me to wait.

and believe me its not that i've not been praying about it, but i think my affective filter is causing me to have some communication issues with the great I AM.  in other words, i am so very anxious about hearing the wrong message that i'm not hearing any messages at all.

meanwhile as i do nothing with my life i'm getting barely any hours at work and obsessing over how i need to lose weight and spending all my free time watching various television series on dvd/netflix.

oh God help me. 

i had a theory for a while that i think for the time was accurate that God was wanting me to take a break because in between my last job and this job i was getting sleep for the first time in literally years and it felt wonderful. 

i do not fear that God does not have a plan for me, or will guide me, or will provide for me financially and spiritually.  but i have fear in myself that i am such a screwed up person that i can not do what is the most necessary of tasks and that is make my life function.  while it inherently isn't a simple task i feel constantly as if everybody can do it but me.  and i catch myself asking God why he didn't make me more focused or less anxious or prettier or funnier or smarter or more talented.  but when you ask God all those things at some point it just comes to "why didn't you make me better than everyone in every way"  and then it kind of is just like asking "why didn't you make me like you"  which comes back to he did make us like him in that he made us in his image and its our choices that have brought us to where we are now, wallowing in a sea of imperfection that continually makes life difficult.

but i am who God made me and i am where he put me so what am i going to do about it?

musings

we're trying to figure out life.  we use images and words and sounds and colors and no color and everyone has their favorite method of doing it.  we get morally outraged and hypocritical.  we take pictures of ourselves in every position with every object in every style of clothing we can think of.  then we take off the clothing piece by piece until we're naked in every position imaginable. 

we're searching

then we put little captions on all the photos hoping that the less we say the more it means because if we believed we had to say more we know we'd never stop talking. 

all these things we do, the farming the industry the academia, we do in search of truth.  and then some of us figure this out.  we figure out that all we're doing is searching for truth.  then we feel as if somehow our searches for proof are more legitimate because we're aware of it then those who are not thinking of it in this way. and maybe that's true.  but the pride that comes with that belief if find distasteful in a way that makes me want to tear it down.  

we're searching and prideful

there are those of us who believe with heart and soul that truth is encapsulated in a compilation of texts that has been handed down for thousands of years. memorized and reworded and prayed and cried.  there are those who hold to this.  then there are those who think it could be anything but that so they search other texts and other words of other folks that they consider more meaningful and when asked why theirs is more legitimate reply "why is yours?" and so begin a cyclical fight that will never end.

there are those who think the truth is to fight.

and those who think the exact opposite.

there are those who get so frustrated that they say truth is only meaning that we choose for ourselves, and those who get so frustrated that they say none of it has meaning no matter what they think.  there are those that are fulfilled by incomplete answers and others with questions.

we're frustrated and searching and prideful

then we lose respect for each other when we find out if they're one of those whose truth ideologies are that which we find distasteful.

we're frustrated and searching and disrespectful and prideful and naked.

then someone says its all about how you feel and no one can decide how feeling is, if its all chemical or if there is a soul behind it and so they drink and smoke and huff and hope that if by playing with one they'll find answers to the other.

its become "its all good" or "nothing is good" and politically incorrect to be anywhere in between.

we're frustrated and searching and prideful and naked and insane.

so how could i possibly explain that i've figured it out?  that now to me your work is worthless and your hearts are priceless.  how could i explain that as it turns out those sacred texts discredited by so many are more accurate than your fashion pictures and music tracks and arguing?

all i can do is live this out in hopes that others will see that the truth is real and it lives in me.   that the truth is not what is seen or what is known but what is done when you don't know anything.

the show must go on.

today is just a weird day

its super cold out, which is typical for northwest Indiana considering it is October and also was in the seventies two days ago.

this morning i heard a car honk on the road, which is odd for the middle of nowhere, and looked over my shoulder, pulling a muscle in my neck.
since then while in town i have watched fashion videos for entertainment, a subject i have never cared for, drank two cups of coffee with creamer, a beverage i rarely drink, and burned two dishrags in my attempt at making a hot pack for my neck.  i was hungry so i reheated the food i brought, masala chicken and macaroni, and discovered three bites in that i didn't want it anymore, so put it back in the fridge.

so today i'm apparently a coffee drinking fashionista with an injured neck and bad luck with microwaves. (not that watching youtube videos qualifies me as a fashionista.  but you feel like one after a couple.)

still it's better being in town doing nothing then at home doing nothing, where the nothing i would be doing would involve extra guilt.  at least in town i feel like i'm doing something even if i'm not, and i'm also not in my pajamas anymore.

in the meantime i keep thinking about how its been five months since i graduated and i'm currently living at home working in fast food.

not that i expected to be a super successful woman or that life wouldn't be hard at this point.  but i at least expected some new problems in my life.  i expected for God to reveal some kind of unexpected job opportunity as soon as i graduated.  actually that's sort of what happened, but it only lasted two months.  i had a lot of great experiences this summer but i kind of wish i could do it over.  if i learned anything at all its that i should probably be on 2 or 3 different medications.  i'm trying to figure out if my life isn't moving forward because i'm doing something wrong, or because i'm not doing something i should, or if i just need to wait.  i know my future or God's plans for me no better or worse than i did five months ago, but five months ago i at least seemed to be moving forward, towards something, no matter what it could have been.

there's also this underlying pressure.  i feel like a lot of people in my life expect a lot from me.  and i have not disappointed anyone quite yet but there's an audience holding their breath waiting for me to do something.  except the director has given me no lines to recite so i just keep making stuff up.

I've been considering joining the peace corps.  i can't tell if its something God wants me to do, or if i'm just considering it because i don't see any other options.  do i not really want to do it or am i just scared? i'm more scared of doing the wrong thing than anything else.  afraid of the awkward situations that will come up because of it.  afraid of the stress it will cause, and me without the chemical tablets to handle it.

then again there is one thing that my high school drama teacher always used to say when we were improvising in the background or something like that.  she said "i'd rather you do something wrong than do nothing at all."  she was always talking to those students who were so unsure of themselves on the stage that they'd just kind of stand there, looking scared.  i never thought i'd be one of those kids.  as shy and awkward and weird as i am in almost every social and professional situation, when on the stage i always knew where i was and what to do.  but the thing about it is that you are never to do nothing.  you are always to do something.  even if someone else is talking and you're just in the background you are to keep busy and keep acting because just one person standing awkwardly can make a bad scene.

either way, i need to do something to feel like the plot is moving forward.

actions speak louder

i got into a discussion last week over whether or not God knew that adam and eve would eat the fruit.

this question is a big deal.  either he knew it would happen which means free will is an illusion.  God creating them knowing they would do what they did means that he created them to fall.  but if he didn't know then his all knowingness comes into question.

and i've come to a conclusion.  i don't think it has anything at all to do with what God can do, but what he does do.

God does create us all.  God does give us free will so that we make our own choices.

God can control us if he wants. God can do anything he likes, including knowing our decisions.

But I don't think God does.  Just because he doesn't does not mean he isn't all knowing.  But by knowing he is creating those who do not choose him to be damned.  And that isn't real free will.  Nor is it real free will if he only created those who would choose him.  He creates indiscriminatnly.  So it makes perfect sense to me that while he could know who will choose ultimately and who would not, there has to be a point where it is our decision and not his. 

It has nothing to do with who he can or can not do. and everything to do with who he does or does not do.

God is good.  He creates man to be good.  Whether we stay that way is completely our decision. 

The scenic route

why am i frustrated?

its how i've felt all day.  just frustrated.  over stupid things.  which means i'm not really upset about those things.  i'm upset over something else.  so what the heck is frustrating me so much?

i got mad when i couldn't hear my voice mail, and upset when my peanut butter cookies turned out to be really salty for some reason. i got mad when i landed a job interview tomorrow. WHATS WRONG WITH ME? THIS IS A GOOD THING!

a cloud then settled itself over my head for the rest of the day.

so around midnight i then decided to go for a jog.  thinking maybe i would find some kind of epiphany in the darkness.  that God would enlighten me.  and while the jog did do well to clear my head i came to no such realizations.  although i did feel some terror when i was still a quarter of a mile away from my house and i heard a pack of  yelping coyotes in the distance.  now no jogging after eleven. at least not alone.

then i came home and sat down at the computer only to feel a mouse crawl over my foot.  that was an hour ago. my feet or still propped up off the floor.

(sigh)

i think when it comes down to it i'm having some patience/control issues.

if you had asked me when i was six years old where i would be when i was twenty three i would have told you that i would be in egypt digging up mummies and reading hieroglyphs, married, and with hair down to my ankles.

if you had asked me the same question when i was sixteen i would have told you that i would be starving in chicago working part time as a barista but full time working on my acting dreams.

if you had asked me a year ago where i would be now i would have said "no idea, wherever God is leading."

i'm not frustrated with the prospect that i'm going to have to get a job in food service right now.  if this is what i need to do now, then this is what i need to do.  i'm not going to not work just because i can't find the job that i want.

but i have this really bad habit of feeling trapped when i make decisions, like i'm locking myself into one life forever.  if i get a job as a waitress, i'm going to be thinking, "what if i'm a waitress forever?"

which is a ridiculous thought.

there's what i want, and there's what "God wants.  and most of the time i think that what I want is the same as what God wants, and to be honest i'm not sure.  but one thing i'm sure of is that we disagree on how to get there.  God has a tendency of taking us the long way.  we get annoyed (and by we i mean i) because we think that he's doing it to intentionally frustrate us, or to show us the scenic route or something like that.  but in all liklihood its because we have some more growing to do before we reach our destination and the shortcut would get us there too early.

i want to get out of this house.  i want to have a job where i am ministering to people all the time.

but right now...today i got frustrated every time something didn't happen when i wanted it to, or didn't turn out how i wanted it to.  and right now in life i'm frustrated because things aren't happening when i want them to or how i want them to.

but...

i've started jogging recently.  i've tried "starting" before but it never took.  this time i'm actually doing it.  i'm dieting too.  not perfectly so but 90% sticking to it.  i was thinking yesterday about how if i had only started this sooner, like two years ago, or four, or six. i would already be healthy.  that was annoying to me because i knew the me of the past would have been so inpatient about the progress or lack there of she was making.  i know that because i'm inpatient now.  but i also know that i will never achieve anything unless i keep at it.

but at the same time, i know i wouldn't have been able to do it back then.  i know because i tried and i didn't.    something always got in the way.  i would be thinking about homework whenever i exercised, or wanted to exercise, and would opt to do that instead.  or something else like that.  i was always at a time in my life or a situation where i was incapable of committing, of focusing on it.

i take comfort in knowing that i did what i could when i could.  someday i'll be doing what i want to do with my life and i will think with frustration about how i could have been doing it all along had i started sooner, but will know in my heart that as of right now (future me's past) i'm doing what i can, when i can.

it really doesn't matter what i think.  i could turn my life over and over in my mind and think woulda coulda shoulda.  i can be mad its not different or have peace in how it is, or faith that it will change.  it really doesn't matter, because none of it will ever change the truth and that is that God is good.  no matter what i am or doing or think or feel, God is still good.

so...

Dear God,

i'm tired.  i'm tired of trying to rationalize it all.  I'm tired of trying to not want things.  I want to trust that you're leading me towards somewhere, anywhere, but I feel as if I don't hear your voice.  I feel like i've been stuck in this life going nowhere.  and i feel stupid for feeling this way.  i know i should always trust you, that you will provide for my needs, that you will know whats best for me.  but i'm tired of living in this house.  i'm tired of feeling useless.  i'm tired of getting into fights with my mom over nothing.  just because we're both too stubborn.  i'm tired of not being able to care for myself, or my family.  i'm tired of not being disciplined enough to accomplish things.  i'm tired of waiting for you to show me the way, or show me i'm wrong, or show me anything.  and every time i start to feel this way i get so mad at myself befcause i know that you are good, that you are in control, that you love me, that you will provide, so why can't i just be happy with my life the way it is?  why can't i mature passed the point of of all this.  whny can't i learn to not rely on my own understanding but to trust in you.  my family has been stuck in this hosue for so long father.  we are far from all of our friends and ministries and jobs.  we can't make ends meet where we are, and we're stuck in this cycle of inadequacy.  i'm tired of constantly being judged by other people for these reasons.  and i'm so mad at myself for being upset about all fo these things because you should be enough for me father.  and i know i my brain that you are more than enough but i feel so pained in my heart over all of these earthly things.  what am i doing wrong?  if you want me to make a chang ein my life i'll change it father so please tell me what it is you want me to do or not do or say or not say.  i don't care if its as small as calling someone or if its as big as moving across the world, i dont' know i just want to feel in this moment like i'm where i'm supposed to be.  why doesn't knowing your truth change how i feel father?  why was i so happy earlier today and why has it changed so drastically now?  and why am i so impatient?

i'm tired of all of the "if only" statements.  i'm tired of thinking "if only we could move out of this house." "if only i could get control of my weight."  "if only i could get some medication for my ADD" 

sometimes its just hard to believe that things will get better when they've stayed the same for so long.  yet i know you've been making changes in my life. 


i'll feel silly about this in the morning.

goodnight father.

to brush my teeth...

so.

as far as anxiety and depression have it, mine has lessened quite a bit.

i'm pretty sure we can attribute this to the fact that i'm no longer in a job i'm dramatically underqualified for, and being taken advantage of by those who hired me.

i'm in a better place.

that still doesn't mean i'm particularly happy with life right now.  but its a less panicky kind of unhappiness.  the kind thats a little too comfortable, like that pair of shoes that you keep wearing, despite the fact that you have tons of other really cute shoes you could be wearing, and would prefer to be wearing.  this pair is just really convenient to slip on when you're running out of the house, and they match what you've got on...most of the time.

i've been combatting this by actually trying to do productive things.  most days i'm not productive, but i try.  for instance, right before gencon i finally set up a much needed dentist appointment.  its september seventh if you wanted to know...i'm excited about it.

basically, now is the perfect time for me to actually start doing all of the things i've been trying to start for a while now.  i can start exercising, and i cna find a job that fits me.  i can restart my old hobbies.  the problem is that i am out of practice of all of these things, and if there is one thing i am bad at, it is starting new habits.

i'm bad at habit forming

especially when my life is currently void of routine enforcing acticities (you know like school or work, the things you wake up in the morning to do)

i need a reason to wake up in the morning...