and that can be the worst feeling...

i'm finding myself getting to that place again where i completely resent the basic bodily functions that make up our lives.

i completely resent that we need to sleep every day, eat a few times a day, and even bathe on a regular basis.  i feel like all these things take up time and muck up what i struggle to make efficient time management.

so basically, i suck at managing my time, and i wish that i could cut into the things that i have to do to keep going so that i could finish the things i haven't finished that are holding me back.

i totally love sleeping, eating, and bathing.  but they take up so much TIME.

my time table is about eight hours off of everyone else's.

i came to the realization the other day that my frustrations with myself are in a lot of ways frustrations with God, in the sense that i simultaneously expect him to make my life awesome overnight, and then i get down on myself when it doesn't.

there are so many things i should be doing.  so many of them i'm not doing because of anxiety and attention deficit.  but mostly the anxiety.  i mean, how can i get a better job when i can't even put the christmas tree up?

stupid tree.

i feel like intellectually i need a creative outlet, but emotionally i'm too drained to bother.  i didn't even make a costume for the hobbit opening!  that may not seem like much to you, but even if my costume completely sucks i wear one to these things.  its just what i do.  now...i'm just tired.

i've started reading again, so thats a thing i guess.  i'm rereading old books i've read before cause i don't feel like starting anything new but at least i'm reading.  ugh.

i thoroughly believe that our happiness is a choice.  its our choice how we respond to the events in our lives.  i also thoroughly feel like no matter how hard i try, no matter how much i choose to be happy, its not working.

however, i see that my life has been making improvements, even though they're not at the pace that i would like.  i'm aware that i need to trust in God's timing over my own, but even if i were going slower than now i wish i could at least feel like i'm moving forward. right now it feels like i'm treading water. staying afloat but not going anywhere, and its only a matter of time before my legs get tired.

i dunno.  its two in the morning.  i'm tired.  i had a long day of selling fried fish and fixing violent car malfunctions in thirty degree weather. (or at least holding the flashlight for the persons fixing my violent car malfunctions.  thanks, dad!"  i just need to throw my laundry in the dryer, drink some water because i feel super dehydrated, and go to bed.

i think in the long run though i need more time with my friends.  spending time with them always makes life seem manageable.  spending too much time alone makes me feel inadequate.

just a perfect day...

so this is my idea of a perfect day

when i say perfect day, i don't mean amazing day.  this isn't a day where i lose a hundred pounds then go on a date with...dang...who would i go on a a date with? lets just say *insert attractive celebrity i'm a fan of here*

this isn't a day of roller coasters with no waiting lines.
this isn't a day of flawless marching band performances
of starring in broadway shows
of touring europe
of constant rock concert dancing.

this is a perfect day, which means that nothing is wrong with it.  it means that just because nothing particularly awesome is happening, doesn't mean that there is anything inherently wrong with the day.

on this day i wake up on time.  and i get up, on time.
i shower.
i get dressed in clean clothes and i don't freak out about how i look in them.
i eat breakfast.
i take my medication.  i don't know what medication this is, but it helps me focus on what i need to do, and helps me not have anxiety attacks about doing it.
i go to work.
i don't know what job this is.  but it is a job where i work with people, and i'm doing something positive for society.  and i don't feel like my soul is dying.
i go home.
i hobby.  i might exercise.  i might practice my clarinet or learn another instrument.  i might make something.  i might read.
i go out with my friends, because every day should end with the people i love.
and then i go to bed.

this is a normal day i feel.  and to me it is perfect.  because i have never had these things.  i have never gotten up on time, i have never been comfortable with the way i look, i have never had a job that fits me, i have never had frequent enough time for my interests, or been able to go home and have the time to do whatever it is that i need to do between work or school and seeing people.

and all i want is a normal day.

and a voice in my head says "sara, nobody has days or lives exactly how they want them."

this is true.  which is why this is my perfect day.  perfection is impossible.
i in now way consider a day like this possible.

better than xanax Part II

so my last couple of posts have been kind of angsty

for that, i don't apologize.  this blog is and always will be my self expression, and i only ever write blogs when i actually feel like i have something to say.

even if its only something like "i like cupcakes, they rock my socks."  i write that because at the time i am feeling it so strongly that i need to take that message, put it into a little cyber capsule, and jettison it into oblivion for whomever to find and read and take as they will.

that being said, part of the reason they've been angsty is because well, i've been feeling angsty.

especially at night, which is when i blog.

but i've not really been feeling angsty.  i've been feeling, sad.  there i said it.

you know how hard it is for me to admit that i'm sad?
its weird.  i'll admit i'm angry or frustrated or happy or just about any other emotion before i'll admit that i'm sad.

or embarrassed, for some reason i don't like admitting when i'm embarrassed.  it makes it worse or something.

anywho.

this whole sadness not admitting thing is probably a pride issue.  all issues turn out to be pride issues in the end.  its kind of connected to this underlying feeling i have that i have to act as if everything is okay all the time otherwise people will get upset with me, because me admitting that i'm troubled is actually on some level making trouble.

so there, i admitted it.  i can't admit that i'm sad.  but now i'm admitting it.  i'm sad.

except...

okay so basically this is how my life has been going down.  i wake up in the morning, late.

so already in my day i am a failure.  this is every day mind you.  i have no idea why on earth i can't wake up on time but golly gee have i not been working on it MY ENTIRE LIFE and jimminy willickers has it gotten WORSE WITH AGE!!

so invariably, my first action of every day is a screw up.

i don't even get a chance to do something right before i do something wrong.

after i get up late i will probably shower although that depends on how late i got up, get dressed into my work uniform and go to work.  then i will work super hard at a job that i feel terrible at if for no other reason then i can't seem to move fast enough.  i will get frequent annoyed and impatient looks from my supervisors, i will over compensate by doing an obscenely detailed job sweeping, then right when i think i'm getting the hang of things accidentally close the cash drawer before giving a customer their change, forcing me to call over a manager to open the drawer for me so i can retrieve it.

i will leave work after getting somewhere between three to five hours. which every paycheck adds to just under how much i need to do one thing on the list of many things i need the money for.  i will put in my lipring to feel like myself again, and depending on the day go to some kind of social activity with my friends hoping that i don't smell like deep fried fish planks.

then i will come home, i may or may not make myself food, watch television for an extended period of time and then get online to check facebook and tumblr and pinterest and any other social networking site i can think of.  it's about this time that my entire day settles over my head and i'll see something online that strikes a chord with me and i'll get really emotional and then i'll blog.

i'll remind and berate myself about how i'm not doing anything in my life that makes life worth living.  i'm not really serving anyone, i'm not creating anything, i'm not going anywhere, i'm not using my education.

then i will go to bed, knowing that the next day is going to be exactly like that day was.

believe me, i have a point to all of this.

so when it comes to where i am with God right now i'm all like "where do you want me to go?"  and God is all like "well, you're here right now."  and i'm like "well i'm not asking about right now, God.  i'm asking about what i am to be doing..."

i've been trying to be more intentional in my walk, specifically with prayer.  there have just been so many things circling my life that need prayer lately. people and circumstances.  and i know i need to pray more, not just my regular impulse prayers like "Dear God thankyou for not letting that bus hit me."  but more like actual "hey, God.  what's up?  so this is happening to me today, and by the way this is whats happening to all of my friends."

i believe in the power of prayer.  so why don't i use it?

over the summer i had another job that was giving me similar anxieties and it was awful, and then i chose to do this prayer routine with one of the youth group chicks and was amazed to discover that not only were my days going better but i was actually happy.

so today as i was driving home and thinking overwhelming thoughts about student loans and insufficiencies in my work and my self it occurred to me like a pudgy girl on the couch who said she'd run more (cause i'm that girl too) that i was by myself and maybe instead of jamming to ke$ha i should be talking to God.

"Hey...Father...um...I suppose you already know this but...i'm sad..."

sidenote:  you know i've been thinking about the word "sad" and wondering if there is a better more fitting synonym to use.  after all i see meme after meme on the internet making fun of people's limited vocabularies.  but the truth is i feel there is no better word that could quite describe it.

so i get home and i get online and i start checking things and i start watching youtube videos and i do laundry and i work on something for the dinner party i'm going to tomorrow and realize something.

i'm not thinking about all the crap in my life.  i'm thinking about what i'm doing.  thats it.

and i'm once again reminded about how just talking to God makes things better even though nothing in my life has changed...yet...i think i have some more praying to do.

feminazi: because wanting your gender to be treated like a human being, is just like invading poland

ugh.

here is what my blog would say if it were just a facebook post.

i feel that my only inhibition, to being uninhibited, is that i'm not pretty enough.


now for the regularly scheduled angry feminist blog.

its no secret that the world/media/society has a set of standards for all people, but more so for women that define beauty, narrowing its parameters so that it is next to unattainable.

(if you have any arguments about the "more so for women" caveat then i invite you to look at any tv sitcom and count the number of overweight men with attractive wives, verses the amount of overweight women with attractive husbands.)

the worst part about it i'm realizing is that besides the "you must look a certain way to be considered attractive and be taken seriously"  message that is being sent out is the additional "you can only do the things you want to do in life if you look the way we say you should."

i was watching a CW show the other day that featured three female lawyers.  not a single one of them was actually dressed professionally as would be expected in a work place. (and these women supposedly worked for the DA)  instead they were all wearing flowy scarves and blouses that looked more like a fashion magazine.  in addition to this, all of them were about 5'9" with a slim body build, probably about 110 pounds each. they were habeus corpus barbies.

i've heard many men say that they don't like it when women spend so much time on their appearance, and that they want girls to just "be themselves."

but i truly believe that they do not even realize what that would look like.  they imagine the same clean and made up girls, but in sweatpants.

i was once with a group of my guy friends, and we met a girl who didn't shave her legs.  its okay if those guys didn't find that attractive.  we all have tastes and preferences.  but they continued to make fun of her in conversations for nearly a year afterward, only ceasing when another girlfriend and i yelled at them for it.  but they didn't stop because they realized how offensive it was, they stopped because we yelled at them.

whenever i see a woman express herself completely, i try to imagine myself in her place, and realize that the main thing stopping me is that i don't fit that magazine pretty.  because when i was made fun of in school, it was often for doing normal things that every other girl did.  the only reason why i was made fun of for it and not other girls was because i wasn't as pretty as those other girls.

this isn't a cry for attention, i don't desire to hear assuring remarks about my appearance.  i just want women to be respected enough that they are allowed to be who they are and look how they look whether or not who they are and how they look fit together according to the rest of the world standards.

it hurts less to sleep than it does to dream

beautiful things make me sad anymore.

they make me feel like i'm missing something in my life.  something big and important.  i'm not really creating anymore.

creating is really important for humans.  especially creating beautiful things, because we are what we create.  if i ask myself if i'm beautiful i have to be honest and say...i have had my moments.  but not lately.

i think it is both man's blessing and his curse that we should not recognize our own moments of beauty until years later, and possibly  never.  so being beautiful is known to be an attainable goal, but one that we must constantly be striving for. 

i'm inpatient.

sometimes i really hate that i need people, that i get my energy from people, because i often feel like i need to have just a string of a few days all to myself, a string of a few weeks really, to fix myself.  and then when i've recovered i can re-enter society as the person that i'm supposed to be.  

you know how when you're running late it can start with something really small that throws your whole day off?  like you hit the snooze button one time too many or your pet makes a mess that needs immediate attention or you get stuck behind a train.  it only really takes a few minutes of your time but it takes you hours to get back on schedule.  i kind of feel that way about my whole life.  like one day in grade school i overslept and now i can't get back on track. 

but i'm getting derailed now actually.

i have this sinking feeling that my entire life i'm going to be doing everything to actually create something i'm proud of and for the rest of my life beautiful things will be making me sad.

i think that the easy assumption is that my job in fast food and having nothing in the foreseeable future but debt repayment is killing my soul.

of course i could just be a flawed human being.

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.