"Believe me, I'm just as lost as you"

In a few days, I return to college to finish up the last few weeks of my undergraduate years. Due to the River City Rocker’s obsession with Trapt, I’ve been conveniently reacquainted with one of my old favorite songs. This lyric is especially poignant at the moment:

A small reflection on when we were younger
We had it all figured out
Yes we had everything covered.
Now we’re older it’s getting harder to see
What the future will hold for us
What the f*** are we going to be?
-“Still Frame”

People ask me what I’ll do after May. I have to say my guess is as good as theirs. I have options. I have choices. I just don’t know which way to go. As ever, Megan can’t decide.

"I asked for the sea"

North Park has a new library. Well, it’s probably been here for a year, but it’s new to me and it’s wonderful.

I have wireless internet on my laptop, thanks to Cliff and Best Buy.

I want to be with kt, but her phone broke. :(

My mom and I watched Dear Frankie a few nights ago. I cried as usual.

Simone wrote me an e-mail and I love her.

I bought brown pants for $6 and they’re amazing.

Guess what… I don’t really exist.

"Tell the world I do"

If I could meet anyone dead or alive, I'd meet Billie Holiday. I think she and I could have something to talk about.

Some men like me 'cause I'm happy,
Some 'cause I'm snappy,
Some call me honey, others think I've got money,
Some tell me, "Baby you're built for speed,"
Now when you put that all together,
Makes me everything a good man needs.

-- "Billie's Blues"

Return of Narnia or: The Groundhog Strikes Back

So on February 2, the Groundhog didn’t see his shadow. Obviously.

After one false start to spring, winter is making a come back here in Upland, Indiana. Although no flakes had fallen before my 8 a.m. class, by 10 a.m. the landscape resembled Narnia out my apartment window:



I’m not a huge fan of wetness in general. Snow, rain… it just doesn’t go well with pants. Fortunately, I hadn’t put my long underwear away for the summer yet, so no hypothermia for me!

This afternoon I shall cuddle up with a book and drain the dregs of my Starbucks coffee. Yes, it’s true. “Every ship must sail away…”

NO SPRINGS!!! Heh heh heh...

Tonight I watched SQUIRM with my freshman-year roommate and some other friends. Jenna and Anna made dirt cups (yay for thematic treats) and I learned to do Soduku.

I always forget how much I love Mystery Science Theater 3000, but then I’m reminded the moment those sexy robot silhouettes overlay the screen. Mmmm… nothing compares.

"Volcanoes melt me down."

A year and a half ago, I started down a path that would lead me back to my heart. For so long, I’d been denying my feminine soul. I exchanged relationships for workaholism. I exchanged desire for the status quo. Although I stuffed my craving for human connection beneath busyness and efficiency, that exquisite, aching loneliness of a heart “unworthy” hounded my being as I fought for sleep each night.

And so the summer of 2004 found me awakened to the possibility of who I could be. My dreams were validated, my hope was restored. The prospect of Romance lured me with purpose. For the first time, I saw myself as a woman uniquely bearing the image of God. It was then that I dared to hope.

Looking back, I see how naïve I truly was. I didn’t really understand that by awakening my heart, I had opened myself to suffering, violence, shame, intimidation. In waking up, I had to wade through a dark and tragic past I would have rather forgotten. But only after recognizing this past could I find my redemption.

Tonight, Dan Allender extolled us to let our lives “be about death AND the resurrection.” God uses the Curse to break us and to draw us back to him. You have to die before you can be brought back to life.

Everyday is a battle, but too often I misidentify the enemy. I think of the wounds I have received over the years: The father who abandoned me, the lovers who forgot me, the companions who betrayed me. Perhaps none of their actions were intentionally malevolent, but the implicit message declares that I am not worth anyone’s time, effort, toil. I am too much of a hassle, a mess, a burden.

I have often found myself sitting with my girlfriends, our arms crossed tightly over our chests, bemoaning the atrocities men have wrought on our lives. We blame them for our eating disorders, our self-esteem issues, our faulty perceptions. And Satan has us right where he wants us.

I’m becoming increasingly aware that the true Enemy of my soul is not my father, or my ex-boyfriends, or that crazy old woman who said I was a demon when I was in eighth grade. The wounds in my life were orchestrated and designed to break me and drive me back to God, but too often Satan gets ahold of them and rids me of hope. He makes me feel stained and dark so that I won’t give or receive love. But Allender said, “Evil will not win if you have the courage to name what is true.”

So I will do just that. I will get angry that evil has accomplished so much in my life. I will heed the Curse and not be afraid to let my desperation lead me back to the only Being who can ever satisfy my relational desires. I will not stop telling my story, my Truth, because I know it is the Truth of so many others. Keep reading. The battle has just begun.

Metaphysical mutilation

Last semester in Fundamentals of Counseling, Vance told us that all anyone really needs is validation. He told of how his son used to jump on the trampoline and say, “Look, Dad!” Instead of saying, “Good job” or “Wow, that’s wonderful. I love you,” Vance would simply say, “I see you.” And that was all his son needed.

I guess I’m finding this to be true. One song that speaks to this reality is “Annie Waits” by Ben Folds. As Annie waits in vain for a phone call from a “friend,” she thinks:

“And so he forgot,
he forgot, maybe not —
Maybe he's been seriously hurt.
Would that be worse?”

The friend’s refusal to keep his promise speaks to Annie’s fear that she does not exist. This is evident as she weighs which would be more painful: bodily injury to someone for whom she cares or his lack of acknowledgement that she matters (i.e. forgetfulness).

And so I’ve been thinking, how have I used this simple truth against people? How often have I ignored someone for whatever reason… fear, guilt, revenge… Thinking back through my life, the hardest blows I’ve ever experienced have been the moments that challenged my very existence, the times when I feel unwanted, unseen.

Perhaps that’s why neglect is one of the most sinister forms of abuse. It tells the abused, “You don’t matter. You don’t exist.”

Laundry service.

I just had a very interesting experience that makes me very thankful I live in an all-girl dorm.

English’s (my residence hall’s) laundry room flooded two weeks ago, rendering the facility useless in the meantime. Last week I did my laundry at a friend’s house, but this week I decided to go do my laundry at next door, coed Gerig Hall.

I finished a test early today and figured it’d be as good a time as any to find a washer. My hunch proved correct as I encountered two empty washers in their laundry room. I loaded the washers and headed back to my apartment for a snack.

A half hour later, I returned to discover my laundry had disappeared. I looked all over the table and other washers and couldn’t find my clothes. I finally looked up to see that my laundry had been stashed above the dryers at a height of eight feet. Do the math… I’m about 5’4”. I had to climb up on the adjacent washers just to get my wet laundry down. This kind of thing would never happen in English, mostly because no one is tall enough to get the laundry up there in the first place.

Also as I was leaving Gerig, the strap on my trusty collapsible hamper snapped off. That strap lasted four years in two different countries. It’s so sad that now it’s gone. It also makes it very difficult to wield my laundry now.

Unclean!

I got a campus-wide email whose subject read “The Well is not for sick students.” I thought that was a fun word play.

Apparently, our humble campus has become an incubator for influenza. As the health center doles out excused absences, infected students wonder what to do with all this free time. Solution: Go pump iron in The Well (our fitness center). Haha. The email informed these students that working out will not only complicate their symptoms but will also spread the virus further.

[Too lazy to transition]

Today in Research, Scott gave us a study guide for Wednesday’s test. The guide was a two-inch long strip of paper consisting of nine bullet points with areas to study. These bullet points included such items as the four scales of measurement and types of variables. The final point read: “And everything else in our readings and book.”

AHHHHH!!! Could you be anymore inclusive?

In reality, I’m not too worried about the test. Research is my favorite class this semester, which is quite a surprise since I got signed into it right before JTerm ended.

[Too lazy to conclude]

Every ship must sail away...

Resignation. In times like these, it’s the only posture to take. I’m thankful for Blue Merle; they pen my sentiments exactly:

Oh change is in the air
And you wear it all so well
I asked you if you cared
If you care I couldn't tell

Years pass and people change
Bluer skies could turn to gray
Though it's gonna hurt for now
Every ship must sail away
Every ship must sail away

Encouragement

So life has taken an unexpected turn. I have no idea what will happen after May 20. In Margaret's professional development class, a guest speaker entered and handed out this flier that I find particularly encouraging at this juncture:

Too cool for school: A consumer report

Margaret and I went to WalMart and Lowe's last night to buy frame stuff for her SENIOR SHOW. While in WalMart, this new new product caught my eye:



Gum ice cubes??? Oh, our brave new world...!!!

So since it was a special occasion, I purchased and sampled the IceBreakers Ice Cubes. To my disappointment, it tasted like chewed-up gum that had been fashioned into a cube shape.

Moral of the story: Save your $.84 for tried-and-true Orbit Gum.

But it was fun to experiment nonetheless.