Rebuilding and Remembering

It's already a quarter of the way into the year two thousand fifteen. It's hard to imagine that... especially as I reach days that I marked as important days in years past. This past year has been one of growth and extreme learning, and there was much pleasure and much pain throughout the year. I wonder that for us humans there is so much dependence on our feelings. That is, what we feel makes up a very big part of our life. Feelings are what we remember, our impressions and our memories... are all intertwined with feelings. And when I look back on the days past, I am still. I see how I often was caught up in the moment... caught up with my feelings... and my decisions were wrapped up in the beatings of my heart. Like a playground swing, I would rise high to the sky, then swing low, and then high again, but to the other side. The sun was bright and warm, and my energy and excitement propelled me higher, higher, and I was bouncing on the swing. Then, the clouds drifted across the sun, and I slowed, weariness coming over me with the same subtlety as the clouds drifting over the sun. And soon, I was barely moving. And so it would go. First up, then down. Happy, then sad. In the height of joy, to the pit of misery.

There were the best memories in the past year, I believe. Too many to tell, and some too special to share with the world, but many all the same. Like camp... and the intimate and wonderful moments there.... Like breathes of freedom, and the joy found in travel... Like swing dancing, and learning something new... Like learning new things, like snowboarding...

Like making new friends, and like all the whispered discussions held under heavy comforters at night... Like late nights in friendly homes...

 

Games, new things, life, work... Like giggling late into the night...

 

 

Like movies... Up Poppy Hill, Ponyo, My Neighbor Totoro.... Good movies. Nice movies.

 

 

Like treats made and then being sick afterwards with a horrible cold :/

 

 

 

Like discovering that there is much good in the world still, and that I can find so much enjoyment in the most different of people....

I think about my friends, and laugh because I know such a wide assortment of lives. From the most strict and conservative to the most country of country girls... from cowboys to midwives, Catholics to Baptists, Christians to athiests, dancers to non-resistant believers... and that's not even delving into my extended family. It's funny, I've been struggling a lot with the differences, because I desperately wish to please my friends, and especially my mentors, and I feel the differences distinctly. In many cases, I feel guilty for being different, and I wish I could feel happy about just conforming to whatever they want to be. Not in bad ways, of course... just in harmless aspects. But... I can't, or dear chiropracting uncle, for your sake I'll cut out the 'can't' and supplement 'I don't want to'. ;) I don't want to stop dancing... it makes me so happy. I don't want to stop wearing the clothing choices I have made just to please everyone else, because I like what I wear... I don't want to stop listening to my beautiful music just because others think it's distasteful and wrong.... it lifts my soul, and makes me so happy and thankful... I don't want to go to college, I don't want to always live at home under my parents' "Godly authority", I don't want to always ask and obey my father's opinion for the rest of my single life... I want to be free, and I want to be able to decide for myself what is wrong and what is right.

Right there, I may sound rebellious to some people. Right there, I may sound selfish and self willed. I may sound like I don't want authority and I want to be able to do whatever I want. Perhaps that's true. Perhaps that is how I actually do sound. I don't know, all I see is the picture from my own sights. And I don't feel rebellious. I don't feel resentful and bitter against authority. I don't. Yet I'm sure I would be told that I need to be submissive, and that it's God's plan for daughters to stay at home and be under their parent's authority until a young man comes along and then I can be under his authority until he dies, then I... well, scandalous, I guess I must be without an authority then! Finally, I guess, if I outlive my husband, then I don't need to be living under a man's authority. Gah. Whatever.

No, I know that many people don't actually believe that. I know that not all my friends would think it necessary for me to live at home under my parent's authority until I get married. Not all. Perhaps not even any would think that drastically. Perhaps I'm just being paranoid. Yah... I get that way, worrying over what people think of me. It's a bad thing... I try so hard to just be myself and be open about what I believe, but later I look back and sigh, because I see so clearly how I am trying to fit in. Trying to be one of my peers. Trying not to offend anyone. Then when I go away from them, and am around friends who are more like me, I change. I'm different... perhaps not in personality, but in dress and with an openness to what I'm actually like.

What even am I trying to say? What even am I rambling about? Silly me... distressing myself over others. God didn't intend it to be this way, you know. He didn't intend for us to be horizontally focused... No, we are to be vertically focused, upwardly focused on Christ. Looking up, moving onward. Not glancing around us and trying to figure out what everyone else thinks about me and judges me as... We aren't meant to be pleasing to men, but to God.

But the trial, for me, comes when a mentor straightens himself and looks at me sternly and soberly and tells me I'm not pleasing God. To quote one should-be-mentor-but-isn't, [to say that I want to be able to do what I decide is right is like saying] "Lord, I will stay at your house and tithe a bit, but you must let me do whatever I want."

What?

What?

Excuse me. Shall I go into different topics? Rebuilding. Yes, I am rebuilding. Finding a church, buying homeopathic medicine for my horrid cold that won't go away, working, growing, learning Deitch, writing, reading, praying, searching...

There is a cd that I have listened to over and over and over... It seems that I am in a new and different stage of my life, and different songs appeal to me than before. It isn't the Struggle focus anymore... But the Cathedrals. It's not the song "I'm Worn", but the one "More Than You Think I Am". It's now more than ever that I learn that God's bigger than I ever imagined, and it's now that I need - even more than before - His protecting and comforting hand encircled about me. It's now, when I could go and do whatever I want, that I need His wisdom, His guidance. And I have tasted and seen, and the Lord is good. Over all my dreams, abundantly, beyond measure. Even with a drawn out sickness and insecurity in my daily life, I dream of Him, reach for Him, beg for Him, go to Him. And how good it is to go to Him for all my wants, hurts, needs and prayers. I'm far from perfect. Further than most Christians, likely. I see all my imperfections and problems clearly. But I'm not here to talk about those. I'm not here to talk about me. No, all I can say is, "my Saviour!" He corrects me when I am wrong, and is with me when no one else is. It's my desire to please Him, and learn even more of His will.

It sounds good there, doesn't it? Good and easy. Yeah... it does sound that way. Ha. Of course, it isn't. Didn't I already say how it's harder now than before? Maybe I didn't say that. But it's true. And it is teaching me a lot. It's funny, I tell my coworker, Bob... It's funny how we look back to the past and say that our teenaged years were the "good old days", but aren't we humans just a little bit selective in our remembering? We remember the good things, and we see the little bittle trials we had back then, and we see the middle sized or great big trials we have now, and say, Ah! It was so much easier then! But the trials in the moment always seem the hardest. And what we don't know or don't always realize is that the trials we are in now are only to prepare us for the future. It's true, I'm a product of that truth. It's happened to me time and time over. I never wish to be in the past... I sometimes fear the future becoming the present, I sometimes fear getting older, but it's always only gotten better. It's always harder, and always better.

Thank God for that.

PORTRAITS?

Yet Another Random...

The rains will come, I know. The fire will grow. Peace will fall over me like a blanket soon enough.... I won't die here, I'll grow, and my wilted petals, limp stems, will strengthen again, and a bright smile will find my face again. The ashes and drought don't last forever. The clouds don't always darken the sky, but even when they do, there is the rain to look forward to... Rain will cause me to grow. Thunder and lightning aren't things to fear. The storm will calm itself, someday. There is a list of things that doesn't make happiness. I can give you an abbreviated version of it. Money... Work... Leaving home... Becoming an adult... Food... Books... People... I know that especially for myself, some of those things can certainly help happiness to come and stick around a little longer. But when the day is long and your body is worn out, then it can't do anything. People especially help. They do, but they can't fix anything. Sometimes I wonder why its so hard for me to learn to depend on God. I don't know why it takes so long for me to figure it out... And when I should know it already, then I have to relearn it. I guess I wonder why its not easy. I struggle to make God my Comforter and the One I depend on, because it isn't easy... And I don't know why I find it so hard. Life has been difficult. A friend told me once that I need to buck up and be brave, because I don't have it any harder than everyone else. That everyone else goes through the same things, and that I need to stop whining. That's not exactly the same words, but it was the meaning I got... And I try to tell myself that when I'm extra tired and feeling in need of someone. Today someone reached out to me... A friend, a coworker... Showed she cares and sees how I struggle. It was unexpected and it was a new feeling to experience that. Seems like no one outside of those in my family and small circle of close friends have ever done something like that. It's always me who's trying to encourage, make cards, hug, smile at.... I seem to get nowhere, while my coworker here did more for me than it seems I've ever done for anyone. ...lonely... yet among people almost constantly.... ...tired... yet getting good rest... Where's the hope? I see it around the corner... I do... It will come... I have hope... I yet have hope... Hope.

A Memory for a Long Day; The Day Before Thanksgiving, 2014

There has been a long stretch where I haven't written. Long nights troubled my soul, making it difficult for words to appear. Tears would surface, and I wouldn't know how to explain. Busyness crept up from behind me, and turned me into an adult. Event after event, growth spurt after growth spurt. Every time I felt like I had no more room to grow, I seemed to be forced to grow anyways. When I felt cramped inside a box, I realized I was the maker of that box and that I only had to step out to be free. I realized dreams don't fulfill. I realized happiness doesn't last. I realized money doesn't either fulfill or last. I realized... that there are things that last and fulfill, but I haven't yet gotten to be able to keep them in my hold. Happiness drifts by my door, and lets me have it, then drifts along again. I feel more relaxed than before though, almost as if I am not grasping at the happiness, not grasping at anything. I'm willing to accept what comes my way... haven't I had to accept a lot already? There are things that will be worse than the pain I've felt, but there will also be things that are better.

With all that said, I wish to throw a few sweet memories into the mix. These are from quite a while ago, back in late November of the past year. The day before Thanksgiving, which was a bittersweet, joyful yet somewhat sober day. These pictures make me love winter a little more. Look at the beautiful snow on the ground and the trees, and the smiling happy faces. The photos of the overturned SUV are of an accident that happened right in front of us on our way to the cider mill. The SUV fishtailed, then went into the bank and went onto its side. My uncles turned it over, like proper gentlemen.

The Complaints of a Sad Heart

There's too much heartbreak in the world. Even as I deal with my own heartache day after day, my heart reaches out over and over for all the ones around me who are hurting. And yet I am silent. The days pass by, and I work myself hard, so that I am so tired that I don't even have any energy to cry myself to sleep. I try to grow, recover, laugh... And I succeed. I laugh, I smile at everyone. But that's all I do. On new years day my friend S.M.'s boyfriend broke up with her, and her dog died. And I saw her pain, and I saw and felt the ache that she felt, and likely still feels. And I did nothing. I'm sorry, I whispered to her... But didn't know what else to say. Different of my coworkers have bad days, and I smile, try to get them to laugh, because I want, oh, so desperately, for them to be happy... I don't want them to cry, I don't want them to ache. And what do I do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The young lady I replaced in the deli now works in the cafe here. She has a small daughter, and she isn't but a young woman herself. I sat here at one of the cafe tables to eat my lunch, and I saw her go up and talk with two of the middle aged women she works with in the cafe, and she was crying. She had been on lunch, then she left. And I wanted to cry with her. I don't know what was wrong, but my heart ached. Oh A... don't cry, don't cry, please, may I give you a hug? I love you, A. I think you're so beautiful... Please don't cry, I know it hurts, but its going to be okay... But no. I look away, then watch silently as she walks to her cry, her face crumpled and tears falling from her downturned eyes. Why don't I do something? With everyone, with /everyone/, I do nothing. My friends and coworkers ache, they /need/, and I do nothing to help, I do nothing to fill that need. I feel so needy myself, yet what I do have, love, I don't even offer. What a failure I am at this...

Little and Memoriable Things

Sister~friend times....

Cold and dark bonfire parties....

Sweet adorableness all caught up in human form...

On Small and Important Matters

There are times when something strikes a horrible fear deep inside of me. I remember that time at the cider mill, just a month ago, when we arrived before Robert and Bek did, and we wondered where they were... And we heard sirens, and a fire truck raced by. That caused shivers to run down all of our spines, and dread was deep in the pit of my stomach. And life goes on, and the bad things don't happen, or, sometimes they do, and we forget, move on, block out the bad memories. It's a coping thing. We turn our heads when we pass by the crumpled bumper of that car, we stare straight ahead as we pass that place. But then the wounds heal with time. Funny, that. I was glad I never knew where exactly Granddaddy got hit and killed, but now that I know, five years later, it doesn't bother me. It's a bit melancholy, but I don't shiver and pass by with fear. Time seems to just relax me a bit. The other night my sisters and I watched a movie. A very good one, too. We sat there, afterwards, watching the credits, and a tear dripped from my eyelash. They died. Lots of people died. Yes, it was a war movie. And yes, in war people die. That night I thought of all my guy friends, and I thought towards them, oh please... Never, never never go to war... Please, never go to war, ever. It was only days before that movie that I overheard my coworkers talking about my one coworker's son, who is in the army. She was telling another coworker about how he had to take down a woman with a bomb, and his shot was too late by moments, so the bomb exploded right in her doorway, killing her and her children. My coworker was commenting on how cruel and foolish those people are, that they would sacrifice themselves and their children for the deaths of those in the American military, but I didn't listen anymore. I wanted to go to the back and cry. Why? Why? Why do they kill? Why do they hate? Oh God... God. Why does it happen? Then Saturday night I went and watched Doctor Who with Donny. I watched the episode where in the end, the doctor spun around in the Tardis laughing and shouting, "Just this once, everybody lives!!" And I was happy, too. I want everybody to live, too.

And My Car

So this is my car. Like I promised.