Morph

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Favorite things of this very moment (12:12 pm CST):

• The Greg Holden video above
• Unsweetened ice tea
• Sunshine & warmer weather
• Not wearing shoes
• The black hoody that I recently realized I own, is super soft, and can wear...party. bonus.
• "Meet the Robinsons" on DVD
• Emails & notes from my favorite people
• Knowing I get "kidnapped" by Ben for dinner tonight, it's wonderful to have your close friends home...even if it's not for very long

I have come it a bizarre bit in my life. I'm a bit panicky at the moment because having till January to pull together money and uproot my life is totally insane to me. I'm going to do it because it is time and I'm excited to, but it still seems crazy. How do you do this?

On top of which, I'm realizing the relationships I have been involved in for the past couple of years are all changing. A few of them are really growing as time moves, and I've become close to a group of people who truly love me and encourage me. On the other hand, one of the people I've depended on most...seems to be pulling away. Or maybe I'm pulling away. I'm no longer completely sure who's doing what. I don't want to lose the friendship, but maybe this is the only way to really make this work.

Life continues to change.

--Cut--

I am changing.

I have cared deeply about one man for the course of the past 3+ years, and I'm done.

It's not that he's a bad guy or not worth it, but I'm changing. Over the past weekend, I was at a retreat where, for the first time in many months, I felt truly wanted. There was always someone who was interested in what I had to say or just enjoyed having me around. It made me realize that I've been an idiot.

I am worth being a priority. I am worth being paid attention to. I am interesting and funny. I am a young woman with a heart worth winning.

Who knows when and if I will have the right guy show up, but I don't intend to spend my time waiting on the wrong one.

Kayla over the weekend was talking about how a friend of our's needs to find himself, to be on his own for awhile so he can really figure out who he is and recognize how amazing he really is. I absorbed that whole conversation between Kayla and Terrence and realized how applicable that is to me.

Don't get me wrong, I won't deny love if it comes calling, but I also will probably take a break from actively searching. Besides, I should be the one being pursued, not doing all the pursuing.

I am changing.

Jaymin in Real Life

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Favorite things of this very moment (12:21 pm CST):

• "Dan in Real Life" & it's soundtrack
• Post-It notes
• That my stomach muscles ache which reminds me that I did the right things this morning and did Pilate's, and if I keep doing this, I might actually have REAL stomach muscles someday or at least a stomach that I'm not totally ashamed of
• Amazon.com
• Knowing my "nephew" Xavier was born yesterday evening and that he's beautiful
• Having new projects to work on
• The sun shining even if it is winter and a wee bit chilly outside
• Contacts which make so many things in life easier
• My cell-phone
• Poetry (specifically if it's about love...even if I'm beginning to doubt the validity of my knowledge concerning that topic in any and all ways...and I mean the topic of love, not necessarily the topic of poetry)

Is it bad to dislike someone you absolutely adore? It comes on suddenly. Sometimes I can't get enough of him...actually I can never get enough of him...that's the problem.

Somewhere in the course of the past few months I allowed a distance to grow between us because I was afraid of my feelings and life and being too attached to someone who can't see you as anything beyond a younger sister. Instead of lessening how I feel for him, it only seemed to make the ache that much deeper. Wider. Like the ocean. Yet smaller, like a snowflake or a grain of sand. My feelings are a paradox.

I'm trying to grasp onto this, to understand it.

He's playing tonight at a church in a nearby town. Normally, he calls by this point on the Saturday he plays to tell me he's playing and see if I want to come. I keep staring at my phone trying to decide if I want to call. Maybe he's not really playing tonight. Maybe he switched weeks with someone.

Or maybe he doesn't want me to come because he'll be meeting her afterwards...

I'm pretty sure that I'm just over-thinking this like I do so many things so often. I seem a wee bit incapable of dealing with rational thought. And I also seem to enjoy the term "a wee bit" a might too much.

I want to someday own a house like the one in "Dan in Real Life." That way I'll be able to have everyone I love comfortably under one roof, and it will be near a beautiful body of water...a lake, the ocean, a gorgeous river. Somewhere beautiful to spend wonderful hours doing nothing but enjoying being with the people I love.

Life is.

Our Love

We had a house and it was called Our Love.
Built to last, or so I thought.
The outside was neat and clean.
Freshly painted daily by your words.
We looked like perfection to everyone who saw it.
We incited envy amongst other lovers.
But…

The inside was where the real story was told.
We had each furnished it with our own beliefs.
Our own thoughts,
they sat like arm chairs and coffee tables.
Mixed but never matching.

These furnishings were what we fought over.
Who knew that a difference in decor could create such tension?
But you cared more about the appearance of Our Love to the world
than you ever cared about me.

How can we care about the outside if the inside’s falling in?
We were too busy putting up appearances to take care of our hearts.
Inside the walls were crumbling,
the arguments were endless
over belief,
over the decorating,
over how we appeared.
We forget to tend the garden of our hearts.

We were overrun with weeds of ruin,
with the dust-bunnies of disaster and neglect.
Loneliness repossessed Our Love,
and we were forced to move on.

I hope you still keep a picture in your heart of Our Love
even after all these years.
Sometimes I go back and cry at its ruin.
I miss Our Love, the way it was in the beginning,
but sometimes…
It just wasn’t meant to be.

But please,
remember Our Love.

What Can I Hope For?

Favorite things of this very moment (12:02 am CST):

• Channing Tatum
• "Step Up" on DVD
  "Down with Love" on DVD
• Ewan McGregor
• Organic Blood Orange & Mandarin by Presse Belvoir Fruit Farms
• Talking to Nikky on AIM
• Accents
• David Hyde Pierce
• Dance movies
• My laptop
• Housesitting
• Dakota & the cats
• Unsweetened Ice Tea
• A man in glasses (there' s just something so endearing)
• Children's movies with wonderful inspirational messages ("Keep moving forward," "See a need fill a need," etc.)

I slammed my shin into the recliner earlier. I have serious talent. Good grief.

"Down with Love" has the WORST innuendo ever. It's amazingly awful. Lovely at the same time.

Alright, let's call this post to order. The real reason I am posting is because I am currently housesitting and very much on my own. I'm feeling a little confused by everything:

-Where do I go next?
-How do I really feel?
-What do I want out of life?
-What do I hope for?

The lack of hope is what I really want to change. As strange or silly or sad as it may sound, as I was watching "Step Up" the other day for the first time I realized what my problem was: I have no hope for myself.

Let me better elaborate. I have hope in Jesus Christ for my salvation. I know I am loved by God and that I will be in the Kingdom of God when Jesus returns. In this manner I have a more glorious hope than I can explain, but there's still something off.

My problem is that I don't believe in myself. I have no hope that I can change. I have no hope in a future because there's nothing that I can find to want badly enough to fight for. All the passion and inspiration I talk about and admire is something that I still haven't found in my own life.

I thought I had. That I'd found someone I wanted enough to fight for, but just after Thanksgiving, that dream broke apart. When the person you love asks you your opinion on another girl...that kind of shatters your heart. Especially when you're already having trouble figuring out what you can bring to a relationship to begin with.

Am I making sense yet?

It's probably for the best that I didn't get the guy. He doesn't see me. In a large way I am invisible to him, and as I can't figure out what I'm bringing to a relationship or feel like I'm truly deserving of all of this, it really is probably for the best.

I want to believe that I am good enough. God loves me and sees me as his beautiful creation, why can't I see myself that way?

This year, I'd like to work towards seeing myself as God sees me: as someone beautiful and growing.

I am:

• good at making desserts
• hilarious
• a good judge of tasty juices
• not much of a drinker
• a maker of tea
• a child at heart
• a lover of movies
• a writer of poetry
• a dreamer
• a wisher
• a hoper
• a prayer (can you tell that I'm stealing Shel Silverstein lines?)
• good at encouraging others
• a maker of blankets and scarves
• thoughtful

And I am also tired.

Let's find our true selves. Let's dream dreams, wish wishes, and learn to see all that we can achieve and hope for. Let's risk and win.

Let's change, and maybe do some dancing along the way.
Love,
J

Welcome to the New World She Said to Me

Favorite things of this very moment (2:08 am CST):

• Baby carrots
• Red Bull
• Northern Exposure (I've really fallen in love with this show)
  
• Dakota (she's such a good dog)
• Kizi, Mister Trogdor, and Jovi (the wonderful cats)
• My cell
• Not feeling terrified of being in this huge house alone anymore (having 4 animals running around and all the fish really does help a lot, that and having the TV on most of the time)
• Christmas lights
• My soft fuzzy, excessively colored socks (they look like something out of the Dr. Suess books: who-socks)
• John Corbett (good grief...he's freaking beautiful..wow...*sigh*)

Happy New Year!

I'm having trouble comprehending the fact that it's already 2009, and has been for 2 hours for me. How do the years fly so quickly by? Especially when it feels like they take forever when you're actually going through them? I will never understand that. Time is a crazy thing.

I don't necessarily have any real set New Year's Resolutions this year. I'd like to lose weight, but I'm not going to say that's a New Year's resolution. That's just a fact. On the other hand, I will be trying to say yes more often. I started reading Danny Wallace's book Yes Man the other night, and he has a good point, you miss out on so many things when you say no. I realize that's super obvious, but how often do you think about that?

A friend of my recently reminded me that most people don't regret the things they've done as much as the opportunities they never took. I believe that taking risks is a integral part of actually finding joy in life. This next year, I will say yes more often.

May 2009 be a better year for you and me both.

With much love,
J

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

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Favorite things of this very moment (10:13 am CST):

• Having just put my 3rd dose of meds in my system and knowing that this is taking the Strep and the pain of this whole past week out of my system...finally
• Getting into my email today and seeing an email from the tall one when I've barely spoken to him in almost 3 weeks now
• Feeling the ache slowly fade into the feeling of a bruise constantly being poked at instead of the throbbing pain of a new wound that aches with every beat of your heart
• Nikky's latest draft of "Somewhere in the Middle"
• Tyler Hilton
• Christmas lights
• Watching the snow fall and knowing my brothers will be the ones clearing off my car because they're trying to keep me healthy
• That my car door actually opened right away this morning...miracle of miracles
• Knowing I'll be going to work today for the first time in a full week
• Kleenex
• Trying to understand all the dreams I've had lately
• My beautiful rainbow colored slipper-socks that I bought myself last week...the day I got sick actually...ha.
• Knowing Christmas is only two short days away

What can you say? The snow is falling and it's beautiful today. Today has all the individuality of a snowflake, but little of the cold. Today is a stack of presents under the tree with all the mystery that lies with them. Today is dancing in the living room in your pj's and socks when it's already late morning and you still haven't accomplished anything.

Today is 2 days before Christmas. Two.

Life has a funny way of moving even when you can't do anything. I have been sick since last Tuesday. A full week of my life spent between my bed and the couch feeling like my eardrums were going to explode and eating enough to make my stomach stop clawing at me, but not enough to ever feel satisfied. Enough soup involved to make me think soup will be avoided if possible for awhile. A week in which I did barely any reading and watched more movies and TV show seasons than I dreamed possible. A wasted week.

But life moves.

I did manage to go to church on Sunday. It was beautiful. My dad puts together the Christmas service every year. I think it's one of the highlights of his year, and that's alright with me. He always does a wonderful job. This year he made it a walk through Bethlehem. It was beautiful. He got the little ones involved, had a group of guys sing, just involved a whole bunch of people in the service that aren't normally involved. It was beautiful. Everything just focused back to the wonder of the season. The wonder of little ones and how amazing the Christmas story really is. Especially when you look at it through the eyes of a child. Just think about Christ's birth and the angels and the shepherds. Everything is so incredible and amazing, but all too often we stop thinking about the beauty and wonder of the season and of Christ's miraculous birth. Instead we get swept away in the commercialism of the season.

The Charlie Brown Christmas special is my favorite for this very reason. Everyone so caught up the in the commercialism of the season, and then you have Linus come out on the stage and tell you exactly what Christmas really is all about: Good news of great joy which shall be to all people.

Shouldn't that be our focus? The beauty of the fact that we were given a small baby who grew to be the savior of the world. Who was God's love personified and given to all of us?

Isn't that amazing?

So spread the joy and the love today. Have yourself a merry little Christmas, my friend. Find something little (or big) to do for someone else today. Clean off someone's car for them. Shovel someone's walk. Make someone some cookies. Send a friendly note. Do the dishes or the laundry. It doesn't have to be big or fancy, just make sure you spread a little love today. Those little things are what make everything worthwhile.

With all my love, I wish you the merriest of merry Christmases (especially if I don't make it on this again before Christmas). May it be full of love, life, joy and all the beauty your heart can contain. And maybe even a little magic. :)