I am A-Changin'

Some days I look around at my life and I am just proud that I'm still moving. I haven't given in to the doubt or confusion of it all. Nope. Instead, I'm still waking up and finding a reason to get out of bed. 

I am not perfect. I am not even sure that I'm good, but I'm trying. I was just reading a note I wrote to myself nearly a year ago about a pair of great dreams I had. Reading them felt foreign. I remembered having the dreams and how much I had hoped they were a sign of something new and changing on the horizon, but nothing changed. 

I take it back. Everything has changed. I moved home, I had to give up a plan to return to school and the future I had been trying so hard to build because I was working with and believing in someone who couldn't seem to come through for me in anything. I've started another job, but I've realized, just from that note, how much I've changed. 

God only knows what will come next, but I'll keep trying to build a life for myself. If that set of dreams ever come back to me, maybe I'll have help building my life, but in the meantime, I'll carry on alone. 

Life really is changing. I'm changing. I may accept this yet. 

Average Girl, Attractive Guy & a Baby

Favorite things of this moment (2:38 PM EST):

• The coffee/sugar/coconut milk combo I have in a giant QT glass that I've been drinking down all morning
• Having gotten the most important check written today
• Knowing there's a new laptop still at home awaiting my continued gradual transfer of music and files
• Having both my checks deposited this morning (I can finally go buy a lamp and possibly something healthy for me to stash to snack on!)
• Encouraging emails from Kimmie
• The residual effects of a good dream last night
• Agnes & the Hitman (I hope there's never a time when that book doesn't crack me up)
• Finding articles like this one that help me remember what I'm trying to change
• Knowing the Children of Change letter is getting out there to people (and that @CofChange is starting to slowly get a following and hopefully soon I won't be the only one looking at the tweets)

I've decided (not really) that I should write a sitcom based around an average looking girl and an attractive guy who are nannies for a semi-rich family.  It will follow them around on their chores and the different activities, and the girl will be attracted (duh) to the attractive guy because he's wonderful with the kid and straight and funny and understands the importance of using coupons.  As the show progresses the guy will realize he's attracted to the girl (though she's average in appearance) because she's great with the kid and funny and kind and bakes delicious pies and secretly writes a blog that she tries to keep from most people she knows.  The family they nanny for will actually be college friends who made good in the nerd-circuits of the world and run one of the Comic-Con-esque events and will both be kind and funny and observant enough to realize their brilliant plan to get their friends together is working, and that will be the basis of the show.  

It's brilliant.  Right?  I mean, I'd watch it. (And this show will have absolutely nothing to do with me having silly but wonderful dreams about babysitting for my nephew Ki with an incredibly attractive acquaintance of mine...)

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

Even though I never wrote you letters growing up, I am finding that I love doing this as an adult.  I love that you are a great embodiment of the ideals of kindness, generosity, grace, and hope.  You give kids hope that goodness and virtue are to be awarded, and I think we need more of that.

Getting older reminds me constantly of the desperate need of hope.  Hope for something better, for something to pull us through.  Having faith gives me hope that at the end of this life I will open my eyes to a real "happily ever after," but sometimes the day to day hope and joy and dreams get lost or broken in the shuffle.

This year, my 26th year, has been full of the unexpected, the unplanned, and disrupted, but also full of real joy and growth.  In looking back, I can see a couple of things that I wouldn't mind adding to my life, so here's my list this year:

1. A new dream, please.  The past couple years were spent wrapped in a crazed hope and deep love for a man who chose to love someone else.  I am sure time will prove this to be the right course for both of us, but it's left me with an emptiness and loneliness that tend to make nights long and give me no true outlet for my heart.  Please, please bring me a new dream.
2. Courage.  The word "cancer" rings through my head at least once a day and has me thinking about updating my will, fighting back tears, and wondering what I will do if that word truly attaches itself to my life come January...I would like the courage to face whatever comes next with true grace, gratefulness and dignity because...I am scared, and I don't want fear to win.
3. The right plan.  I am tired of having no solid direction.  I just want this to be obvious.  Do I move?  To where?  When?  How?  Clarity in this would make all the difference.
4. A ukulele.  I have wanted one for ages, and I just figure it's something that can make me smile even if I'm not good at playing.  I can definitely use something more to make cheerful, silly music with.

Thanks for reading this, Santa.  I know you're busy, and you've got lots of dreams and hopes and wishes to fulfill.  I wish you all the best for your work and Christmas.  Thanks for giving us all one more reason to smile and for lighting up the eyes of little ones everywhere.

With a cheerful heart & good wishes,

Jaymin

ps.  Could you also bring me some new purple pens?  My good one ran out of ink tonight.  Thanks, Santa.  Merry Christmas.

Worth Waking For

Tell me you’ll come back for me

Tell me there’s a way

I’ve been waiting here forever

and I know we’ve been together

in dream after dream after dream

So tonight before my eyes begin to wake

tell me this isn’t going to remain a dream forever

that there is something out there,

someone out there,

worth waking up for

Because if you are only a dream,

if this can never be,

I am not getting out of this bed

There will never be a reason to wake up

if you aren’t real

So please tell me,

tell me you will return for me,

and walk through my door

soon.

Surrender & Hope

“Worry implies that we don’t quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what’s happening in our lives.”
-Francis Chan, Crazy Love

Talk about a slap across the face. Last night I practically cried myself to sleep in a whiny and frustrated act of self-pity. All I could think about was how there couldn’t possibly be any guy out there searching for me. That I would be alone forever. That Kyle was right, maybe I am supposed to cause single forever because there can’t possibly be anyone out there who wants me.

It’s like 1:30 in the morning last night, and all I can think about is how I don’t want to be like Pat and Earlyne (even if they are happy being single and have amazing ministries). How I don’t want to be single forever, how unfair it is that I would have so many dreams and never get them fulfilled.

Me, me, me, me. Whine, whine, whine.

Then this morning, I’m still thinking about this. Frittering my life away by detail as Thoreau would say, and then I start reading. I am reading my Bible. I was reading in Ezra about the rebuilding of the temple. God had such specific detail and directions for the temple. So much detail and He understood them all and made sure everything was just right.

Then I open up Crazy Love and start reading Chapter 2: You Might Not Finish This Chapter, and Francis Chan is talking about how there is nothing normal in any given day. It only seems normal because we (I) wrap ourselves (myself) in our (my) worries and personal lives (life).

Each day is detail and wonder, and this shouldn’t suck away my life and heart. No, it should be expanded to the point of bursting.

What is it to worry? It is to think God can’t control it all or that He doesn’t know me well enough to see and understand my dreams, and to think that He has forgotten what He has created me to be. It is to forget that God is big enough, powerful enough, and loving enough to take care of what is happening in my life.

God is big, powerful (all-powerful), and He loves me.

God has placed in my heart a large and plentiful supply of love that is holding on for the day He brings the right guy into my life. He has given me my dreams, and God knows all the details of my life. All of them.

God will make a way when there seems to be no way, like it says in that song.

More importantly, I do need to surrender my dream of finding the right guy and falling in love. Not because I should give up hope and not because it will never happen, but because I don’t know how it will happen. Only God does, and on top of that, God knows every detail and dream and whisper of a hope in my heart and far He knows them fair better than I do; I wouldn’t even know what I should be asking for.

This should actually give me more hope. God loves me and knows my details. When I cry myself to sleep thinking God’s being unfeeling or that He will take my dreams from me, I’m being an idiot.

The only time God will take my dreams from me is so that He can take them, reshape them, and make them even better.

Two verses to ponder:

“Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you
by the gazelles and by the does of the field:
Do not arouse or awaken love
until it so desires.”
-Song of Solomon 3:5

and finally:

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also in set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
-Ecclesiastes 3:11

The Plan

Favorite things of this very moment (9:10 am CST):

• Hearing from Nikky last night, so I know she's not dead
• Sunshine warming my toes and being so golden and glorious that you wish you could pour it into a cup and drink it all in
• Contemplating the things that I've recently tried for the first time
• Wondering what good deeds I will manage to accomplish this week
• A&W Cream Soda
• Phil Keaggy's "Acoustic Sketches" album

Last night, Nikky and I formed an elaborate plan to deal with the traumatic loves we have had for years. All we need now is the money and to find ways around the Geneva Convention laws...

You see, what could be more brilliant than stranding the people that have truly crushed and maimed your heart on a tiny, sandy desert island somewhere in the south Pacific surrounded by rabid sharks and no communication with the outside world. There would be a speaker system that would play one song on continuous loop for a full month. One month would be a scratched, skipping version of the Jonas Brothers' "Lovebug," another would be "Honky Tonk Badonk a Donk" (however that's actually spelled), and maybe something by the Backstreet Boys or Kenny Chesney's "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" at other times. We'd give them Crisco mislabeled as sunscreen. All the preprocessed food we'd drop for them would be wrapped in pictures of David Bowie's pants from "The Labyrinth." All their blankets and other forms of shelter would also feature that lovely photo. We'd leave them a guitar with the G and B chords missing, a defective camera, and a biting hamster for entertainment. We might even let a group of angry weasels live with them on the island.

Yes.

As Nikky Once Said, "Life Moves."

Favorite things of this very moment (2:23 pm CST):

• Hope that things might just be working out
• Having the obvious pointed out to me when I'm way too blind to see it
• That the tall one is not only reading Twilight but also enjoying it and (as the man of any girl's dreams would do) taking notes...oh yeah...
• Smiling more than I ever dreamed possible
• Sun tea in a gleaming teal & silver thermos
• Rechargeable batteries
• Knowing that when I check my email...he'll have emailed me back
• New questions to answer
• Good dreams (he's been in all of them this week...every last one)
• "Hercules" (Sometimes Disney really does make wonderful movies)
• Finding inspiration to write after two years of aching emptiness and complete and total writer's block
• Being told he's still working on another mix for me (Sweetest Mix Ever 3!)
• Sidewalk chalk
• My beautiful digital camera
• Blueberry scented bubbles
• Knowing I've almost perfect this next mix and the story behind it should be as beautiful and transparent as is possible...
• That he's coming on Friday...*sigh*

*shrugs* Right now the smile on my face is the size of Texas. I decided to check my email again before I started getting things ready to go to work, even though I didn't think it would do me any good, and there, gloriously enough, I already had an email back from my tall handsome friend. He is something magical. Truly magical.

I'm terrified of the hope that seems to be unstoppable and overflowing through my system. Could I finally have life moving in my favor?

Nikky and I decided that, as of yesterday, the year must only get better. The first 6 months of 2008 have been one nightmare after another. So many friends have died, so many people have been hurt, so many people have walked away, so many near death experiences have happened, and so much pain has blanketed life. All in 6 months.

We've entered the second half of 2008, and in this half only good things are allowed to show themselves.

Life is definitely moving. Quickly.

I called Sauk today. I go in to sign up for classes next Monday morning. I know they'll be confused as to why I didn't sign up for classes on my own online, but I really hate doing that. I like talking to people who train to help people who are just trying to figure things out tolerably, like myself, set up their schedules. One less thing to worry about. Perfect.

Maybe I'm not as ridiculous or as big a failure as I originally thought.

Apparently I'm fairly interesting too. I don't know what it is exactly, but I've managed to hook the attention of one of my absolute favorite people. I enjoy having questions to answer. I enjoy being able to say how wonderful he is on a regular basis. What I love most though is the fact that he's constantly talking back. I'm not having a one sided conversation with a wall. Instead, I've found a guy I can have deep discussions with and I'm feeling less ridiculous and self-conscious about it. On top of which, he is genuine and honest and insists that's what he wants from me. Without realizing what he's doing, he's slowly pulling down some of the walls I've maintained for years. He's letting me out...heh. I hope he's ready.

Like I said, the hope is a little scary. It's a struggle to accept the possibility that I may not be in this alone anymore. Perhaps...just perhaps...he actually is looking for me too.

Smile. The second half of this year has to get better. It already has.