Reason to Believe

Today I am trying to push through my trust issues and also my own faults and hope for something better.

I've been living here in Ohio for roughly a month and a half.  I have been blessed with two jobs where I work with great people.  I seem to be fairly healthy although I am still trying to eat better.  I am spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to juggle bills especially since I have the glorious added stress of the great car key debacle which Alan paid for.  I still haven't figured out how to pay him back.  It's not like I have much if any money.

I realize I am going to be 27 in just over a month, but right now I feel just as scared and frustrated as I did at 19 when I moved to GA and it took 6 months to find a job.  Maybe I really will lose weight simply because I can't afford to eat.  I'll become Jeff when he moved to Chicago minus the cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol and slowly turn into a twig figure although to be fair, he had at least 75 less lbs to worry about to begin with.  Maybe I should look at this as something in my favor.

If I am lucky, Bath & Bodyworks will be hiring again soon, and then I might have a third job.  It won't be constant, but it will be something extra.  I desperately need that something extra.  I still have about $1,700 left on my surgical bills, about $330 on a bill from radiology, and now just under $400 to pay to Alan because of the great car key debacle (never buy a car from a friend of a friend...they're liars and cheats...at least the ones in Mt. Morris are...jerkgirl).

I am tired of feeling guilty that I got sick or that someone stole MY purse (not me losing the keys somewhere stupid, it was STOLEN...please stop joking that this is funny because at this point it just makes me nauseous and frustrated at myself which isn't fair).  I am tired of feeling guilty for not knowing how to pay Alan back.  I am tired of worrying that I won't have the money together to pay for gas or to pay my half of David & I's cell bill or that I won't be able to help contribute with groceries.

I am just tired.  I hate myself for feeling so beaten.  I am lucky.  I am living with two of my best friends.  I don't have rent or utilities to pay.  I have two jobs.  I know nice people.  I have food to eat and clothes to wear.  I am incredibly lucky.  God blesses me all the time...why do I still feel like a horrible failure?

Why do I feel like I'm going to let my parents down or that I'm going to make Jake and Amber hate me?  I am tired of hearing pity in peoples' voices or annoyance.

I just want to know I can do this, and today I am struggling to believe.

There's that song by Dashboard Confessional called "Reason to Believe," and it's been stuck in my head off and on for the past couple of days.  It's become the song I sing to myself trying to push myself a little further even if I don't know what I am pushing into.

I need a reason to believe, that I have victories to taste
I can feel them on my teeth, upon my lips and in my chest
I can roll them on my tongue, they are more supple than defeat
I feel the tension in my lungs and every move is fueled by my resolve...

So Much Le Sigh

Interesting note: eating clementines while laughing is painful.  Just remember that please.

It's 2 AM and How I Met Your Mother has taught me that nothing good ever happens after this point in the night, buuuuut I am still up.  I am laughing hysterically while Amber is reading things about auto-correct.  Painful, but hilarious.

The real problem is that I am realizing that some bits of the past should stay there.  Honestly.  If someone gave you the information to contact them and then when you try to get ahold of them they never say a word back...you should probably just leave it be.  Why am I still even connected to this person?  For why?

Le sigh.

Ghost

I knew coming here would bring you back to me
It seems that nothing I do quite escapes you
I can't deny that I felt fear
wondering if I could really keep healing
when I feel you here

Only a few days have gone by
and I feel that all the old
conversations and monuments
have been brought back to life

How ironic that you can be the one
to move forward
when I'm the one that changed

You're not yet in my dreams
and I hope you stay out
The only dreams I have had
were full of hope
and someone new

Maybe this means this
wound and bitterness
are finally receeding...healing

Because just because you're gone
doesn't mean you're still not here

Everything

"You have a specific responsibility to existence, to God if you like, to taste, touch, and smell what there is to experience.  You have to do everything.  If given an option between doing something and not doing it, you have to do it; because you've already don the 'not do it' part. This can be juvenile and dangerous, I realize, and there are a lot of things I have chosen not to do, for a million reasons.  I was raised polite.  I've never hurt anyone, except guys I was sparring or fighting with.  And I don't take needless risks.  The idea is to make it through intact; 'safety' is my  middle name.  But I feel that you owe it to the world to be curious.  Somebody asked me if I was looking for something.  I am looking for everything."

That quote is from Sam Sheridan's brilliant book A Fighter's Heart which I am currently reading and a bit in love with. I read it, and I see something of myself reflected back up at me.  I spend a lot of time in the "not do it" department of life, and I think I miss many things.  This is not who I planned to be, nor is it where I intend to remain.  I choose each day to do something more to make something new.

I too am looking for everything.

How will I find it?

Grudge

My family is wonderful.  We tend to be an incredibly hilarious and fiercely loyal group.  We love each other, and we love our friends.  We take care of each other and the people around us as best we can.  We give whatever we have to whomever we can.  I am proud of who we are, but we do have a pretty frustrating flaw.

We are also brilliant at holding grudges.

This drives me insane.  I can't pretend that I don't have this very much in my veins because I am currently trying to loosen my grip on a grudge that I have developed over the past two years that is completely stupid, but I am struggling to let go of.  I'm also trying to keep myself from becoming bitter over things that are really outside of my control or the control of people around me.

God give me strength to not be a total moron about my relationships, please.  I want to be a better version of myself each and every day, and I know I can't be holding onto anger or frustration and withholding forgiveness.  It's counterproductive and unhealthy.  Le sigh.

I guess what I need to do is remember the best bits of my soul and who I am, and try to shake out the rest and rebuild.

Here's as a good a place as any to start.

Not a Tree

A wonderful friend of mine sent me this picture this past week.  It made me laugh at the time, and it still does.  As much as I love and adore trees and all they do, I am glad I am not a tree.  I'm far, far too restless to be a tree.  

I love my life.  I love my hilarious, quirky, brilliant, insane, warm, thoughtful, talented family (including David's amazing Kelsey), and I really am dreading being far away from them.  At the same time, I know that who I am right now is not going to serve anyone at all.  I am becoming stagnant here.  If I were a tree, I would be flourishing, but sadly, I am not a tree.  Instead I'm a little more wild, a lot more quixotic, and, most important, I have legs.  It's time I learn to stand on them.

Today I have begun the arduous task of packing.  I realize that as I am moving two weeks from today that I probably should have been working on this long before, but I'm a procrastinator, especially when I'm frightened or overwhelmed.  As a result, I have been making some serious to-do lists.  I wrote one for myself this morning before church because I figured if I went ahead and made out a list I might be more inclined to accomplish something.  It seems to have worked because when I got home today I immediately started putting things away and pulled out the first box to fill.  As of this moment I have all but a few last books packed.  When I am finished typing this up I will start going through my cds and hopefully have all of them packed up within the next hour or so.  After that, I am not sure where I will head, but, with luck, my momentum will carry me through a couple more boxes and I will be much closer to be finished that I was when I woke up this morning.  

Today also began a line of plans to do some visiting with people.  I will be going to grab some Chinese with friends at my favorite Chinese restaurant in Freeport on Tuesday night, and might be hanging out with a friend on Thursday as well.  I'm sure there will be many more last minute visits over the next two weeks.  

So now I begin my deep breathing, continue with my constant prayer, say a lot of thank you's, accept well-wishes and blessings, and start walking.  God didn't make me to be a tree, so it's time to move on.

How You Ever Gonna Know

Everything is exactly the same tonight, but that's really just the surface.  My room is still a complete train wreck with it's overflow of boxes, blankets, books, and papers, but I'm not the same.

I've been sitting here for the past several hours listening to a warped array of music from Ella Fitzgerald to The Features to a little Garth Brooks and slowly letting it sink in that in less than a month I will no longer live here.  It scares the living bejeebers out of me.  I have lived with my folks for the past 26 years (not including the 18 months I lived in Atlanta for school), and I am realizing I have no idea what I'm doing.

Over the past several months I have spent a lot of time talking to God and trying to truly trust him.  I know he's not going to drop me on my head, and I know this little tug in my heart pulling me forward is from him...I just wish I wasn't still struggling to believe.

Going to Ohio is the right thing to do.  I need to force myself out.  To take this next step.  To have faith that even if it seems insane, this will prove to be something amazing.  God isn't going to let me down.

Tonight I will take a couple more deep breaths.  I will work the sleep out of my curled up right leg, and I will add a few more to-do's to my to-do list.  I will hold God's promises to my heart knowing He's got only my best in mind, and also holding to the thought that there are many more good deeds to be done and hearts to be warmed.

Good things will come of this bit of insanity, even if it's not what I'm expecting.

Wish me luck,
J

ps.  Favorite Things of This Very Moment (10:41 pm):

• Newly photocopied recipes to try
• Slipper boots
• Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie
• Names
• To-do lists
• Sleep leaving my legs
• Dangly silver earrings
• Hope