chaos theory

today has been one of those rare days that you get in college sometimes - I didn't have to go to the first two of my three monday classes. it was bliss. I had a few extra hours to do absolutely nothing, so what did I do but, like any other college student, pull up my mom's netflix account to watch a movie.  I had found this movie called Chaos Theory a few days ago in my netflix browsing.  all I needed to know about it was that it starred ryan reynolds and was a romantic comedy.  perfect for today.  except that it was hardly what I was expecting.  seriously, romantic comedy is the entirely wrong genre to throw it in. where do I begin?  I suppose by telling you that if you really want to understand any of this post, go watch it.  it is well worth your time.  (and ladies: ryan reynolds...what more needs to be said?)  because I refuse to waste space by explaining to you the plot, here's a good summary: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460745/.
essentially, it was one of those movies that awakens nearly every emotion you have. one of those movies that makes you want to yell at the screen because things aren't going the way you know they should.  it made me angry, made me laugh, made me (almost) cry, made me realize the complexity and depth of lfe. at least that's how I felt, anyway.  maybe it was just because I was entirely ready to feel all those emotions again, you know, those ones that have been escaping me so much as of late.  whatever the reason, I felt them.  and it felt so good. there's something about emotions, the way they bind you to the rest of the human race.  when I am at a shallow emotion point, I have a hard time relating to people; but when I'm emotionally awake, I can feel other's emotions well again.  it's funny what a movie, a movie you expected to be silly and quite nearly pointless, can do to you.  but I feel like life is at it's best when it's completely unexpected.

when life is expected, when you act in a premeditated, expected way, there will never be any surprises.  that sounds too obvious to write, but that thought rarely occurs to me when I'm living my predictable life.  I want to be less predictable, I want to do what I feel is right, not what I've rationalized out and determined to be right.  I feel like life is more full when we don't do what everyone assumes we are going to do.  the chaotic life is the beautiful life.

today's to do list: be unexpected.

mess

mess (noun) - a dirty, untidy, or disordered condition

that is probably the best way you could describe my current condition.  I mean typically I'm a bit of a mess, but it's worse right now; it's a deeper kind of mess right now. it's 3:24 in the morning. blogspot won't tell you that because my timing is off on my blog. but as I am writing it is nearly halfway between three and four am.  and I don't get myself.  even before I left texas I was feeling a bit of a disconnect with myself. I don't know if you're familiar with those, but I am well aquainted with them.  but now it's like there is a wall there.  a wall between the me I show everyone and the me I am underneath it all.  and I can't get through to her, the one underneath it all.  I've been reading my favorite quotes and my old blog posts and trying to remind myself who I am, but I can't feel it.  I'm not in touch with those deep emotions that inspire me to write and love and believe.  it's like I know who I am, but I can't feel it.  this will either make complete sense to you, or make me sound like a lunatic.  take it as you will.  perhaps it's that creative gene in me, right?  that's what we all tell ourselves to help us sleep at night.  but I think it's really more me running from God.  and I really don't have a reason to.  because when I'm in line with Him, in love with Him, I am perfectly in tune with the woman He created me to be.  I feel deeply all the time; I have things to write about; I'm able to see what's going on beneath the surface.  but something is keeping me from Him.  and I've been analyzing every part of my life trying to figure out what it is.  I thought it was maybe something that I wanted to do that I knew wasn't His will for me, but I've stopped wanting those things I used to want so badly.  I'm cleaning up in terms of the things that I do.  so I don't think it's that.  I haven't been reading my Bible much at all lately and I haven't been sleeping at good hours and I'm ten hours away from my family, from the people that know me and understand me and love me anyway, for the first time in my life.  but I just can't convince myself that that's it either.  the desire to read God's Word is usually a physical manifestation of loving Him and being in tune with Him (for me, at least).  it goes deeper than that.  and I have no idea where the root of it is.  so I don't know what to do about it.  I mean there is actually nothing I can really do about it.  the only thing I can do is let go and let God sweep me up into His arms and remind me that I'm not alone, on my own.  but it is oh so hard to do that.  I like my control.  I like being able to determine problems and fix them myself.  but it is getting harder to keep up this exterior, to keep up appearances, to fake it 'til I make it.  I am a mess.  but only as a mess can I demonstrate to the rest of the messy world the glory of the God that takes wretches like me and turns them into beautiful masterpieces.

"I wait until my life has become so completely unlivable and the person I am has become so deeply unmoored from reality and hope and goodness, that I break down and pray." - Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines. I'm there, God.

scared

it has been far too long since I wrote last. I completely lost all will to write - I suppose you call that creativity - for some really, really crazy days. but, what do you know, that little spark found it's way to me again...at 1 o'clock in the morning (as per the usual).  and even though I have class tomorrow morning and reading that I really must be doing for my english class, I can't fight it because I've got something to say.

I'm scared.

there, I said it.  it's out there and I can't take it back.  and it's completely true.  I am scared.  most of my fear is caused by people.  don't take that the wrong way, I truly love people.  I love my family and friends, I love meeting new people, I love being around big groups of people.  but they make me nervous sometimes.  I think it is because I am constantly worrying about what they think.  it's terrible, I know.  I shouldn't care.  and it isn't really that I care, it's more that I just wonder.  the semester just started and so that has brought a lot of brand new people into my life, mixed in with the old ones, and I'm alone for really the first time in my life because my family moved to a different state over the break, and sometimes in my head I'm still that awkward high school girl who isn't, you know, really a superstar or anything special like that.  I'm still awkward, of course, but I used to just think I was kind of boring, a bit of a plain jane, that there was nothing really special about me.  since then I've realized that there's something special about everyone, everyone's different and important because they bring something special to the table.  I think it was because I was always into a whole lot of different things, and I was never exceptional at any of them that I felt this way.  but I think that is my "thing".  (you know, everyone's got their "thing", right?)  I am quite multi-faceted.  I mean everyone's multi-faceted, but really.  I love to run and eat and write, and the only thing I'm really, really good at out of the three is eating; I act like a 5 year old most of the time, but I love talking about life problems and giving advice as best I can; I wear running shorts and massive t-shirts almost all the time, but I seriously love fashion; I am a scholar, I am an artist, I am a woman; I love, love, love people, but I'm more shy than I wish I was.  I used to think all this meant that I didn't really have a "thing" and that I needed to find one.  which, I guess, is why I started running track in junior year, and why I got obsessed with my grades for a little bit because I thought they weren't good enough, and why I started painting canvases, and sort of (probably subconsciously) why I started this blog.  but all of those pursuits only made me realize that I love them all.  so here I am: a college kid, a sorority woman, who is a little wiser, a little sillier, and certainly a lot more comfortable with herself. 

all of that, really, was to point out the lack of logic in my next dissertation. why, then, am I so easily unnerved by people?  I try to justify it by blaming it on the fact that out of all the things in this world, I hold people dearest.  but that is an excuse.  I am so easily unnerved by people (sometimes) because I worry too much about what they think about me.  it's true.  and while I would never change something about myself because of someone's opinion, I often find myself believing that my chief end is to be liked.  I don't like being singled out.  I don't like not having anyone to talk to.  sometimes, I even think that I would rather people not think I am something special.  really, though, it is more like I want people to think I am something special, but if they ever say something about it, I don't know what to say.  I'm perfectly fine with you complimenting my dress, or my bracelet, or my hair; I'm great at accepting those compliments.  but I never know what to say when people give me a serious compliment, it's like all of a sudden I feel this really deep desire to give them some great, serious compliment too, so I start focusing on that and then I sort of just freeze until I think of something to say.  that makes it sound worse than it is, but you get the picture. 

okay, back to being nervous.  sometimes I just feel like I am surrounded by all these great people and I really have nothing of any value to share.  sometimes I feel like everyone else knows each other, and I'm the new kid (sometimes that's true).  sometimes I worry that I'm going to say something wrong and people will realize I'm not who I appear to be, that I don't have it all together, that I'm not artsy or brilliant or smooth.  sometimes I forget that it would maybe be one of the greatest things ever if we all realized that no one has it all together.  so I find myself getting that little anxious feeling, you know where your heart is beating maybe a tiny bit fast (not a lot) and your stomach is unsettled a bit and you just know that if you were to be forced to stand on your tip-toes, your calf muscles would quiver a bit.  that's me all too often the last few days.  and, well, I'm sick of it.  there is no need for it.  but it's not exactly like I can wag my finger at my nerves and say, "hey, you, stop freaking out please."  or believe me, I would.  I know all the tiny little anxiety issues I've had throughout my life have been little lessons, teaching me to rely more on Christ.  but it doesn't make them any easier to deal with.  I know, I know, He wants me to depend on Him for acceptance and being liked and seen as something special and all that jazz.  so, I guess I'll take these little lessons one at a time, and try to learn from them, so I can stop being such a mess sometimes.  but I feel like this is the way Christ likes me best, with all my messes and my problems that seem to have no solution and my faults and failures.  because out of this chaos, He creates beauty.

creative bit: sick

Sick of doing things I despise, just to get by.
Sick of being pushed into a corner.
Sick of never getting what I want.
Sick of watching the world fly by while I remain stationary.
Sick of not participating because I am too busy surviving.

Sick of repeating my own poor-girl manifesto as I wait for life to start.

I force my body to rise from my concrete floor-chair, joints popping, and cross to the dirty window in my apartment.  Wiping a hand across it, I make a clear line through the grime and peer outside.  I see the dirt under my own fingernails, but choose to look past them and see instead the endless expanse of bright blue sky, the warm rays of the June sun, a cloud shaped like an elephant, a free-spirited sparrow soaring, the vibrant life in the Manhattan street below. These things present themselves to me in slow-motion, like hearing, seeing, and tasting present themselves to a newborn. Something swells up inside of me, I feel the waves of it lapping against my rib cage, dying to be set free.  Action? Intention? The feeling of being fully alive? I become dizzy with it, whatever it is.  I am sweetly intoxicated.  The light intensifies, colors come to life.  I am cognizant of another reality, existing secretly just beneath the surface of what I thought was truth.  I store all these things in my memory, to have something to pull out in the dark days to come.

Life will never be the same.