So I've been trying to write every night for the last few nights. I've posted a couple things, but, really, they haven't fully expressed where I'm at right now. I tend to try to keep things a bit (well, you know, kind of) polished on here, but life isn't polished. It's messy and confusing and sometimes it's really sweet, but sometimes it's pretty brutal. If you want to know the truth it's that I'm rough around the edges and I'm feeling raw and I don't always, okay, I rarely, know what I'm thinking and when I write things I'm usually more or less yelling them really loud in my head as I type them.
Annnnnd now commencing the honesty/excavating-my-soul/digging-deeper-than-I-probably-should-and-unleashing-it-on-you business.
I cannot, FOR THE LIFE OF ME, cry. I keep trying. Yes, I've become my own bully, but in a sappy way. I keep reading stuff and hearing stuff and watching stuff that makes me want to cry, you know just that spontaneous overflow of emotions junk, and I CAN'T. I even got really bad allergies after going running one day and my eyes watered to maximum, but nothing past that happened. Tears tingle the back of my eyeballs, glaze over the front of my eyeballs, even well up, but they just won't spill. Maybe it's silly, but all my hopes are riding on this. No, seriously. I feel like if I could just cry, life would do a 180, maybe with like a kickflip for style. Like if I could just feel that salty H20 mixture running down my chubby cheeks, I would magically get motivation to do life and inspiration to make a good story out of it. Like if I could just get my emotions back, everything would be right in the world. Maybe it's not so silly after all. See, the way I see it, emotions, feelings, passion - those are the things that make the world go 'round. And right now I don't have them. So my little world stopped spinning. I sleep a lot now. And mindlessly listen to music. And write sometimes. I clean the house on Fridays (that's my rent). I run at the park some mornings. And I talk about what I'm going to do. And ignore texts from my friends.
See what I'm doing right now, that's not living.
And I could sit here and write about what living is and what it means to be alive and how cool that is and how we should all live deliberately and really, all you've got to do is just get up and do! But it's actually a lot harder than that. I know there is a point and a purpose and a Will in all of this. I have to believe that because I don't serve a passive God, I don't serve a God who acts according to His whims without meaning; I serve an all-loving, all-powerful God who is at this moment painting a dark spot on the canvas of my life. A canvas that, when done, will glorify Him. You can't appreciate the bright if you've never seen the dark.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
creative bit: free
It happened at a stop light. He had been told it would one day, and it did. Like a flash of heat lightning, unexpected and violent, the feeling overtook him. He wanted to be free. He knew he was not who he was supposed to be, where he was supposed to be, doing what he was supposed to be doing. And he wanted out: out of the city, out of his car, out of his body, out of his mind. The light was still red; he could go nowhere. He felt suddenly as if he had broken out in hives (though there was no physical manifestation of this supposed ailment) and he began to itch his skin furiously, secretly thinking that if he could just scratch it off he would feel satisfied. His lungs felt too big for his chest cavity, his heart wanted to jump right through his shirt. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel nervously, waiting for the light to change. Those lights held so long... He felt as if everyone was staring at him; he just wanted out. A second later the red switched to green in what seemed to be slow motion. Finally.
[Ending 1 (the realist)]
His foot timidly touched the gas pedal and shattered the feeling. He relaxed back into his seat and his skin and drove home. Maybe another day he would get out.
[Ending 2 (the romantic)]
He tried to act casual, but failed miserably. He threw his foot on the gas pedal and sped through the intersection and then onto the highway and then past the exit for his parents' house. He didn't know where he was going or what he was going to do when he got there, but he was out.
[Ending 1 (the realist)]
His foot timidly touched the gas pedal and shattered the feeling. He relaxed back into his seat and his skin and drove home. Maybe another day he would get out.
[Ending 2 (the romantic)]
He tried to act casual, but failed miserably. He threw his foot on the gas pedal and sped through the intersection and then onto the highway and then past the exit for his parents' house. He didn't know where he was going or what he was going to do when he got there, but he was out.
Friday, February 17, 2012
failure/happiness/ministry
I.
So I've learned a few things about failure in my short life. The hard way of course (I mean let's be real here, how exactly do you learn about failure the not-hard way? You have to experience it to know anything about it). There are so many different kinds of failure: there's the personal kind, where you let yourself down; there's outward failure, in which you let the people around you down, be that your family, employer, friends, whoever; and then there's just flat-out, complete and utter failure, and it doesn't matter who got let down because the world is literally ending, the light's gone. (I've yet to experience utter failure, but if lives are like movies, I'm guaranteed to feel it somewhere around the middle/second half of my life - that's the climax of course, right?)
I've learned plenty about the little failures, like getting a bad grade on an exam (College and I have had a rocky relationship; I only make good grades in classes I really like and there isn't an abundance of those. I really take for granted the fact that I live in a place where education is so accessible because I'm incredibly lazy. That's another reason I decided to take the semester off.) I've also learned a lot about what it's like to let your parents down in numerous ways (college, man...). I've learned to grow numb to failing grades and I've learned to stop and think about what I'm about to do (often before proceeding to do what I know is wrong anyway, having rashly justified it in some shabby way). I've learned what it feels like to just sit in what feels like a dark pit, thinking about all your failures and having zero motivation to get up and move forward because you don't even really know where to go.
But I've also learned that failure is not a prison, that it holds no power over us. Experiencing failure allows you to be free in ways you would think are too beautiful to be a result of something so painful. Failure provides you with the freedom to do things without fear of failing. It's kind of ironic, really. The more you fail, the less you are afraid to fail. It's almost like failure befriends you and you're able to live without the constant fear of it. Mind you, the ability to be afraid of failure will probably never leave you. But what I'm saying is that if you really let it affect you and you take it all in and you push forward, it can free you. J.M. Barrie always makes me feel better about myself: "We are all failures, at least the best of us are."
II.
I've been thinking a lot lately about happiness, and I've been reminded of how seriously, probably annoyingly, innocently happy I was a few years ago. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm still a supremely happy girl, I've got a lot to be thankful for. But now I think I'm a bit more cynical. To support that old cliche, I've seen a lot more and been exposed to a lot more, and a lot of that lot more ain't that beautiful. I mean, people are broken and they do hurtful things, and that sucks to have to witness. And then there are those times you get confronted by new things and (this echoes back to part of that failure bit) you stumble a little and you become someone you would have never expected for a little while. And those things stay with you. They weigh you down and slowly infect everything; they become that little twangy afterthought, that voice that quietly tells your heart to behave itself and your mind to stop soaring.
So I've been wallowing in this little puddle I've made all week, badgering myself and wondering why I lost that freer happiness I used to have, and thinking I'm some horrible person and I'll never get to be like that again, I'll always have a little chip on my shoulder. Which is completely anti-active. The more you think about unhappiness, the more you become unhappy. If you think about how awful of a person you are, you stop trying to be better, assuming that you'll never succeed. My best friend reminded me that my happiness (and all my emotions, really) are kind of irrelevant (here I add though that they are still important, because they are what make us human), but anyway happiness is not the point, living for Christ is the point, and when I am living for Him and communing with Him daily, I get His Joy, which far surpasses my simple happiness.
So I got two lessons regarding happiness/Joy/living this week:
1. "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me." Galatians 2:20. Kind of hard-hitting, right? Happiness aside, my whole point of living is to live by faith and glorify God. Which is cool, because it removes the need to put Sarah, this girl I don't always think is very cool or good, on the stage and instead I get to put the most beautiful and creative Being on stage. And if that isn't enough, the Bible promises that if I'm doing that, I get Christ's infinite peace and Joy in return. Basically it's the most epic win-win situation you could ever be presented with. So why is it so hard?
2. Do you know how many times the phrase "the Joy of the Lord is your strength" is used throughout the Bible? It's like back in the day it was their way of saying "don't worry, you'll get through this." Which is pretty cool; it makes saying "you'll get through this" look pretty puny and entirely inadequate. So that's what I've been trying to rely on all week, and what I'm guessing will be a pretty big part of my life this semester. When I'm tired and unmotivated, the world is weighing down on me and telling me I'm not enough and I'm not doing enough, and I don't really know how to get where I'm headed: the Joy of the Lord is my strength.
III.
I was thinking as I was procrastinating finishing this post and trying to gather my thoughts and I realized something about myself. I'm always discovering things about myself. Which is kind of ironic to me because it's like you would think that we would know all about ourselves, but I'm always surprising myself with my thoughts. And I think it's beautiful that the God who created me already knows all this stuff and here I am, having inhabited this body and mind and soul for almost 20 years (which is kind of a long time), and there's still so much I don't know about myself. But I digress. I realized that I am the kind of person who has to be ministering to be ministered to. Or at least, to get the most out of being ministered to. The Bible even says it: "Faith without works is dead." (James 2:17) Which can sound pretty harsh to someone who maybe grew up in the Bible belt, where everyone is a Christian because everyone goes to Sunday mornin' church and everyone believes God made the world and Jesus really did die on the cross. (And by "everyone" of course I mean the majority of the southern population.) So I'm kind of feeling stagnant in my faith life and I'm starting to think it's because I'm not really doing anything to serve anyone. Alright so I've made the diagnosis and now it's time for treatment, which is the hard part because it means I've got to get up off my butt and find somewhere to get my hands a little dirty. So if you're out there and you're reading this, could you maybe add me to your list and pray that I could get a little motivation?
So I've learned a few things about failure in my short life. The hard way of course (I mean let's be real here, how exactly do you learn about failure the not-hard way? You have to experience it to know anything about it). There are so many different kinds of failure: there's the personal kind, where you let yourself down; there's outward failure, in which you let the people around you down, be that your family, employer, friends, whoever; and then there's just flat-out, complete and utter failure, and it doesn't matter who got let down because the world is literally ending, the light's gone. (I've yet to experience utter failure, but if lives are like movies, I'm guaranteed to feel it somewhere around the middle/second half of my life - that's the climax of course, right?)
I've learned plenty about the little failures, like getting a bad grade on an exam (College and I have had a rocky relationship; I only make good grades in classes I really like and there isn't an abundance of those. I really take for granted the fact that I live in a place where education is so accessible because I'm incredibly lazy. That's another reason I decided to take the semester off.) I've also learned a lot about what it's like to let your parents down in numerous ways (college, man...). I've learned to grow numb to failing grades and I've learned to stop and think about what I'm about to do (often before proceeding to do what I know is wrong anyway, having rashly justified it in some shabby way). I've learned what it feels like to just sit in what feels like a dark pit, thinking about all your failures and having zero motivation to get up and move forward because you don't even really know where to go.
But I've also learned that failure is not a prison, that it holds no power over us. Experiencing failure allows you to be free in ways you would think are too beautiful to be a result of something so painful. Failure provides you with the freedom to do things without fear of failing. It's kind of ironic, really. The more you fail, the less you are afraid to fail. It's almost like failure befriends you and you're able to live without the constant fear of it. Mind you, the ability to be afraid of failure will probably never leave you. But what I'm saying is that if you really let it affect you and you take it all in and you push forward, it can free you. J.M. Barrie always makes me feel better about myself: "We are all failures, at least the best of us are."
II.
I've been thinking a lot lately about happiness, and I've been reminded of how seriously, probably annoyingly, innocently happy I was a few years ago. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm still a supremely happy girl, I've got a lot to be thankful for. But now I think I'm a bit more cynical. To support that old cliche, I've seen a lot more and been exposed to a lot more, and a lot of that lot more ain't that beautiful. I mean, people are broken and they do hurtful things, and that sucks to have to witness. And then there are those times you get confronted by new things and (this echoes back to part of that failure bit) you stumble a little and you become someone you would have never expected for a little while. And those things stay with you. They weigh you down and slowly infect everything; they become that little twangy afterthought, that voice that quietly tells your heart to behave itself and your mind to stop soaring.
So I've been wallowing in this little puddle I've made all week, badgering myself and wondering why I lost that freer happiness I used to have, and thinking I'm some horrible person and I'll never get to be like that again, I'll always have a little chip on my shoulder. Which is completely anti-active. The more you think about unhappiness, the more you become unhappy. If you think about how awful of a person you are, you stop trying to be better, assuming that you'll never succeed. My best friend reminded me that my happiness (and all my emotions, really) are kind of irrelevant (here I add though that they are still important, because they are what make us human), but anyway happiness is not the point, living for Christ is the point, and when I am living for Him and communing with Him daily, I get His Joy, which far surpasses my simple happiness.
So I got two lessons regarding happiness/Joy/living this week:
1. "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me." Galatians 2:20. Kind of hard-hitting, right? Happiness aside, my whole point of living is to live by faith and glorify God. Which is cool, because it removes the need to put Sarah, this girl I don't always think is very cool or good, on the stage and instead I get to put the most beautiful and creative Being on stage. And if that isn't enough, the Bible promises that if I'm doing that, I get Christ's infinite peace and Joy in return. Basically it's the most epic win-win situation you could ever be presented with. So why is it so hard?
2. Do you know how many times the phrase "the Joy of the Lord is your strength" is used throughout the Bible? It's like back in the day it was their way of saying "don't worry, you'll get through this." Which is pretty cool; it makes saying "you'll get through this" look pretty puny and entirely inadequate. So that's what I've been trying to rely on all week, and what I'm guessing will be a pretty big part of my life this semester. When I'm tired and unmotivated, the world is weighing down on me and telling me I'm not enough and I'm not doing enough, and I don't really know how to get where I'm headed: the Joy of the Lord is my strength.
III.
I was thinking as I was procrastinating finishing this post and trying to gather my thoughts and I realized something about myself. I'm always discovering things about myself. Which is kind of ironic to me because it's like you would think that we would know all about ourselves, but I'm always surprising myself with my thoughts. And I think it's beautiful that the God who created me already knows all this stuff and here I am, having inhabited this body and mind and soul for almost 20 years (which is kind of a long time), and there's still so much I don't know about myself. But I digress. I realized that I am the kind of person who has to be ministering to be ministered to. Or at least, to get the most out of being ministered to. The Bible even says it: "Faith without works is dead." (James 2:17) Which can sound pretty harsh to someone who maybe grew up in the Bible belt, where everyone is a Christian because everyone goes to Sunday mornin' church and everyone believes God made the world and Jesus really did die on the cross. (And by "everyone" of course I mean the majority of the southern population.) So I'm kind of feeling stagnant in my faith life and I'm starting to think it's because I'm not really doing anything to serve anyone. Alright so I've made the diagnosis and now it's time for treatment, which is the hard part because it means I've got to get up off my butt and find somewhere to get my hands a little dirty. So if you're out there and you're reading this, could you maybe add me to your list and pray that I could get a little motivation?
Thursday, February 9, 2012
numb/novel/journey
I.
So I have lived here 21 days. Exactly three weeks, as of tonight. It's still surreal. And while I in no way regret my decision to move (and might I here add that I love this city), I feel kind of numb. Not entirely numb; no, I don't float around with a detached look on my face, nor am I apathetic. I feel more like I'm just existing on the surface of my life - like nothing affects me deeply. I haven't cried once, not even when I went over the Memphis bridge. I haven't been really angry; just frustrated maybe. I haven't felt lonely. I've been happy, but I haven't felt that really deep, true Joy. As a girl who fully embraces emotion, I can tell you that being numb is one of the most annoying and frustrating things in the world. Because you can see it, you KNOW you aren't feeling things you should be feeling, but you can't do a single thing about it. I mean, how do you make yourself un-numb? They have creams and gels and things to numb your skin and your teeth and whatever when you're in pain, but they don't have anything to make you start feeling sensation when you're numb somewhere.
What you need is a stimulus. So I've been trying to find something to stimulate me, something to get really passionate about. So far I haven't gotten anywhere on that. Sometimes movies help me out when I'm feeling numb-ish. Maybe I need to watch a deep film that has the whole range of emotions, something that's sad, frustrating, achingly funny, expectant, hopeful; it makes you want to throw something at the screen, clutch your belly in laughter, cry your eyes out. You know the kind of film I'm talking about: by the time the end credits are rolling you just feel completely human. It's crazy. I love those kinds of films. And they always have a badass soundtrack, crammed with good, Indie songs. I think it would be a pretty awesome job to get to get to pick out the songs in a movie.
Although, it's kind of a lame story to tell if a movie does the trick: "Oh yeah, [insert deep movie here] got me back into feeling life." I want something kind of daring to make it happen, something that will make a really good story. So right now I'm just getting back into the Word and seeing where that takes me. As my best friend wrote me earlier, "Christ will lift you out of the mire!"
II.
For years now my family has been asking me when I'm going to start writing my book. I guess it's no secret that I love writing. It's just my thing. I think I kind of lost sight of it in high school (my mom didn't though). I guess having to write endless academic papers about topics that don't interest you one bit can do that to you, although I very much loved my English classes and teachers; they made me the writer I am today. I still remember one time in my AP English class my senior year, we all had to read short summaries we had written to our class and get peer reviewed. After I read mine, my teacher (a beautiful, inspiring woman who seriously loved language and literature and coffee) said, "See, Sarah has this great dexterity with language...she's just not very clear." I remember mentally freaking out because my super cool, brilliant teacher had just said I was good with words...well, making them sound good at least, whether you could understand where I was going with it or not. Seriously if you had asked me that year who I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said Ms. Eubank. (I guess if you asked me now I would just say I want to be Sarah, but that was high school and I was a little insecure and I didn't know how important it was to want to be yourself.) In high school I was always thinking I was a bad writer, because everyone said I used cliches too much and my stuff was lacking in substance. I guess you could say I've always been more on the artistic side of writing. I just didn't know that it was a good thing back then. I can't write you an in-depth literary analysis of Frankenstein, or compare the transcendentalists to the romantics with strong textual support, but I can write about life and faith and my experiences in hopes that you can glean a little understanding or strength or at least some laughter from them.
I always wave my family off, knowing what they're expecting is some great novel to come spilling out of my brain onto paper and get published. I tell them, I can't write fiction - I'm too ADD for that. I tell them I'll write a collection of essays instead. I mean you can't just start writing a novel and expect it to be meaningful and coherent and have a clear storyline; you have to have a plan. You have to know who your characters are and where they're going and what they want and at least a general idea of how you want it all to end, otherwise all you get is a jumbled up complexity of ideas and literary devices, a beautiful enigma. Lately though, I've been kind of enticed by the idea of writing a novel, of making up my own story and themes and characters and fully developing them over a span of time, not just writing a little snapshot about them. It sounds delicious. Although I don't really have any clear ideas as to what kind of story I would write. But I think I've taken the bait. Who knows, a novel just might come spilling out of my brain onto paper one of these days...
III.
So I guess I'm kind of on this journey kick. Or, rather, a books-about-journeys kick. Currently I'm reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac (FINALLY) and Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. I'm even thinking of picking Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller back up and finally finishing it, just to continue the theme. I've been meaning to read something by Kerouac for basically forever now. The staff review of it at my favorite bookstore basically said you can't call yourself American if you haven't read On the Road. I guess I'm finally on my way to becoming an American. But really, I agree with the sentiment because it's a completely American journey in all the good ways - the free-ness and diversity and exploring all the vastly different areas of the country, just drinking it all in. It's romantic, really (not the love kind; think nature, emotion, beauty), just a regular guy, a writer, searching for himself. I've never wanted to jump in the back of a truck with a bunch of guys all hitchhiking for one reason or another with just a bottle of whiskey to keep me warm (Okay, lose the whiskey. Whiskey just doesn't taste good.) and ride clear across the country under the stars more in my life. I mean seriously, that's what Kerouac will do to you. You should read it.
As for Everything is Illuminated, it's so weird in all the right ways. That is, if you're like me, and you like really unique narrators and appreciate language and style as much, if not more than, the storyline. I've only read a few chapters and I'm head over heels in love with Jonathan Safran Foer's odd, all-over-the-place style. Just read the first page to understand.
I'm glad I waited to read both of these books. Otherwise I'd be trapped in Memphis, wanting to get out, wanting to explore, wanting to be free. As it is, I'm in a new place and my life is open in front of me. Seriously, my schedule is completely free for the next several months. That is all at once an intoxicating and daunting feeling. My favorite.
So I have lived here 21 days. Exactly three weeks, as of tonight. It's still surreal. And while I in no way regret my decision to move (and might I here add that I love this city), I feel kind of numb. Not entirely numb; no, I don't float around with a detached look on my face, nor am I apathetic. I feel more like I'm just existing on the surface of my life - like nothing affects me deeply. I haven't cried once, not even when I went over the Memphis bridge. I haven't been really angry; just frustrated maybe. I haven't felt lonely. I've been happy, but I haven't felt that really deep, true Joy. As a girl who fully embraces emotion, I can tell you that being numb is one of the most annoying and frustrating things in the world. Because you can see it, you KNOW you aren't feeling things you should be feeling, but you can't do a single thing about it. I mean, how do you make yourself un-numb? They have creams and gels and things to numb your skin and your teeth and whatever when you're in pain, but they don't have anything to make you start feeling sensation when you're numb somewhere.
What you need is a stimulus. So I've been trying to find something to stimulate me, something to get really passionate about. So far I haven't gotten anywhere on that. Sometimes movies help me out when I'm feeling numb-ish. Maybe I need to watch a deep film that has the whole range of emotions, something that's sad, frustrating, achingly funny, expectant, hopeful; it makes you want to throw something at the screen, clutch your belly in laughter, cry your eyes out. You know the kind of film I'm talking about: by the time the end credits are rolling you just feel completely human. It's crazy. I love those kinds of films. And they always have a badass soundtrack, crammed with good, Indie songs. I think it would be a pretty awesome job to get to get to pick out the songs in a movie.
Although, it's kind of a lame story to tell if a movie does the trick: "Oh yeah, [insert deep movie here] got me back into feeling life." I want something kind of daring to make it happen, something that will make a really good story. So right now I'm just getting back into the Word and seeing where that takes me. As my best friend wrote me earlier, "Christ will lift you out of the mire!"
II.
For years now my family has been asking me when I'm going to start writing my book. I guess it's no secret that I love writing. It's just my thing. I think I kind of lost sight of it in high school (my mom didn't though). I guess having to write endless academic papers about topics that don't interest you one bit can do that to you, although I very much loved my English classes and teachers; they made me the writer I am today. I still remember one time in my AP English class my senior year, we all had to read short summaries we had written to our class and get peer reviewed. After I read mine, my teacher (a beautiful, inspiring woman who seriously loved language and literature and coffee) said, "See, Sarah has this great dexterity with language...she's just not very clear." I remember mentally freaking out because my super cool, brilliant teacher had just said I was good with words...well, making them sound good at least, whether you could understand where I was going with it or not. Seriously if you had asked me that year who I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said Ms. Eubank. (I guess if you asked me now I would just say I want to be Sarah, but that was high school and I was a little insecure and I didn't know how important it was to want to be yourself.) In high school I was always thinking I was a bad writer, because everyone said I used cliches too much and my stuff was lacking in substance. I guess you could say I've always been more on the artistic side of writing. I just didn't know that it was a good thing back then. I can't write you an in-depth literary analysis of Frankenstein, or compare the transcendentalists to the romantics with strong textual support, but I can write about life and faith and my experiences in hopes that you can glean a little understanding or strength or at least some laughter from them.
I always wave my family off, knowing what they're expecting is some great novel to come spilling out of my brain onto paper and get published. I tell them, I can't write fiction - I'm too ADD for that. I tell them I'll write a collection of essays instead. I mean you can't just start writing a novel and expect it to be meaningful and coherent and have a clear storyline; you have to have a plan. You have to know who your characters are and where they're going and what they want and at least a general idea of how you want it all to end, otherwise all you get is a jumbled up complexity of ideas and literary devices, a beautiful enigma. Lately though, I've been kind of enticed by the idea of writing a novel, of making up my own story and themes and characters and fully developing them over a span of time, not just writing a little snapshot about them. It sounds delicious. Although I don't really have any clear ideas as to what kind of story I would write. But I think I've taken the bait. Who knows, a novel just might come spilling out of my brain onto paper one of these days...
III.
So I guess I'm kind of on this journey kick. Or, rather, a books-about-journeys kick. Currently I'm reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac (FINALLY) and Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. I'm even thinking of picking Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller back up and finally finishing it, just to continue the theme. I've been meaning to read something by Kerouac for basically forever now. The staff review of it at my favorite bookstore basically said you can't call yourself American if you haven't read On the Road. I guess I'm finally on my way to becoming an American. But really, I agree with the sentiment because it's a completely American journey in all the good ways - the free-ness and diversity and exploring all the vastly different areas of the country, just drinking it all in. It's romantic, really (not the love kind; think nature, emotion, beauty), just a regular guy, a writer, searching for himself. I've never wanted to jump in the back of a truck with a bunch of guys all hitchhiking for one reason or another with just a bottle of whiskey to keep me warm (Okay, lose the whiskey. Whiskey just doesn't taste good.) and ride clear across the country under the stars more in my life. I mean seriously, that's what Kerouac will do to you. You should read it.
As for Everything is Illuminated, it's so weird in all the right ways. That is, if you're like me, and you like really unique narrators and appreciate language and style as much, if not more than, the storyline. I've only read a few chapters and I'm head over heels in love with Jonathan Safran Foer's odd, all-over-the-place style. Just read the first page to understand.
I'm glad I waited to read both of these books. Otherwise I'd be trapped in Memphis, wanting to get out, wanting to explore, wanting to be free. As it is, I'm in a new place and my life is open in front of me. Seriously, my schedule is completely free for the next several months. That is all at once an intoxicating and daunting feeling. My favorite.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
retrospect
You know that feeling you get when you're at a point in your life that's kind of elevated, where you're sort of kind of able to see in your mind all the recent events in your life and how poorly you handled them? I'm there. And I can go all the way back to my brother's wedding, a year and a half ago. I was so immature, so selfish, so unable to see outside myself. I appreciated the day my wonderful brother and beautiful sister-in-law got married well enough, I suppose, but I don't think I truly understood how absolutely beautiful a thing weddings and marriages are. I think I thought it was sort of commonplace. I mean, everyone gets married. I had just graduated high school. And it's funny; you think you're so wise, so old, and it isn't until years later that you see how young you really were and still are. How I wish I could go back to that day and cry and laugh with them more, knowing how much it meant and would mean to get to be a part of it all.
Don't worry, I won't discuss EVERY situation I wish I had treated differently, just the important ones.
My family moved to Texas in December of my first year of college. They wanted me to move with them; I fought and refused and separated myself. I thought I was making a mature decision, I just wanted to be independent. How silly I was. In this case though, I don't wish I had acted any differently, because I learned a lot from myself. It took a really long time for those lessons to come in, but I couldn't have learned them better any other way. I still ended up in Texas. I hurt my family, which is the only real regrettable thing. But that's the best thing about families like mine: they always forgive, always welcome you back. I was like the prodigal daughter; finally coming home after a year of living "on my own," partying, and enjoying my irresponsibility. I'm so blessed by my family; they love me fiercely and remind me who I am daily and never judge me, even when I wear weird clothes because I think it's cool sometimes. Oh, and they think I'm funny.
I let this relationship I had go on in my head way after it was over. To this day, I could not explain that relationship to you if you asked me to. Sometimes I still wish I could have the answers. But I'm done with that season of my life now. I just would not let this relationship die, and it infected everything. I mean, I was looking back through some playlists I had made during that time in my life and it was obvious just how much it impacted me in every way. [Side note: that is one of the biggest downsides, and also one of the best upsides, to making music a big part of your life. Songs always remind you of people and events and seasons. And they can either add to the beauty of a song, or taint it.] It took me forever to realize I just had to let go, that I wouldn't get answers (okay, confession. I never asked for them in real life. But who does that?) and that it wouldn't, like, happen again. I have this crazy, overactive imagination and I daydream nearly constantly. My parents even got into calling me Space Case. It's bad. So you can imagine how often I come up with new ways for my life to play out. I think my biggest thing was that there was never really anything there or not there. It's really hard to explain the psychological implications of the situation because I'm not going to sit here and type out everything that happened. The main thing is that it impacted me, and I allowed it to continue impacting me every single day for...awhile. There are still some days I have to skip a certain song by The Kooks when it comes on, if only because it reminds me how ridiculous I was.
And here's the thing about these times in life when you're able to see things for what they really were and evaluate yourself for who you really were (and are) and you think of all the things you wish you had done and thought and said differently: it happens, and then you turn your back on it and keep walking forward. It doesn't help a thing to sit and wish you had done things differently. I think God gives us these times of retrospection to see and understand our lives and ourselves and then apply what we've learned to the next few steps. These aren't times to hate on ourselves, they are times to learn from ourselves. So next time, we really participate in and allow life and love to affect us, we shut our mouths and listen to those who have our best interests in mind, we let go of things that have run their course. And we move forward.
Don't worry, I won't discuss EVERY situation I wish I had treated differently, just the important ones.
My family moved to Texas in December of my first year of college. They wanted me to move with them; I fought and refused and separated myself. I thought I was making a mature decision, I just wanted to be independent. How silly I was. In this case though, I don't wish I had acted any differently, because I learned a lot from myself. It took a really long time for those lessons to come in, but I couldn't have learned them better any other way. I still ended up in Texas. I hurt my family, which is the only real regrettable thing. But that's the best thing about families like mine: they always forgive, always welcome you back. I was like the prodigal daughter; finally coming home after a year of living "on my own," partying, and enjoying my irresponsibility. I'm so blessed by my family; they love me fiercely and remind me who I am daily and never judge me, even when I wear weird clothes because I think it's cool sometimes. Oh, and they think I'm funny.
I let this relationship I had go on in my head way after it was over. To this day, I could not explain that relationship to you if you asked me to. Sometimes I still wish I could have the answers. But I'm done with that season of my life now. I just would not let this relationship die, and it infected everything. I mean, I was looking back through some playlists I had made during that time in my life and it was obvious just how much it impacted me in every way. [Side note: that is one of the biggest downsides, and also one of the best upsides, to making music a big part of your life. Songs always remind you of people and events and seasons. And they can either add to the beauty of a song, or taint it.] It took me forever to realize I just had to let go, that I wouldn't get answers (okay, confession. I never asked for them in real life. But who does that?) and that it wouldn't, like, happen again. I have this crazy, overactive imagination and I daydream nearly constantly. My parents even got into calling me Space Case. It's bad. So you can imagine how often I come up with new ways for my life to play out. I think my biggest thing was that there was never really anything there or not there. It's really hard to explain the psychological implications of the situation because I'm not going to sit here and type out everything that happened. The main thing is that it impacted me, and I allowed it to continue impacting me every single day for...awhile. There are still some days I have to skip a certain song by The Kooks when it comes on, if only because it reminds me how ridiculous I was.
And here's the thing about these times in life when you're able to see things for what they really were and evaluate yourself for who you really were (and are) and you think of all the things you wish you had done and thought and said differently: it happens, and then you turn your back on it and keep walking forward. It doesn't help a thing to sit and wish you had done things differently. I think God gives us these times of retrospection to see and understand our lives and ourselves and then apply what we've learned to the next few steps. These aren't times to hate on ourselves, they are times to learn from ourselves. So next time, we really participate in and allow life and love to affect us, we shut our mouths and listen to those who have our best interests in mind, we let go of things that have run their course. And we move forward.
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