Goodbye

Mood:  anxious, sad


It's never been easy to take Malcolm back to his mother's.  I have always had a deep hatred for Sunday nights...since I was in 4th grade or so.  I get anxious, I get sad, I get really stuck inside my own head.  I've written about it before.  No sense beating a dead horse.


Annnnnnyway.  Like I said, it is NEVER fun to drive Malcolm an hour away and say goodbye.  Especially since we won't get to see him for another 2 weeks.  I've been stuck with that thought all day...the waiting to say goodbye.  And I really didn't want to be stuck with that cause I had that feeling all week last week.  The second I saw my parents Monday afternoon it was a constant battle in my head between enjoying the moment in front of me and wallowing in pity that saying goodbye was imminent and quickly approaching.  Wednesday I lost the battle between wallowing and was an irresponsible idiot...but the rest of the week I managed to at least wage the internal war.  


Now that Jeff and I have had to say goodbye and returned to our normal routine I can't help but get stuck in the feeling of goodbye.  It sucks and I'm horrible at them.  I hate saying goodbye.  I hate feeling goodbye.  I hate picking up and moving on when all I want to do is cry and scream about how it's not fair to have sooooooooooo much love around and have to let go of it all sometimes.  Physically, that is.


I've gone back and forth about blogging today.  I don't like to blog when I'm really stuck inside my head.  When I really can't stop the depressing thoughts.  When all I can feel is a constant tightness in my throat and chest and the tears burning my eyes.  But it isn't fair for me to expect I can only blog happy (or the new/old blog would have been more successful...) so I decided to go ahead and write tonight.  


I have Jeff and that in itself is something to be insanely giddy about.  And, I have the list of 101 goals I hope to accomplish in the next 1001 (999 since I already started) days.  Here it is readers.  Enjoy!

101 in 1001

Long-term goals

Start Date:  July 6, 2012

End Date:    March 30, 2015

1.       Start blogging again

2.      Maintain blog

3.      Pray in color regularly

4.      Start and KEEP a new journal until it is full.  Start a new one when that is full.

5.      Become a biological mother (if it is in God’s plan)

6.      Add a Pomeranian to the family

7.      Be settled (everything out of boxes) into our first house

8.     Host a holiday party in our first home

9.      Take Jeff and Malcolm to New York City during Christmas time

10.  Find a place to worship

11.   Make a statement necklace by myself

12.  Completely reread the Bible

13.  Lose and keep off 30 pounds

14.  Make “safe for Jeff” chocolate chip cookies

15.   Enroll in a graduate program

16.  Make a piece of clothing by hand

17.   Create a family calendar to send to parents at the holidays

18.  Write a Christmas/holiday letter and cards for 2012 and mail to all people on our wedding invite list ON TIME

19.  Make a “Lilland” piece of art to hang on the walls in our house

20. Put wedding photos in frames and display

21.  Visit the capitol building in Des Moines

22. Get lines of my heart tattoo cleaned up

23. Purchase and relearn how to use a sewing machine

24. Read an entire book on marriage

25.  Get rid of (permanently) clothes that have not been worn in 3 months or more

26. Spend a day organizing make-up and cleaning brushes and bags…give away all colors that have never been or will not be worn

27.  Learn how to make mom’s Irish stew by heart

28. Find a method to control nail polish storage clutter

29. Become a member at a gym

30. Find a couple with whom we can double date

31.  Plan a romantic weekend for Jeff and I

32. Continue moving forward in career…no moving backward no matter how scary or hard going forward is

33. Bake homemade bread

34. Refurbish at least one piece of furniture for living space

35.  Make throw pillows by myself

36. Purchase the entire Scrubs series on DVD

37.  Visit Myth lounge in Omaha with Jeff

38. Master making pie crust and bake an apple pie from scratch in the fall

39. Get a couples massage with Jeff

40. Write something with Jeff

41.  Reread the entire Harry Potter series

42. Dedicate one month to cleaning something every single day

43. Learn how to make an authentic Indian curry

44. Develop a family emergency binder and emergency preparedness kit

45.  Take dance lessons

46. Spend a weekend in Vegas with Jeff

47.  Find a style of meditation that works for me

48. See a ballet in person

49. Transfer contacts from online storage to handwritten leather address book

50. Make a glittered Starbucks cup

51.   Spend a day skiing

52.  Play a game of miniature golf

53.  Learn how to prepare hollandaise sauce

54.  Make an entire dinner out of appetizers

55.  Use chik-fil-a recipe for Malcolm and Jeff on a weekend

56.  Whiten my teeth

57.  Spend one month doing Pilates every single day

58. Attend a yoga class

59.  Make a traditional Irish dinner

60. Decide on a charity with Jeff to donate to

61.  Take Malcolm to Adventureland and ride roller coasters

62. Make my own homemade body scrub

63. Read a book on managing personal finances

64. Write creatively every day for a month

65.  Spend one week without facebook

66. Buy an investment little black dress

67.  Participate in a 5k

68. Invest in a new flat iron

69. Avoid fast food for one month

70. Donate blood

71.   Go shopping for antiques on a Saturday

72.  Bake and decorate Christmas cookies with Malcolm

73.  Craft my own wire knot ring

74.  Buy a classic, red Chanel lipstick

75.  Watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade

76.  Visit the Iowa State Fair

77.  Go to Tulip Time in Pella and send Dutch letters home to Pennsylvania

78. Get a kitten for Malcolm

79.  Learn how to curl my own hair with a flat iron

80.Spend one month doing random acts of kindness for strangers

81.  Read “Love Wins” by Rob Bell

82. Tour a brewery

83. Beat Super Mario Bros. on Wii

84. Learn how to play chess

85. Send a piece of writing in for publication

86. Attend a KU men’s basketball game in Lawrence at Allen Fieldhouse

87. Watch the original “Star Wars”

88.Color every page in a coloring book…even if I don’t like the picture

89. Buy a pair of Tom’s

90. Wake up and take a random day trip to an unplanned destination

91.  Upcycle a pair of old flared jeans to make them a colored skinny pair

92. Locate a ballet class or order DVDs online and start ballet again

93. Finish reading “An Altar in the World” by Barbara Brown Taylor

94. Spend a weekend going through wardrobe and get rid of sloppy, college clothes to start putting together a more polished one

95.  Find an organization to volunteer with

96. Spend an afternoon at a winery

97.  Take a self-defense class

98. Redesign and personalize blog to increase traffic

99. Spend one month getting up earlier to stretch, and put together a polished look each day

100.                     Send out all Christmas 2012 presents BEFORE Christmas

101.                      Break addiction to caffeine gradually

Losing My Religion

Mood:  you say that I've been changing...that I'm not just simply aging...


I haven't blogged since last week.  I also haven't slept since last week.  Well...for more than 2 hours a night or so anyway.  As I've been unable to make sense of anything around me, I did what is the most comfortable for me to do...I hid.  Sometimes with 5 million things going on around me I'm still able to come up with something coherent to blog.  Not recently.  This most recent bout of insomnia has left me...



Insomnia affects every single aspect of your life from physical features (not enough under-eye concealer in the WORLD for these circles) to physical health (add the flu to my strep) to mental health (welcome back panic attacks!) to emotional health (depressed and hopelessly lonely) to spiritual health (uh....absent....completely).



As I sat at my desk today with about 25 projects scattered in front of me...I could NOT focus on anything.  Not one thing.  I tried for nearly 2.5 hours to write a note to send home with the kids.  I've written 10 page papers in less time than that...this note should have taken about 3o seconds. 



When I'm this lost there are few things that help me.  One, though, is...reading.  If I can find engaging material I can generally shut off the other nagging areas of crazy that keep me from being productive.  So I rooted around the bookshelf...for this was not a "crack open the Bible" kind of day...and I found a text from seminary that I recall having genuinely enjoyed.  It's core is on youth, youth culture, religion, church, etc...and so I decided I'd take a second look at it.  As I was reading I became engrossed in the material (SCORE) and started nodding, or shaking my head...answering or disagreeing with the text in front of me.  I happened to be reading about how parental religious grip loosens as children get older...when...that's really quite detrimental to children and their faith.




And as I'm angrily agreeing thinking how much easier my job would be if parent's were as involved as they expect their kids to be WITHOUT forcing their hand...I realized...I'm about as religiously strict as a 2 year old.  I had to put the book down before freaking out.



As an educator in the church, I suppose I have a certain amount of authority.  And I will be the first to admit that I am certainly a reluctant authority figure.  That being said...I doubt that the high school kids would admit authoritative status of me from the get go...or the majority anyway...but I imagine if you asked them in a round about way whether or not they considered their youth group leader to be an authority figure...the answer would be pleasant.  The annoying thing about that?  To carry authority you have to first have beliefs...and...well...lately...


I've been so busy trying to stay afloat in this "new" life that I lost track of pretty much everything about my old one.  I can't remember the last time I wrote a journal entry as opposed to a blog.  I used to write (by hand) for hours before bed.  Or the last time I colored a prayer that was honestly on MY heart.  The last time I sat down to read...and I don't recall the last time I went to the lake or cooked an extravagant meal just because...



So as I read about how detrimental it is to loosen the parental grip on religion...and why it's done...I couldn't help but think of my own current frustration.  Parents let go of church because there are other, more pressing matters.  School (college is EXPENSIVE), pregnancy, drugs, friends, work...kids today are merely youngER adults.  They hold harder hours than I do for the most part.  And I'm sitting at my desk angrily thinking "well the more 'important' stuff can be here too..." when all of a sudden I realized...


Damn.  That sucks.  Cause...I can't point the finger if where I really need to point it is in the mirror.  Hell...my more "important" stuff became...absolutely trivial in comparison to that list.

Truth is, religion and I...we're an odd pair...but I can't say I could live without it...even if I despise the institutional religious atmosphere I'm in.  The point to all this rambling?  My nice thing today is simply a renewed effort to remember what is most important to me.

My family.  Friends.  Laughing.  Writing.  Reading.  Figuring out religion.  Spiritual practices.  Wellness.  Shoes.  Make-up.  Nice things.


Being better.  Doing better...and living better by proxy.  May God give you the kick in the ass that I got today...


and may I sleep tonight.

 the video relates to my earlier sentiments about religion:
  

Next time you point a finger...I'll point you to the mirror.  If God's the game that you're playing, well we must get more acquainted.  Because it has to be so lonely to be the only one who's holy.  It's just my humble opinion, but it's one that I believe in...you don't deserve a point of view if the only thing you see is you.

Peace, Love, and Jeggings

Mood:  pensive


I don't usually blog first thing in the morning, unless I have something of major importance to say.  And I don't.  It's just that since I got home last night I've been thinking about something, and I need to get it out.


As I was doing the dishes/making dinner...and then later going through my face cleansing ritual...I kept thinking about Will & Grace and Friends and Scrubs and Sex and The City and how those shows portrayed older (slightly) people attempting to figure out life, and perhaps most important love and relationships.  And when I say older I simply mean my age, the 20something.  Who inevitably deals with the 30th birthday somewhere during the shows run.  Or...the 35th.  Whatever.  Anyway, as these are the shows that I watch to comfort myself I can't help but think of how modern culture holds the ideals and beliefs of these shows to be slightly antiquated.  Or is it just Iowa?


Hear me out.  Every woman I know that is my age in Iowa is either married, married with children, separated, or divorced.  Or some random combination of the above.  If they don't fit that, they are engaged.  Most of the women I know that are younger than me fit this too.  In fact...all of them do.  And I keep reading that society is making a swing towards younger marriages again.  Women are no longer putting careers ahead of romance.  Men are no longer wanting to be George Clooney.  People are looking to settle down and have the family, then figure the rest out.  Which is backwards from everything I've learned about modern culture since high school.  You get your education, you work, you live, you figure yourself out THEN you add to your life.  But it's all very egocentric until that point.

So maybe the shows aren't dated, but I am?  I don't know.  I do know that this year I will be 27.  Which I know in the grand scheme of things isn't old, but let's face it, I'm 3 years away from 30 then.  And once you're past 21 a year is NOT, in fact, a lifetime.  So am I the modern 20something?  Or am I the outdated model who worshiped Carrie Bradshaw, but was slightly younger than the average viewer?


Or are all modern 20somethings actually dated?  Aren't we all kind of just like our parents?  Young versions of them, perhaps with more education, perhaps with more money, perhaps with more independence...but aren't we SOME part of them?  I maintain that we are.  And that the modern 20something is a myth that is either trying to scare me into marriage or education OR convince me I can have "it all" and carry a baby and a Chanel at the same time.  Dream on.

Honestly I think this "modern" 20something is kinda crap.  Look, our parents experimented with drugs and sexuality.  Maybe it wasn't as accepted...but most of them did at some point.  And at the end of the day, they were just confused 20somethings running around, chasing the job, the car, the partner.  And all they wanted was to be happy.  Isn't that all we want too?  To find that person that loves us despite our flaws, and our 20 minute face washing routine.  To have a career that you're proud of, and hopefully somebody to cheer you on?  I think so.  


I think the "modern 20something" is still yesterday's 20something...we just do it all in jeggings.

PS - there may or may not be another blog later today...just really needed to get that out there

Coming Home

Mood: homesick, lonely, nostalgic, sad

I have a meeting for work (with the committee that I answer to) in roughly 30 minutes.  I have been at work since around 1 and I'm tired.  I'm homesick.  And being in a church makes me even more homesick.  And oddly enough, I find the closer I get to meeting time the more homesick I get.  Not that I don't want to attend (although a night of doing nothing would be nice...) or that I feel a need to escape or anything...it's just...it reminds me of the feeling I would get after being with mom.  After a long day in her office (distracting her from work) there was always this weird anticipatory feeling as she would prepare to go to meetings.  This "my work is almost done/I'm going home" feeling...and I have that same feeling tonight.  Only heightened.  

The thing is...I AM going to a meeting then going home.  But I still think of home as mom and dad's house in Emmaus.  So when I think I'm "going home"  I'm preparing myself for a houseful of dogs and stocked full of food and mom and dad and cable.  Thing is...my home isn't there anymore.  It's in Iowa.  And it's empty of food...without cable...and has only one (but with her you don't need another) dog.  It's not that I don't like where I live...it's just that I haven't adjusted to "home" being my place instead of where mom and dad are.  Does this ever happen?  Or is "home" always that abstract feeling that you get when you long for your childhood, simpler days, and hugs that only parents can give?  I don't know.  I'm not sure I want to.  I certainly don't want to lose all the feelings that come with home (even the bad ones).

I think the whole idea of "home" started this morning when one of the first songs I heard upon waking up was an Owl City song.  "If my heart was a house you'd already be home."  I started to think of the people in my life that are at home in my heart, though it isn't a brick and mortar house (which is incidentally a good thing for my circulatory system).  And today...I loved every single one of them.  A lot.  Which felt good.  And in addition to that...I'm going to start anticipating going to my own apartment...not just Christmas day when I get on a plane and go to mom and dad's.  I'm going to try and think of home as abstract not concrete.  Perhaps that will help ease the loneliness and longing....

(I took this picture literally seconds before leaving for Iowa....it's my "home." )