It's cold and raining out. I've had my windows open all day, and the rain has been blowing in and landing on me and my things. And I haven't even made an effort to shut it out. Because I'm completely enjoying it.

That's something I have learned to do this summer. I've been forced to slow down, and in slowing down I have noticed so many sunsets, fluffy clouds, all the different scents and feels of the air. Without being able to really afford new clothes or many time consuming activities to be involved in, I have had to enjoy the beautiful things that already exist around me, the things that are free. 

Nature is something I always appreciated and respected as a child. I would take a book and binoculars and a journal and climb a tree, or wander into the middle of a corn field and just sit and watch nature. The trees swaying in the wind, the birds flying over me, I could be completely lost in my imagination until dark. And I had forgotten about the way that felt.

Sometimes, your warm bed isn't enough without cool raindrops splashing on your face. Sometimes your ideal relationship isn't enough and you have to take a painful but refreshing journey into reality to really appreciate the things that last. I want to get back to my roots. Right now I'm remembering how to write again just to help myself survive. But when I get over this hump of pain, I hope I can go deeper than that. I hope I can learn to thrive in the way that is the most natural for me. I hope I don't need to deny my identity and immerse myself in something fleeting just to look for happiness. I hope no matter how busy I look, I'll never forget to look up at the sky. I'm so much smaller than I think I am, and my problems are smaller still, because they do not define me. 

I'm taking a world religion's class, and the one thing that every religion we have studied so far seems to have in common is the need for stillness. Call it meditation, prayer, whatever you want. I think there's something to that. No matter what god you serve, if you want to be focused and renewed, you have to be still. Maybe to heal you have to be still. To learn you have to be still. That is what nature gives me. Stillness. I hope I never lose it.

I'm so good at procrastinating.
Really, it's impressive.
First, I thought I was cool because I wrote a 6 page persuasive essay over 2 days this weekend. But I just really blew my own mind and wrote a 4 page paper about Buddhism in an hour.
I mean, I guess I need to wait for my grades before I get excited, but I still feel pretty awesome.
The only close male friend I had is moving tomorrow. Went out to dinner one last time tonight. It had been over a month.
It just makes me so frustrated with myself. I try to cherish relationships and pour myself into them and always make time. But he was here all along and I didn't make time in my schedule for him until he was leaving. I have done stuff like that all my life, I suppose we all do. As Buddhism indicates, the disease of humanity is our drive for self-satisfaction. It is from this drive that blossoms the majority of our pain and suffering. There is so much evidence in my life of it.
But then again, I am not a Buddhist, and selfishness is at the core of humanity and in many ways, in all life. I suppose having my own life going on isn't something to feel guilty about. Maybe it's just being more aware of my time and taking care to invest it in the most worthwhile places. Depression can be socially crippling. Sometimes its hard to answer that phone when it rings, even if I desperately want to. It's hard to leave my home and go elsewhere, because people are draining when they aren't in your pain with you and they don't understand. But those are the decisions that will keep my eyes off of myself long enough to love others, and not have regrets.
Just one more punch to depression. Someday, I'll get there.

Dear ex,
I am sure your new girlfriend has already been made aware of her job description for the 4 weeks that you've already been dating and making pathetic and weak attempts to cover it up so you wouldn't look like you were such a shitty boyfriend to me. But, as with all new jobs, I'm sure she isn't fully aware of all the benefits that come with dating you. Therefore, I decided to take it upon myself to list them, as someone who is severely regretting this failed opportunity as I look for a new job position whose needs I am better suited to fill:

Your inability to communicate in a healthy way
Your lack of response when someone is seeking affirmation
Your refusal to buy flowers
Your refusal to write love notes or cards of any kind
Your know-it-all attitude
Your laziness in everything, I mean everything you do
Your lack of good oral hygiene
Your lack of commitment
Your lack of motivation
Your emotional instability
Your financial instability
Your impressive ways of using the people in your life who love you most
Your inconsistencies
Your refusal to hold a girl when she needs it most
Your uncanny skills of promising something and then never following through
Your refusal to take care of anyone besides yourself
Your cheapness
Your selfishness
Your immaturity
Your reluctance to hold hands in public
Your lack of desire to ever do anything, other than eat and play video games
Your cowardice
Your lack of empathy
Your irresponsibility
Your lies
Your lies
Your lies
Your lies
Your lies
Your lies
Your lies.

Good luck to the both of you in this new endeavor.
xoxo

My assignment for therapy this week is to write down 15 reasons why I don't think I deserve a good relationship.
The problem is, the more I think about it, I do think I deserve a good relationship.
But I can't find a guy who agrees with me.

My head is pounding, your words, lies, pulling the oxygen right out of my body. Your final betrayal. Your promise to tell me if you met someone new. But you didn’t tell me. You didn’t tell me at all.

I was with you when you had nothing. I was with you all along. I helped you get your life together, I stuck by your side while you picked up the pieces. I never asked for anything but your heart, I gave you everything you needed, everything you wanted, to succeed, the only thing I regret is that I begged for you in the end. But what could I do? I invested my all into you, and you were like a collapsed stock market. You just let it all go.

Once your life was together, you were finished with me. You didn’t want to share your success. You wanted something new. You thought you could do better. You think you’re doing better.

I may be the only one who knows you’re not. Because I’ve always known you a bit more than I know anything or anyone, else.

I know you well enough to know your selfishness will backfire. We will all be revealed for who and what we are. And that means that I am not the one who will be alone. Maybe 6 months from now, maybe 6 years from now, the benefits of me having once been in your life will remain. The benefits of leaving me out of your life will be erased. I will be happy. But I can't speak for you.

Well, hi. It's been a while.

But I think I want to do this, because waking up at 2 or 3 or 4am and staying awake for hours is part of my sleeping pattern right now, and I need to let my soul leak a little bit, or else I go crazy, and I can't bring myself to stumble out to the couch with a journal and pen, even though I have a journal specifically for when I can't sleep. At least, I don't get out of bed for the first hour I'm awake, before I finally start to think I'm going to starve to death and venture out to pour my guilty pleasure midnight snack of GMO corn flakes (I can't help my need for corn, I'm an Iowan) which eventually lulls me back to sleep around 8am for a fitful 30 minutes before the struggle of a new day officially begins.

But enough about that. Why did I ever stop blogging?

I don't really know, myself. I stopped writing a lot when he came into my life. I thought it's because I was happy, and happy writing has never really been my thing. I get inspired by sadness and pain and heartbreak. But I don't know now, those things are always under the surface somewhere, aren't they? Life is pain and struggle. It doesn't stop just because one element changes. Now, looking back, I think I just started questioning a lot of things and I couldn't question them publicly. The last few years have been a whirlwind, a blur, and its all a bit unclear now looking back, I'm still waiting for the dust to settle... maybe then I will know all the reasons. But probably not. I never really do.

Okay, 13 minutes in. I already need my corn flakes.
Seriously guys. They're so bad, but so good.

Anyway, if you're my Facebook friend, you know things have not been peachy for me lately. In a nutshell, I lost my job at the beginning of summer unexpectedly, for totally bogus and unprofessional reasons, and spent the whole summer pursuing and finally winning an unemployment case, then I signed up for classes to go back to school full time and FINALLY finish my 2 year Liberal Arts degree, and the day classes started, my boyfriend of 4 years dumped me. In a text message. Suffice it to say I haven't been the world's greatest student so far this year. It's hard to bounce back from that. Did I mention my 15 year old dog died over the summer? Like I said, a whirlwind.

But every time something hard has happened in my past I've been able to run away, move somewhere, start over, and try to forget and this time I feel the need to stay and fight and finally overcome my own unsteady heart. So after years of thinking about it, I finally went to the doctor and got antidepressants, and started seeing a counselor. And let me tell you, it was the best decision of my life. Because it hasn't been some overly dramatic, black and white change, but I can feel myself walking out of my sadness. And for the first time in probably 14 years, when I hurt, it isn't like a giant black pit in my insides swallowing me against my will. It's more of a ditch, or a pothole. I fall in or trip here and there, but I can get out eventually.
And there were times I used to think I would never get out.

So there's the basics of my life. I don't want to write too much and lose you all before I even get started again..

Alright, lets be honest. My cereal is gone, and I'm gonna go lay back down. :)

xox

Wow, it has been a bit since I have stumbled into the blogging world to bare my soul.
Sometimes I think it is hard to write in a blog because I feel so exposed and exploring feelings, fears and revelations in front of anyone can be so exhausting.
But this week, someone very dear to me is moving, and I just can't seem to fall asleep tonight because I am arguing in my mind back and forth about regret.
I have always had a goal to live life without regret, I have always believed that things work out for the best, that things happen for a reason, that pain and love and loss are never for nothing. Because love should always win.
But I think about loved ones who have died. Grandparents, my uncle, such fresh wounds. And I think about the time I knew I should be spending with them and didn't. I think about how near I live to my grandmother, my father, my niece, my nephew, and how much time I spend at work, or cleaning the house, or reading books, instead of making memories. I think about all the places I've lived, the places I've visited, the people I've met, and the relationships I neglect, and I regret.
And that is what brings me here tonight.
At one time, Scott was just my youth pastor and I was a rebellious, bitter kid hiding behind anger and sarcasm and not allowing anyone to get close to me. But through countless nights of crying and running away from home, cutting myself and wanting my life to be over, feeling empty and completely alone, he was the only one there and he became family to me. He was the one encouraging me to keep going when I didn't have the strength and others didn't have the words. He desired my thoughts when no one else even seemed to hear my screams. He dispelled my fear of the unknown when I was afraid of my own shadow. We would talk for hours about God, about theology, mankind, and half the time I walked away from those conversations royally pissed off. But his complete realness always challenged me to dig deeper then what others had told me, what others interpretation of God was, what life's bitter experiences had colored my view to be.
And now he is leaving. And all I can think is how little I have taken advantage of his proximity to me until this time.
But then again, there will always be things to regret, and as long as I have learned this many things from him, I must have not been TOO distant.
So thank you Scott. Thank you for encouraging me to LIVE. Thank you for encouraging me to LOVE. Thank you for teaching me that things are most definitely not always what they seem, for challenging me to dig and experience and see things for myself. Thank you for not being the type of "spiritual" role to guide toward your personal beliefs, and instead being a friend, an ear, a hug. If I can be to someone else someday what you are to me, I will feel my life had purpose. God has used you to make me softer, gentler, and more courageous.
I have a million more feelings, but no more adequate words. I hope your next adventure is better than this one, though I am not sure anyone could ever love and appreciate your amazing family and you as much as I do. Thank you.