Filling up.

I feel crazy! Posting comments without fully thinking through the repercussions of opinion and reputation on Facebook! Unheard of! But this is how it goes when all the excitement and expectation, coupled with an incredible weekend charged with God and beauty and friends and bonding, explodes into a new devotional life and a new life in general.

Persevering through the first day of the dreaded senior year, praying and feeling God moving so close to me, and striving for patience with my family - but it's good! Great!

And it will continue. I am determined, desperate, for it to continue.

Three Things.

Getting back into baking... Alexa and I went to IKEA and also FiveBelow and Pier 1, and I bought a chocolate cookbook. All I did after coming home that evening was salivate over the pictures - a picture for every recipe!! I was stoked. I am stoked. In fact, I am extremely stoked, having just devoured enough chocolate to feed a small African country.

Which is why I am on the internet, after a five-day hiatus. Feels good! Actually not really. I am getting into an internet rut, lurking mostly on Facebook and my various comic websites. Getting back into Deviantart after a five-month hiatus. Getting back into a lot of things, actually.

Feels good, like I said. I need this: this chocolate and anonymous friendships. Lots of things don't feel good at all right now.

1. Growing up. It's painful. I watched The Breakfast Club for the first time ever (OH MY GOSH. It's one of my favorites now.) and the black-haired girl who hooks up with Emilio Estevez said, "When you grow up, your heart dies." Oh man. Why does that feel so true? I know it's not, not completely at least, but LORD, it feels like it.

2. Opening my mind. Also painful. I like my pre-conceived notions and letting go of them is incredibly difficult. My fingernails are dug in deep, man. These new horizons are like razors, cutting me to the bone.

3. Softening my heart. Painful. I've been building walls around my heart quietly, peacefully, unknowingly, and now that they're coming down, I feel so naked and vulnerable. I mean, missing someone isn't just occasionally thinking of them once in a while - it's a day-to-day reminder that they're not here today and it's piercingly painful.

Ah well. That's how life is, isn't it? Painful? But pain forces us to grow. That's what I know, and it's really all I've been repeating to myself all day. It's working...but I think the chocolate worked better.

Anyway. Goodnight, my non-existent readers. Thanks for sticking with me through these past couple years.

Bookends

The Walls Are Coming Down - Fanfarlo
First Train Home - Imogen Heap
The Bottom of the Barrel - Amos Lee
Precious Stone - Pete Yorn
Come with Me - Bob Schneider
Any One's Ghost - The National



It's been a week of strange emotions, halfway into it. Monday I nearly fell over from the need to be with my second family, going somewhere where I know with all my heart that I was supposed to go to. I tried to drown my sorrows in housework, and that worked to an extent because I awoke happy the next morning. As the day progressed, I worked on decorating the ceiling above my bed so I could wake up to visions of color, pineapples, and lyrics.



This morning, I puttered around the house, listening to music and drinking my lovely tea. It took me a day and a half to gather enough courage to look at the video blogs of the mission trip, for fear of how they would affect me. I shouldn't have waited so long; they relieved me. I saw all their faces and laughed at their little idiosyncrasies, and now feel free to dive into my music and small projects.


Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key - Billy Bragg
Crossfire - Brandon Flowers
One Wing - Wilco
Bloodbuzz Ohio - The National
Guiding Light - Muse
Savior - Lights

Smaller and Smaller.

Oh how the little things

Strengthen my tiny wings

Help me to take on the world

When you love me there's nothing I wouldn't try

I might even fly

I might even fly

I might even fly

Small Thoughts Fill My Head.

Replenishing my small picture supply and basking in the glow of sweet new music, courtesy of my friend Katelyn. She's a keeper. Lots of thoughts this past week, thoughts and occurrences that will sustain me as the Edge empties out a little for the next two weeks.

I feel so small nowadays, like the influence of all those moment-frozen icons is finally seeping into actual life. Since becoming more active, I've begun to shake and shimmy down into those old jeans; I feel my relationships with friends expanding and maturing.

I feel like I'm riding my own brain waves into a new horizon.

Be Gentle with Me.

There is one show on television that I am completely in love with: Work of Art, on BravoTV. Unlike Top Chef, it allows the viewer to judge for themselves the quality of the work, and involves the personalities of the contestants much more than any other show of the kind, really. Their personalities dictate how they will do in the competition, and it makes it much more personal for the viewer when someone wins or loses.

Also I am finding myself caught by the art world. Is it a practical world? Possibly. Life would be bland without the energy from artistic outlets. Is it a dangerous world? Certainly. Art reveals as much about the viewer as it does the artist.

There are so many things, in fact, that are catching me. Internship, friendship, this new awareness of God, the world that I am a part of, people in general, music and getting lost in it, clothes and fashion, and love.

Oh yes. I love this love I am gaining for people in my life. I am finding that it means going beyond myself, being courageous enough to say difficult things, and doing what is best for the whole.

Love is very practical, when one thinks about it, but not completely. If it were completely practical, one wouldn't be spun in circles by a single glance or stunned when given the chance to speak. It's practical and partially predictable, but so pleasant that it seems like a luxury instead of a necessity.

Well. There are many lyrics about love. That is a gross understatement. I like this one, though, at the moment.


Staring up into the solar system,
All the stars are fixed up in the sky.
I just want to sparkle for a moment
Before I just fizzle out and die.

I'm happy because I'm stupid.
Scared of spiders, scared of flying.
If I wasn't so happy,
I wouldn't be so scared of dying.

So just be gentle with me
(I'm not as young as I was)
And I'll be gentle with you
I'm not as brave as I thought'
Cause my heart gets broken so easily.
So just be gentle, be gentle with me.

Wide awake, waiting like a target
Listening for things I cannot see.
Insects flutter up against my window.
I don't like the way they look at me.

I guess I've always needed
To be needed by someone.
It's a comforting feeling
Being under someone's thumb.

So just be gentle with me
(And if I am ever mean)
And I'll be gentle with you
I never mean to be mean
'Cause I want to pick peaches off of a cherry tree.
Just be gentle, be gentle, be gentle,
Be gentle with me.
So just be gentle with me
Trouble is sometimes
And I'll be gentle with you

I just can't switch myself off
When I want to so I never do
Because I'm mental, be gentle, be gentle,
Just be gentle, be gentle, be gentle
And I'll be gentle, be gentle, be gentle,
Be gentle with you.

After-Thoughts

It feels like some things in my life are slipping away from me, and all I can do is stretch out my hand only to have it grasp empty air. In the next moment, though, it is bumped by something new and shiny, and I hold that instead of the old thing that I silently, desperately, watch float away from me.

Kids Camp brought out a leadership side of me that I didn't know ran so deeply. It gave me confidence in who I am and who I can be. It filled me with a passion for kids and their stories, their hearts, and their bright futures.

Kids Camp revealed a side of me that I want to deny and run from, only because running towards it is so painful and heart-breaking. I want to have a husband so badly that I can taste it and it's all I dream about nowadays, and yet I want to be independent and single for a long, long time. I want to get married young and yet I hate the very thought of it.

Kids Camp showed me that I did have a first love, and that it will be so hard to get over. It shames me that it was who it was, but it doesn't really. It's logical that I would fall in love with him, but at the same time, I am sorrowful about it. Why couldn't my first love have been a sad summer boy, or a wild young rocker?

I close with these lyrics.

You and I

We might be strangers

However close we get sometimes

It's like we never met

But you and I

I think we can take it

All the good with the bad

Make something that no one else has,

But

You and I

You and I

Me and You

What can we do

When the words we use sometimes are misconstrued

Well I won't guess

Whats coming next

I can't ever tell you're

The deepest well

I've ever fallen into

Oh I don't wanna know

Oh I don't wanna know

Oh I don't need to know

Everything about you

Oh I don't wanna know

And you don't need to know

That much about me