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

To Someone Far Far Away

Dear Ukranians,
I am afraid of visiting you. Will you judge me or think me stupid for my terrible accent? Will our interests and knowledge rotate in completely different circles?

Perhaps my fears are unfounded. Perhaps we will run through forests and fields together, you showing me your favorite hiding places and me following you around, wide-eyed and camera-ready. Perhaps we will sit and listen to music together, Russian or otherwise, and lose ourselves in the moments and melodies. Perhaps you'll introduce me to your friends, one of whom will be kind and blonde and able to speak English or able to overlook my horrible accent, and we will walk hand-in-hand throughout your village streets. Or perhaps you'll shun me and I will walk those fields and forests myself, looking for fairies and trolls in their dells, or firebirds and gnomes.

Really though, I can only guess and wonder at this point in my life. Will I ever see you at all? All I know of you leaves many more questions.

Looking forward to some answers,
Irene.

Yeah,.

Creativity sounds like a curse word to me right now. I was never very confident in my supposed creativity--all I knew was that I could doodle. Not draw. Doodle. To be thrust into roles of responsibility is rewarding, frustrating, and growth-inducing.

I like being busy, though. I like being trusted to do things right, and I love the approval that comes at the end and the camraderie blooming out of the amount of time spent together working for a good goal.

I love coming home now. A long day behind me, I can sit in my room or on the couch, listen to music, and really feel it. Words are coming easier, when I talk to people. Getting along with people is becoming easier.

My arms are beginning to ache like never before, though. I am losing weight, however, and I am nonchalant about it. It's nice fitting into old clothes, and eating better, working more.

I'm tired, but a good tired. Yeah.

Yellow.

Some days I feel pumped, having eaten my bagel and drunk my tea, ready to jump out the door and find my day. The morning is crisp and clear, my paths laid out before me with crushed candy-cane pavements and lollipop blossoms, and I feel like a Norwegian Dane: sturdy but happy.

Today I woke up still unreasonably frightened to be home, dreading going anywhere yet wanting to leave so badly it hurts, wandering around the house knowing I have to do this and that and not being able to lift my arms past the cup of tea that I'm clinging to even though it's empty.

And yet it's not all that bad. I'm alive and going to do some painting during interning. We're going camping next week and the sun will smile down on me until I'm colored a rich yellow.

I am looking forward to the onslaught of yellow. It means missing some things and people, but I've begun to not miss it so much if the other way is the right way. It takes so much energy, battling for the wrong way. Even if it's right sometimes, I have to battle for it. I have no weapons. Psalms 68:13 is not for me, not yet. It grips me but I can't grip it back.

One way internship has been good for me is the steadying of my devotional time. I've begun to go after God with a will, and the result is heady. Yesterday especially: in every purple slant of the morning glories and every expelled breathe when I thought his name, a soft cocoon of eternal love and smiles enveloped me.

Perhaps the verse does apply.

Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.

To People Again

i'm glad you're tired. because i'm tired too. i'm tired of wanting things so badly that i can't remember my reasons for wanting them. i thought i knew what i was supposed to do--i mean, i was sure because there was this peace and i wasn't feeling guilty and it was like i was holding a glowing circle in the center of my heart, but then you had to be logical and make me doubt myself because of my word choice.

and now i can't remember (as usual). i can't remember why exactly i felt like i did, and if it even was real or maybe just all in my head again, and why does it matter so much to me whether or not this is god's perfect will, anyway? why does it have to matter so much? why can't i just say, "let's do this," and do it without worrying whether the other path would have been better?

god. hi. it's hard to know when you're talking to me nowadays. i mean, it always was, but now i can't remember much past the things that i cement in my memory purposefully and the bad things. it didn't use to be that way. i would forget all the bad and remember little details.

i just want to have what i see crinkle and the other have: a close-enough-to-touch love for you. and i do; i must, otherwise i wouldn't struggle so with the right-according-to-your-will way. but i guess i want to love you enough to actually be affected by you in daily life, not just big-time decisions.

there. i was honest. i'm not crying. i'm thinking clearly. please meet me.

and you, my dear one, i can't talk to anymore. i look at you and a great anger, perhaps even bitterness, rises up within me. i can't explain it other than you not listening to me. or maybe you are, and i'm not hearing myself. whatever it is, i think i'm hitting adolescence late.

anyway. bye.