A Matter of Time

Almost a month of silence. This is what I wanted. I just didn’t think it would be so easy. The moment I started explaining myself, I knew he wouldn’t try to stop me. Can’t say I was surprised.  I suppose I should appreciate that.

            Didn’t get to post last week. Got a bit busy, let it slip the mind, didn’t feel I could make anything make sense, and also feel like I never have a point to any of my posts. They’re just rando brain spewings that don’t belong anywhere. I apologize. I think it’d be neat to write a blog about a very specific subject. They say those are the ones that really get out there.

I shopped online this week. Got some things in the mail yesterday, didn’t like them, and took them back only to get more things that I don’t need. One more dress will make my wardrobe complete…Oh, the lies my mother told me (LMN reference, not mother reference. My mom has never condoned careless shopping). What a lie, a filthy rotten lie. Something has gotten into me, and it’s called consumerism, the belief in benefits of consumption. It’s never satisfied. There are no benefits, just me feeling fancy for a moment and then feeling rotten the next since I blindly spend my money on things that I do not need and were probably produced in sweatshops anyways.

            On a lighter note, my sister and I found the most perfect apartment to live in next year! And it absolutely calls for an exclamation point. I am so excited! I can’t wait to get out of this dorm room. It’s difficult living in one room. On our way to check out the apartments, my sister and I were both pretty annoyed about the whole thing. We haven’t felt good about anywhere that we have looked at or even thought about living, but the place we decided on is really great. It’s so beautiful and special and we both love it and feel good about it. Just as we both talked about how we wished something good would fall into our laps--something did. Hopefully it’ll all become official soon. Summer will be here and gone before we know it, and we’ll be all moved in and excited about life! 

Cleanest break I've ever made.

The door next door keeps rattling. The building must be adjusting from the brand new freeezing cold weather, so everything's askew.

I have two papers due next week. Sheesh. I may brave the cold to get to the library soon. I wish there were underground tunnels.

Caroline and I are drinking monsters, so we can wake up.  She says we're like blooming flowers. Caroline is addicted. "Don't tell Dad," she says. She's confessed to drinking them during her 8am math class, and she even leaves early to go buy them. She only has one a day though. "NEVER FEAR!" she says. She loves her Monsters...kisses the cans and whispers, I love you. No joke. It's becoming an issue I'm afraid. Intervention soon.

I want my twitter back, so I can tweet stupid things that I refuse to post on Facebook. Maybe, I'll reactivate it. It stays hidden and inactive for thirty days when you deactivate and then after thirty days if it hasn't been reactivated it will be fully deleted from twitter. I've reactivated mine a million times since I got rid of it in October, so it's never quite been fully deleted from twitter. I had tweeted for a good three years but woke up one day and decided I had to be done for a bit.

I can't really stand social media, but I feel so dependent on it to stay in touch with the world. How dumb is that? Why do I only feel like I exist if I have personal pages online that show that I exist? Do I really believe people are interested in what I have to say and what I'm doing? No, they aren't. It's dumb. I tend to be a minimalist. Get rid of the unnecessary, I say. Twitter is unnecessary, but it's so fun at the same time. Ehhh, I'm such a torn person sometimes.Wanting all the things I don't need, and then being annoyed at myself that I ever wanted them in the first place since I don't need them. Blah blah blah. #whocaressowhat

I just reactivated it. Hah... Here's to living an unnecessarily-social-media-ly cluttered life for the moment. Indecisiveness rules my life. Next week it'll be gone again. One day I'll get rid of Facebook. I get so excited for people that have the guts to cut the tangled strings of Facebook out of their lives. One day, I will. Social media is tricksy. It feeds the selfish beasts we all have living inside of us. Brilliant plan, world, brilliant plan.

(feeling british)
xx

I am a soul.

I am not a body that has a soul. I am a soul that has a body.—as C.S. Lewis once quite correctly put it.

Sometimes my body gets the best of me.

Went home to Nashville this weekend. It’s nice. I needed the weekend away from Knoxville. It can be suffocating. I feel like I’m in an alternate universe that tends to suck the life out of me. As much as I love it, I can’t stand it sometimes.   

Home feels kind of odd now. I remember the first time I went home after I had moved away to Knoxville. I didn’t go home for a few good months after we moved in, and walking into my house, I felt like a complete stranger. Going into my room was the worst part. I felt like I was 15 again but like I’d been away for years at the same time. I felt like an intruder in the space that I’d grown up in. Weird feeling.

I’ve mostly gotten past the weirdness of being back home by now. It’s been good to get back and see my big sister, Abby, my parents, and some good good friends. So good. Of course, I haven’t gotten anything done that I’ve needed to do. Heading back tomorrow on Super Bowl Sunday will be interesting. There are about a million things that I could do Sunday, but I should really sit in my room and wrap my head around the things I need to tackle this week. I’ll figure it out. Maybe Caroline will want to drive home. Fingers crossed!

Been getting a little crazy lately. I’ve allllways been one to question every single move that I make. Been getting a wee bit fearful of the future and the fact that I feel like I’m going too safe with the course of my life thus far. I can’t help but think there’s more than the comfortable life that I think I want. I’m scared of mediocrity. I wonder sometimes if where I am and what I’m doing is too normal, too typical, too expected. Normalcy? No thank you, I’ll pass. Break the mold, cast, whatever. Just do it. Empty passion is not my thing. Never has been, never will be.  I’ll figure it out. Or won’t. That’s probably the point.

I look up definitions of random words all the time, usually simple words that I want something else for... Just looked up passion—

Passion (noun)

1.     Suffering of Jesus Christ

2.     Story of Jesus Christ’s suffering

He’s everywhere. In my face. All the time.  I can’t even explain it.

Good Morning.

Weird night.
I can barely think to write.

I finally finished my paintings after almost 20 hours of work. They are finished! A+'s don't really exist or something silly at UT, but the fact that my professor specifically wrote A"+" in his gradebook made my day. What a beautiful thing!
 

So much going on lately. Classes are starting to pick up. I'm about to drown myself in schoolwork for a good bit... until the end of the semester. Good idea, right?

I have YOKE today. I volunteer Wednesdays at a middle school in east Knoxville. The kids are some crazy youngsters. But they are kids, and I'd expect nothing less from a group of middle schoolers. I've been working with the club in east Knox for the past two or three weeks. I've been a little bit hesitant about it, but last week I realized that it's where I'm supposed to be serving right now. If I can't commit to serve and share the gospel once a week at YOKE, how do I expect to fully commit to the ten weeks straight I'll be working at a camp this summer?

I know that some of the kids have very few reliable people in their lives. I can't be another one of those people, so I've got to stick with it and really love them the way that I am intended to love them. With so many influences out there, I hope to be a positive one. I know I needed that as a middle schooler. Even if I befriend just one young girl, that's enough. Middle school is so tough. I honestly believe it's the first time kids start to personally decide what kind of people they are going to become.  It's when "the seas split", as my Mom has always said. It's when everyone finds their way into different groups and cliques and when young girls become young women and young boys stay young boys but pretend to be men. There's so much potential and malleability there. I can't forget that.