restless

I haven't quite felt like myself this week. It's been strange. I feel as though my inner narrator is dead or sleeping, as if I have been living without inner subtitles. Very little conscious introspection, like there normally is. Even as I'm sitting here typing this, I'm having a hard time coming up with something important to say...which is kind of not like me.

I guess, I haven't been sleeping the best. I keep dreaming about my mistakes and now I'm even seeing them in real life. It's so difficult to look back in regret but at the same time know you did the right thing. I don't know why it's been bugging me so much lately, but it really has.

I've been searching for and in need of rest. This week I've sort of just been bathing in my own distractions. Sometimes that's easier than confronting the problem I don't want to think about or don't know how to fix. But the truth is, the distractions are getting old. And I'm just becoming more and more restless.

try again

My boss' dog had puppies about three weeks ago, and today at work he was talking about them. They recently have opened their eyes for the first time, and can now bark (even though it causes them to topple over with puppy excitement every time they do. can you imagine? possibly the cutest thing i have ever heard). And I guess today it sort of has me thinking about being new. Those puppies are literally brand new. They are born without the ability to open their eyes yet! Imagine living in total darkness and then one day- BAM! There's a world with people and colors and movement! How incredible.

I probably don't need to tell you that yesterday was not one of my better days. I don't need to tell you because I told you yesterday! But this morning when I woke up, things were a little better. Even though I had to work, and worked an extra hour without a break. And as I got in the shower a bit ago, I thought to myself, "try again." Yesterday's failures and doubts are not necessarily today's. I struck out yesterday, but I can always try again today. I realize that there is literally an hour and a half left of today, but that's okay. In reality, today is the perpetual, constant now. Today is whenever I am awake, conscious, breathing. It's a good thing to realize that I can try again as long as it is "today."

So. Though it is close to my bedtime, I am going to clean my room and throw some things out, and then I will take a stab at reading the Bible, and then I will pray, and then I will sleep. And in the morning I will try again and again and just keep on trying. I will attempt to pick me up again and keep on trying.

good will hunting

Has anybody seen Good Will Hunting? He's this genius of a guy- the most difficult equations and theories are so easy for him, and all of it is literally a gift- he's this insanely intelligent prodigy who could do the world so much good. But he's rude, coarse, stabbing, blunt, and just all around difficult. He grew up with a physically and emotionally abusive father and then was taken away by social services and was in and out of foster homes for the rest of his teenaged life. He doesn't want the responsibility- he never asked for the gift he has been given. He doesn't want to become an intellectual who changes the world with his mind. He just wants to stay in Boston and work construction and janitorial jobs. He rejects this unique thing that makes him who he is because he didn't ask for it, and because everyone expects him to want to do great things with it. He rejects it because his family treated him like he didn't matter. His father made him believe that he wasn't worth anything, despite his brilliance.

I haven't done a lot of open-minded or positive thinking today. Days like today, I feel a lot like Will Hunting. Unappreciative of what I have been given and who I am- the person I just naturally AM and how that was not my "choice." How I was born into a family and lifestyle that I did not choose. How I was born into a body that I did not choose. I, like Will, can do a lot of good in the world- the kind of good that no one else in the world can, because they are not me. But I am content to eat the grass I walk on instead of lifting my head and walking forward. I prefer to rebel because I did not "choose" me- because I see the gift of who I am as more of a curse. I can't step forward because I have been hurt and held back by the people in my life, and by me. I am something great and unique, but I do whatever I can to reject it.

It's been that kind of a day. One of those self-destructing days.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

honestly

I saw my best friend today. What a blessing. She's good at drawing the true things out of me. She gave me this journal for my birthday last year, and it's one of those old dusty books you get from antique stores, but she covered some of the pages in colorful paper and included random quotes and verses. And the book she chose to use for this thoughtful little project is titled "A King's Daughter." It's a play, and I've tried to read it, but most of it is covered- honestly, it's the coolest thing ever. I love it. And the more I think about it, the more I feel like it's a perfect analogy of what my relationship with God ought to be: a book with structure and words from Him, for me, but with pages that I need to fill in with my own thoughts to Him, from me.

Honestly though, I'm really no good at it. No good at all. Relationships...are just scary for me, and if I'm being completely honest, I spend more time questioning and trying to figure out if I believe Him than I spend actually believing Him. For some, like my best friend, it isn't difficult to believe Jesus. For others, like me, it is. And today I realized that maybe I need to do whatever I can to just...start over, and accept whatever place I'm at with God instead of aiming for this goal or this standard that I keep trying and trying and trying to attain WITHOUT Him because I'm just not there yet.

So. *Ahem.* Lets make a list. Cause I like lists.

THINGS KATIE NEEDS TO ACCEPT:
1. I am a King's daughter.
2. I do not believe in Jesus like my best friends do. I am not them. I am not supposed to be.
3. My life is MY life. It's up to me, and only me, to make of it what I can and stop just letting it happen to me without a fight.
4. I am an introvert. AND THAT IS OKAY.
5. The only power I have is in what decisions I make each day, each moment. Things are not out of control when I come at my problems one at a time, as they arrive, with Jesus as my adviser.
6. I can be paradoxical and messy, but I have value. And one day, the right man will discover it. There will come a day. There will.
7. The Holy Spirit is One who falls beside, and He has and does and will fall beside me with wordless groaning prayers. Jesus will intercede for and love me like I could never deserve. And the Father will smile at me and call me by name. This cannot be un-given.
8. It will be difficult. It just will.
9. I cannot be the perfect anything. I cannot be the perfect person, lover, daughter, friend, wife, mother, Christian, guitar-player, writer, woman.
10. Every day is the chance to be new again. Be new again.


Since leaving college a year ago, I demanded that God give me some sort of plan. I felt like I needed one- I like knowing what I'm doing and why. It didn't take me long to realize that though God has a plan, the current plan was to just not have one. I now know what it's like to go a year without having any sort of end goal in mind. I'd still like one, mind you, but I've come to terms with the fact that I will most likely never know what I'm doing! So, I'd like to officially move on from that state of mind and into a more personal, more important FACT- that I am a King's daughter.

I need to make a lot of changes. I need to stop making excuses and justifying myself for not doing what I need to be doing. Those things include: accepting the above ten things, actively participating in a Bible study, intentionally making new friends, patiently treating my family with respect, working as though it were for the Lord, and building my relationship with God from the ground up- not from where I've left off or been before. It's been a year since I moved home, and very little progress has been made. It's time I take control of my life, and ultimately of myself, so that my life will stop being about me and start being about others. I need to stop pretending I am who I wish I was. Because what healing can come of that?

happiness

The last couple of days I've found myself wanting to blog but not doing it, and sitting at my desk wanting to write something but the page is still empty after two hours of thinking. I guess I'm really having trouble getting words around how I've been doing this week. The one thing I found myself thinking in church today though, was that I feel like my life is suffocating me more and more every day- like everything is closing in on me slowly but surely. I feel a lot of depression and restlessness and...dare I say evil? creeping into my mind lately. I feel as though my heart dial is slowly being turned away from the truth setting and being turned toward the self-destruction setting. And as this happens, everything else becomes less and less satisfactory, enjoyable, fun. The way I view the future is becoming more and more bleak and disappointing, and I am becoming more discouraged by the things I used to have hope about. Everyday I feel a little sicker in my soul. And I think what I fear most is that I am always feeling this way- that I am always doing this poorly deep down, but I just get distracted by my friends and make myself believe that I am happy. That definitely seems like a trick. And in times like these I wonder how my friends make it look so easy to be happy.


Happiness is just outside my window
Would it crash blowing 80-miles an hour?
Or is happiness a little more like knocking
On your door, and you just let it in?

Happiness feels a lot like sorrow
Let it be, you can't make it come or go
But you are gone- not for good but for now
Gone for now feels a lot like gone for good

Happiness is a firecracker sitting on my headboard
Happiness was never mine to hold
Careful child, light the fuse and get away
‘Cause happiness throws a shower of sparks

Happiness damn near destroys you
Breaks your faith to pieces on the floor
So you tell yourself, that's enough for now
Happiness has a violent roar

Happiness is like the old man told me
Look for it, but you'll never find it all
Let it go, live your life and leave it
Then one day, wake up and she'll be home
Home, home, home

-Happiness by The Fray