Pray, Eat, Live

I read the book Eat Pray Love twice before the movie came out.  I saw the movie in the theater and only loved it because it was a condensed version of my favorite book.  And because Julia Roberts is in it and I love her.  I had a couple of friends who were impacted by Liz Gilbert's insight the way I was.

And then I studied the book with a class who took the stance of most of the world - a rich, white lady decides to travel the world and masquerade it as spiritual and personal growth.  Really she just had an awesome vacation.  Well, someone has their knickers in a knot.

I found that everything she went through was relatable to me.  If it wasn't a pattern I already saw emerging in my 20-year-old present, I could imagine it in my future. I could say it's because she's a writer. But that would go against my fundamental belief that it is because she was right.

As I struggle a little with self-love and I meditate on ways to "fix" my problem, I think I would change the order of her verbs.

1. Always pray first.  Pray as soon as you wake up, before you go to sleep, and at every turning point throughout the day.  Thank God for being big enough to handle anything you will ever go through.  Thank God for loving you enough to work all things together for your good.  Ask God for guidelines, answers, inspiration, opportunities.  Ask God for help not being afraid to take those opportunities, help loving others the way He loves you, help seeing what might be getting in the way of your progress. 
2. Then eat.  This probably seems ridiculous, but give me a chance.  First, "[hu]man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4).  So "eat" God's words from the Bible, from the mouths of preachers, and from inside yourself.  Secondly, understand that physical eating can be a spiritual practice. There's a reason we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11).  That one was talking about actual food.  Make sure you are nourished, not hungry, but also not overfull or full of the wrong things.  Be careful what you enjoy and why.
3. Learn to really live.  Understand that "God has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness" (2 Peter 1:3).  I really appreciate the phrase from a popular mega church - "Whoever finds God finds life."  Find what God intends for your life - for me it's writing and teaching - and do those things as well as the actions that support those things.  I am a better writer the more of the world I take in, the more I build relationships with people.  I am a better teacher the more I do things the right way. Kids need to see adults succeeding.  Also, if I want to live whole and healthy for longer than 40 more years, I have to exercise and keep nourishing rather than deadly habits.  

So many think the majority of humans have nothing to learn from Elizabeth Gilbert's journey.  I think they fail to see that she was simply giving us an example of what it might look like to go against people's expectations and strike out on your own to find the life God intended for you.

There will be more discussion on "eating" and on "living" in the coming weeks.

#iLoveLife

Identity: Teacher

Here's another video. I basically just ramble about being a teacher and what the first almost week was like.


 I will film an update this week, because it took me way too many days to edit this.

Note: I love the Teach So Hard movement and following other teachers on social networks. It's nice to have support.

Things are good still.
I'm taking this week away from TV and movies to pray more and get my schedule worked out. (I'm gonna have to ask my cousin to DVR Graceland.) Grad school starts this week too. I'm behind on everything. This past week was a sleepy, not totally productive week. Better this upcoming week, I know!

"Don't Be Such a Martyr"

We have all heard the phrase "Don't be such a martyr."
It means, stop glorifying your struggle. But it also means stop struggling, or sacrificing, for no reason. More often than not, people don't choose to sacrifice for no reason.  Fairly often, the reason for the sacrifice is something friends and family don't understand.  So it is seen as unnecessary and they are encouraged to quit when it hurts.

Now, we all know victims whose lives are hard because they imagine pain and trial where there ought to be none.  I have played the victim many times in my life.  And there is real pain bound up in that behavior, real fear that must be actively replaced with faith.

Majority populations and people in power often say that minorities or lower class people are acting like martyrs, claiming to be persecuted when really they just are not driven enough to rise above their circumstances.

In the predominant definition of a martyr, someone gives his/her life for a cause they believe in.  Many of us don't use martyr to mean that anymore because in western civilization in 2013 it is rare to give your life on purpose.  You either unintentionally die from illness or are killed in some tragic accident.  We are not a group of cultures that die for causes.  

So many believe that God's dominant desire from us is that we live as those who follow Him, rather than die in a blaze of glory.  As a general rule, I agree.  I know it is easier to die than to live through certain pains, struggles, and battles with losses as well as victories.  Martyrdom has been historically considered the ultimate sacrifice - giving up something you want, your life, for something you want more.  But for me, personally, giving up my life would be easy.  Staying alive and fighting through is the hard thing.  I have to give up simplicity and ease and predictability in order to glorify God in the way I have been called.

Some people might wonder why I am doing this forty-day book study A Call to Die, why I am making myself write so much, study so hard.  It's summer break, I could be relaxing. Relaxing can't serve God? (Of course it can. Sometimes it's the only thing that can.)

I never go many weeks without being approached by a man.  In general, it doesn't progress very far because we don't see eye-to-eye about the purpose of life and faith.  But in recent years I have met a couple of men who do hold to all the same ideals I do.  But it's not my time to focus on them or on romance.  Right now is a preparation season (another one) for my next several months of teaching and building bridges (more on that later).  So I have to give up romance, even healthy romance, for personal development.  Not every opportunity is the best one for this season.  Sacrifice.

Check out this poem by Janette...ikz.  It's called "HypoChristian."

Normally poems like that make me uncomfortable.  She is asking for too much (although everything that she challenges us to do mirrors the Bible) and she is asking for it so intensely.  But what she is doing right that so many are afraid to do is forcing us to come face to face with our priorities.  Do we want to be "Christians," to follow God, or do we not?  Because if we do, we have to do what God has said we need to.  We have to sacrifice.

The Risk, The Sacrifice

I just finished editing my first chapbook of poems and sent it off for peer-edits.. There are just over twenty poems in it, many of which I have performed for crowds that liked or loved them.  I wrote these poems mainly during my college years, when I was searching, wandering, losing and finding myself by the week and month.

There is a quote from Anais Nin that I heard on Alicia Keys' album The Element of Freedom and it really touched me: "The day came when the risk it took to remain tightly closed in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to bloom."
Last year I had a show called "The Risk to Bloom" and that is what I am naming my book as well.

I don't doubt that Anais Nin (and Alicia Keys) mean something different about freedom and about blooming than I do, but the quote is so true and so powerful.

 

Sometime during college I closed myself off to lots of emotions - many who knew me then would say that I never cried and sometimes seemed to feel nothing but laughter and anger.  I closed myself off to the piercing power of the Holy Spirit.  After a lot of meditating and reading old poems and journals, I think I was tired and afraid of feeling convicted, so I stopped allowing myself to give in to questions about my motives and my misbehaviors.

I couldn't close down everything, though. I let in beautiful words. I allowed words to feel for me so I wouldn't have to.

After college, that didn't work for me anymore.  I actually didn't write for months on end, close to a year.  Being closed off like that was really hurtful to my sweet roommate at the time.  It got me fired from a job I was good at.  It led me to a really dark place where I behaved as if there were no God to heal and protect and provide. I went through a ministry class at church, because I was asked to, and because I was sure that if I didn't do something "radical" I would not make it much farther. 

What I know now is that there is a beauty God puts inside each of us - namely women (inside the men, I am inclined to say He places a strength - not that women have no strength and men have no beauty but I am speaking generally) - and that beauty is precious and vulnerable.  The devil does not want the world to see that beauty.  The devil does not want the world to see your light shining to glorify the God who made you. So there is an attack on our beauty and on our strength. It is a ruthless attack.  The goal is that we would die emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and then perhaps physically as well.  The devil wants our potential dead because it is a reflection and a manifestation of God's potential - His omnipotence (same root word: potent).  I learned that our beauty is inextricably bound to God.  Without God everything begins crumbling.

Knowing that there is an enemy who wants to attack the strongest, most beautiful part of you makes you want to protect it, to hold it back, to maybe lock it away in a high tower where no harm can reach it...and no one can see it or be inspired by it.

I am thankful to be living after "the day" when I realized that hiding is too painful and detrimental.  But in order to fully grasp that, I must let go of what used to be and how I used to cope.  I must release the hiding and the self-protection in order to bloom.  I must release the people who are attached to who I used to be.  I must be willing to sacrifice what I once wanted - angsty poems that make people cry and applaud, that pull their heartstrings - for what I want more - to be whole and holy in God, and to show others how to get there.

I am afraid that my writing won't be as good without all of the angst.  I am afraid that it won't be as poignant, that it will draw a smaller crowd.

"It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us." - Marianne Williamson

I am afraid that many of those who nurtured my writing from the beginning will shun it when I consistently insist on putting God in the middle of it.  

"I tell you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation that will produce the proper fruit. And whoever falls on this stone [that the builders rejected] will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder." - Matthew 21:43-44.  Jesus was quoting Psalms 118:22-23.  He was saying that He is who people reject, the "stone" or building block that "builders" reject.  Because we are all building a life, and we are either building it on Christ or on something else.  He is saying that the "nation" producing "proper fruit" is the nation that has "fallen" on Him and allowed themselves to be broken. He is talking about the people who have sacrificed what they wanted for the Kingdom and then used Him to build their lives on.  Those who won't sacrifice, who won't allow themselves to be broken are those whom the "stone" will crush.  I don't believe this directly translates to God reaching out to smite people.  I think it means that if you don't make the sacrifice to build your life around the Kingdom, you take yourself from God's protection and then life's trials and hardships can and will crush you. 

So I trust that whatever I create from here on out will touch who it ought, where it ought, how it ought to.  I do not have to be angsty and sinful in order to be creative or draw a crowd.  I can be whole and holy.

At some point I will have to sacrifice the freedom of having all the time in the world for the discipline of health.  I have to want health more than I want "free time." It's a change in mindset. I have to invest in the process, the patient endurance, the sweating at a low fitness level until I get to a higher one. 

Stronger

I am not really going to say too much today.  It's Friday afternoon and y'all are just trying to make it to the weekend.

I also tend to skimp on media. I posted some photos earlier in the week, but my blogs tend to not be visually appealing enough. So for today, in regards to my personal health and fitness struggles and goals, I'm going to post two videos, and give just a tiny bit of background. 

The first video below I ran across a few weeks ago.  I follow several different tumblr blogs.  This one I got from Young, Black and Fit who also runs Young, Black and Vegan.  A fitness trainer receives a question from a YouTube channel viewer asking how he can make his girlfriend workout more. The trainer thinks this is a selfish and mean-spirited question and he gives his (very angry) opinion about it.  WARNING: He says a few curse words, but I posted it anyway because I have NEVER heard a man say things like this, nor have I ever heard a fitness instructor say things like this.

A year and a half ago, I was asked to participate in a poetry and art show around the theme: "The Body is Not an Apology." Before you start to think I'm some awesome self-love ambassador let me tell you: I'm not.  I'll never forget the lines from the movie Liar, Liar. "My teacher says real beauty is on the insider." "That's just something ugly people say." And for every time I have known a person whose face or body put them in the "ugly" category but whose spirit made them beautiful, I have judged someone's ill-fitting outfit.  So, I go back and forth between believing that we as a world need to allow full-figured, curvy, fat, odd-bodied people to see and know that they are beautiful too, I have believed that we only say that until we lose weight or find the hairstyle and makeup that works for us.

At that show, I read the poem in the video below.  I wore a short skirt that some would say girls my size shouldn't wear.  But I have two other skirts like that now (slightly longer - I acknowledge the immodesty factor and I have no excuse for it).

As I say in the poem: "If I look like this for the next 80 years, that will be just lovely."
I just want to live. I know that I am beautiful, in a way that not all people fully accept. But somehow I am fully convinced in my own mind and the mind of my friends and family.
It's just weird to live with a tension that also wonders "what if I were 40 pounds lighter?" Because I do have a goal weight - and that is it: 40 pounds lighter. What if? Will I be less radical? Less of an ambassador for inner beauty? Because so many ex-chubby people never believed they were beautiful.  Once they are smaller they throw out the old photos and promise never to get heavy again.  But I don't want to leave this girl behind. I don't want to look back at this poem - even minus 40 pounds - and say "I had no idea what I was talking about."

The guy in the other video, the fitness instructor, says you work out because you want your body to be stronger to sustain your life, not because you want to look different or because someone forces you to. I agree with him.  I do want to be stronger.  Seane Corn, the yoga instructor in one of my photos from Tuesday, says we practice yoga "in order to do the work we need to do in the world, in order to hold that light for spirit." She believes that what you practice on the yoga mat (concentrating more, holding longer, breathing deeper, not letting go even when it burns) translates to, or maybe flows from, inner strength. I agree so whole-heartedly.

I am about to begin a journey in holistic health.  I want to be healthy and strong, but I am scared to death that if I ever were to achieve that goal, I would become shallow as well.

I have a sweet friend - a hot guy actually, with a six pack and really well-defined pecs - who told me once "you are beautiful now and you'll still be beautiful if you get thinner."  I love him for saying that.  But I worry if I'll still be beautiful on the inside, strong on the inside?

(Note: I think next week's topic might be sacrifice.)

Let Go

Some say "let go and let flow" others say "let go and let God."

In the book I'm studying, A Call to Die, David Nasser says, "[God] will always amaze us with how He'll use us. We have to keep our eyes open because He will blow our minds with where He will lead us.  Sure, He lets us get into patterns that will give us some stability, but as soon as we are established, He leads us in new directions to new experiences of enjoying Him and letting Him use us."

Below are some definitions I find helpful.

Devotion - earnest attachment to a cause or person

Diligence - constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken; persistent exertion of body or mind.
Discipline - activity, exercise, or a regimen that develops or improves a skill; training;
the rigor or training effect of experience Freedom - exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc., the power to determine action without restraint.

The three D-words up there are words that many people use interchangeably.  I found it really helpful to compare and contrast them.  

I realize now that I am devoted, but since devotion is more of a feeling (attachment) than a course of action, being devoted is not the ideal.  You can be attached to a cause or person that you don't spend a lot of time pouring into - like me and health and fitness.  That being said, devotion means a little something, because there are tons of things to which each of us is not devoted.  Like I am not devoted to American patriotic rhetoric and ideology.  I am not devoted to secularism, godlessness.  I am deeply devoted to religious ideology. 

I am only diligent about a few things - God, personal relationships, and writing (in that order).  Those are the only things for which I will stop what I'm doing to go fix it or go nurture it. I lost a lot of sleep last night with my writing partner Kashlee Banx.  I have lost some sleep and some gas recently with a new friend.  But I cannot count the number of times I have been unavailable to work or to go out or to join in because of a church function or a Bible study or a conversation with someone about God. 
I will have to become more and more diligent to teaching, to my studies and research, to planning and executing.  I seriously wonder if I will ever be diligent at exercise.  Devoted, perhaps. Diligent? I'm just not sure. 

Discipline is what I lack in all areas.  I hate being stuck in a rut.  I get bored with processes very easily.  Even though I spend time with God every day, reading the Word and journaling, reading devotional books, etc., it is hard for me to finish a book cover to cover.  It is hard for me to complete the same process day in and day out.  It's hard for me to follow a Bible reading plan.  I like to jump around and be spontaneous.  This is a problem because sometimes the payoff doesn't come if you don't complete the whole process. I think this is more true spiritually than in any other area.  I need to be more disciplined to finish what I start. 

Dictionary.com says freedom is about lack of external control or restraint.  I am free, perhaps a bit too free.  I am great at responding to the world around me, taking immediate instruction, helping in crises.  Many people are not.  Have you ever met someone who can never do anything that wasn't on their to-do list?  They can't meet you for coffee because right now is their scheduled study time; are you available in two hours? Maybe they can schedule you in for next Monday? There is nothing wrong with a structured life, but it has its downfalls just like an unstructured one.  I think sometimes (external) diligence infringes on (internal) freedom. Sometimes we don't see the forest for the trees. We sometimes take the beauty and adventure from life with the implementation of structure.  

Here is a story to close:

I am devoted to, diligent in, and fairly disciplined at maintaining pure relationships with men.  I believe that a lot of the problems in my culture can be traced back to an excess of freedom about purity and sex.  High demands, low standards, low expectations, low responsibility and weak will.  So I don't really date.  I don't spend much alone time around men.  I try to keep text messages and hang time regulated to daylight hours.  

Recently, I met a man while I was out performing.  We had a deep conversation with some other people one night and each realized that the other was intelligent and insightful.  He began starting conversations with me over social networking and invited me to spend time with him.  Because of our work schedules, the best time for us to talk was when I get off after 9 p.m.  This made me leery at first.  My perspective was that it simply is not proper to spend time with a man at this hour.  But our conversations are very pure.  He has never made a pass at me.  Nothing inappropriate has happened or even been hinted at.  And I recently have felt more and more comfortable talking with him about spiritual things.  I recently shared with him a sermon that I heard at church.  

I am not advocating lowering your standards or your level of responsibility.  Not all men are respectful or trustworthy.  Not all women are pure or innocent.  I especially don't encourage too much after-hours hang time between teenagers - there are too many hormones and too little experience with the world.  There is so much more to learn about yourself as a young woman or young man.  But I am glad that, as an adult, with a healthy foundation in discipline and diligence, I did not let the three D's keep me from being free enough to perhaps really encourage my new friend and plant some seeds for positive change in his life.  

Learn the limits of freedom and the beauty in structure. 
(Please comment or respond in whatever way you want to or can on this topic - even if you disagree.)

Success is a Habit

The topic of the week is structure.  I don't have much of it, I typically don't want much of it, but I see how it pays off in others people's lives and I want the pay-off too.

There is a way to have too much structure, where there is no creativity and no room to "flex." There is absolutely a such thing as being stuck in a rut and scared to leave certain processes. I'll talk more about that tomorrow.

What gets less critical attention and more glory in the media and the world today is anarchy, spontaneity, free-spirited living.  These people are fun to be around, they bring joy and interest and beauty.  But can they complete projects? Are they financially stable? Do they keep their word?

A spiritual person I heard recently said, "God is not impressed by what you start, He honors what you finish."  That hit me like a punch to the gut.  I am an amazing starter and not a great finisher.  If no job or grade is pushing me to finish, I might not.  Because I am always thinking up the next thing.  I call it "obeying the Muse" or "going with the flow."

Yet we know that good results come from consistent work and progress.  You have to study diligently - as in everyday, or at least three times a week - in order to make good grades, earn degrees and credentials and move forward.  You have to eat right consistently - everyday, or at least more days than not (most healthy people have a cheat day) - in order to retain nutrients and repel fat and disease.  You have to exercise regularly to keep your muscles loose and strong, and to keep away fat and atrophy.  Many a washed-up athlete will tell you that if you do not use it, you will lose it. 

But consistency is hard! There is always something that seems more fun, more interesting, more immediately necessary.  There are only twenty-four hours in a day and so many of them are "lost" to work and eating and sleeping, that those we have leftover are guarded.

My pastor has done an excellent job of teaching us about consistency.  We practice the presence of God in order to create a habit.  He taught us that when we create a habit of seeking God - as in every day - then God comes to expect us to "knock on His door" ready to commune.  Our habit creates in us (because God does not need a specific location to meet you in) a habitat, or a dwelling place (Psalm 91) where we meet with God and share with Him.  This is how our faith becomes a relationship with God instead of a religious devotion to His principles.  We devote ourselves to His principles because of the love overflowing from our relationship.  We obey because we love.

So I am spending time today considering what habits are most important.  Here is my list so far:

1. pouring into my relationship with God (I am determined to do this everyday.)
2. writing (I have been doing this everyday.)
3. healthy eating (I have been doing this well for more than three weeks now, with small cheats. It is much easier to eat healthy when you don't have a huge dispensable income. You cook what you bought at the store, because you can't afford to go out for barbecue.)
4. cleaning (I have done a ton of this since school's been out.  But every task is done in bits and pieces and it takes a bit longer than it might for some, because I have to fit it in here and there.) 
5. fitness (This is where I struggle. I can commit to at least one workout session a week - it's usually Zumba because the class meets on my one night a week off of work.  I am trying to make myself go at least three other times a week to do some exercises from physical therapy for my knee and to get in some cardio.  But it is so hard, especially when my knee hurts as it has been since I did too much working out last Wednesday [50 mins dance fitness, and 90 mins zumba].  I am open to suggestions for being more consistent in this. I want to do more yoga, but it is hard. I told myself if nothing else, I would do a few sun salutations everyday.  That only lasted about 3 days.)

Note: My devotion and writing time often runs long. Like today I have been at it for nearly four hours, and I'm not done (as in I haven't read what I said I would). I need to leave for work in just over two hours.  For this reason, I'll only get to finish one load of laundry instead of two or three and I won't have the chance to go to the store and use my coupons that are expiring. 
I think it helps to consider what your priorities are.  I ranked the above in order of how much it matters to me. Spending time in the presence of God and writing are most important to me so I do them even when that means I don't have time for other things.  Fitness always ranks at the bottom of my list, and yet I find that the images and ideas that most inspire me are ones like these:

       My DVD of Seane Corn teaching a class (Yoga From the Heart) is my absolute favorite workout even though it is so hard, and I often can't finish the whole thing.

I don't know who this is, but look at that pose. 


You do not become this good at yoga without doing it everyday.  You do not get to see and feel and experience this grace and beauty without commitment to the daily process.  These bodies are whole and healthy and pretty nearly perfect (albeit a smidge too thin - I like having something to hold on to).  I want to at least be something beautiful like this.  And I really think that this practice will prevent further knee injury.

 This is my former roommate and dear friend Sheri who is a professional dancer (who thinks yoga is boring).  She has danced on cruise ships and she is in a local company.  She teaches fitness classes as well (RIPPED, TRX).









I will make a large effort to go by the gym for maybe thirty minutes after work today, to do my physical therapy and some yoga, maybe a little cardio. 

UPDATE: I did not go to the gym after work. I went to my friend's bar to watch the game.  My girlfriends randomly met me there and we danced a lot. I don't know if that counts as cardio. But my  knee was really feeling it.  I did my zumba on Wednesday and then did 30 minutes of cycling and 20 minutes of circuit training (which was ridiculously hard).  I'm going to commit to at least that - 2 classes on Wednesday nights. That's all I've got at the moment. 
 

Structure

NAJjustiz an artist.
I am not overly interested in structure.  I am not a big fan of rules.  But I know that successful people are consistent people, and I know that the "law" of the Lord brings life in a world riddled with death. So I am attempting structure.

I have been a Christian my whole life. Last year I took a church leadership class and now people sometimes call me "Minister Najah." It's weird, and humbling, and an honor.  But as I was serving at church this past week, I realized that the main thing I still lack in my (spiritual) life is structure and consistency.  Because my life has gone through so many changes, I have allowed my dedication to Bible study and prayer to change and move and fall and rise as well.  That is not as it should be.  When nothing is constant, God is, so our relationship with God ought to be constant also.

I am reading a book titled A Call to Die by David Nasser.  I got it at church camp in 2001.  I read it then, and again in 2004.  The subtitle says "a 40 day journey of fasting from the world and feasting on God."  I am praying that studying this book will help to structure my life.  It requires an hour everyday, and to make the most out of it I find it best to do it early in the morning.  They say it takes 21 days to create a habit, so my prayer is that once I finish this book again, I will have a habit of being spiritually focused early in the morning every day.

The book is very journal-oriented.  I am very journal-oriented.  It is amazing and overwhelming, fun and scary to look back through old journals and see what is the same or what is different, how I've grow and what I have been struggling with too long.  I am old-school, at 25 (almost) years old, in 2013 as a member of the technology generation.  I have had a blog since I was twelve.  I am a well-practiced Tweeter.  I have an iPad with highlighted passages in my YouVersion Bible app.  But I also have two Bibles I use to study - a King James/New Living parallel and a New International/Spanish parallel - and underline and write notes in the margin.  I have a journal where I use a pen (or markers or crayons - don't judge me) to record my life. But I decided to type rather than hand-write the answers to the journal questions and I have found that it inspires me to write blog posts and to outline short stories and books of my own. I think this will be very beneficial.

Re: this blog, I'm going to try to stick to a schedule of sorts. I won't post on weekends.  And I'm going to force myself not to post multiple times a day.  I'm going to try to open a topic on Mondays and be a little neutral.  You read it and just learn something about me and how I think or what I'm doing.  In the rest of the week, I will try to give deeper insight into that same topic.  For example, Tuesday I might write about the best parts of Monday's topic. Maybe this will include photos and videos. Then Wednesday I'll present some ideas about how what looked good might not be so good after all, I'll play devil's advocate and give the flip side of the story.  Then Thursday I'll post about any conversations I've had with others about the topic...kind of a varied opinion, open forum kind of thing.  (*Hint: so tell me what you think on Monday or Tuesday if you want to be represented.)  UPDATE (6-19): Posting every week day might be too much if I really want this to be structured, cohesive, and poignant.  Plus, who really wants to feel like they need to read my blog everyday? So maybe I'll let Wednesdays breathe, and present the opposite perspective on Thursday along with advice and quotes from friends, mentors and famous people. Fridays will still be a personal post about my teaching career or health and fitness or writing or some other more aspect of my life.

I'll see if this works. But I feel good about it - especially with all the posts in the queue.  This week will be the test week and the topic is structure.

tidbits

i must balance a thing/person's flaws with it's redeeming qualities.
disney never made me feel bad about myself. i can love disney movies and hate cookie-cutter images at the same time. i can see the stereotypes and the plot problems and love the music and the morals.
a story is still good even if i don't approve of the ending.

i looove country music.
perhaps it's because i live in oklahoma and my family is from texas, but i most appreciate songs about the real life stuff that people try to ignore. "it's a quarter after one, i'm a little drunk, and i need you now." classic.

i think facebook and twitter are the best things to be invented since personal computers.
via facebook, i can get glimpses into the lives of people i have "grown out with" (yes, grown out, not grown up. to "grow up with" is to experience life with while growing. it's a time and proximity thing. to "grow out of" or "outgrow" is to leave something behind. it has a connotation of being better or smarter or more evolved than the thing that was outgrown. to "grow out with" someone is to grow apart from them, as in not in the same proximity, but not in a way that is removed as if you are leaving them behind). several of the people i used to know are wonderful people whose lives make perfect sense for them. we cannot be close because our lives are so different. but we are not far away because i think i'm better. our paths no longer cross, but i still think they're wonderful. via twitter, i can let out all of my random thoughts and comments and they can be taken or left off at will. no pressure.

i want to write a movie script.
my world is too aesthetically beautiful to exist completely in the written word. it's also too complicated to be a song or poem. a photo collage is too extensive. plus the writing would be good exercise. i'm a story-teller struggling to find a medium.

Just a Beautiful Old Soul

Country girls sing about the emotions we try to avoid.

Carrie Underwood, "We're Young and Beautiful":

"While we're young and beautiful kiss me like you mean it. Treat me like I'm special. Cover me with sweetness. 'Cause a time will come when we're not so young and beautiful. While we're young and beautiful living free and easy, here without a worry, dancing in our bare feet. 'Cause when the summer's done we might not be so young and beautiful. While we're young and beautiful we'll party down on Main Street, wearing next to nothing, feeling every heart beat, having fun, while we're still young and beautiful. It's a crazy ride and baby, you and I are keeping our sweet love alive tonight while we're young and beautiful."

I have just come to the realization that I have never really kissed a boy like I meant it. I've never been treated special or covered with sweetness. I have lived free and easy, but I've never danced in my bare feet. I have done some of this type of living, but never for a whole summer, and never with someone who was willing to do it with me. I have never kept sweet love alive.

And now it's the summer before my twenty-first birthday and I know what I'm supposed to do with the rest of my life. When the summer is done I will no longer be young. Hopefully I'll still be beautiful, I won't be able to live free and easy. I'll be a woman on a mission, not a girl who is waiting for life to catch up with her.

This song is also by Carrie Underwood, "Lessons Learned":

"There's some things that I regret, some words I wish had gone unsaid, some starts that had some bitter endings. Been some bad times I've been through, damage I cannot undo. Some things I wish I could do all all over again. But it don't really matter. Life gets that much harder. It makes you that much stronger. Some pages turned, some bridges burned, but there were lessons learned.

"And every tear that had to fall from my eyes. Everyday I wondered how I'd get through the night. Every change life has thrown me. I'm thankful for every break in my heart. I'm grateful for every scar. Some pages turned, some bridges burned, but there were lessons learned.

"There's mistakes that I have made, some chances I just threw away, some roads I never should've taken. Been some signs I didn't see, hearts that I hurt needlessly, some wounds that I wish I could have one more chance to mend. But it don't make no difference. The past can't be rewritten. You get the life you're given. Some pages turned, some bridges burned, but there were lessons learned.

"And all the things that break you are all the things that make you strong. You can't change the past 'cause it's gone. And you just gotta move on because it's all lessons learned."

She said, "You get the life you're given." I wasn't given time to be young and beautiful. I'm just a beautiful old soul. This is probably what makes me a good writer, but it's also why I've always been single. I am thankful for who and what I am, but there are days, times, when I mourn for what I'm not. I shouldn't be upset by it, but I often am.

Conversations I've Been Having

Me: I've discovered what I'm missing in my life.
Frank: What?
Me: Here at OCU, we are all so damned busy trying to be the best at everything, trying to save the world, that we neglect the small things, like poems and artwork and laying by the pool having long conversations and cuddling and dancing. Life is not a meeting. And meetings don't change the world. But quality time can. Insightful conversations can. Y'know?
Frank: Yeah, I get it.


To Justin on Tuesday around 7 p.m.: I think there's a lot that comes the more life you live.
(i.e. age is more than a number. Damn it.)

Me on Monday around 9 a.m.: Today is the last Monday of junior year. That's crazy. I'm about to go to breakfast with my friend and then wash my sheets.
Clarence: You're growing up so fast!
Me: I know right. Getting through school, wrecking cars, having sex, washing sheets...I've come so far and yet I've got so far to go.
Clarence: Sounds like you're just livin' life to me.
Me: I am. It's a party. Gettin' tipsy, dancing, having meetings that are way too long. It's just life. Mi bella vida ("My beautiful life" in Spanish).

"This is my beautiful life.
The only thing certain is everything changes.
The lows and the highs and all those goodbyes:
As hard as it gets I know it's still amazing to be alive.
It's a beautiful life.

It hurts while it's happening.
I wanna feel everything.
How can you know 'til you try?"

"Mi Bella Vita" by Lindsay Lohan