Courage?

It has become important in my life (to my love of self really) that I am seen as someone who is not afraid...that people learn that despite my weak looking frame, I am actually tough, strong and brave. It is a strange thing really, because I am also a clearly emotional person and I have no problem with people seeing that side-- most of my emotions, whether depression, joy, anger or frustration, just to name a few- come out in tears and I don't mind if people see that. But I always want to be the first one to jump off the rocks into the water or crawl into the dark cave or try sky-diving or eat something weird or take a dare and I get upset when someone tells me I can't lift something heavy so I'll spend too much time and energy trying to prove to people that I can carry heavy loads instead of just serving quietly. It is clear to me that this desire to not be afraid comes from a childhood of anxiety. I was nervous around strangers and my tears when I was young would often come from one emotion alone-- fear. As I grew, and became more and more extroverted, I found joy in courage and didn't want fear to stop me anymore. As I tried more and more things, I learned that there was less and less to fear. My desire to be seen as tough comes from proving to myself that I was stronger than I thought and in taking on new challenges, finding that I can do more than I ever would have imagined. I didn't want others doubting me the way I had once doubted myself. I am over my fears in so many ways and I love new challenges. I am still suprised by the things I am capable of doing, but I don't like realizing that this has become a part of my created image-- the one I feel the world has to see. The funny thing is, I think I am still so afraid. In a completely different way. I am terrified of God. That sounds strange, and I don't mean it in the fire and brimstone way or in the healthy fear of God way. I mean that sometimes I am just terrified of what God will do in my life as I continue to follow Him. I am not afraid that he will send me to live in a hut in India or that he will have me work with the poor and disabled. I am afraid that he will make my life so completely different than I would ever have pictured it that I will run and not follow the life that I know will truly bless me and those around me. I am afraid that God will call me and I will not choose to hear or be too distracted to hear or maybe that I will hear and I will follow but it won't fit my image so I will rationalize and cop out. I am afraid I will be a disappointment. The funny thing about fear is that the only way to get over it is to do the one thing you don't want to do...face it.

Altered spongebob songs and streams of consciousness

The best time to update your blog...is all the time...

or at least when you are at work and hate being in an office and find yourself dreaming of apples with caramel dip instead of typing out an in-home service plan with SMART goals because that training took forever and you don't want to eat anything since you are headed to the dentist in an hour and don't want anything in your teeth, but of course you are SO hungry because, well, you are ALWAYS hungry, and you didn't eat breakfast either and now you are wondering if maybe you want cereal instead of apples and caramel and then you start remembering the awesome sundae you had the night before which makes you think of the conversation you had about water and how someday we are going to have a massive water shortage (which is another reason to be a vegetarian, water usage is ridiculous in the meat industry--look it up!) and you think, maybe i shouldnt have poured some of that water down the sink this morning and thinking of the sink makes you think of chex mix, because it's next to the sink, actually no its not, but its in the kitchen and thats just where your brain went...

and this all makes you think of run-on sentences and how we should talk in them alone and use no punctuation in our typing anymore as they didnt do it in ancient greek and well if it worked for them it should work for us

and now back to work...punctuation and all

Where to go from here

Life is always recreating itself, shifting through phases, bringing out completely new experiences and digging up past struggles or challenges for us to try our hand at once again. I find myself tonight wondering if I am really changing at all or am I just caught up in what's around me, only appearing to change due to my changing environment. When I find myself facing former stuggles I thought I had gotten over, I often realize I'm not over them at all. Maybe I see them from a different angle, in a different light, or maybe I can draw from a new experience or regurgitate some advice I've picked up from others and claimed as my own wisdom, but what is different? Is the inside of me the same with only a different exterior? I know God is the only one who can transform my heart, and I believe he does, but maybe I secretly rage against that transformation, afraid to be too much or afriad to be plain. Maybe it's not so much the extraordinary that frightens me, but the mundane. Maybe I am afraid to allow myself to be confident with the ordinary. But isn't life both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time? I think that is how I am too. How we all are. And I don't want to be afraid of either.

Thoughts on a Rainy Saturday OR Finding my Zen

It is becomming so rare for me to just do nothing. I sometimes think that I covet it. I am and always have been a very busy person...not intentionally filling my schedule with things to do just so I can be busy, but finding myself busy as a result of loving so many things and/or people and wanting to throw myself (albeit inexpertly) into them all. As I finish up a crazy week, I think, oh, I just want a day to do nothing. To just sit around and veg out. But then, that day comes. Of course, clearly, we can never actually do nothing, but with some effort we can become pretty close, especially if you are like me and have the tendancy to sing so often that you constantly have songs stuck in your head. If you learn to harness this talent, your brain, though constantly thinking, can be found running the same verse over and over and over again, becoming an almost involuntary condition. If you are good at lying in one place and allowing this song to take over your thoughts, I think there would end up not being much activity at all, besides necessary conditions such as breathing and pumping blood, etc. I don't exactly know what made me think along this line, (my guess is the boredom that ensued from all this doing nothing) but when it takes effort to do nothing, wouldn't it be better to use all that effort to do something instead? Doing nothing gets you nothing except the passing of time and maybe a deeper connection to a few lines of "Dancing Queen," (which will most likely now become stuck in my head just from the mere typing of the title of that song). But doing something could result in getting to eat a sandwich you just made, or enjoying a clean kitchen, or finding a new place to hike or losing 5 pounds and building muscle from taking up running or changing the life of a 13 year old...or eating a sandwich (mmm...I am hungry) Or at the very least, you may get that awful song out of your head.

In conclusion, I hate doing nothing. Thank God for a world full of somethings.