You Needn't Say a Thing

I've been reading back over some of my older posts, and I'm in the process of wondering at growth. It seems to me that the older I get, the less I have to say about things. In essence, now I am living what I used to type away about. What I am thinking is that the need to process verbally decreases when you incorporate ideas into your daily life, because the more fully you understand a concept, the less likely you are to try to express it in so many words.

...of these many miles
that do but oppress
strain and fray our common threads
and of the indescribable moments
between sleep and wakefulness, life and dream
you needn't say a thing...

My time in Morgantown has been spent well, as painful as it was at times. It's not over yet, either, but I feel content with the timing of my move. It's amazing to look back on progress and realize it was totally other than what I had planned for myself.

Happy Saturday :)

[Title and lyrics: Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore]

Kids on the Run

I hope this orange doesn't get old. I think I like it a lot.

So reading over my last post it does seem a bit... breathless, I guess. I think the part of it that I would recant, if I could, is the underlying assumption that the end of my growth process will look like I think it will. Meaning this: I was kind of bartering with God still, thinking that if I devote myself to this growth process, he will give me that thing I pine for. Pine is a strong word, but I use it purposefully. Funny, isn't it? I always think I'm being so mature.

In other news: I am officially moving home for the summer, to figure out where the wind will take me. I am so excited to rest and enjoy being home. The two options I am considering for fall are 1) stay in Asheville and pursue a doctorate in Rehabilitation Counseling online under my current department chair, who wants to incorporate a lot of complementary and alternative medical approaches in the curriculum (!!), or 2) move to Knoxville with the intention of getting a doctorate in Counseling Psychology, and bring the CAM approaches with me. Both options have their pros and cons, but I am happy to report that I have time to sit on this decision! It is nice to have the space to consider each one - I am looking forward to the process.

[Title: The Tallest Man on Earth]

You've been dreaming

Alright, it's been a few months.

I am here, I am doing well. But let me qualify "well": I am in the throes of a tremendous growth process. Surely, surely, this is the one that will get me there. I'll be done maturing after this time right?

I'm learning to rest and lean on God for everything. And this is using the word "everything" in the most comprehensive and frustrating (as per my pride) way.

It is possible that I'm just being melodramatic, but this really feels like a big deal. Like this is one of the most profound lessons I will ever learn. Truthfully, I've been learning it my whole life, but this feels a lot like culmination. I realize I'm only 23, I'm just telling you what I feel like. And I guess what it feels like, really, is that I'm getting ready to move on to the next phase of my life (the one involving career, a settled lifestyle and personality, and hopefully family) and I am being prepared for it.

To be on the cusp of something great! And that I don't get in my own way by daydreaming or resisting or throwing toddler-style emotional tantrums. Internally of course - I'm way too poised for the alternative.

Ha. Haha. Right :)

Tradition!

I have blogged about my New Year's resolution for the past couple of years, and I decided to continue that pattern at least for one more.

This year, I want to take care of myself better and manage stress in a way that will help me be more efficient as an employee, more helpful as a counselor, and more present as a person. At the moment, this is breaking down into being more organized on a daily basis, being more honest with myself about how I am, and taking breaks when I need to even if I feel like I should be doing something else. I also am taking on the mantra of the 12-step community and focusing on ONE DAY AT A TIME, seeing as how managing 24 hours successfully is a whole lot easier than trying to plan the next 72 at once. I've learned about myself that I tend to avoid reality in many ways; one of them being planning the future to a point where I don't exist in the present - I make my dreams for the future my reality and it robs me of the time I have. I don't want to be always looking forward and waiting for better things to happen, I want to appreciate where I am. To do that, I will have to address the issues of the present, including stress management and self care.

To 2011, that I will be more comfortable in my own skin and that I will function better for it. And to organization! My ever present (and somehow never quite achieved) goal...

Happy New Year :)

Hello, World!

This is going to be a more personal post, but if I try to write this I will lose my thoughts before I get them on paper.

What I am wondering in this moment is how am I supposed to reconcile not being ready for the one thing I have always expected to define me? I am a relationship girl, yes? Yes. And I have lived my whole life thinking that without a relationship I am not whole. I've lived my whole life waiting for this one thing to happen so I could start really being me, or being confident, or being valuable. I thought I had to wait to feel these things. I assumed I would have to, I assumed I was going to feel bad until I had a particular someone who loved me. You know, You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You. It's a classic, but I was living it. Sure, I would stay single for a reasonable amount of time between relationships, but I was always looking for the next one in my mind - I was always trying to figure out where I was on the journey to my soul mate. I was always defined by my relative position to the opposite sex.

As I was driving home from my last Couple's and Family Counseling class session, I realized that for the first time in my life, I am starting to understand what it means to be whole without a significant other (and without the possibility of one). I am learning that it is possible to feel together without leaning on someone else (or the idea of someone else, and this point is more applicable to me and my daydreaming, prince-charming-conjuring self).

I've been standing with my face and hands pushed up against the window, and now I've just seen someone walk through the door 3 feet to my left. Who knew? But apparently the door was there all along. Now I know I have access to that sense of security and surety that I've always wanted - I don't need this fundamental aspect of my life to change before I can be fulfilled.

Imagine that. Y'all probably thought I was independent or something.

I think this will always be a struggle for me. I think I will always desire a relationship, and I'm getting to the point in my life where I desire family. I don't think those are bad desires. They are only harmful when they become the "if only" or the miracle cure to something I'm dealing with in the present, in my single state.

Well.

Sha la la la la la la

[Matt Costa]

Definitions: Terminology can be confusing.

Today's title brought to you by the Merck Manuals Online Medical Dictionary. I desperately needed to post it somewhere because I thought it was hilarious.

I have been attempting to figure out how I am for the past several weeks. The problem is that my mood is not consistent enough to put even the smallest finger on. I have decided that I am ok, I am busy, I am working toward being pretty burned out, and I would love to spend two days (or five) on my futon and ask the birds and creatures to clean my apartment for me. Shout out to Disney for how completely they have encouraged my inner dreamer.

So I'm fighting recovery mode with every inch I've got because I still have a week and two highly personal and comprehensive papers to write about myself. Meaning my cultural orientation (one) and my reaction to the class material discussed in Couple's and Family Counseling (two). You will be proud to know that being forced to self-reflect has decreased my tendency to over-analyze things - I don't have any more room to think when I'm done with my school assignments! That's not completely true, but I am a more efficient thinker most of the time.

Organized analysis is not nearly as fun, but it is more productive :) I can feel my frontal lobe forming neural pathways - hooray for physiological adulthood?

I know, I'm terribly nerdy. I apologize.

Happy [Glorious] Weekend! No more procrastinating for me.

Walking the Trail*

I feel growth. I have been forced to relax and just be in the past two weeks and it has done me a world of good. Maybe when I'm not supposed to be writing an ethics paper, studying for two finals, and catching up on 10 book chapters, I will tell you about it.

Until then, I will say that I am well, but I need to continue my self-reflection. I will not neglect you forever, but right now I need to be caught up in my own head for just a bit longer.

*A novel by Jerry Ellis.

This Flight Tonight

I come to you after wasting more time than I'm willing to admit on facebook and compulsively checking all of my email inboxes...school is definitely in session, as are my well-practiced procrastination tools :)

Ginger honey tea, check.

Joni Mitchell, check.

I am in my second year of a Master's program that will hopefully lead to a Ph.D. program and I am, admittedly, lost in the process. In a good way I think - school is hard and time consuming and my job takes up plenty of brain space on its own, so in a lot of ways I am in get-through-school-so-I-can-live mode. What I appreciate about being in the program that I'm in is that it keeps me a little less likely to ignore the present. Hooray for counseling - even if I wanted to avoid myself my professors wouldn't let me! It's good - I'm too emotionally active in the present not to address it, but the part of me that checks all my email inboxes everyday will always be tempted to glaze over the present in favor of the future. I think I am a very confounding combination of Type A and Type B personalities.

Anyway, I've been doing well the past week, really - my sense of purpose in this crazy move-7-hours-away-from-home thing has been restored in the start of classes. And I do feel at home in the apartment I've found - I am content to be pretty independent but am plugging in with groups of friends that I didn't really have access to last year. It's exciting, and the realization that I only have one year left to do what I hoped to accomplish in two is kind of overwhelming. I don't regret where I've been, and I think I will do just fine this year - I think it will be what it needs to be, and then hopefully I will move on and be able to settle just a little bit more into myself and my location.

Now let's hope I don't get too caught up in the present to pay attention to important things like recommendation letters and application forms... That would be so ironic :)

I'm going to continue procrastinating with TV. In my defense, I read four chapters today and posted on my online class discussion forums. Baby steps - I get used to doing nothing very quickly, and I had a month to settle in to a 'summer' routine.

Goodnight :)

Growing Pains: Part 376,542

You know, the mood to blog is a very unique one - it's not quite a journaling mood and it's not quite a suck-it-up-and-deal-with-it mood, but it's somewhere in between. I don't feel it that often, so I'm afraid my posts are sparse and sometimes short. I guess I have to make up for the novels that I've written in the past somehow :)

I'm at a place in my life where my ideas about my self and my future are being tested. I'm having to make a decision between what I want for my life and what others think is best. I remember typing away on this thing a few summers ago about how terrifying it is to commit to yourself - funny how things come back to you, isn't it? Here I am, a solid two years later, having to recommit to my ideas about where I want to be and where I think I should be.

The problem is not having to figure out where I want to be, it's being certain enough in my own decision to share it with others, even if it's in conflict with what they think.

This is a tremendously hard lesson for me - but of course the fact that I feel like I'm having to rip my way out of a shell means I'm growing, right? I think it does. I don't resent the process, but sometimes I wish I could avoid it. Sometimes I wish this was something that came naturally to me - communicating myself in spite of disagreement, but then where would I be? What would I have to learn? Not that this is my only area of weakness, mind you. If I were good at this, I'd be grumbling about growing in some other area so I might as well take this as my own and do it.

*Sigh*

I'm way too much of a relativist for my own good - I guess what I'm doing at the moment is learning what absolutes exist in my life. I want my Ph.D. in counseling or psychology, I want to be close to my family, I want to be loved and understood by those who love me, and I want to live freely.

So, I suppose I should go live freely then, shouldn't I?

:)

And again!

I've moved into a new apartment, successfully navigated my travel-filled month and a half, and am in a bit of a lull right now. Sure, I have things I need to do, should be doing right now actually, but they are not pressing. I don't feel pressed anyway :).

Every time I go through a busy time, a stressful time, or an uncomfortable time I come out of it with a little more perspective, and I think that is what I'm enjoying right now. It will only last for a little while - I outgrow my own perspective pretty quickly and then it's time for another period of stress, etc.

For now, I'm doing well, but I should really go make lunch before I have to go to work. There is more that I don't have time to tell, so I'm not going to attempt it :).

Happy Tuesday.

The comfort of my mind

I am here, I am here, I am here.

Relationships are my world. They are the soil to my sprout (I have little baby herb plants peeking out at the moment, which are very exciting), my purpose, my life-source. Of course I would have to learn my hardest lessons through my relationships. Of course I would.

What lessons am I learning, you ask? To be patient, to be kind, to be honest. To stand up for myself, which is the hardest of all. I am learning to be present and objective about my surroundings. And I think that I'm learning these lessons now so that one day I will fully appreciate throwing them to the wind.

To work. Hard, personal work. And to growth, my ever-present friend. May I be committed to both and not wear myself out.

Hm :)

Conversations in the snow

I'm mad. And appropriately so, I think.

Ugh.

A bittersweet toast to friendship: that I will continue to care when I really don't want to.

This is charge that I would deny in a heartbeat if I could. Oh selflessness, what a love-hate relationship we have developed :)

slickery slopes and other things

I am the kind of exhausted that only comes from emotional and spiritual work. I don't know if other people feel this way, but I think they must - it's like the whole world turned to sand-paper and now I have to squeeze through it.

Is this life? Is this par for the course? Because it kind of sucks and makes me want high school back, when my biggest problem was disagreeing with my peers' philosophy while sitting comfortably in a coffee shop drinking my mocha. Yes, I drank mochas in high school; I've since moved up to vanilla lattes and chai tea. Maybe I am growing up!

Seriously though - everything I touch is rough and unfamiliar. I have to make time for myself, literally, or I get lost in swirls of practicality and compromise. All I really want to do is be emotional and react how I feel like I should, but no one seems to accept that here. 'Here' being my geographical location as well as adulthood. Anyway, intuition is not a factor to live by, it is corrupt and illogical. And I don't believe that! But standing my ground leaves me with scraped up outsides (and insides).

I am learning to stand my ground, because the alternative is to accept the other side. I might as well sell my soul to the devil if I forsake my emotionality - he'd be able to knock me over with a feather once I give up the weakness I'm supposed to be living out of. Paradoxical? Of course. Get used to it :)

So, to scraped-up outsides. I just hope my endurance has improved, because this could be a several-year process depending how school goes. I don't know if I can do this that long without coming back home with 357 pounds of emotional baggage. Just an approximation, of course.

I guess that's my main fear in all of this - that I won't be able to leave it here; that my move back home will bring some of it with me and that I will regret coming for it.

*Sigh*

I think regret is a choice, just as growth is. I want to grow. I don't want to shrivel, and my hope and prayer is that my desire for that will overcome my defense mechanisms.

Hm. I hope you all have a lovely night, and I hope this wasn't too much of a dump load :)

and back we are!

I come to you today in much the same place I was while writing the last post. I am more certain of myself, however. I think it is time to shift, and I am preparing for the consequences that will follow. I will be happier, I think. I will be happier.

guilt is a worthless emotion

I sit here this morning remembering just how many times I've said that to someone, and how many more times I've thought it.

If I truly believe it, than why am I guilt-ridden?

I've been forgetting lately that it's ok to be imperfect, because I feel that my brand of imperfection is not welcome here. At the least it's different from everybody else's.

You know, of course it is, but I get the feeling every once and awhile that I am suspect because of my tendencies; that my orientation toward mercy is naive or insufficient and therefore blasphemous and wrong. Sure, it's insufficient and it probably is naive. Does it follow that it is wrong? Am I betraying the God I thought I was loving by following the nature he assigned to me before I drew breath?

I am betraying him by letting my social situation throw a massive wrench in my faith in his perfection. I do know that.

As I type this even, I am losing my train of thought because I am nervous about the reason I will give for not being at church this morning. To be on the defensive is not an attractive place for me to be. It corrupts me quickly and easily. What I am trying to figure out at the moment is whether my defenses are legitimate or whether they should be overcome. Just because a situation or circumstance puts me up in arms does not mean I shouldn't be there; I am imperfect after all, as are my defensive reflexes. Is this a challenging opportunity for growth? Or am I losing myself in the pursuit of perfection?

So, this morning, I pray for discernment and faith. I pray to reconnect the relationship that I miss. I miss it.

Happy Sunday :)

hindsight, meet foresight. foresight, hindsight.

I am learning. So many things about so many things. It's wonderful, I'm tired, and I am waiting for more.

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

. . .

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

[Bob Dylan]

But where has the chamomile tea gone?

Quite a bit has happened to me since I've been here last - I've gone from whining about drawing to stressing about rent and how much my feet hurt from standing on them all day. I've discovered the real world, via moving to a town 7 hours away from home to start fresh and find myself. Or dig myself out of myself, I suppose.

So where is this elusive self? Who, exactly, am I? I think to find an answer is to miss the point. I think asking the question misses the point. You are who you are; you are how you behave, what you feel, and what you love. It changes daily and the closest thing to definition awarded us seems to be a hazy and dynamic outline. I'm slowly adjusting to, and learning to appreciate, the uncertainty and security that brings, oddly enough. The two do actually go together. If I am not something, I cannot be constrained by trying to fit into that something and thus am more completely myself.

I should write a self-help book.

(Jokes, friends, jokes)

But I will always be tempted to fit in somewhere. And letting go of fitting in doesn't mean I won't ever be comfortable or right for some place or someone, a good fit will simply be left to fate and more meaningful for it.

Right?

Oh, to find the balance between doing and letting things be done.

Ready . . . Set . . .

I come to you tonight when I should be drawing. I keep talking about how I should be working on my sketchbook, and I've decided that I'm going to stop talking about it and either do it or not do it. I've also decided to deepen my resolve by talking to you about it.

For now, I'm listening to Patty Griffin. If her music was a religion I would have converted about a month ago. 

I am chomping at the reins, my friends, and as soon as they break I will lurch forward, stop cold, look around in bewilderment, and frantically try to put them back on so I can pull on them again. It's funny how I know that and cannot keep from chomping anyway. I feel good, though - I can tell that my patterned exam-week apathy is not going to generalize to any area beside academics. I'll have a couple of days to deal.

I am so excited for the future, but as much as I didn't want it to happen I will be leaving a part of myself here. It's like editing. You write your first draft and you're pretty happy with it, you know? It's not great, but it communicates what you want it to and the more you read it, the more comfortable you are with it. Then, it comes back with scribbles and marks everywhere and you cut, paste, and shift around until the same piece is almost unrecognizable. A distant cousin to the first, maybe. And again, you're satisfied. It's good. But there are more marks and notes when it returns to you. Entire paragraphs get deleted, and new ones added. Ideas nixed, connections created. And it flows even better than you could have ever imagined when you sat down to write the first draft. 

Carving! Life and editing are both like wood-carving. That's what I was trying to say. 

Hooray for stacked metaphors : ).

I'm going to go draw now.

Computers and labs and spreadsheets, oh my!

I've been working on my thesis for the past few days almost exclusively, minus (kind of) studying for my social psych test, so I'm taking this opportunity to rest before I have to work on my presentation. I realize that my short break has turned into a two to three hour break, and I'm alright with that. I'll work tonight. 

My life, of late, has been very full and challenging academically. Personally, it's been very happy and relaxed; the combination of which has made for the best series of moods I've had in awhile. A fantastic change of pace from my restlessness pre-Spring Break. I think visiting WVU helped, and I think being invested in my thesis has been really helpful as well. 

Ah, The Beatles. So much better.

I feel centered. And capable and happy and content in a very self-aware way. It's a nice place to be - comfort without naivete. I always end up sacrificing happiness to get rid of the blindness that seems to accompany it. Not that it necessarily has to, but that's the pattern I've noticed in my life. Hooray for closet extremism : ).

I've been going to Mass for the past couple of Sundays. It's the tradition I needed, you know? It has a weight and reverence that contemporary Christian culture just doesn't understand sometimes. Not that you have to go to Mass to find that kind of reverence, but I just feel like Catholic services are so beautiful. I'm currently in a place that is settled enough that weak guitar chords and empty harmonies just can't reach it. I suppose that's a little harsh, but I just really struggle with modern churches at times. They rub me the wrong way after awhile. I know that eventually, when I am somewhere for a long enough time to invest in a community I will, but until then I will continue in my lack of commitment. If I'm not able to be fully sustained by a church body, I would much rather come late on Sunday and sit in the back, take in what I need to, and leave without talking to anyone. I realize that probably creates an undesirable spiral, but undesirable is a relative term. 

I should clarify - all of this may sound like I reject the idea of community in general. I do not. I hold it in such high esteem that I have a problem settling for anything less than almost-perfection. Hence my problem. I just feel that a church community should be raw, open, diverse, loving, moving, and active. I'm going to find one. I'm going to find that place that opens me up and teaches me how to love. Right now, Mass does a better job in that area than the churches here. But that's just life - no one's perfect, no religious institution is perfect, and I will attend the ones that match where I am in my life. I will take from them what I will, and their doctrine will expand and solidify my ideas about the world, my faith, and my religion.

Wow. Well there you are : ). Sounds a bit defensive, doesn't it? I suppose it is.

I told myself I was going to start working at seven, and it is now 7:30, so I'm going to leave you to your evening. Enjoy : ).

the depart[ure]

Alright. Today was a good day. I just watched The Departed, and am therefore sitting on my couch with What Not to Wear on mute, listening to my newly acquired Bob Dylan and blogging. Seek comfort much?

I can't figure out if it (the movie) was the empathetic catharsis I needed or whether it will trigger a complete overload. I guess I'll find out tomorrow, won't I? These things take awhile to sink in. Fantastic movie, because it was very raw and very unapologetic. 

I'm letting life settle in still; it's working it's way there slowly. I-uh, I think that I just haven't been properly prepared for life. Not to throw blame, just to say I don't think being prepared for life is possible. Or desirable, on further inspection, because isn't that what people always claim is the fun part? Either they have no idea what they're talking about, or I'm missing the point. 

At the moment, I'm pretty sure it's the latter, and I think that I've used all my book knowledge, all of my theory, to build a wall that has very successfully kept me from the real world. I think I built it very quickly in response to being turned on my head, and I don't think I had the mental or emotional capacity at the time to realize what I was doing. I didn't realize the implications of the wall; I didn't realize how long it would take me to take it town. I threw it up, but I'm having to take it down piece by piece. It's a tall wall. Rickety and precarious, as well - talk about detail work.

Now, it is important to communicate this: music still makes me smile when I'm alone in my car. My heart still grows when I realize how real and great my friends are, and I still love the way sunlight moves between tree branches. I am myself, and myself is scarred and a little broken. I am elitist, I am really intense, I am overly concerned about my relationship with the world at large, and I am a complete and total softy. I follow my heart and it gets me in trouble. I organize the little things in my life because I don't ever want my life to be totally organized. I forget who I am and where I come from all too often. Probably daily.

I'm currently rediscovering those things; I think I've finally accepted the fact that they got away from me without my knowledge, says the control freak. And now, the journey! When did I decide that the cycle had stopped? Silly me. 

I am officially exhausted, so I think I'm going to drift off to sleep with my earphones in and my mind a thousand miles away. 

I don't care what consequence it brings

I have been a fool for lesser things

[billy joel]