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]

caffeine. and happiness.

Well. I am remarkably better off than I was a few days ago. Two (2) tests and a paper done, one (1) pair of fantastic green shoes (I'll be talking about them for awhile), and one (1) pair of comfortable grey khaki's, and life is officially good, ladies and gentlemen. 

Tomorrow I'm off to visit an old friend in Cullowhee. Ca-lauw-ey? Ca-loo-wa-hee? Ha. It's Cu-la-wee. Anyway, it will be awesome and I'm going to watch Ghost Hunters and High School Musical 3. 

And then, off to West Virginia for a tour of my potential home for the next two years! I'm terrified and excited. I've realized that I've given my admission/rejection to this program a lot of power over my emotions, and I'm in the process of recovering from that unhealthy devotion. It's just a school, I'm just a candidate, we'll see what happens. If nothing else, it will be wonderful to see my mom and aunt and visit a cool town. oh yeah, and wear my new green shoes . . .

Hooray for the little things that make a difference. Truly, all I needed was a break : ). 

I'm off to class. I'm sure I'll be back soon.

furnished souls (part deux)

It's always interesting to read over my posts from high school. I have some very profound moments, and some very angst-y ones. It's also interesting that I decided to start using capitalization in my last post. I think I'll continue - it's probably about time.

I do want to talk about this idea of furnished souls, though. It was the title of one of my old posts, and I have no idea what it meant to me at the time, but I think it's a really cool concept. It brings in the heart-house metaphor, actually; you start out with an empty room and slowly different pieces of furniture are added and taken away as you get older until you finally settle into the best arrangement. If I had to pick the part of the process that I'm in right now, I'd say that I have an arm chair and maybe a lamp, but I'm getting ready to buy the couch. It's a big decision. It's also a big commitment. A commitment to myself, further, which brings up my struggle this summer about being able to devote myself to . . . me. It's very hard for me to do, I'm realizing, because I've trained myself to think that if I don't pay attention to what others want intently, they won't want me around. I bet you anything I'm worried that if I stop paying attention, people will leave. Such a people pleaser, and on such a deep and dangerous level!

This is not to say that I don't think my friends are really my friends. If there is one thing I've learned in the past few years it is the amazing loyalty that a good girl friend provides. No, I'm simply teasing apart why I've been so . . . prickly, lately. Not even prickly, though - it's more of a rawness. Not in the authentic, this-is-my-soul way, but in more of an ow-don't-touch-that way. It's fear, insecurity, overwhelmedness. I think it may be part sleep-deprivation, though that's only been in small increments. As I stay up to blog rather than going to sleep. 

Right.

Do you know what it really is? Catastrophizing. According to spell check that isn't a word, but I think my point is communicated. I should compartmentalize, and I am just now recognizing that.

Exposure is one of the most basic, hardest things. In a very solidifying way, I suppose. Jury's still out : ).

have no fear for giving in

have no fear for giving over

even if your hands are shaking

and your faith is broken

even as the eyes are closing

do it with a heart wide open

I wonder if this will come off as melodramatic. I hope not, and that is not my intention. I think I just need to practice. Communicating myself, I mean. Not that I've not been communicating, you know? I just haven't been communicating well or accurately because I'm afraid of what will come out. Funny, that - it sets me farther off sometimes. 

Well. I think I'm going to go sleep. Note: music is as good for the soul as TV is bad for it, I think.

'Night.