If We Were Having Coffee… 01.01.2017

If we were having coffee…

It would be the first time in a long time. I kinda fell off the face of the earth for a while, but here I am again. Are you really surprised? Don’t I always come crawling back with stories to tell? I’d sit you down and take a deep breath before I completely unraveled my new world for you. And you would probably sit there, listening but not really following because I’m a bit of a rambling mess. My life has never been so interesting and I’m having a hard time putting it into words for you.

If we were having coffee…

I’d have to explain that I’m loving school so much. I love it. I love classes and meaningful homework. I like my major. I like my friends. I like my life here. I think I am finally beginning to feel like I am fulfilling something in myself. I was homeschooled all through high school, and I am so happy I was. But it was about time for me to explore opportunities outside of the four walls of my room. I spent so much time living in my worlds of fiction on my laptop and in my books. It was so me to be lost in the fantasy. Now I hardly have time to get lost in fiction when I am constantly lost in real life.

If we were having coffee…

I’d tell you that I’m actually not that bad at living on my own. Before I left it was the one thing I thought I may not be able to handle. But from the first week I was surprised at how easy it felt to finally take control of my own life. I control where I go and when I get there. I can do the things I want to do if I make the time for them. Being alone makes me braver. I’m still terrified, but I have a newfound confidence in my ability to tackle things I am completely new to. I feel like I’m constantly lost, like I said. But I also feel like I’ve been given a backpack of tools to figure my way out of the maze. I never feel completely hopeless and that alone makes me feel so in control of myself. I love it.

If we were having coffee…

I’d probably ask for advice. I didn’t expect to find being alone so difficult at college. It feels like I can’t go anywhere and be truly alone. My room, campus, church. I crave solitude and I can’t find it anywhere. I have a roommate, people are always around the corner, and everyone looks to the pews for silence. I just miss the ease of disappearing into my room to stare at the ceiling and rest in my own mind. I know I’m going to have to change things, but I’m sure you know how it feels to want to hide from the world. Or take unnecessary showers just to get a room to yourself for 20 minutes. I’d ask if you have tips on how to reclaim my time alone? I am so tired of not being alone and it definitely is making my mental health more difficult to balance.

Thanks for listening. I know I start to sound monotonous sometimes, and I really appreciate your time and perseverance.

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Florida Fireworks

I’ve always been a party person on New Year’s Eve. When I was in high school, I threw the party that all my friends came to. It was a highlight of my year to plan a party and see everyone enjoy the games I set up and the food I prepared. People talked about the party for weeks afterward. I loved it. Last year I went to a party at my friend’s church that lasted all night and into the morning. It was amazing, but that night also did some things to me that I didn’t expect.

Island Christmas

I’ve been away at college for an entire semester now, as you can probably tell from my absence here on the blog. In the past four months of my life, you could say my faith has been on a bit of a roller-coaster ride. It’s been thrown around, clung to, and tossed aside multiple times. Being on my own with my faith has made me question how much I rely on it, and on others.

It’s strange. Before I arrived at college, I was so connected to God and to my conversations with Him. I would spend hours out of my day just pondering my Catholic faith. I didn’t have friends nearby, and I didn’t have many responsibilities to tend to. I was alone with my faith more than I could have ever asked for. It was honestly my favorite thing about myself. I went to mass every week of the first month or so of college. It was interesting. I love the church, but the community is different from what I was expecting. I am used to the strong, tight-knit church community of my small town home. I knew I was walking into a much larger and more diverse atmosphere, but I didn’t expect to feel lonely in the pews. I haven’t been feeling at home in the church. I didn’t expect to right away, but that lonely feeling in church has only ever happened to me once before. I didn’t see it coming, and I think it is going to be difficult to overcome. I hadn’t been to church in awhile, but I made the effort to get there this past Sunday.

Skulls

Sometimes I let my mind erase what my friends actually look like. When I’m sitting around the dinner table with my group of friends, I am suddenly dining with skeletons. I can see their jaws click open and close with the words their imaginary lips and tongues are forming. Their eye sockets gape back at me as I deliver the punch line of a joke. They become something of people’s nightmares, but never actually change from their true form. We too often forget that underneath these blonde locks, fingernails, eyelashes and flesh, we have skeletons holding us together.

Its rare that I think of the fact that underneath my pale skin there are bones that will, one day, be all that is left of my body. Everyday, I conveniently overlook the fact that my jaw clicks in that same way when I speak, my eyes gape, my spine swerves, and my knees buckle. We all do. And then we take that image and separate it from our own humanity by using it as some sort of monster to hang on our doors come October 31st.

In our minds, skeletons represent death. You should never see a person’s bones unless, of course, they are no longer living. But because of this idea, we have managed to take the skeleton out of the human category. We can take it and make it something we control and manipulate into a mindless creature that rattles and shakes to scare children. But if we all had x-ray vision right this second, we would be surrounded by that nightmare all the time.

Put that thought into your mind. Look around the room, around the table, around the park. Does the image frighten you? Why should it? Every day we walk and talk with each other, forgetting the fact that God built us up with a skeleton first. Why does our own anatomy terrify us? Look at your hand and remember the joints that hide underneath your wrinkled knuckles. He created our human bodies, bones and all. You are a work of art, and if that’s terrifying, so be it.

Just something to think about as you walk the streets tonight, surrounded by human bones.

When People Go Missing

I haven’t been here. I know. It’s been ages. But hello! I am here now and I intend to stay around and get back into writing for an audience other than my college professors. I apologize.

In other news, I started college. I’ve been here about two months now and I am loving it. I am busy all the time, tired all the time, and adulting all the time. Its overwhelming. I know that the first three weeks were the biggest adjustment, but I feel like I am still adjusting every morning when I open my eyes. There are little things like waking up in a lofted bed facing the opposite way as my bed back home. Then there are big things like having classes with world class professors that grade your very amateur papers with a heavy red pen. There are so many things to adjust to, but mostly I just want to tell you how much I am enjoying myself and why I wasn’t blogging for a bit.

Starting college turned out to make me much busier than I expected. For example, I thought I would have all the time in the world to Netflix binge in my free time. First of all, what free time? Second of all, I spend any moment that I am not doing homework sleeping. Trying to squeeze at eight hours into a 24 hour period proves harder than expected. So, being busy was a big part of my absence here. I was just otherwise occupied. I was also enjoying myself. If I am being honest, I can really only commit to so much writing in a period of time. I love writing, but working on a five page essay, balancing the paragraphs I have due before recitation, and catching up on my film journal is a bit much for one girl to take over one weekend.

So, I went missing.

I know I just dropped off the face of the earth for a while there. I wasn’t giving up on this blog, I was just a bit preoccupied. But I have been keeping notes on things I want to share here. Like the fact that I am attending a new church here at college. Or the fact that I have a boyfriend. Or that balancing social, spiritual, and family lives is actually harder than expected. There is more to come from your favorite Catholic redhead, just give me a chance to actually write and post. I miss it here.

All my love-

 

If We Were Having Coffee… 06.17.2016

If we were having coffee…

It would have to be sometime in the afternoon. I am so tired lately. It takes all of my will to keep my eyes open when I wake up in the morning. Thanks for being willing to have an afternoon caffeine run with me. You’re really just so amazing.

If we were having coffee…

I’d tell you about how busy I have been getting things ready for college. I just had my orientation and got my schedule! I am so excited to get to my university and go to the classes and learn such awesome cool things. Whenever anyone asks if I am excited for the freedom I feel odd when I say yes. I don’t want to be one of those girls that drinks and sleeps with a boy she just met. I don’t want to be at parties every other night when I could be watching movies with friends in my dorm. When people ask if I’m excited for the freedom, they are referring to this ability to do all these things without reprimand from my parental units. But freedom means so much more than that. So when I say yes I am answering what freedom really means to me, but they picture me in a group of girls taking turns at beer pong. I’m worried about the atmosphere. I’m worried about the pressure and the ideas about who I am going to be at college. I know it doesn’t make any sense. Why am I letting all of this get to me right now? I could use some counsel I guess. I know that I will be able to fall in with a group that thinks the same way as me, but will I be dealing with this stereotype of a college kid for the rest of my college years?

If we were having coffee…

I’d tell you that I feel like God has really been shaping my life like clay lately. I can see real art starting to take shape and I’m really excited. And I’m really proud. It has taken a long time for me to feel safe and trusting enough to let Him mold me the way I am meant to be molded. I see the love and the joy starting to take place. I wish I would’ve started this journey so much sooner, but God’s timing has been so divine. It all happened exactly when it was supposed to. And He knew I would see that. He knows me.

If we were having coffee…

I’d tell you I have been neglecting my blog a bit. I haven’t been regular. But my faith life has seemed to blossom in my absence here. I find myself really thinking about things that are happening in my life more often now. I’m really happy about it. I also ordered a devotional. I have never had a devotional before. I am really excited to start using it. I have high hopes for where my faith life is going. Every time I open another door I discover so much I didn’t even know existed for me. God just continues to amaze me. I just need to share more of it here for you guys to read.

If we were having coffee…

I’d tell you that there is a man in my life. I mentioned him a few weeks ago. Slowly, ever so slowly, things seem to be changing between us. I can’t describe it right, but I know that God is in the midst of it. I know that He brought us together and that He has the plans for us in action. There is a divine something going on. It has been incredibly hard to keep myself in check. I find myself praying and simply talking to God all the time about it. Searching for counsel and guidance. I am not very experienced in this kind of relationship. It seems so much more special than anything I’ve ever been involved in. Will you pray for me? Will you pray for him?

Thank you for listening to me this week. I know that sometimes I ramble. You are so kind to stick around even though our coffee is long gone. I am so happy to have a friend like you.

If We Were Having Coffee… 05.28.2016

If we were having coffee…

I would want to hear about your week. I would want to listen to all the details and the trifles that you have been facing. I’ve recently become incredibly interested in the way all of us are leading such intensely different lives full of complex and woven problems. Things that, when we try to explain to someone else, don’t sound nearly as daunting as they actually are. They don’t seem like they should occupy your mind so fully. Everything sounds smaller when it drains out of your lips into the ears of a listener. At least, is sounds smaller. But for me, when I hear all of those stories you are telling me, my brain swells. It’s like I am trying to take in just a sliver of your human existence and all I can manage is a vague understanding. It simultaneously drives me absolutely mad and makes me blindly happy.

How crazy is it that the only thing all humans crave is to be understood, and yet the only person that can understand you the way you truly need to be understood is the Big Guy up top? How beautiful is it that we get the tiniest piece of that glorious relationship with the people we share our coffee with? How gorgeous these relationships are. I want you to tell me everything that floats through your mind. Tell me about making breakfast and cleaning the windows and driving through town on a stormy night. I want to know because you are so vast and I will only ever be able to understand a pinkie’s worth.

If we were having coffee…

I’d tell you how freaking gorgeous you are to me. Every aspect of your humanness is amazing. The part of me that is still self-centered and stubborn wishes I could climb inside your soul and understand it’s deepest reasonings. But I can’t. I am here to offer the open arms and the laughs and the salty mascara tears. I am here to tell you how worthy you are of being understood. I am here to be your friend and understand as much of you as I can. My best will be just a preview. God lives in our relationship and that makes it so full of flavor. So much understanding swirls around us and so much joy fills my eyes.

Thanks for telling me about the time your cat brought you that dead mouse as a gift. I really do appreciate it. Not the mouse, you.