Brody

This little blue-eyed cutie is my nephew, Brody. He was born three months before I moved away to college, so I missed his baby months. He will be two years old in June and I love him more than anything. We've bonded since I moved back and I'm glad I get to be close with him.

 He really likes playing with his red ball and climbing on my dad's tractor. 

And when I ask him where his nose is, he wrinkles it and sniffs. 

I think he's pretty cute.

Take me there.

Headlights pass through the darkness. Rain drops are clinging to the window screen, barely visible through the fogged glass in front of me. The warmth of the room contrasts with the cold outside and the heat of my coffee cup. There is a shining wooden counter top, like a wide window ledge, that is reflecting yellow light from lamps all around. Music plays and sets the mood. The genre is quiet and the volume is turned up for all to hear. The last page of a book releases me from the reality I had been experiencing and I look around for the first time in a while.
The room is furnished with tables and chairs, couches and end tables, rugs, and a row of stools in front of the counter where I am sitting. Works of art hang on the walls in the form of photographs, written words, and paintings. Girls wearing rain boots and sweaters walk in from the adjoining bookstore and I stand up to return my volume to its shelf.
There is a wide selection here that would be overwhelming if these were anything but books, but all I feel is a quiet joy for all the possibilities. The elderly man at the register says hello to me with a smile and I wonder about his story. Age is beautiful if one accepts it gracefully, and he has. This place is his and has been for years. The building is old and many of the books are, too, but there is no shortage of customers. Most of his money is made from the coffee shop, where people take his books to read and then return them. Occasionally someone will find one they want to purchase, but that isn't how the usual system works. All of the regulars expect to find their favorites still on the shelf when they come back. I know that mine always are.
As I walk back with a new adventure in my hand, I anticipate where it will take me. Eventually my feet will take me out of the door and into the rain, but I can avoid that thought for now. Until then, there is warmth and coffee and art and people and a story waiting to be discovered.

Let there be light.

May I please live in a dream? I once forgot the importance of everything that wasn't tangible and solid because there was nothing else that could be depended upon inside my head. I took a pill to try to fix my insanity, but it didn't work and now I remember that I will never want to live in the real world.

The places where my mind wants to be are not the places I have been forcing it to go. I do not belong in a world of numbers and facts, but in the world of imagination, music, and writing, where happiness is bigger than worry. I want to take bubble baths and eat chocolate and talk about everything that comes to my mind. I want to hold a baby, comfort her to sleep, and be amazed by her wrinkled, beautiful, tiny, perfect face. I want to run with a big, energetic dog, to wrestle in a field and ignore the scratches that he unknowingly gives me in his enthusiasm to play. I want to nurse an orphaned calf into health, learn from a child how to love, and stop being afraid of all the things that try to haunt me.

I just want someone to get into my mind and pull out everything I can't express. Somewhere inside, I hide so much, even from myself. There is anger, pain, and fear buried within me that I am unable to exhume alone, and those are things I don't want to face.

(Taken from herewecollide.tumblr.com)

Not all of my mind is darkness, though. There are hope and joy and creativity somewhere, too.  There is truth among the twisted thoughts. There are orchids among the weeds. There is love to share if I can just break through the fear that blinds me. I sometimes focus on the darkness so much that I forget there is light in me, too. I am not lost. I am not dead. I am not without hope. 

I am tired, but I am not defeated yet. Not everything must be resolved for me to have peace. Not everything must be perfect for me to be content. Anxiety doesn't have to make my life stop and my grades suffer, because I have power that I sometimes forget. There is strength I do not know I have. There is a God who provides for me.There are people, there is music, there is sunshine. There are fountains and flowers and coloring books and nonsense. There are things I have to face, but I don't have to face them alone and I don't have to be so afraid. When the light shines on my fears, I realize that what looked like monsters in my closet were just pretty dresses wreathed in shadows. The light heals wounds with the truth, and there is light within me.

Sometimes, good things fall apart so better things can fall into place.

"She and I met back in the winter of 2009 at a party, and from there we hit it off. Looking back, we both could say we left behind who we were, but we never left behind one another. Even though we had very little time together, it felt amazing; I never knew I had missed her that much until I had her there with me.

Friends will come and go. It's our job as individuals to find those we can't live without, tell them how much they mean to us, and then never let them out of our lives. Without her, I dunno where I'd be. Honestly, I'm not thinking about that reality."

It's funny how I thought he meant the words he wrote about me. Looking back, I think he meant them as something more than I thought he did, and when he gave up on me, he shut me out for good.

It's funny how he could love someone for five years, help them through some of their hardest times, and then change his mind about them because of someone else's negative opinion and hurtful words.

It's funny how every time I walk by someone who smells like him, I remember so clearly when he started wearing that cologne and I complimented him every time he wore it. That was over two years ago now.

It's funny how I never even wanted anything more than friendship with him, yet he could still hurt me like this. I guess there are many forms of vulnerability and there is more than one part of my heart that should be guarded.

It's funny how my past is gone, even though I tried to cling to it with all my strength. It has been cut off, and I'm finally letting go and moving on. I'm letting go of all the people I never could give up before. It seems like I needed them to cut me off so that I could become attached to other, better people that God provides.

Friends will come and go, but no matter how much we think we can't live without someone, it's always possible. Sometimes it feels like they took part of us when they left, but we will adjust and our hearts will heal. If a person believes the words of someone else when you entrusted them with the truth, you need to find better friends, ones who actually love you. Friendship isn't about nice words, although that is one aspect of it, but it is about acceptance, commitment, and trust. I loved that boy, and I trusted him because he had given me so many reasons to in the past. What a shame that he didn't deserve it in the end. I am only thankful that I can still trust other people and the consequences of his actions don't carry over into my current relationships. This has only made me free to let other people in, to support other people and love them. In the end, I am thankful for this. In the end, I understand that friends come and go. We needed each other at one time, but that time is gone and it's okay. I'm okay.

June can't come soon enough.

There is so much to be thankful for, sometimes it's overwhelming. Life's valleys and hills can be surprisingly close together, and today is a very high hill. My sister is having a baby BOY! It's easy to get caught up in the fact that she's sick and the stress that goes along with that, but there will be a baby in her arms after this pregnancy. That's something to look forward to. There's no way to describe how much I love my niece and nephews. The better I know them, the more my love grows and it's unconditional and overwhelming. It's something I didn't know was possible until I met Olivia for the first time, 9 days before my 17th birthday. She was the most perfect, wonderful thing I had ever seen and she changed me. People say I'll love my own children even more someday, but I'm convinced that isn't possible. It may be a different kind of love, but not greater. Olivia and Brody might be the biggest blessings in my life so far, and now there is another boy on the way. It's impossible to realistically imagine someone before you meet them, but I already know a few things about this baby. He will be perfect and precious and loved, just like his sister and cousin are. In June, I will get to hold him for the first time and the thought almost makes me cry with excitement. I love this baby boy. God is so good.

New.

I said, "My whole past is gone. And it's something I try to hold onto so tightly because it's the only thing that's certain, you know?" He said, "No. The only things certain are change and God's love."

He's always been good at telling me what I need to hear. There are certain moments in which I can't accept reality, and that was one of them. A close friend of nearly 5 years had just told me that he didn't want me in his life anymore. He had been persuaded against me and I was hurt by everyone involved. It takes a lot to get to me, but that did the trick. I was not okay.
This is where Jared brings me back around. We have quite a story of our own. God brings people together with the most perfect timing and it amazes me whenever I look back on my life. Jared was my first real best friend, the first person who tried and succeeded in really getting to know me. That was several years ago now and he moved from living 6 hours away from me to across the ocean. We faded apart, then went over a year without talking and when we began again, it was forced and awkward so we gave up. We saw each other while he was in the U.S. for a few weeks, then went back to our silence.
He started a conversation as I was having a breakdown and told me exactly what I needed to hear. I was crying and he made me laugh and reminded me that change is certain and God's love is certain but God's love doesn't change. It was so encouraging at exactly the right time. Even though we aren't close anymore, he let me know he cares and that means a lot.
It's just so nice to know that I do have real friends. There are old friends who still love me. I have new friends who are genuine and a heart that somehow is able to trust again, even though I fear the pain of rejection. For a long time I was unable to trust anyone new, but I'm becoming myself again. I'm remembering what it's like to learn someone and love them. An ending is a new beginning and a new beginning is a blessing. My life is looking up.

Passenger Seat

It's been almost a month since my last post. During that month, so much has changed. Christmas break ended, I've made new friends at school and come to terms with losing some old friends. I've come to terms with the fact that people change. Nearly all things change, but life goes on. It seems that as I get older, life speeds up and the changes that happen accelerate as well. I've never been very good at adjusting to change, but I'm trying to live in the present, accepting life as God gives it to me. In all honesty, there is very little I can control and it's becoming easier to accept that. My life is not in my own hands and my responsibility is to be grateful for what I have as I ride along in the passenger's seat. God is giving me peace.

"I roll the window down

And then begin to breathe in
The darkest country road
And the strong scent of evergreen
From the passenger seat as you are driving me home.

Then looking upwards
I strain my eyes and try
To tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites
From the passenger seat as you are driving me home.

'Do they collide?'

I ask, and you smile.
With my feet on the dash,
The world doesn't matter.

'When you feel embarrassed then I'll be your pride.
When you need directions then I'll be the guide
For all time.
For all time. '"
-Death Cab For Cutie