Thankful.

It wouldn't be right to open my hands and accept a new year without reflecting on my years past. Not dwell; simply reflect. This was originally supposed to be a Thanksgiving post, but family festivities and schoolwork prevented that from happening. Because, while stuffing my face with turkey and squash casserole, surrounded by a beautifully supportive family, every part of me was thankful for the progress I have made in my life. Thankful for the progress the Lord, ultimately, has made with my heart.

Last Thanksgiving, during the few days before heading home, I was facing serious temptations to cut my life short. Every fiber of my being wanted my time here on earth to be over. Upon arriving home, my ability to see life for what it really was was clouded by the focus I held on life's negativities, disappointments, and on the hurt that I had previously experienced. I was unable to recognize the true beauty of life, the many, many, undeserved blessings that had been poured out over my life in surplus, because all my negative mindset could do was complain. I'm embarrassed by how ungrateful I was.

The woman that I was a year ago today was one of negative outlook, scathed by life's disappointments, bitter in resentment, miserable yet unwilling to make effective changes, and trapped in her own anxieties and stubbornness. The Lord was doing incredible things with my heart during that time, and I attempted to cling to his words and what I knew to be true, but I was prideful and unable to see my own failings. Thankfully, this was all apart of his plan; He was molding me into a beautiful story for His own purpose.

A year has now past, and, though I fail daily at reading my Bible, (it has remained untouched for some time now), and though church has been a very evident struggle in my life lately, I know that I am still His precious child. I know that He saw me through the hardest days of my life and that He saved me from my own self-hatred and called me worthy and beautiful. And though, I sin and fail him everyday; I am unbelievably stubborn, I curse under my breathe and out loud in drunken stupor, I choose frat parties over FCA nearly every week; not any of this makes me any less qualified to praise the Lord for the progress of my life.

Some of you may laugh, "what progress? It seems to me you have backtracked..." Well, maybe that is the way that you see it. But the way that I see it, I am surrounded by people who have taught me to laugh at myself. Who have looked at me without any judgment, who have clearly and openly identified with my struggles, who are not, by any means, afraid to admit their struggles. This year has been an unbelievable year. A year where I have met so many people instead of sitting in my room frowning upon their recreational activities. A year where I have made mistakes, many, and learned incredible amounts about my character from them. I have learned what kind of woman I want to be and taken evident steps to eventually progress into that woman. I have looked at the mirror and accepted what I saw, more than accepted, I have been confident in who I am.

So, in terms of progress, I absolutely am in love with my life. I enjoy every minute of it. I smile more, I have more people that I know personally. And these, they are all successes. My morals and my beliefs that I so heavily focused on last year have spilled over into the way that I relate to people and carry myself this year. The Lord has done a great deal in teaching me how to be humble and not think of myself as better than anyone.

It's purely simple. I'm not. I am by no means qualified to preach at anyone and have a great deal of cleaning up to do, but I do want to emphasize that I am celebrating the fact that I am free from my depression, I am free from my self-loathing, and I do plan on riding this precious life of mine out to the very last breathe. I hope that this post has inspired you. I hope that you realize,

"you don't need to be perfect to inspire others. Let people get inspired by how you deal with your imperfection." 

-Wilson Kanadi

"So count the ways He loves, a thousand, more, never stop, that when you wake in the morning you can't help but turn humbly to the east, unfold your hand to the heavens, and though you tremble and though you wonder, though the world is ugly, it is beautiful and you can slow, you can trust, and you can receive each moment as grace. Eucharisteo."  

-Ann Voskamp

That we may have life

Trying to wrap my head around the complexities of life right now and all I can do is smile. I love the surprises that life throws at you when least expected, I love the way that things fall together into what can only be best described by "disordered perfection." And although the layout of my college schedule day-to-day looks quite similar, each day holds a new adventure so that I am never dully navigating my way through life.

And that's what I never want to do- coast through life without any excitement, anticipation or passion. I want to grasp each day fully, with every fiber of my being, and I want to soak up life's experiences before it is too late. I couldn't wish for a better condition of the present; I am far too blessed beyond reason, I have done nothing to deserve the gifts that are so constantly poured out over my life and those gifts that are to come. Everything is perfect- even though I face the daily stresses of workloads and confusion in class and time passes all too quickly for me to even try to stay up to pace, it is disordered in the best way possible, and I wouldn't want it any other way.

And none of this is thanks to myself, but I can only point upwards and know that I am so small and seemingly insignificant, and yet, my every moment is planned out and my every hair on my head has been counted and these blessings, these situations, they are a result of the most beautiful love story ever to be shared. And it's a reality. And so, why not love? Why not embrace life passionately, why not seek relationships that glorify He who has provided us with everything we could ever need... and more?

And so I will love. And I will seek, desperately, with every ounce of energy that I have, to live life to the full. That is why He came.

In loving memory

Her quivering hand gripped his in a sea of black sniffles. His palms were sweaty and his chest quickly rose and fell as his tearful sighs echoed throughout the church. All of the stages of grief were represented in this room smothered with sorrow over the loss of their son.

Over a life that had so much potential, so much more life left to live, that had been cut so incredibly short, so unfairly short. And now a room of loved ones, friends, and admirers mourned it's ending; mourned his absence along with all of the plans made that would never happen, all of the hopes and dreams that could never be fulfilled, and all of the experiences that he would never be able to have. Some sobbed because of how suddenly his life had come to a halt. Some sat angrily and stiff, because, "why him?" A question they would never have an answer to, yet they continue to ask it, to muddle over it, to lose sleep about it.

And in the midst of such incredible pain and tragedy and the loss of such a young life, I think the only answer we can choose to formulate is that because it was him, we can take the memories, the pain, the sorrow we feel in our hearts and we can choose to live better, to love more, to laugh harder and to help others. We can honor him with the lives we are so blessed to continue to live today. 

I did not have the privilege of knowing Michael deeply or even intimately in friendship, but I do have the privilege of knowing so many who knew him, so many who now mourn his loss. I have seen his brothers sit outside of the Shack with candles and flowers under his picture. I have seen them living out their pain, and I hurt for them. It has been a shaking event and Clemson has had an overtone of grief this week. I think that, whether we knew Michael or not, the loss of this young man that was in a very similar place of life as each of us can impact us in ways that will improve our character, our values, our lives, and our futures. We may never know why it had to be Michael, why he had to be ripped from our lives so early and so abruptly, but the wounds that his death have left upon us can be tended to and healed into tougher skin, proving to make us stronger in the end. 

It's hard to wrap our feeble minds around such a tragic loss, and sometimes it's incredibly hard to see the good in these events throughout the course of life, but what I do know is that we can take this loss and we can utilize it to better ourselves so that we can, hopefully, leave someone a little better when it's our turn to go. And then we can join Michael and thank him for being the best version of himself that he could be.

You are dearly missed.

Hopes

I hope that you stop looking for fulfillment in the people who think you're ordinary and that you stop neglecting those who know you're spectacular. I hope you hold out long enough for the person you're destined to meet and that you don't let loneliness allow you to settle into the arms of someone who doesn't deserve you. It's a hard task when loneliness looms over you, but one that you deserve to fight for.

I hope that you buy yourself flowers and that you get up early enough to look in the mirror, know that you're beautiful and pamper yourself the way you deserve. I hope that you carry yourself with the respect that you should, so that everyone can tell that you don't take any crap. You love yourself more than that.

I hope you swallow your pride long enough to comfort those who have hurt you in their time of hurting. That you reach out to them in their suffocating sorrow and you empathize with them. I hope that you can be the big person and give him back his shirts instead of burning them like you so often joked about. I hope you deliver them with a smile and a "farewell" that makes him realize he never wanted things to go this way. But I hope if he verbalizes this, you know your worth enough to smile, shake off his words, and say that this is the way it was supposed to go. And I hope you walk away with strength and with dignity and I hope you don't turn back when he cries about the strong girl he let walk away. If you're meant to be and he really understands his mistakes, he will walk to you. But I beg you, I fervently hope that you don't walk away with a bitter tone, but a hopeful one. That you aren't angry but you are expectant of someone better. Because better will come, I promise.

I hope that you try your best to live out these actions, and that when you don't, you know how to get up, dust yourself off, and keep going. I hope that you know mistakes are human, that everyone makes them and that just because you are so confident in who you are that you can be open about your dirtiest parts when most can't, it doesn't mean they don't have dirty parts, too. I hope you comfort yourself with that when you're feeling alone in your battles.

All I want is for you to wake up each morning and know it is not promised, and that the impending events you plan for may never have the chance to be fulfilled. I hope you know that each stressful sigh is another less breath; but I hope this doesn't discourage you, instead, I hope it motivates you. To make the changes today that you so desperately long to put off until tomorrow. Because tomorrow may never come. I hope you love your life, even the low parts of it, and I hope you hope the same for the ones that you love.

Immense company in aloneness

Ever sat alone in Starbucks? Just sat and listened to the mix of voices that dance in the air around you? And in that moment when everyone around you is delving further into conversation, you suddenly get this feeling that you're invisible, and if you were to get up and dance around or wave your arms, not a soul would notice and the conversations would carry on steadily and uninterrupted.

These types of moments fascinate me. The irony is that you can feel so utterly alone when you are, in fact, sitting in a room filled with people socializing. Everyone but you. And your mind almost naturally drifts off to the people you wish were sitting in front of you, accompanying you. Part of your soul longs for them to magically walk in, smile when they see you, and sit down. But this doesn't happen and you continue to sit and watch those around you. Almost in a trance. You keep thinking, "I should get up, I should get up," but a part of you enjoys this time. Part of you relishes in your utter aloneness and the fact that these strangers don't even notice you. It makes you deflate a little, realizing that the huge and overwhelming things that stress you out daily, that suffocate you-- they're not that big after all. And these people surrounding you, they're all just trying to safely navigate through life as well. And maybe, if you were to converse with them, they'd be able to identify with those circumstances which unsettle you, make you feel a little less shitty and a little more like a human being. Although you don't, and you choose to conform to the social rules society has so cleverly structured in our lives, just the knowledge of the possibility of being identified with is enough to motivate you to stand up, gather your belongings, and carry yourself with more confidence; with strength and grace, because you're not in over your head, after all. And those circumstances which suck, they're not a determinant of the ones to come and they're definitely not the worst circumstances this world has seen.

Sometimes, there is immense company in being alone. No one is ever alone in being alone. Every human being can identify with another on some level, and that in itself is enough comfort to keep going.

Stirrings

Restless. I am so restless and frustrated. Mainly with the fact that apparently, I don't deserve a response to the outpouring of my heart, with the fact that I never received an apology from my "best friend", and with the fact that the person that loves to invite me over at night doesn't ever want to talk about my heart or how I'm doing. And then, tonight, my absolute best friend left me without a ride after an event, left me to walk in the dark and the cold all alone. It's moments like this where even the smallest things can cut me deeper than most would be affected by it, but these actions reaffirm the worthlessness spoken into me.

And this anger stirs in my soul, a rage I know is not healthy or admirable, but a rage nonetheless. Part of me wants to throw things, to yell and demand what I deserve from the most significant people in my life, but another part of me wants to burst into tears because I even have to think of doing so. That it is even necessary for me to ask of those people what I should have been receiving all along, but I suppose life is not fair.

And they say that if you're living within unhappy circumstances to change them. To take initiative. And I fully support that statement, and I sometimes do live it out. And I would now, if it was achievable. But the unhappy circumstances are due to other people's actions towards me. And I can't change them. I can cut some of them out of my life, but some... I am required to live with. To put up with on a day to day basis. And my heart aches so much right now that my mind almost wanders to running away. Not telling a soul where I'm going and just live without these barriers and these people that hurt me, but then I remember that they also love me, too. And I'm being negative and overdramatic.

But nonetheless, I bought myself flowers tonight. So I have them here to remind me, well hey, at least I love myself, right?

Deserving

“Some people feel like they don't deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past.” - John Krakauer

Leaves crumble beneath my feet as I walk down the sidewalk on this fall day, falling from the trees and making me realize the irony that those leaves are dying and yet so wonderfully beautiful. Tragically beautiful, even. And I want to tell them, those leaves that are suffering so terribly for everyone to see, that they are beautiful, astoundingly beautiful, and that their beauty is leaving an impact on everyone that sees them.

This comforts me, a wave of comfort overriding my anxious soul. A shattered soul right now, feeling ultimately like a disappointment to the ones that love me the most, but also knowing that I hold immense worth and that I deserve so much more than to feel that way. I don't deserve to feel like a disappointment to the ones I love most, and it is unfair to me that the people I love the most would even be okay with making me feel this way. My heart aches because the deepest parts of my soul long to be known, long to be searched and filled with love by the people in my life, but I ache with emptiness because these deeper parts of me have been neglected for far too long. And, as a result, I have stood up and begun to try and fill them myself because I refuse to let them run dry, I refuse to allow them to become hardened and cracked; parched for attention and love. And I wonder if they see it, I wonder if they care. I wonder if they even know that with each comment, with each disappointed glance and neglected attempt to try and understand me as a person, they are repelling me further and further away. I'm trying not to be bitter about it, but it's one of those inevitable things where it hardens you, and your calloused heart has a hard time softening, thawing out and handing out compassion because I was never offered a well-deserved apology. Because I deserve to be treated like an individual. I deserve to be treated better than I have been.

So it's no wonder that I settle for boys of lower standards than I should. Can you blame me? Can I even blame myself? My heart has been hurt so deeply by so many people, all I want is for it to relished, adored, and loved. I know that is what I deserve, and yet I'm giving myself less than what I deserve. So, essentially I am calling myself desperate. And maybe that's the term that I deserve, I'm not sure. All I'm saying is that it is something I need to work on, something I need to channel and try not to resort to as a fulfillment, but it's hard not to. It's hard to hold out for someone to hold you so lovingly, to stroke your hand and tell you everything is going to be okay when I've been going it alone for so long. Because company is good and happiness is not real unless shared.

So I'm at a crossroads here of brokenness, and contrary to popular belief, I am not trying to repress the fact that I am broken, I am fully aware of it, and will openly admit it. I know. At least I know. But I'm just trying to sort things out in my life right now, trying to decide if I want to change course, and if I do what direction I want to go in. Do I want to try to please my parents by being confined to their unreasonable expectations, or do I want to settle into the arms of someone who doesn't deserve me? Of course I don't want either of these things but my heart begs for a little more love. It begs to be addressed for the pain it has faced and apologized to. So maybe the path is just to dust myself off, love myself, and fill these parts that ache to be filled. If not me, who else, right? I deserve better than the other options I have.