1000 words

this is me tonight

Thursday, October 14, 2010


(i just took this picture with my webcam, hence the crappy resolution.)

i'm in a weird mood.
nostalgic, maybe?
pensive, introspective- what have you.

i'm looking around the room i moved into four years ago and reading the journals i wrote in back then and looking at the mural i painted on this wall inspired by a pair of cute underpants and thinking- what happened to the past four years??

i don't have an answer in case you were expecting one.

i'm just thinking how funny time is and how it's way too fast and how i miss things and people and even myself, at times. how does that work? how do you miss yourself? i miss the me i used to be- and not cuz i'm not happy with the current me. but i miss the me that was so nervous but also so hopeful about moving here. virtually none of that girl's expectations were met, poor wretch.

i'm not sure how i feel about all this.
i'm just not sure...

i have questions i want answered, i want some do-overs, i want explanations, i want days back, i want apologies, i want forgiveness, i want to know that some things which are over weren't in vain. i want to feel the way i felt the first time i heard 23 by jimmy eat world or sidewalks by story of the year.

red jumpsuit apparatus, the fray, howie day, regina spektor, audioslave, nada surf, dashboard confessional, griffin house- where'd you guys go? where did i go? where's the girl who wrote songs in her head on the way to school and designed album covers in the margins of her notebook?

not sure.
i'm just not sure...


ms. freud

i've been hurt before

Monday, August 09, 2010

This might be kinda long, so if you'd like to opt out of reading this post, go ahead guilt-free. I just need to get it out. I've been thinking a lot recently about who it is I want to be in terms of who I am now. My facebook 'about me' section says:

"I'm a crazy, passionate romantic. I'll dance with you anywhere. I'm a good mother cuz I have a great son. I'm a good friend. I'll go the whole 90 yards for the people I love. I love too much, but I don't think that's a flaw. I love God and find I'm stronger for depending on Him. I'm still a little bit of an idealist and I hope that never changes. I get lost in music. I feel free when I'm horse-riding. I see pictures in everything so I take as many as I can. I think any surface can be a canvas. I'm overly verbal but prefer that to miscommunication. I never think that it's too late for anything. I aspire to always be able to say that I am currently the best version of myself. I have been broken down, but with God's help I have risen from the ashes every time so far. So bring on the next potential heartache cuz I haven't even begun to love to the full extent and I will always refuse to hold back. Always..."

That was long, huh? Kinda like this post...I wrote that a couple years ago. I'm not sure I'm always moving in the right direction. Sometimes, I think I'm just taking steps back and I look at the person I used to be, the girl who wrote that, and think, "I wish I were still her." I aspire to always be able to say that I'm currently the best version of myself. I don't know that I can say that right now.

I am someone who can say truthfully, in understatement fashion, the phrase, "I've been hurt before." I heard Shontelle's Impossible recently and felt like it was a tribute to my last heartbreak. I know what it's like to feel like someone made a fool out of you simply by making you love and trust them. Somehow you're the chump because you opened up and allowed intimacy. I know what it's like to be in so much emotional pain, you can hardly move under the physical weight of it. But I don't want to be someone who lives my life like someone who's been hurt. I've already played the role of stupid chick dating the jock jerk who doesn't deserve her as the cinema audience roots for the nice guy best friend she seems to always overlook. Problem was, I went for the nice guy best friend as well, in a conscious effort to no longer be stupid chick, only to end up being more hurt because the trust was higher and expectation for pain lower. I felt like a whole new kind of stupid chick. I'm now in no mood to assume another clichéd role of damaged chick who's been hurt before.


I don't want to not have learned from my past mistakes or others' mistakes perpetrated on me, but I also don't want to be jaded by my past either. My heart is worth guarding, but not hiding. I'm definitely someone who qualified as a hopeless romantic. I'm not normally the kind of girl who thinks any romantic gesture is too 'mushy' as long as the right feelings are behind it. Despite my sarcastic veneer, I'm hard to gross out on the love-meter and fully acknowledge I can be a yucky, ooshy romantic myself and was always defiantly proud of it. But I wonder if at this point in my increasing singledom (and yes, singledom does increase with time!) I'd even know how to react to any of that. Those who know me best say I give off a 'no, thanks' vibe. Now, that's definitely something I project purposefully when I'm out for the night with my friends and some strange guy approaches me. But do I give off that vibe always? Am I so unprepared to risk getting hurt again that I also can't risk being happy again? If that's the way I've behaved, I haven't meant to. I also didn't mean to become this version of me I've unraveled into. Am I still someone who deserves to be with the guy who deserves to be with me? (If you didn't get that, read it again but it doesn't entirely make sense, so don't worry if you're still lost;)

I'd like to feel that I'm getting to that place of balance where I can accept my past hurts for how they benefit me and can reject them in the ways they'd hinder me. Maybe I can't entirely be that girl again. Maybe it'd be unwise to be as open as I used to be. There should be some effort involved, I'm worth that- and maybe acknowledging this is one of those beneficial lessons I needed to learn. But I've been listening to Paramore's The Only Exception (still not sure if it's a good thing that I relate to it) and I'd like to think that when the right exception comes along, I'd allow it and that we'd find ourselves mutually deserving of the kind of love that's worth the risk and merits my trust again... and some yucky, mushy ooshiness.

God

incase we haven't met

Sunday, March 28, 2010

so, for anyone who actually reads this, that whole opportunity thing i talked about in the 'this just in...' post- i'm over it. you may not know me personally, but i'm kinda awesome... and worthy and deserving of more than what i've received in this situation. i thought i wanted something but now i realise, i shouldn't want it because having it would be settling. i forgot that for a little while... i forgot who i am because i've had a rough year or so and sometimes, it's easy to just see all that is lacking in my life and character. it's easy to highlight flaws, because they seem the most likely reason for things not being the way i want them to be. i'm good at blaming myself. but i would like to be good at being proud of myself for things that merit pride.



so, incase we haven't met, here's me:

i'm fairly creative and good at making things. you might call me crafty or artsy or just plain handy cuz i do have a tool box, a screwdriver set, and a drill with a variety of drill bits and i use them all to take care of the house that i live in as the only adult with my son.

i'm a single mother of an extremely energetic child and i manage to show him love while keeping up the house and getting my homework done- did i mention i'm a senior at university? i'm a political science major and art minor, because i like everything. i'm a nerd. nerds are cool, you know it's true. i used to be an architecture major because i love science, math, and art. having my child made architecture a lil' impossible, though i'm ok with that.

i'm driven, ambitious and, quite frankly, i'm smart. i'm not conceited, i'm just being honest. i'm an extremely honest person...i'm also an extremely sarcastic person, so watch out for that.

i write, i play a few instruments- not expertly, but i'm teaching myself in a couple of them and practice time is limited in my life- i like to dance- though i'm a silly dancer- and music is pretty much as common in my life as eating.

i like to eat. i also genuinely like to exercise. handy little combination, there.

i'm european and have traveled quite a lot. i'm fairly cultured, aware and i speak a few languages and can find my way around even the most foreign of places. i currently live an ocean away from my family and i've survived.

i love God. i'm not perfect in my relationship with Him, but that's kind of the point, right? i'm involved with my church and passionate about the prayer ministry i head. i love working with youths. they're the future and they need to know how special they are at the time when they feel least special. if i can have any impact on a youth in their teen years, i feel like i've achieved something truly important.

all this to say, i'm a pretty decent human being. i've been through a lot and, by God's grace, i think i've handled my life fairly well. i deserve the best and i should act like it. so, to the situation that i feared i'd lost, i posit the loss is yours. and that if i can't have it, it's something i didn't need and God has something else for me that i will be faithful to wait upon.









1000 words

feeling a moment

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

something i told myself a few years ago. thought i'd reiterate:

"COMFORT" and "SECURITY" are two different things. 

so are "PERFECT" and "RIGHT"...











ms. freud

hello mirror

Monday, March 15, 2010

be better.
don't settle.
trust more.
remember good.
forget bad.
wake up earlier.
go to bed earlier.
forgive self for not always being better.



(listen here)



joseph arthur

right now, all your dreams are waking up

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

I'm sitting here tonight thinking that another month is upon me and that maybe I live too much in the day-to-day survival mode. I'm still young, my dreams are still ahead of me- I hope!- and sometimes I'm so focused on what's directly in front of me, I miss what's passing by, not to mention the greater scope of what's ahead. There's something that's been on the back burner of my heart for about 4 years now and I'm trying to decide if I've been missing out on not having it sooner, if I wasn't ready for it before and am now, or if it's time to let it go and look ahead to something else. Hmmm...so many questions, so little opportunity to have them answered, it seems. Joseph Arthur's gonna help me out... (after I pray about it, ofcourse;)


Honey and the Moon, Joseph Arthur
(Listen)

"We're made out of blood and rust
Looking for someone to trust
Without
A fight
I think that you came too soon
You're the honey and the moon
That lights
Up my night

Right now
I wish I could follow you
To the shores
Of freedom,
Where no one lives"










bad day that i'll get over

a kick in the teeth and some cherry coke

Friday, January 22, 2010

my family has this weird expression when something good happens, be it mild or extraordinary: "it's better than a kick in the teeth." basically meaning it's better than nothing or better than something bad. well, yesterday i found out some news that was NOT better than a kick in the teeth. in fact, i would have much preferred the aforementioned method of assault to the emotional one i sustained, cuz surely by now, with the aid of some ice and ibuprofen, the bad feeling would be gone.

instead, i wake up this morning feeling like throwing up. if i were a drinker, (and by that i mean drinker of alcohol, as we are all drinkers of some beverage, obviously) now would be the time for a hard one. instead, i sit here with my one liquid indulgence ~ some cherry coke, complete with maraschino cherries. it's calming the nausea a little bit... but what to do with the nausea that carbonated drinks won't resolve?

i've been a mother for over 6 years now. (men become fathers when their child is born, but women become mothers when they're pregnant.) aside from being a regular, flawed human, i do endeavour~ to the best of my ability~ to rise in the face of challenge, to return hate with love- rejection with forgiveness, spite with tolerance. we all have our breaking point and i'm sitting here RIGHT NOW trying to decide if i'm at mine... or if maybe i can push myself a little further, with God's help, to forgive this and to show my son what it is to truly let my thoughts AND my heart be captive to God. this news has potential to affect my son someday, so what example will i give him to deal with it? i could wallow in my frustration and don't get me wrong- i plan to pour another glass of cherry coke and seethe the entire duration of drinking it. but i'm going to pray right now that when the glass is empty, so is my anger. maybe it won't be that swift, but i'm acknowledging right now that i can't control what others do, but i can choose my reaction. i can choose who i am. i can choose who my son's mother is... may God strengthen you through all that you have to face today, and every other day.

love, me xx