thoughts on the new year

After a less-than-promising start to 2011, I woke up this morning to see that a cousin had posted this as her facebook status:

"Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness And rivers in the desert."

~Isaiah 43:18-19

It's never too late for anything; and there is always hope.

it's gonna be good.

it's been weeks since i've had the mental energy to function at 100%. every day had a routine: get up, be bright and sparkling at work, then get home and crash on the couch til somebody tells me to go sleep in my own bed.
but today i made my way out of the fog of lethargy, and decided that i'd break one of my rules as a sort of reward.
months ago, i realized that i was so fixated on the idea of the perfect future that i was ignoring the needs of the moment. so i promised myself that i wouldn't plan more than six months ahead, and told my friends that they were to ignore me if i started talking about abstract plans. and that's the rule i decided to temporarily break, just to give myself the incentive to stay at more than borderline functionality.
i won't talk about my plans yet, because if they don't work out i don't really want to have to explain that in any detail. but when they get off the ground, things will be on their way back from "fine" and maybe even make it to "great."
a life should have secret plans, just to have something to look forward to.

spring cleaning!

Spring cleaning is a wonderful feeling.
Throwing out the bags and bags of crap that accumulate over the past months and seeing your floor again; being able to find everything right where you left it for once; the light and space in the room when it's clean; nothing really describes how healthy it is to be finished.
Thing is, how often do you remember to do the same in the rest of your life?
We've all got baggage, whether it's fragments of past relationships or people themselves. And sometimes the pieces only float around your personal bubble, but sometimes they trail behind you and weigh you down.
Only thing you can really do is cut them loose: all the so-called "friends," the pathological liars and unhealthy friendships; the insecurity stemming from your past; the fear radiating towards you from the future and its uncertainty.
You don't need any of that.
Every moment is a fresh start, waiting for you to make your magic. No one can stop you.

everyday miracles

watching the olympic opening ceremonies for some reason is making me pensive.
it's one thing to be told that every day is a miracle, but another thing entirely to really know it.
each day i walk down the street to head to class, and each day i can look up at the sky and say that it is beautiful. it has nothing to do with the sort of weather, or how cold it is, but is simply about being able to exist.
every instant of your life is precious. there is never any time to waste, nor will there ever be, because every moment is another memory, further proof that you are really living. it's no surprise that the sun rises; but that you are there to see it and feel it - that is the miracle.
every day is full of moments. whether you ache with heartbreak or joy, cherish them, because they are the only way to really be alive.

faith

just got home from church, and christmas eve service. this year's theme was "how would your life change if you were absolutely certain that God Himself was with you?"
and i thought to myself, how can people who believe in God ask themselves that question? belief in anything implies absolute certainty; otherwise it is not a belief but simply a theory, an idea of some sort. it's not thinking that He's there, or saying that you believe in Him because it's how you were brought up. belief is digging down into that core of solid certainty till you find the place that you would stake your life on, should it ever come to that. and it exists somewhere inside everyone - perhaps for something different depending on who you are - but it is there.
but if you can't find that place, if you can't step out with no certainties other than what you think you believe in, perhaps it's time to think about where your faith lies, and why.

MMT

Makes Me Think
a friend stumbled this site the other day and emailed it to me, saying that it reminded him of me. it really does make you think, and sometimes the world seems like a better place after reading it. it's a constant reminder that there's beauty everywhere, and if we don't see it perhaps we are in the wrong frame of mind.

walk on

The sun rises again.
No matter the storms we face.

If raindrops should fall on your shoulders,
let us all tide you over

If the clouds seem to darken where you stand,
please let your loved ones take your hand

And if there is one thing I’d like you to know,
keep this in mind wherever you may go:

If thunder strikes to make the sunny days
seem much less benign
Then the moments passed will make future rays
a much brighter, stronger shine.

(reblogged from a dear friend of mine, Black Polos And Sweaters)

there is no more to say. wherever you go it will rain on you at times; maybe sunshowers, maybe a mudslide or two. but inevitably, the sun comes back sometime. all you have to do is keep walking, with whoever will hold you up if need be, and you'll make it.

standing by in silence

"in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
~martin luther king, jr

will we watch the fires come closer and closer until they consume us all? the whole world seems to be balanced on the edge of a knife, and as the tensions in iran escalate it looks almost as though the end of the world really is coming.
it is terrifying to watch days like these unfold, but my own inaction is more frustrating than anything else. if we can do nothing more, we can at least pray, regardless of our own personal beliefs.

what it means to be a woman

as women growing up in the US, we often underappreciate the freedoms we are given. we forget what it is to have a real passion for what we believe in, what it means to fight for what we want instead of passively. but if we intend to change the world, we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of ambivalence. women the world over are willing to die for what they believe, and even if we have no need to, it is the way we should live our lives. we will one day have daughters. they should not have to die like her, no matter where they are.

feeding the soul

"i have an inward treasure, born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld: or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give."
~jane eyre

we all do. the purpose of the soul is not to go somewhere after we die, but to keep us alive when nothing else will.
feed your soul as you would feed your body; that is to say, do not fill yourself emotionally, mentally, or spiritually with garbage. believe the good that people tell you, not the bad; and love both yourself and others.

dear parents

fear

false
evidence
appearing
real

this is what fear is and i will not live in it.

achieving perfection

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
philippians 8:12-14

judgements

people are ridiculous and care way too much about what other people think of them. a wall post from one friend of mine to another popped up in my feed literally 5 minutes ago, and being the stalker i am, i read it. nothing particularly sketchy (badly spelled though) and halfway through the post i see "for ppl reading this im not lesbo" and it made me go WTF?! like for real. i have sketchy wall-to-walls with my girls all the time and i feel no need to clarify whether or not i'm straight. and just the way it was written made me go "well, what do you think is so bad/wrong about being a lesbian that you feel the need to clarify to people that you aren't one?" it's not illegal, and it's nobody else's business. and if you think your friends are judging you and going to hate you because of your sexual orientation, then maybe you should re-evaluate your friendships and the reasons behind them. friends don't judge each other based on little things like that. come to think of it, nobody should judge others based on orientation.

there is always hope

by the elusive british artist Bansky

oddly enough, what caught my eye was not the little girl losing her balloon, but the message chalked on the stairs. i don't know how i feel about this concept of hope. maybe i should paint this on my wall next year. i think it would help some. paint shopping, here i come!

self-respect

is it possible to be an attention-whore and still respect yourself?
i somehow think it isn't. if you need the attention to convince yourself that you're "worth something," than you obviously don't respect yourself and should probably go see a therapist about it. been there, done that.
if you just want the attention and don't care how you get it, then no, you don't respect your own image at all, and that is the same as self-respect. if you publicize yourself in such a manner that the entire student body sees you as a slut, you have no right to complain about it. suck it up and deal.

boondock saints

"how far are we gonna take this?
the question is not how far.
the question is
do you possess the constitution,
the depth of faith
to go as far as is needed?"

i have a reasonable amount of faith. not as much as i could have, but certainly not so little that hearing these words does not affect me.

and so i pray that one day i might find the fire that consumes all obstacles and drives those who are fortunate enough to possess it in all that they do.

hell of a good man

it takes a hell of a good man
to be better than no man at all
~hell of a good man (blues song)

so true. so damn true. single and lonely are not the same thing. it's possible to enjoy not having a man; being obligated to nobody but yourself, not hurting anyone but yourself, taking care of nobody but yourself, the list goes on and on. and after all, almost good enough isn't good enough. sometimes you need time off from relationships to realize how much you yourself are worth. there's no need to settle for less just to have someone. hold out for special, not average. you deserve it.

attainable goals

i want to be happy like a bird with a french fry.
such a simple goal, to be pleased with little things instead of worrying about the whole world.
that is what i really want.

chill.

wow. people can be so awesome.
so the world decided to SUCK this morning, for a variety of reasons that are unfortunately almost all related to classes. and it was so depressing and i was soooo frazzled, to the point that my calc test almost gave me a panic attack. yup, fun.
BUT the test was actually okay it turns out. and i had lunch with awesome people afterwards, and seriously just hanging out with them and not worrying about life made things so much better. and it's awesome to be proposed to by a friend even when you know he's joking.
AND my advisor is such an awesome woman. dropped by her office later today & we basically hung out for an hour. and we talked about making the world a better place one person at a time and it completely restored my faith in the world.
so basically what i am trying to say is that when you're stressed out, take some time out to chill. eat chips, watch stupid videos on youtube, whatever you do when you're not working. it's so much healthier than you could imagine.