The revelation of burnt eggs

Fair warning: this post may contain a mish mash of thoughts. I've neglected so many writing opportunities about my ideas and life situations lately that I feel as though they'll all come tumbling out, tripping over one another in an attempt to be heard.

I think I should start off by saying that I have not been myself this year. That might help in deciphering my newfound perspectives on things. I have watched myself struggle internal battles and become a weaker person. It's so strange to watch you tear yourself apart. Since the beginning of the year there was a shift -- a shift in my thinking and acting. I became a warped version of myself; a bitter, angry, resentful version. Well, to be honest, I'm still watching this warped version move about - not much has changed since this all started. But that's where I'm at.

I think I became stuck between different worlds, different Sophies. I've always been so concerned with what other people think about me. Always. It's something that's constantly on my mind. So, because of this, I found myself trying to meet multiple people's expectations - or maybe what I thought people expected of me. The problem lay in the fact that I was moving about in different worlds. I had my home life: working on my marriage, looking to move into a new home, financial issues, having a real world job and its problems. This is the life of an adult. At 24, I'm living the life of someone much older than myself and while I'm mature for my age and enjoy my home life, this life was met in battle with a new life I had embarked on: school life. This life consists of being around people my little sister and little brother's ages: three to six years younger than myself. Living at home or on res, not worrying about mortgage, car or insurance bills or wondering what benefits your job will cover. Looking to meet someone, not having been married for four years and with that same person for seven. Not working through the ups and downs of married life, let alone the real world in general. Cruising through life with  papers on their minds, concerts to go to and what new tom toms or moccs to buy.


And so, this is where all of my Sophies came to a head. I was trying to be more than the one true Sophie. I was trying to be a kid at school and an adult at home and in the end I couldn't straighten out what to be and where. I couldn't balance it out. Even those people who are closer to my age at school appear to live the lifestyle of the younger students. Living in apartments with friends, hanging out at coffee shops and thinking about getting the school day over with to chill. I tried to mix in with people whose music tastes are different from my own, whose hobbies and thoughts are different from my own but the more I tried to accommodate to this lifestyle or the opposite lifestyle of the super old adult; the more I lost myself. And I think in an effort to protect myself, I shut down. I stopped caring about what other people thought, which is something I don't think I've ever done. I started posting my true inner thoughts on social media outlets and stomping around school and home. Having multiple break downs - crying at the smallest of things, like burning an egg or not being able to open a can of soup (yes, this happened yesterday - don't judge!). I felt... I feel... so miserable trying to please everyone that I stopped. But the person I became was a very ugly person. Self-absorbed, self-deprecating, angry, annoyed, unhappy. And I should've recognized this. When you're crying over a burnt egg, you're never really crying over a burnt egg.

I'm still struggling with getting back to the true Sophie, but I'm starting to realize that I needed this breakdown to get to the real me. I've always run away from confrontation, I hate it. If anyone crossed my path that I didn't agree with, I'd fake it or avoid them. But after trying to get on everyone's good side, it became too much. I overloaded myself with expectations I couldn't or didn't want to meet. This breakdown showed me that I need to be me, in all my messy glory. I need to like what I like, do what I enjoy to do, believe what I believe and not let anyone interfere with my happiness. For anything. How can I enjoy life if I'm not doing what I'm meant to do? How can I help other people if I don't even know how to be me?

One of my classes this semester has me writing questions about the books I have to read in the Bible. At first I thought this was a waste of time (as are most of the things in this class) but as I started, I realized something profound. By asking honest, truthful, hard hitting questions about God and his Word and the people he wanted me to know about -- the more I felt closer and more content in my relationship with Him. I've never known anything like that. Christianity always seemed to me as having cookie cutter standards. Everyone believes the same thing, the same way and if you think even the slightest thing other than that generic standard then you've somehow lost your footing on the path. Better get your map back out and try again. But I don't know about that anymore. When something doesn't make sense to me about God: he's actions, when people change his mind or he forgets something (yes, forgets -- as people like Moses have to point out what he promised in order to get him to hold up his end of the bargain) and I ask those questions, I feel content. I don't even need an answer to the questions. Just asking the question and wondering why allows for this feeling of peace to rise up in me and solidify that God cannot be put into a box. He is who he is, just as I am who I am. Who am I to tell God that he shouldn't do this or he can't do that? But by breaking out of this standard form of beliefs, I feel free in my relationship with him to figure out who he really is and not just who the man behind the pulpit tells me he is. And in the same way, I learn things about myself. I cannot be put into a box. I am not just a student in a school, or a wife to her husband or an employee. I am a strong, adventurous, caring, loyal, vulnerable woman who strives to do things that others only dare dream about. I cannot be split into multiples, I cannot be boxed into a corner and I think that stems from the one who made me. There is no other like Him. He is one God, he is expansive and loving and caring and dares to move those to do the impossible.

I am made in the image of God and there is nothing more beautiful than being me and all that that contains.

Spring has Sprung!

They're back.
And as I peel myself away from this temporary heaven,
Filled with cotton and goose down feathers,
I hear them.
Twittering away,
A reunion like no other.
Time spent apart and distanced from one another,
To come back and gossip about where they were this time.

The day unfolds like any other,
But this time,
Something new wraps itself around each thing.
A whisper of new beginnings, fresh starts.
The old has vanished,
It came falling to the ground in open gestures of defeat.

Now, I see them,
Dancing lazily in the wisps of a warm breeze.
Entranced by their hypnotizing rhythms,
I long to stop and sit a spell.
A deep breath, a lengthy pause.

Vibrant colours,
One set against the other in clear contrast.
Hear the breaking of hardened hearts,
See the thaw that brings them life.
A world reawakened from the depths of despair.

The picture darkens,
Slowly growing dimmer.
Nothing remains but the soft twitters of goodnight.
I hear them one by one,
Slowly retreat, though desperate for a new day to start again.
And I find myself desperate for the same.

Time Goes so Slowly and Change Comes so Fast

There's a friendship that plays in my mind from time to time. So many people weave in and out of your life, some at lightning speed and others as the season that you're in moves forward. I think the worst, though, are the fadeouts. Those slow, painful deaths of a friendship.

When I was a kid, there was a friendship that budded from an uncharacteristic place. It began on a soccer field, on opposing teams where we bumped, pushed and got angry with one another. I remember thinking she was so incredibly annoying. But it truly began when my parents divorced and my sixth grade teacher thought I could use a friend who'd gone through the same thing. Little did we realize who we'd be introduced to that day.

Out of the mess of two eleven year olds lives came a beautiful, natural, kindred-spirits friendship. Something I've never had before and have yet to have again. Our similarities and differences bonded us together in a way like no other. We created our own little world of sleepovers and singing and writing and adventures. No one else, other than my husband, has ever understood me so completely.

But as time went on, we both began to change. Pulled apart to different high schools, we felt the need to be accepted and noticed and all the teenage drama that comes from getting older, slowly began to unravel our beautiful friendship. Although it still continued it was only a very small fragment of what it used to be. Almost a ghost-like appearance of what two young girls had magically created for themselves in a world of rapid change. 

I think now, our outward personalities are so different from one another. I almost don't recognize either of us when I see how we are to others from the outside. But at the core of our real selves, I think we're still those same two kids. The ones that would go hiking through the snow, who found inverted footprints and freaked out over the walkie-talkie to a family member who claimed they were behind us and ready to ambush with a pelting of snowballs. The girls who rode bareback through the pasture, only to have the darn horse head straight for the bushes and ended up in a tangled mess of kicking and screaming. The ones who would hide in the hay-shed and sing and harmonize for hours until the sun would slowly start to hang in the sky. Who would sing on nature hikes, in competitions... pretty much just sing together period. There were sleepovers filled with movies and laugh-til-your-sides-ache silliness and late night chats about the things that meant the most to us, knowing that our secrets were safe. I could think of a million more unique memories like those, but you'd lose half a year just hearing them. Poetry contests about a two trees that intertwined and making it past the first few rounds. Writing a journal about how we met and our adventures, calling ourselves the "dynamic duo." We were dorks. But those are some of the best memories I've ever had. 

There were so many things that bound us together in our friendship, but overall, I really think it was this beautiful thing of being our true selves with one another. No pretenses, no falsities. Our God-made personalities at their fullest innocence and truth. 

I think that's why I've had a hard time letting this friendship go. Over the years, problems came and went, some big, others small, but eventually the friendship faded that slow death. We became strangers. The friendships I've had since that sixth grade meeting have been wonderful. But no friendship has even come slightly close to this one. I've never allowed my true self to fully shine since then. and what a terribly sad thing that is to realize and admit.

But when my life seems to change and morph at intense speeds, the honesty of this friendship somehow ends up grounding me, even now. Even without that closeness today, the reminder of what was and the revelation of my own true self at that time, helps me see the good in changes and even friendships that start out strangely. My next kindred-spirit friendship could still start on a soccer field, angrily wishing that other girl would get out of my way and let me do my thing. Who knows.  

debby downer vs. a buttload of rainbows

Sometimes I don't understand Christians. There, I said it. I just don't get them. I mean, I love them, I am one, but I just don't get them. I don't understand the Christian mentality of this extreme emotional living. Why do we have to either be on the highest mountain top or about to jump off the nearest bridge? Where are the normal, everyday, mundane emotions that take up 80% of our day to day lives?

I was at a chapel service at my school this past week. It's the first one since the new year began and the girl running the show kept saying how 2012 was a year to have great hope and a time to look forward to better things. That 2011 and all the burdens that came with it, was over. Time to move on.

I kind of sat there wondering, "What about the people who had a great 2011? Or... an average 2011?" Why do we, as Christians, constantly feel this need to look to the future? We think that the future will be better and that God will have so much more in store for us later down the road. Why? What if the future brings horrible, terrible things? What's so wrong with the past, or even the present? 

I think there's so much beauty in the present moment. Even today. Today I did nothing but sleep in, play games with my hubby, laughed and studied. Not my most incredible, best day ever and not my worst. Just a normal, every day kind of day. I could look forward to tomorrow hoping that tomorrow will be even better then today. I could look at yesterday and compare what this day held that the other didn't. But why? Why lose the preciousness of today by comparing and hoping and never enjoying or doing? 

It seems like it has to be all or nothing. That we have to be extremely exuberant or ready to slit our wrists. Most days I feel... normal. But the beauty in even feeling normal and having an ordinary day, is that God is in those moments of the ordinary. He made those moments of the ordinary for people to relax in and enjoy without feeling like they're on a emotional roller coaster. Why is it so hard to enjoy that?

I find it hard to worship God when I'm brought into this mentality. I think it limits Him in a way that maybe isn't very obvious. It's like we're saying that God only means something when He's gotten us to the highest heights or is saving us from the darkest depths. For the majority of your life you will feel neutral. Where does God fit into that neutrality? I find it hard to sing songs to God with lyrics like this. I want to sing a song that describes that feeling of enjoying and loving God even in my so-so moments. That's real. That's reality. Or I'd rather sing songs that just repeat "Holy, holy, holy" over and over again. Words that have nothing to do with my emotions, my day, my life... but rather of who God is, what He's about and why I'm learning everyday to fall in love with Him.

Now that's something to sing about, something to look forward to.