Jumping off cliffs is good for the soul.

"And this is how I choose to live, as if I'm jumping off a cliff
Knowing that You'll save me, knowing that you'll save me
And after all the stupid things I did, there's nothing left there to forgive
Because You already forgave me, yeah You already forgave me"

That right there is a line from the Relient K song "Death and Taxes." I love Relient K. It seems that one of their albums fits right in with my life at any given time. They get me.

I was thinking about fearlessness today. There is a good reason for this; I went head to head with about a trillion spiders to clean the basement at my Grandmother's house. Now I am by no means afraid of spiders - while living with my mom and younger sisters as a teenager I was the designated killer of anything creepy crawly - but by the time I had vacuumed up my billionth egg sack, I was getting a little paranoid that some huge mama spider was going to magically appear and bite my head off. Yet, I persevered, and my Grandma's basement looks as homey and inviting as it did when I was little.

It's the little victories like the one above that are keeping me going right now. I stand prepared to take a huge leap of faith in my life, and so far my courage hasn't failed me. So far.

I think the hardest thing about leaving will be the separation from my dad and youngest sister. My dad commented on Sunday, in a quiet and sullen way, "I don't want you to go." Talk about having your heart wrenched out and poked with tiny sticks. Dad doesn't share how he's feeling often, but apparently he has even been telling my Grandma that he's already starting to miss me. I can tell that he's trying to stay strong for me, which only makes me love him more. It means a lot that my father is willing to help me do something good for myself at the expense of his own comfort.

My little sister is showing her love in a different way. She clings to me when we are with each other, and demands several hugs before I am allowed to leave her presence. She doesn't want me to leave - unless I take her with me. Someday she'll know that it was primarily for fear of missing out on huge chunks of her growing up that I have stayed here as long as I have. I don't know what it's like to leave a child, but I imagine my feelings about leaving her are very near to the feeling of having to leave one's own child behind.

Despite all of this, I know that I am on the right path. Leaving now is what I need to do in order to restore my sanity, regrow the piece of my heart that was torn away over the past couple of years, and get back to what I know I can be. When I was in the hospital, everyone said it was time to "be selfish" and  take care of myself instead of trying to fix/control those around me. Good advice, but hard for someone who looks at selfishness as if it is the worst sin a human could commit. This would be where the fearlessness comes in. In trying something new and different from the way I've always done it, I am throwing caution to the wind and saying that I can forge ahead into the great unknown. There is no room for fear where I am headed; in fact if fear pops up it's ugly head in my way, I'll kill it with the knowledge that I have a safety net. His name is Jesus.

So like the song says, this is how I choose to live. I am making a conscious decision to jump off the cliff that is the dead end my mind brought me to, and trust that I will be saved as I fall. (Side note: That image is totally used in the book "The Silver Chair" when Eustace and Jill have a moment on a clifftop and Aslan helps them to fall to Narnia. C.S. Lewis is awesome)

That's all I have for tonight. More on the morrow.

So communication is supposed to go two ways?

Well, the waiting is over and the action of getting everything taken care of for the move is upon me. My biggest packing worry is finding another piece of luggage, which should be relatively easy, and washing my clothes before the final day packing. Other than that, I've been thinking a lot of the relationships that will be changing.

I've never been very good at keeping communication going with friendships and family, but I like to think I've been slowly and steadily getting better over the years. I call people back more often, I try to keep in touch through various forms of media, and I even text people back within about a day. These are fantastic strides in my effort to think of other people, which I hope can keep going when the bulk of my friends and family are quite a few states away.

One thing I've had to face recently is the reality of how I've made people feel by unintentionally ignoring them. See, I've found in a couple friendships that I've been putting in a lot more effort than the other person. It can look a lot of different ways; mostly it's little things, like me being the only one making phone calls or plans. Sure the other person will return my calls (sometimes), and they might call to make a change to the plans, but for the most part I'm the one doing the reaching out. To add a little salt to the wound, they'll usually comment on some funny Facebook post or send a trivial text message right as I've decided I'll just give up altogether.

I've said goodbye to one of these friendships, and it felt good to say that I wasn't going to be putting effort into something that wasn't really appreciated and definitely not reciprocated. It made me wonder if maybe some of the blame lay with me. I could have chosen to extend my energy towards those people who were waiting with acceptance and giving hearts, but instead I chose to waste it on people who didn't care as much for me as I thought they did. It makes me feel more than a bit guilty as I sit here and think of relationships lost because I was the one that seemed not to care.

I've decided that from now on, I'm going to try showing as much love as I can to those people who've shown love to me. I'll become a letter writing, emailing, phone calling machine - one that hopefully receives letters, emails, and phone calls as well as putting them out there. I think it will be a good start in getting back to the me that had a big heart and was able to love "even the least of these." I expect that after a time my learned cynicism towards most of mankind will fade away, and I'll be able to replace it with a hefty dose of mercy and grace for my fellow man. And this is just one part of the growing and learning that I hope and believe will happen when I find my way out of this rut and get down to the real business of living.

Now if only I can figure out how to communicate with tact...I'll be golden. Oh, and that friend that you just thought of who you haven't attempted to contact, give them a call - it'll make you feel good.

Waaaaaaaaaaait

I am not, by nature, a very patient person. I do not cope well with things taking longer than I think they should. This manifests itself many different ways in my day to day life; I get cranky in traffic, I curse people with my mind in lines, I leave projects unfinished, and I generally lose stamina for a task that seems to extend beyond fathomable limits.

Just now, I am somewhere in the middle of a wait. I had fully planned on being West coast bound by now, or at least have a ticket purchased for my move. Instead, I am waiting for a bed to sell so that I can afford said ticket. In the meantime there are plenty of things to get me frustrated and close to the complete explosion of my head, neck, and collarbone area - which I imagine would be a horribly time-consuming mess for someone else to have to clean up.

You see, when left to my own designs, I begin to doubt myself. I doubt decisions I make (or made), my ability to complete the task at hand, my judgement of circumstances, whether or not I have followed God or my own stubborn will, etc. The more time I am given to mull over doubt, the more I give myself over to it. Whether valid or not, I will latch on to small things and take them as signs of a mistake coming...a mistake of my own making which will have consequences unbearably dreary to deal with.

I sometimes wonder if the Lord will ever simply tire of my continued disagreement with His set time for things and just let me get on with having everything my own way. Then I remember that I am a beloved creation for whom God wants nothing but the best, and will indeed settle with nothing more than the best, that I can become. I realize that awful and awesome truth that I must yield my way to his, that I must bend my will lest the world break me.

So it's really quite harder than it looks, this waiting. Doing nothing has never cost me so much. But I must remember that there is an end; there is always an end. Eventually patience, persistence, and perseverance give way to their reward, whether it's what I've expected or not... and I have a feeling that during this current trial a great deal of trust will be required as well.

Tossing and Turning

Tonight I cant sleep, because you are on my mind - so I'm going to write this as if I am writing to you. I'm going to say all the things that keep me awake and hit me in the middle of the day. May it give me peace.

I don't know if you know how I feel for you. I've never actually come out and explained it. I love you; mostly as a friend, but there are those feelings of Eros involved. I have felt this way a long time, even during times when I wouldn't see you for a while. I wouldn't think of you, then BAM, you were there and every feeling flooded right up to the surface.

You make me happy. Time spent with you is time that is happy for me. I can hope it's happy for you; I don't know for sure but I think it mostly is. This happiness had for a time led me to sort of make an idol of you; something I'm glad I figured out and prayed away. However, even when you're not an idol, you're presence in my day to day life (or lack of it) is keenly felt throughout the day.


 I think the big problem is that I am unable to attract you physically, and perhaps a bit emotionally. The fact that I am (by worldly standards) a plain, obese woman is not in my favor. I could list a lot of physical faults, but I try to love them rather than dwell on them. Mentally, I am aware that I am a mess right now, and the getting better is slow going. Yet here's the deal. I get to be loved. I get to be adored. I get to be beautiful. I get to be pursued.

I feel that we have a connection, and it's frustrating that the lack of attraction or the awkward weirdness of some past situations is keeping me from...well, from claiming you as my own. I have never trusted attraction, because it's led me astray far too many times. A connection felt by both would be what people refer to as "in love". Because there are not two way romantic feelings, what I feel now that isn't covered by the love of friendship could be called the waiting reception of Eros - or something along that vein.

All of it aside, because of my love, I really want to see you happy. I would do almost anything to make that happen, including stepping aside so that another woman can have the place I wish so dearly to hold. That makes me feel good about my love, like there's a lack of total selfishness to it.

I'm leaving soon, and it sucks that that also means leaving where you are. I've probably already been clingy, and I'm sure that it's more than obvious from my actions how I feel. But it's good to get the feelings out in the open, rather than toss and turn at night or wander off into daydreams. More people should be honest about their emotions towards others. Maybe not in blog form, but in whatever way fits the situation and time.

And now that I come to my finish, I realize that maybe I didn't write this just for you. Maybe I also wrote it for the other people in my life who feel lonely-who feel the need to be adored, strong, loved, or beautiful-but are for whatever reason not the recipients of such favors. My heart goes out to those as I post this up and go to a much deserved sleep.

Sometimes it's best to not succeed.

On July 23, 2011, I tried to kill myself. Seeing as I am still alive, it is obvious that I did not succeed in my endeavor. I got about halfway through the pills that I was taking, freaked out, woke my sister, and called 911. After having my stomach pumped at 1:00 am (which I don't recommend, because it is the farthest thing from an enjoyable experience I can think of) I sat in a hospital room falling in and out of sleep until being transferred to a Mental Health Treatment Center.

I could go on and on about the experiences I had there, relive some of the lows and exhalt in the highs, but that is for another time. Right now, I just feel glad to be alive. Ironically, the number of pills I had planned on taking would not have killed me, but it doesn't change the fact that I wanted my life on this world to end. I was not thinking rationally, but there was some logic in the arguments I had laid in front of myself during the previous month. Yes, this was a plan that had been in readiness for that long, just waiting for the right time. Now I can't believe that I wanted to throw my life away.

Things haven't miraculously changed. I'm still depressed, still anxious, and still have the same problems that I had before. The lonliness of feeling unloved still rears its ugly head, and in my self-conciousness I question whether people are sincere in their kind words to me. Yet I feel hope now. I have made plans for my life that I was afraid to before. I am leaving a situation that I need to get out of. I am setting out to blaze my own trail under the loving support of my favorite couple (you know who you are :) ) and it holds the possibility of things beyond what I could make happen on my own.

So two hours after my discharge, I say that I am going to live my life...and live it abundantly. I'm glad I failed at killing myself.

I'll be on here more later with more musings and details, as well as outcomes of things I have yet to face. Also, in two weeks, I plan to be in a different state...so things are going to be interesting.