The fear left me when I took a breath.

“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within you.” –John 7:38

I didn’t wait long after testing the water to jump right into the shallow entrance of the sea. There was an ocean before me and I was there to plunge into the waves and reduce my life on the beach to a mere memory. It was a little cold, but I was so overjoyed with the fact that I could swim I didn’t even bother to take much notice.

As I made my way deeper, I could more easily dip myself under the surface for a taste of the joy and wonder I found there. When the water became too deep, most of my body remained underneath. But the waves were coming. The introduction to my new life here was ending and the wonder of its beginning was to be faced with challenges.

The waves grew bigger and I practiced my maneuvers, not to escape them, but to go through them. I remembered the early lessons of my swim teacher and his instruction led me on, although I did not follow the later instructions he had given me because I had not yet put them into practice and understood how to use them. I grew weary, but I was confident that if I withstood the testing waves of challenge, I would reach the calmer seas beyond. Then, the simple life would return. I would then reach my ultimate goal.

The waves were more challenging than I would have thought. I was thrown quite a bit and for a long time. My knees were shot into sharp rocks, my elbows received gashes and I’m sure there were a few bruises. I had to kick my way to the surface for air and my lungs burned like fire. Several times, I even found I had been shot back to where I was before in more shallow waters. The tide was wretched.

It was then I realized that I had begun to practice the later instructions of my teacher through all of these waves, the more advanced material. It had made me stronger and I finally made it through the waves before me. I could not have done it without him. Surely, even in the shallow depths I would have failed.

At last, I made my way to the calmer and deeper sea. The massive waves of my past were behind me, but they had left me tired and worn. I held my breath at first so I could float and rest on the surface somewhat. After a time, I had caught my breath and I turned to the open sea to continue on.

It was then that I realized…I must have sprained my ankle in the turmoil. There had been more damage done than I thought. It was so painful to swim. I didn’t like this. Now that I was out where I could swim deeply, I was hurting too much to do so the way I had wanted. Should I go back to give up? To rest and start over? Once I got out of the water, there would be no guarantee that I would want to get back in. No. I wanted to carry on from where I was. I would just have to endure the pain.

My swim was a slow and hobbling venture. Sometimes I would go underneath the surface and rely mostly on my arms to get me by, that is, until I healed. I remained that way for a long time…too long. I made it a habit of dipping down every so often, relying on the support of the water to keep me afloat just below the surface as I travelled, and then I would come up for air and kick hard to keep myself above. I thought I was making great progress. I was going further and further out, but I was still growing weary. I had to stop and rest often and the sun had come out, so that did not help.

I kept on with this cycle and the time crawled by. I couldn’t understand why I was having such a difficult time. I wasn’t growing in this life. I was only getting tired. This wasn’t the life that was promised to me. All I had gained was a life of pain and struggle. The only relief I really ever felt was when I was underneath, completely submerged in the sea. To be surrounded by the depths of the life I chose, not merely travelling through. I didn’t like that my head was left out of the wonderful feeling for so much of the time. Not to mention, I was getting a sunburn too.

Finally, my frustrations caught up with me and I stopped. Where was this life leading me? I didn’t want to give up because I still had hope for discovering what I had been looking for, longing for, seeking to fill myself with. But I was at a loss. I hadn’t found it. I knew I was close but it was somehow eluding me.

As I lied floating on the surface, quiet and still, I heard something beneath me. A sound. An echo. A voice. Was it here? Had it been there all along? It had not occurred to me before. It was clear that I had given up my life on the land. There really was no reasonable way I should survive out here. Why did I ever think I would be able to live out here as if I still lived on the land? As if I were going back? There was no going back. I had come out here to die to myself.

It had never been about how far across the surface I could go. It was about how deep I could go. There had been an entire level of existence below me that I had been missing, because it hadn’t seemed logical. It was crazy. My purpose, all along, was to go deeper into the depths of this sea.

I was hesitant as I thought this out. But what did I have to lose? All I knew was that being underneath is where all my joy came from. I slipped myself beneath the glassy sea, letting it cover me like a blanket. I sank further and further. I closed my eyes.

The fear left me when I took a breath.

My eyes darted open. My body was well and alert. I had died to my old self by taking that breath and found that I was alive…because I didn’t need the air. I felt the full extent of the living water inside me. Believe it or not, I laughed. I smiled and threw back my head in joy. In wonder, I was no longer absorbed with the travelling and the distance. I moved about slowly, twisting down head first to challenge the direction of gravity. Turning upward to see my hair floating above me, following me down.

I was surprised that I did not descend into darkness. The ocean floor was light and I could see the sun glinting of the endless shades off fish and other creatures. I swam closer and discovered the beauty of this creation. All the sights I had been missing. Every detail my eyes captured deepened my knowledge of the sea’s character. It became even more wondrous and mysterious to me than before. I wanted to see more.

I became lost in the wonders of my new life. It has by no means been perfect nor shall it ever be so. I have faced dark crevices and frightening sights. I know there is more to come. But my ankle has healed. Wounds that I received during my early experience in the waves have left some scars that will never go away. I will always be reminded of how I got them. But the memory of pain has been dimmed and I can live with those scars. As long as I am in the place of this marvelous light, I will continue to grow closer to what really matters. The journey has taken me deeper into the heart of the sea.

I can never know all there is under the surface. It's too grand and endless for me to comprehend. I can only explore it in parts, get to know those parts as much as I am able and then I will at least know the character of the sea in general. I will understand a bit better the parts I will not make it to in this life. Others will explore many of those different parts. I may pass some of them by and learn about the places I have not been to before, the things I have not seen. I may go where they have gone too and I may need to remain content with only knowing about their experience. I will stay where I need to stay or continue on to the next place I need to go.

I don’t know where I’m going, but as long as I am submerged, exploring the character and the vastness of this sea, I will only grow within its depths. I don’t know where I will come out, but I know that when I do it will be on the other side, on brighter shores. And I don’t know what all awaits me on that shore, but I know that my journey in this place will be over and a new journey, whole and everlasting, will begin.

Never Forget the New Song

"I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay; and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. And He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many will see and fear, and I will trust in the Lord." -Psalm 40:1-3

To this day, I am still reminded that, by nature, I was an extremely happy child. However, when I was ten years old things started to get rough for my family. The worse things got, the more I held onto Jesus for dear life. The song “Hanging On” by Everyday Sunday soon became my anthem for getting by. 

We all have seeds of different emotions; we go through and feel each one from time to time. My seed of anger was so miniscule because of my strong inclination to be happy. My happy seed must have been enormous! And yet, as the years passed, and despite my determination to hold onto and follow Christ, my seed of anger was watered and I steadily became a very, very angry person. I did not experience the emotion of anger every moment of every day, but at my core I became a seether over many things. Most would have never known; I hid it well. Since I wasn’t naturally this way it took a few years to provoke this emotion out of me to such a large extent and it slowly made its way to the surface so that I could whip out fury at the snap of a finger in order to protect myself. A defense mechanism, I suppose.

Yes, I was angry. I was angry at my family, friends who rejected me, boys and occasionally God. I did not resort to everything under the sun to ease the pain. I really did try to give things to the Lord on a regular basis. However, I was still young and I did not behave perfectly by any means. I still made mistakes and I allowed my anger to get the best of me on countless occasions. Behavior of acting out that I am now ashamed of, although I don’t know that I would have done things differently with the way things were, being in the place I was at the time. And this anger, accompanied by some vividly foolish behavior, followed me well into college.

I look back now at who I was then, how I was. I can hardly believe that the girl I remember was really me. But then, I know that if I had looked forward in time to who I am now…I would not have been able to believe that either. I could not have imagined living in peace with my family. (I remember wondering how I was ever going to make it to my eighteenth birthday before moving out of my house.) I could not have fathomed living without the pain I felt everyday. And I could not have believed that I would ever know what it was like to live again without such anger. Living life according to my hurt.

The old blog from my freshmen year of college, which I included in my previous blog entry, was a milestone in my walk with God. I don’t think I had ever felt joy like that even when I was a child. I think that’s when the change really began in me, although the anger certainly did not go away overnight. It had been nurtured for too long and, therefore, had to be weeded and excavated out of me.

I have a label for each of my college years. Freshmen year was the most difficult year spiritually. Sophomore year was the most difficult year emotionally. Junior year was the most healing year for me. (Senior year was the biggest year for direction and self-discovery.) Over the course of junior year, it seems the majority of that underlying anger evaporated. By the year’s closing, I made final peace with my older brother who I hadn’t spoken with in almost a year. (This was not the first time we had gone so long without speaking. A few times we had gone longer.)

The Lord has done such an amazing work in me that I can literally mean it when I say that I am a different person. I am not who I was.

But here is the punch line…over the last year, the passion I found three and a half years ago, through my revelation, has waned. I have gotten to the point where I can talk about God, then come home at the end of the day and realize that I really have forgotten all about Him. I haven’t taken the time to consistently be in His Word, or even talk with Him, listen to Him and enjoy His presence. It’s been so off and on that it has lacked the depth I could have been experiencing with Him. I have gotten caught up with my days and become too lazy to devote my time to getting closer with Him one-on-one. I would feel guilty for neglecting Him and, therefore, neglect Him some more, doing the same thing over and over again without ever changing.

This last week, however, I have been getting this feeling…I’m just getting so tired of doing the same things. Living for myself. Reverting to bad attitudes. Repeating the same music over and over, the kind that only gets me down and takes my focus away from God. It’s true that whatever you put into your head goes down into your heart and comes out through your actions. I have gotten past the point of innocently listening to certain kinds of music. I got so addicted to drowning selfish and unhopeful music into my brain to the point where my uplifting music was not even appealing anymore. And that is saying a lot!

In addition, I have been thinking about my past self a lot lately and it really just hit me the other night. I remembered a story from the book Every Young Woman’s Battle. A woman had a dream that she was at her wedding reception. She went around the entire room seeing her friends and family, enjoying it all by herself. But then she realized, “Oh wait, where’s the groom?” She looked over and saw him standing in the corner in tears, looking down at the wedding ring on his finger. Forgotten. She had forgotten him. It was then that she realized that this is what she had done to God. He is our beloved whom we have forgotten.

The combination of growing weary from my empty behavior, remembering the change that God has made in my life, and thinking of this metaphorical dream…I was feeling troubled and I began looking for some verses to console me. But what I found instead were the verses above. Right then, the Lord really grabbed hold of my heart. I felt so ashamed. How could I have forgotten my God? How could I have neglected Him who has done so much for me? If I had not held onto Him as much as I did growing up, how much more angry would I have been or still be? How much more destructive would my behavior have been? Without Him the healing I know now would not have come. I would not be who I am today. The anger would not have decreased.

Today, it is so difficult for me to get angry anymore. It is not just waiting below the surface, waiting to snap up at any moment in self-defense. I feel how it has gone back down and shrunk, much closer to the way it used to be.

But how could I have lost my passion when I have this miracle to remember every day? I guess that brings me back to my problem of being too visual. I often forget what I do not see. I cannot see Him physically, but I can see the changes He has made in my life and remember them. I know that God wants all of me. Not bits and pieces, but my whole heart.

Please Lord, take all of my heart and don’t give it back. Help me to give You all of me everyday. Every moment of my life. Please don’t ever let me forget Your love or take You for granted. Guide my life in the way that will bring You the most glory. You deserve no less from me. Forgive me for my neglect of You, for my selfishness and misuse of the time You have given me. Make me faithful and continually deepen my gratitude for all Your blessings. Draw me close to You.

I know this is rather long and maybe tedious to read, but I hope and pray that we will not be satisfied with taking our God for granted. Who really wants to settle for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when we have been invited to a tremendous feast with our King?

Flashback to My Freshmen Revelation

The below text is a blog that I wrote in February of my freshmen year of college, when I was nineteen. I called it "My Revelation." I have grown up putting my faith in Christ; I made the decision to follow Him when I was six. In all my years as a child, I was so passionate about my love for Him, sharing Him with others. When I got older, I still loved Him, but that passion had dulled drastically. This flashback is Part One of a two part blog. Part Two, which I will post sometime within the next few days, will be a response to Part One, concerning where I am with this today (not really about the guy aspect included but my relationship with Christ) and how the things God is currently showing me ties into this lesson that I learned three and a half years ago. I have removed only a few details here and there since this blog page is more private than the one I originally posted this blog in. Here it is:

"…that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendant of Abraham. Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted, in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted."-Hebrews 2:14b-18

On Friday I went to the beach by myself. I've been meaning to for a few weeks now. I needed to get far away and talk with God alone. Growing up as a Christian, I've been so ingrained with the concepts of God, that it is a lifestyle I don't think I could really change about myself even if I tried. But something has been missing from my walk with God that I have not been able to identify until that day on the beach. God spoke to me in my head. He said I needed to be personal with Him. The word that stuck out to me was "personal". I came to find yesterday that I am a Christian. I have a relationship with God, but like my mom has told me, it's been a business relationship. I know the concepts and believe the same things as God and I've "worked with Him" in pursuing the same goals. I have always been "for His mission statement" and wanted to be in love with Him beyond anything else in my life. But I haven't.

I wondered what was wrong with me because I haven't had the passion I've seen in others. The passion where I just can't contain my love for Jesus and can't help but share His Word and His love. Only when I was a child, but things in my growing up years have made that passion die down. I've had spiritual highs and I've ached and desired to have that emotional attachment to God. I did everything I knew that Christians were to do in such a situation so I could have that kind of relationship with God. But I never got it. I even got to the point this past summer where I started to question my salvation. If I didn't have the passion for God you're supposed to have, then how could I really be a true follower, right? 

For a while after my summer confusion, I put this all aside, lived in denial, went off to school and got into possibly the worst spot spiritually and emotionally I have ever been in. Relationships I once had to keep me up were gone. Right from the beginning of school, I tried to make a random relationship be the solution to my problem and it failed miserably. I saw an ugly side to men and human nature in general, driving me away from any desire for a guy/girl relationship. In the few months since, I have been coping and dealing with some new wounds that were ultimately inflicted by me. Finally, I made that trip to the beach and I asked God what I needed to do to have that kind of relationship with Him. He told me I needed to change my business relationship with Him into a personal relationship. I was surprised at how promptly and clearly God answered me when I asked Him. And I asked another question. "How in the world am I supposed to do that?" I now knew the "what" but not the "how."

This brings me to yesterday when I read the verses quoted above. I've heard and read such things before, but it never clicked with me until yesterday, after all the experience I had been chewing on. God used the devils own specialty against him…death. Through death He saved us and rode in on the horse as our hero. He's already won, just because of that! He freed me from the things I ultimately feared and had hanging over my head. He went through such great lengths…for me! No human guy could or would do that! The most a human could do to show their love is to "lay [their] life down for [their] friends." But Jesus did more than what any human being could do to save me out of His melting love for me, and He didn't even have to! He could have done the bare minimum to save us or not at all but He went all out! That's more of a hero and love than I could find in any guy. How could I not be crazy about someone like that? Who sacrificed that much and went through that much trouble for me? And because of everything He did, He can relate to me and my temptations and fully understand me. He is my prince, the One I've been looking for all along. I just never really got it that way before.

I think I was just so blind that I needed to see the dirtiness of man next to the holy, ga-ga, love of God has for me. I needed to be scared away from guys so I could wake up, smell the coffee and see just how great God is. He loves me more than any human could and He is now what I want more than anything. No guy is the solution to my life's problems. That's not fair to him anyway; that's a lot of pressure for a guy. I've found the filling for my hole that I knew was the filler all along but never desired it the way I needed to. I was putting boys on a pedestal for ultimate happiness in life for so long. I knew God should be my number one, but deep down, guys were above Him in my head. I'm a very visual person; I can physically see guys and that was easier for me to put my faith in.

But this whole experience was a mind-blowing, spiritual-clicking revelation for me. I will find my ultimate satisfaction in God. If He wants me to be with a guy someday, I'll leave it to Him to bring him along. He knows what's right for me and what I need. And it will be so that we can both be stronger in God and bring glory to Him better as a couple and because He wants to bless me with someone wonderful.

Jesus will be my best friend no matter where I go in life. He will be my romance, my Divine Romance. If I were to dance with Him, He would be the most kind and polite partner if I stepped on His toes. He's my mighty knight in shining armor. He's the gentle giver of white roses to me to remind me of my purity in Him and His love for one who was once dirty with sin. Through Him I can be white and pure in every way. I could still be filthy and worthless, but because of Him I'm not. He loved me enough to clean me up and keep me with Him forever. And that is something to fall in love with.

Control

I have a problem: I get so paranoid about things falling apart. I know it’s because things were falling apart for so long in my life that I’m just used to it. But shouldn’t I be over it by now? Shouldn’t I just surrender to the fact that things are out of my control?

One of my biggest struggles is to daily give my life to the Lord and rest in the fact that He is in control. It must be a daily thing. The thing about giving your life to Him daily and the whole idea of a living sacrifice is that, when you’re alive, you can crawl off the alter at any time and choose to cease giving up your life. I think a person can die for just about anything, but it’s living for something that is the hardest. It takes denying yourself, giving up what you want, giving up control. Not pitching a fit, but resting and trusting.

I have always been extremely academic. Not perfect, of course, but very involved. Since I have been home, I have come across all my old trophies, certificates, ribbons, student-of-the-month badges, and all the pictures revolving around such events. There are tons of things. I was really more into achievements that I thought. In actuality, I didn’t really think of it much. It all just came very naturally to me, like it was the obvious choice that I would aim to excel in this area.

Now, I’m starting to think that one of the reasons why I have been this way is because my studies were something I could control. Something I knew how to thrive with when everything else was so out of control for all those years. My family was in a constant state of falling apart and I was never sure how I was able to deal with it. Seriously. There were so many negative things I could have reverted to in efforts to deal with things. But now that it’s over, I think I’m starting to realize….that school was a drug for me. And now that source of control is gone.

I have no control anymore and I’m seeing the areas that are overwhelming to me now because of just how much I know I cannot control them. I cannot control the jobs I may or may not get. I cannot control the fact that my best friends are moving overseas for a year or more. I cannot control the fact that I don’t have my own place right now. I cannot control the cemented memories of the past. I cannot control the uncertainties of future relationships. And I cannot control change.

Change is so hard for me. Uncertainty is even worse.

I’m finding now that I’m just really appreciating the fact that God never changes. He is my constant and He promises that He holds my future. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘Plans for good and not for evil. Plans to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11) Lord, please take away my fear of uncertainty and help me to rest in the fact that You are vastly more able and trustworthy to control things than I am.

Body and Soul

The gifted writer C.S. Lewis once said, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”

I think about how my soul is invisible. My soul is the core of my being and it is eternal. Only my body is visible, but it is temporal. I have a veil over my eyes so that I can only see temporal things. I cannot see anything eternal. “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” - 2 Corinthians 4:17-18

I wonder about the beings that are part of the eternal realm and how they go about around us while our eyes are veiled, incapable of seeing their level of existence. I’m sure that if I were able to catch a glimpse of that realm I would be overwhelmed and speechless. I would freak out.

But I long for the day when I will see eternal things because then I will see my God. I will have new eyes so that I can see His face. He will take all the guilt and shame of this life. I hope my song will please Him more without the influence of sin coloring the sound that He has placed in me. No more distractions from His face. No more searching for empty things. No more separation from the ones who have left my side for His because we will all be together at His side.

We grow so accustomed to our skin that we almost do not believe that this life will really come to an end. Sometimes I feel like the life after the one here is a fairy tale, a story I have been told but will never truly see. I cannot imagine what it’s like, but I want to be there with my Jesus. I once imagined Him with glowing skin and unfathomable black eyes filled with raging red fire. Yet somehow they were still filled with love.

I know we must all wait for that day. We must complete the purpose He has created us for here in this place. We must endure “the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.” We must be. We must see Him in the beauty of His creation. We must continue on in our temporal realm and wait, ready but patiently, for the day when we will see eternal things.

Finding Your Gifts

So I am going to start looking for a job this week. I feel more motivated now than I did before. I think a big reason I’ve been putting off looking for a job is because I’m still pretty concerned with next year. I had come to a decision by the time graduation came around: go home for a year for a break, spend time with friends and family, and then go teach English in China for a year.

By the time I had gotten into college, I had figured out that teaching is not my gift. I may not have had formal experience teaching in a classroom setting, but I had lots of opportunities to teach when I was in high school. For example, when I was a leader in Bible Club during senior year of high school, I came up with some lessons that I was really passionate about and excited to share. But when it came time to actually deliver it, I realized how much I lack that connection and the ability to bring about interaction or real interest. I would love to be good at it, but through that and other experiences, I have come to find that I lack the ability to facilitate critical thinking. Teaching for real terrifies me because, to me, it’s like having to come up with a speech every day. I can do a speech if I prepare and work myself up to it, but every day? I would definitely prefer to write.

So I was able to go to China once and I loved it. I wanted to go back and I think I would still like to for a while someday. I figured that teaching would be the way to get me there and if I was in a place I wanted to be then maybe I could get used to teaching. Maybe if I tried it in the formal setting I would be surprised. But I’ve still been very hesitant despite my efforts to like the idea of teaching and the realization was refreshed for me in Puerto Rico. I was in a situation where I was doing Devo time with a girl and I was trying really hard, but I just lacked that ability to encourage much conversation. When I had a friend help me I saw that she totally had the gift for it. She said things to the girl that I never would have thought to ask and the girl really came out of her shell and lit up. Darn. I really wish I could do that. I think I can if I’m just casually talking to a person about themselves or sharing from my own life, but not when I’m under the pressure of trying to officially teach…on purpose.

I’ve been told by many, “Well, teaching is just the way of getting you over there. There are lots of other things you can be doing while you’re there. Just do it.” But the way I see it is….being a teacher is like being a musician. A musician can enjoy the rewards of the that lifestyle, but they can only experience it if they are good with the basic talent of music in the first place, which earns them the fruit of that lifestyle. They need to actually be good at music (real musicians actually do their own music and do it well), putting in the hard hours of work writing and producing it, studio time recording it, and the business issues the come along with it. I think a person really needs to be good at something to experience the fruit of the work. Same with being a teacher. I am not going to be effective if I am not good at it. If I go there to teach but I’m not good at it then what the heck am I doing? Overall, I'm not feeling right about it and I am leaning more towards doing something else.

God has gifted us all in different ways, so why should we waste our time running after something He has not purposed us to do? We will only be fulfilled in pursuing the desires He has given us, not to be mistaken with pursuing our own selfish desires. If I ask Him to give me the right desires, then I’m going to love and pursue what He wants. I can’t fit a square peg into a round hole and even if I fiddled with the square and made it small enough to fit into the hole, it would still not be the right shape. I’m thinking I need to stop trying to make myself be good at the job of teaching when I’ve had plenty of opportunities to know that it’s not for me to pursue. I believe that a person finds out what their gifts are by trying things out and finding what works and what does not.

If I can, I like to teach through personal conversation and writing. More than teach really, I guess I just like to be there for people and express things that I have learned so that maybe I can bless someone else in the same ways that I have been blessed by others. I know how much it means to have someone there for you, to have a mentor, to read words that someone wrote that just impact you to the core of your being. Words that change you. I just love words and I want to reach people with them.

Nostalgia Overload

Nothing bad is happening but, for some reason, things feel really hard right now. I think I’ve been holding everything in life at arms length lately because I’m not ready for life to start happening again. I’m afraid of what will start happening once I open up to it again and that it will get out of control, that things will start happening that I don’t want to happen, that I’m not ready for. Realizations that will shock me about life after school that I did not expect and will not like.

One thing I think I’m missing about school is being comfortable living like a grown-up. I mean, I took care of myself completely on a day to day basis and now I feel like I have nothing to take care of myself for. I feel like I am mostly being taken care of now. In school, I knew how things worked. I got up in the morning and went through my list of things to do as best as I could. I went to class, I did my homework, I took care of business in the right offices, talked to my professors when I needed to, went to the store, worked, carved out some leisure time so I could be refreshed and think again. I got all my meals when I could get around to it and, rather than planning my twenty-four hours of every day around getting up in the morning and going to bed at night to get the necessary rest, I planned sleep around my schedule and, usually, only when I could afford time to pencil it in.

I knew how to operate in my world then. But what is my world now? I’m still trying to figure out what my world is exactly. What are the main components? I know one will eventually be a job, but I’m not even sure what that will be, which idea I should pursue. I know logically I should just apply for everything I can think of, but I want to find a field I like. I’m afraid of not finding anything, that my degree will not make a difference in this competitive world of work. But it is very possible the opposite might happen. I could be faced with choosing between a few things.

I think this sounds really shallow. Here I am complaining about identity and what my life is going to look like when I know there are so many worse circumstances that other people live in and wish they could escape. I should be thankful for having a roof over my head and for even having options. And I am, but I just don’t know how to operate this way when I lived in a mentally intense environment for so long. Really, I’ve been in school since I was five. I always had that path to follow. Now, for the first time, it’s not there. It’s all fair game. And I know the answer is not to keep going to school simply because it is all I have known.

Not to mention that all this time to think of other things is forcing me to think about things I haven’t wanted to deal with, random things that really are not even issues anymore but just come to my memory more often and cause for me to reexamine things in a different light, simply by being home.

Like my grandpa’s death a couple years ago. I haven’t felt like he’s really been gone because I’ve been away at school. I felt like he was just back at home where I didn’t get to talk to him. I was away from the place where I was used to his presence. Being home makes me feel like he's gone because I see the places we used to go, talk to the people that he knew and pass by things that will bring back a certain memory of him. And things like that are everywhere in the least likely places.

The same thing is happening with other countless things. Hurtful things, sad things, happy things. I’m nostalgic while I am both sad and afraid. I’m being overloaded with memories of the past while thinking about and figuring out my future. Of course, I know I don't have to figure everything out on my own. I know God has my life all planned out. I really just need to clear my head somehow.