Just Stop Already

Whether you're twelve or twenty-four, if you're a single girl (and, especially, if your friends aren't) there's a cornucopia of advice, cliches, and comforts that people will sling at you. As you get older, they get more numerous. And more obnoxious. So, here's a few things you should just stop saying to those single girls in your life.

1. "Have you tried..." Have you tried online dating? Have you tried joining a club? Have you tried, just, talking to people at the grocery store? Have you considered joining a single's group? Honestly, unless you're going to follow that up with something really off the wall (like: "Have you considered cryogenically freezing yourself and thawing out in a couple of decades to see if you've finally come into style?") we've probably already heard your advice. From someone else, a magazine, stupid romantic comedies, or our own obnoxious internal monologues. Not only that, but we've probably heard the contrary advice as well. Have you tried wearing more makeup? Less makeup? Different makeup?
2. "You just need to put yourself out there." Oh, the proverbial "there." That shelf where you just need to be put in order to find unending love and happiness. The problem is, unless we're Shirley Temple's grumpy grandfather in Heidi, we probably are out there. Assuming "out there" is that world where we live, work, go to class, get coffee, shop, go to shows, play laser tag, walk our dogs, take dance, or do whatever it is that we do. Yes, sure, there are varying degrees to which people interact with the world around them. But, even your shyest introvert is going to be engaged to some degree. 
3. "It'll happen eventually." What's obnoxious about this little piece of placation is... you don't know that that's true. Look, I get it. You're coming from this totally genuine and kind hearted place. You probably really, really think that this person will eventually fall in love. You probably think that because you probably think that this person is swell and deserving of love and joy and what not. But, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes really great people never fall in love. Sometimes it just isn't in the cards or the plan or the whatever. What you mean is: it probably will happen eventually. But, and this is important, if it doesn't that person should get to know that that's okay, too. 
4. "Love will find you as soon as you stop looking for it!" This bit of advice is usually couched in a personal story. Somebody who had been searching for love to no avail. They were somewhere between stressed and depressed. Then, they said to themselves, "You know what? Enough is enough. I'm okay." And then BOOM! the very next day they met a handsome man at a pretzel stand, fell madly in love, got married, and that was all she wrote. I take a whole slew of issues with this bit of advice. First? It's a catch 22. If I stop looking for love in hopes that I will find it by ceasing to look for it, doesn't that, kind of inherently, mean that I'm still actually looking for it? Second: it's contrary to the advice that I'll inevitably get a week later which will be some form of "put yourself out there." Likewise, it's contrary to the cultural narrative which says: work for what you want. And, most importantly, the personal anecdotes you used as evidence really don't have anything to do with my life. They're entirely, and exclusively, related to the individuals' lives who are in the personal anecdote. 
5. Speaking of: "I had a ____________ who was _____ years old before they fell in love, but now they've been married for ______ years and they're super happy!" Of all things that make me cringe, this story might top my list. It's usually the anecdote that accompanies #4. The message is supposed to be a comfort: even if it takes a long ass time, sometime, you'll eventually fall in love. But, just because you're second cousin, Virginia, fell in love at 47, doesn't mean that I will. Furthermore: how is that a comfort? "You might be lonely for another two decades. But, like, don't give up or anything." And, most importantly, while I'm totally happy for your best friend, your great aunt, that girl you went to high school with, and the secretary at your work: your story isn't actually relevant to my life. 
6. "I think guys are just intimidated by you." I'm sorry, who am I? Sidney Bristow? Did I just miss the part where I learned another six languages and started roundhouse kicking people in the chin? Who in their right mind would be intimidated by me? I have literally cried during Parks and Rec, I have to psych myself up before making phone calls, I like woodland creature prints, and for many of my formative years my closest friend was a guinea pig. I've met more intimidating lamp shades. The "you're intimidating" bit usually comes from a friend and what it really means is: "You're a really cool person and I have no clue why you're still single." But, unfortunately, it reads a lot like: "You're a megabitch. So, despite the fact that you're smart and funny and can bake a killer pie, you'll probably be alone forever." 
7. "You're so lucky..." You're so lucky to have your free time to yourself. You're so lucky to not be dating the jerk that just mistreated me. You're so lucky to be able to play the field. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So, true: there's almost always an upside to a given situation. And sometimes, when people aren't living out the American Dream, it's our instinct to point out the benefits to their current situation. It totally has merit, too. At least... when it's approached... well. But, when it's approached like: "As someone who has the thing that you don't have, let me just say, you don't really want the thing that you think that you want..." it's a little less helpful and a little more patronizing. So, in addition to "you're so lucky," some of the other obnoxious things you might be saying to the single women in your life include: "Just be glad" and "You don't have a boyfriend? Well, you don't want one." 
8. "Well, guys like..." This is followed up with one of two things: the shudder-inducingly cliched "self acceptance" speech, or the stupid and inane "change yourself" advice. Sometimes, there's option "C": the border-line insane hodgepodge of the two. The first one starts like, "Guys like confidence." It's usually packed full of helpful cliches like, "Just be yourself!" and kind of makes you want to tear out your hair one strand at a time. The core of the speech is the thing that's true: the right person will like you for you. But that's the thing that we all already know, which makes it a little unnecessary to actually vocalize to somebody. The latter can include... well, basically anything. "Guys like blonde hair." "Guys like soccer players." "Guys like pianists." "Guys like girls from Abercrombie and Fitch." Or "Guys think it's fly when girls stop by for the summer. (for the summer.)" The fun thing about this list is that it's totally true. But also totally false. Because what "guys like" really just boils down whatever preferences a given guy has. 

All right, look. You're a fantastic person with a nice golden heart, so you probably don't intend to push the single women in your life to the proverbial brink. The next time you speak to your niece or college roommate or sister-in-law or granddaughter, you're probably going to get the urge to comfort them about their singledom all over again. And that's totally sweet of you. But... all we ask, is that you think before you do. Some girls, are perfectly happy being single and your attempts at comforting them risk making them feel awkward or like there's something wrong with their life. There are other girls who want to be in relationships, who feel lonely or embarrassed or whatever else about being single, and there's a chance that your advice just makes them feel worse about it. The rest of us bounce between the two: happy and content to lonely to embarrassed to whatever else to happy and content all over again. (We don't really want the advice, either.) 

And the thing about whatever it is that you want to say: at the core, it's probably good, honest, and true. But the way that you present it is the problem. So, you want to tell all the single ladies out there that everything will turn out all right? Repeat after me: "I think you're awesome. So, if you want a relationship, I imagine you'll find one. But if you don't: that's okay, too. You're awesome either way." 

Say "awesome" a lot. It's one of those words that exists at the crux of amusing and disarming. That's not even advice on how to advise people on perpetual singledom. It's just regular life advice. Other good words to use: rad, groovy, super cool, supa kewl, mad-rad-bad, awesomesauce, and "like totally awesome." 

The Fly Carcass in my Water Glass

I see him there, bobbing around with the ice cubes, as cool liquid pours in between my lips. He's so small, it takes a moment to process what it is. A clump of dust. The torn off corner of a magazine page. A fleck of leaf. But there he is: wings, abdomen, little limbs. Floating. Falling apart.

I wonder how long he's been there. I've refilled this water glass several times throughout the past few days, never washing it, just rationalizing, "Only water and my lips." And, apparently, a tiny insect carcass. It would make death so indecent. Invisible walls, invisible liquid. Trapped on all sides as water filled his tiny insect lungs. Then, more water poured over his limp and soaking body and then sipped up from around him, and, later, doused once again.

Maybe, though, he's a recent development. Perhaps his lifeless corpse had fallen from the faucet the last time the glass was filled. Or maybe he dove in and drowned somewhere in the six steps from the kitchen sink to my bedroom. There's a selfish comfort to that thought: perhaps I haven't been drink dead-gnat infused water for the past three days.

But there's no comfort where he's concerned. Even if his death hadn't been ignored and neglected for that long, his body would be disposed of the same way: washed down a drain. No proper acknowledgement of his existence. No fire or burial or chance to let his energy be absorbed by an amphibian foe.

Even this obituary of sorts is an acknowledgment of death and discovery; not of life or accomplishment. And isn't that just the way? Think of the hundreds of thousands and tens of millions of people who once were faces and names and favorite colors and first kisses and weird party tricks and whispers and laughs but now live only as numbers in textbooks or sad statistics in the news paper.

Maybe it's the liberal beat of my bleeding heart but I can't help but mourn for this little monster, submerged and suffocated. Maybe it's the familiarity I feel, remembering the times that I've seen the world where I feel valued and supported turn hostile, indifferent, and duplicitous. Surely, this has happened to us all. Safe, secure, and in the midst of the pleasure that is flight our air becomes water, our wings immersed and unusable, our lungs slowly filling.

I don't say any words as I wash the fly, the water, and the melting ice down the drain in the kitchen. He probably deserved more. This creature.

Created, after all.

The Wishing Well

I am almost remarkably bad at wanting things.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I want things. But, like, general concepts of things. I want a career. I want a career where I can create, make people laugh, help people, make empowered decisions, put things together, and organize things. (That sounds weird, I know, but I think it's really, really fun to organize stuff.) I want a relationship. I want a relationship with a guy who is kind and funny and smart and mostly level headed. I want a house. I want a house with a porch and hardwood floors and a bay window. I want a pet rabbit. Or maybe a guinea pig. Or a small dog. Something like that.

So, see, I'm good at liking dreams of things and outlines. I'm good at thinking up characteristics and sketchy blueprints in my mind. I'm good at staring off into space, wistfully, crashing back to reality, and sighing, "Someday."

But when it gets to be concrete, when there are specifics involved, I get... knocked off kilter.

I once wanted a dog. A specific dog. I had jokingly harassed my parents about getting this dog for years. He was old, a cairn terrier, and perpetually happy. His name was "Yoshi" and he was missing some (or maybe all?) of his teeth so his tongue hung limp out of his mouth. I knew, when I lived with them, that my parents wouldn't let me get a pet of any kind. So for years I wanted this dog, but I wanted him in a light and noncommittal way, with just a pinch of insincerity.

This is Yoshi, by the way. As you can see: he is very cute. You can't see his tongue in this picture but I think that's just because of the angle. 

A few months ago, I had the realization that I didn't live with my parents any more and that meant that I really could get Yoshi. And then? I really wanted him. It was my most frequently recurring thought. I scoured the Furry Kids Refuge page but couldn't find him anywhere. Not as an adoptable dog, not as an adopted dog, and not on the memorial page. I started searching other local rescues, but couldn't find him anywhere. I felt sick and sad almost constantly, until my dad, who is somehow always in the loop when it comes to Furry Kids Refuge, told me that Yoshi had been adopted. 

I imagined him trotting around in a backyard somewhere, getting showered with affection, and I consented that his life was probably better with whoever his new owners are than it would have been living with a perpetually busy 24 year old on the second story in an apartment building. 

Sometimes disappointment is the only relief from desire. 

In my last blogpost, I talked about praying that God would change the desires of my heart to align with his plans for my life. I think this is a solid quest because God's plans are guaranteed to come to fruition, and I would like to be happy and excited when they do. This prayer has always referred to the more general desires of my heart because, as previously mentioned, I'm pretty bad at wanting specific things. 

Lately, though, concrete desires have been at play and so the nature of my prayers have changed. I still ask for my wants and God's plans to align, but, there's a lot more of "I think I'm going insane" thrown in there. A sense of urgency I'd never included before. "Lord, I want this one, this time, and I think I might be going crazy, so if it's not going to happen, or even if it's not going to happen soon, could replace that desire with something else like now please please please??" 

My problem with wanting specific things is that my life feels so askew when I do. My mind keeps wandering back to the same places. I can feel my heart and stomach tying themselves into anxious knots. I'll start to pull out my hair and rip off my nails. It's like I'm drunk on a poorly mixed cocktail of hope, disappointment, nerves, and longing. 

Veruca Salt'n It

I believe that as human people we owe it to God and the world and all other human people to always strive to be better human people than the human people that we have been up until this point. (I know, I said "human people" too many times in that sentence, but I just so thoroughly enjoyed it that I don't mind making this particular linguistic faux pas.) 

So, as someone who believes we should always strive to be better people, I try to live out that belief. By which I mean, even though I'm pretty spectacular already (and humble, too), I have a laundry list of areas that I want to improve. Like, I want to be more patient. I want to be more compassionate and understanding across the board. I want to be friendlier, particularly in situations where I'm a little uncomfortable. You get the drift. Mostly I just want to be a nicer person. 

The problem with striving to be a nicer person is two fold. First, I, at least in part, believe that I am becoming a better person. And second, I become hyperaware when a situation proves that's not the case. 

Oh, fine, I'll just tell you what happened instead of just dancing around the point. 

AS PER USUAL, I was talking to God about boys. I talk to God about boys so often that he's probably starting to regret ever creating them in the first place. Just kidding. Kind of. 

Anyway, I like to talk to God about boys more than I like to talk to anybody else about boys because unlike all of the people in the world, God is not disillusioned about anything. In this instance, he's not disillusioned about me. So, unlike you, dear reader, God did not believe me when I called myself "pretty spectacular" earlier. He was just like, "I mean, yeah you're cute and funny, but you think it's fun to lie and you own too many cardigans and you're super quick to anger. Didn't I tell you not to be quick to anger? You never listen. Sheesh." 

My point is, whenever I talk to my friends or family about my perpetual singledom, they're like, "You'll find someone EVENTUALLY" and the thing is they do 100% believe that. Because they like me. And that's why I don't like talking to them about boys.

Also, side note shout out to my friend Laurie who is the only person who has ever said to me, "Isn't it kind of a bummer to know that you'll eventually probably get married?" I liked this particular conversation because none of us know how a person's life will turn out, but right now there's a possibility where I don't ever eventually get married and then just Laurie and I are happy. Lau because she's apparently bummed out when people get hitched, me because I was right and everyone else was wrong (haha, suckers!), but then nobody else because they were hoping this shit would turn out all right for me (haha again suckers!). 

So, anyway, the way I see it is this: there are some people who totally want to find someone, but then they never do, and that's a major bummer. And a lot of those people are really likable people--funny and pretty and intelligent and cool. So, just the fact that people like me isn't enough to guarantee that major bummer won't be my reality. 

See what I'm saying? No, you probably don't, because you're probably somebody who already knows and loves me and is tsking at the computer screen all amped up to tell me about their third cousin who never thought they'd fall in love but then did when they were like 37 or 62 or whatever and now they're the HAPPIEST PERSON OF ALL TIME. But shut up because that story is 110% of the reason I prefer talking about boys with God. God never tells me annoying stories about third cousins. 

Anyway, for the past year or so, whenever I talk about boys with God it's been like this: "I don't know what's going to happen, but I know you know what's going to happen, so just prepare my heart for whatever that is, and, ultimately, just make me want whatever it is you have in store for me anyway." I also have basically the same conversation with God when it comes to things like work or school or whatever else has me panicked about my future. Which makes me feel like I never had to admit to talking to God about boys in the first place, I could have just set this whole thing up to seem like I was talking to God about something more sensible, like, careers or whatever. 

But, alas, I've already typed so much of this. And we're all about honesty here, right? Right. 

The point is: God's ultimately going to get his way, right? So I just want to be happy and excited for whatever that is. So, what I want is to want whatever it is that God wants. OR SO I SAY. 

I had the terrible realization recently that... I think I've been lying to God. And myself. But I'm pretty cool with being lied to by myself. But I am absolutely not cool with having lied to God. 

I believe what I said before. Ultimately God is going to get his way, and I want to be happy and excited for it. So what's the lie? The part where I want to want whatever it is that God wants. See, what I really want is to want exactly what I want but for what I want to also be what God wants so that I can have what I want. 

 You followed that, right?

This is me, apparently:

Ultimately, I'm glad that I realized where I had been coming from. Because, I think the initial prayer was a solid one. The words, I mean, I just needed to... get my heart there, too. 

I also think I need to spend a little bit more time actively considering and trying to listen and find what God actually wants from me, rather than spending all of my mental energy on what it is that I want for me and then occassionally glancing up towards the heavens and saying, "Hey, if you have something else in mind just, you know, make me want that instead." 

Yeah. So. That's the end of this blogpost. 

Fin?

The End.

Come on, this is seriously it.

I literally don't have anything else to say.

WHY ARE YOU STILL READING THIS?

Finished. Faneto. El fin! 

This is it. Bye??

SERIOUSLY?

Okay b--

On Friendship

One of my earliest memories goes like this:

There are, at most, six of us. We're probably all, approximately, four years old. They're, probably, all kids from the church. We're sitting in a circle, in my parents' basement, cutting up those little, paper valentines. There's a girl sitting next to me. I look at her and think, "Why is she here? I bet her mom made her come. She doesn't even like me." I went to the same school as this girl from kindergarten through graduation. Since graduating, my mother has mentioned her to me a time or two. And that entire time, my opinion of her has been colored by this memory. To me, she was and is and will always be, this girl who doesn't really like me.

The thing about memory is... it's super fallible. We have limited understanding of events from the get-go. Then, as we process them, we change details and blend stories. Red sweaters become blue ones. Your aunt becomes your best friend's mom. 2004 becomes 2008. We forget things that don't uphold our pre-existing concepts. We morph events to uphold our worldview. We have biases towards the negative. What I'm saying is: maybe we weren't at my house. Maybe we weren't cutting up valentines. Maybe I didn't even suspect that this girl secretly disliked me. Hey, maybe she wasn't even there. But I often wonder if my friends really, actually want me around and, when I do, I wonder if I've been carrying around this fear for, well, ever.

The whole reason I mention the fallible memory thing, I guess, is because... I've decided to kind of skip over elementary school, middle school, and high school. During that time, I was part of a friend group, and I didn't necessarily doubt that they liked me so much as... I felt like the person who was liked least. You know what I mean? Like... the one who was almost forgettable or unimportant. Like... a thread you could totally pull out of your sweater without unraveling the whole thing.

But, to my friends' credit, at the time I was dealing with adolescent depression so I was kind of twine ball of tears, self-pity, and frustration.

Anyway, let's just skip forward to college, okay?

The cool thing about college is: you're suddenly surrounded by totally new people, almost all of whom are in exactly the same stage of life as you. Nobody knows what's happening, everybody is hopeful and idealistic and force fed a steady diet of interesting information. (Seriously! College taught me that "dysnomia" refers to that moment when a word is on the tip of your tongue but you can't quite recall it, that in the original version of Little Red Riding Hood the wolf feeds the grandmother TO Little Red, and that, one time, a pair of sisters convinced a hoard of people that they could speak to the dead by cracking their foot joints!) So, even though college can be a terrifying and nerve-wracking experience, you just have to show up at the "tie-dye on the quad" event and after .7 seconds you'll find yourself with a whole hoard of new friends.

Let me take a beat to say: some of the best people I know are college friends. There are people that I befriended during college that I fully expect to maintain friendships with throughout the rest of my life. People who are kind, funny, crazy smart, intelligent, interesting, and, (I know I said it before but it's so important I'm going to say it twice) kind.

But I also experienced a cornucopia of the unpleasant. From the generic to the infinitely frustrating.

My freshman year, I befriended a guy. If I'd been able to watch my life as a made-for-tv Hallmark movie, I'd probably groan every time this guy came on screen and then complain to my character and the television set, "How can you be so dummmmmb?" But I wasn't the audience, I was the participant, so I was really, really forgiving of faults. He was loud, disrespectful, and selfish. He would take things that I told him in confidence and reveal them in public settings to embarrass me or force me to pay attention to him. He was controlling, but childish, like an 8 year old trying to force his way, so he somehow seemed harmless.

Like most terrible relationships (of any sort, like I said, this one was a friendship) things eventually imploded. And in, like, a major way. So one night I found myself standing in a pile of broken glass, pointing at different shards, and saying, "Manipulative! Deceptive. Controlling?" (This is metaphorical. There wasn't any broken glass. Though I did, at one point, chuck a lampshade across the room. To my credit I was 19 and everything sucked. It's a pretty good story, so, feel free to ask me about it sometime.) Throughout the spring semester, we tried to be friends, but that was, to be frank, a shitstorm.* He continued to try and manipulate and control me, he was continuously disrespectful and obnoxious, and I no longer had any tolerance for it.

The next year, I retreated a little bit. Or maybe a lot. I remember I kicked the semester off with a bout of about three weeks of depression. I would go to class. Work. Wherever I needed to be. Then I'd go to my room, lay in my bed, and cry. I was a delight. (Shout out to my Australian best friend who put up with me that whole time and would try to cheer me up despite the fact that I was, perpetually, a grump-toad.) By my junior year, I had bounced back a bit. I was living with three friends, I was super active on campus, and I felt like I was getting a genuine college experience.

Oh, man. It's like, I want to be honest about this experience, but... I also feel like I'm stepping on old egg shells. Ahhh. Okay. Regroup.

Okay. So. The most we can hope for, is to build a life where we are mostly happy most of the time. You know what I mean? Well, during this time, I told myself that I was mostly happy most of the time. But in reality, I was still... mostly sad. I just would kind of distract myself from it. I had a friend who I would, at times, try to confide in, but her responses often made me feel like what I was saying and feeling was invalid or unimportant. The frustrating this was that this was one of my closest friends, and she was often presenting herself as, well, the FRIENDS theme song. Slowly, I realized that a lot of how this person treated me made me feel... lesser. And I honestly, honestly-honestly, think that the root of the problem here was personalities. See? She was the sort of person who made jokes at the expense of her friends, and I was the sort of person who has a very low threshold for being taunted. (Except for being made fun of by myself. That's like, my favorite thing. I know, it's complicated.) I was trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do, and she seemed to think she knew how everyone should be and what everyone should be doing. I felt bullied and manipulated all over again.

My senior year, I spent the entire year, perpetually, as a grump-toad. Most of my friendships were surface/classroom friendships. Like... "this is my Linguistics/Semiotics Friend" and "this is my Mother Russia friend." (Actually, I didn't have any friends in Mother Russia. It was way too fascinating of a class for befriending people.) My close friends were, ironically, all kind of far away. The Australian went back to Australia (which is fine but also tragic as this is the only person I've ever felt comfortable calling when I get sad and lonely and cry-y) and my best friend since childhood was at school across the state.

Post-college, I was still pretty reclusive. But then (this is the part where the whole blog post gets happy and idealistic so... be excited)...

I went back to church.

I'd been really active in my church throughout high school, but, then kind of turned into a "Christmas and Easter" Christian throughout college. (Whoops.) The nerve-wracking thing about going back was... these were all going to be people that I simultaneously knew and didn't know. These were the "we kind of knew each other four years ago" and "remember when..." people. But, I sucked it up, and went back.

By myself (THANKS, MOM**).

But people sat by me. And talked to me. And before long, I joined a small group. It's comprised of married couples, and me. So, basically, I'm Joey after all the other friends got paired off. Only boys don't like me nearly as much as girls liked Joey. (FRIENDS references for days.) But what's strange isn't that I'm perpetually fifth-wheeling-it. It's that: there's a group (an entire group) of people that I'm not worried secretly don't want me around. (Actually, one time, I skipped small group to hang out with my friends from Maine and the entire small group bombarded my phone with messages, which is pretty cool, especially considering how few texts I normally get.)

I've always had some friends that I felt confident genuinely liked me. But, throughout most of my college career, I only got to see one of them regularly, and, throughout my senior year on, I didn't get to see any of them that often. But now I have friends who I see regularly, who never make me feel bad about myself or insecure, and have never made me feel like they wanted me to be anyone other than who I actually am. And I think that experience has helped to open me up a bit. Because now I feel like I have friends everywhere. Friends I work with, friends I only get to see every now and then, friends that I've been able to reconnect with, and friends I've definitely just swiped from my brother's friend stash.

I don't know. Part of it might just be growing up. When you're younger, your friend group is usually dictated by age and location. But when you get older, your friend group can easily span from 18 to 73. Maybe part of it has to do with finding friends at work or in coffee shops or at church--places where friendships are built around shared values and interests, rather than in shared complaints about the workload of Chemistry I. Or maybe it's because I'm more comfortable with myself, and the people I'm friends with are more comfortable with themselves, too.

I guess I don't really know.

But the point is, this year? This year I'm hoping for even more friendships that are deep and lasting, friendships that are genuine, kind, supportive, and fun.

*Mandatory apology for the church folk: sorry for the language!
**Just kidding, my mom totally comes to church with me. She just couldn't that day.

This Past Year

I've wanted to write this blog post for awhile now but I haven't because, well, it's super easy to procrastinate at things. But I think about it a lot, particularly when I'm driving home after small group on Sunday nights. See, I spend almost every Sunday evening with four people who are very, very important to me and my life, but are also people that a year ago I only passively knew. (That's crazy, right guys? You're like, "Nah, Katrina, we've been hanging out for forever!" But that's not the case. Nope, nope.) So every Sunday, when I'm driving home, there's this kind of warmth in my heart that manifests itself whenever you can really feel like you're part of something meaningful, and I get stunned by the fact that these people who mean so much to me now are people that I only kind of knew this time last year.

That was really sappy, and I'm sorry. I don't really like talking about my feelings and it kind of makes me uncomfortable that I have them in general but, alas, I do. You should know, because we're on this "feelings" tangent anyway, I don't really low-key like friends. Pretty much all of my friends I'm just walking around like, "THIS IS THE COOLEST PERSON EVER AND THE BEST PERSON I KNOW" and, yes, I'm talking about you. Probably. No, not you, that other one, over there, yes YOU!

Okay, cool, now that that's over with, let me assign some meaning to this mumbo-jumbo mush-gush ever-(friend)-loving ramble I've been on: a lot changes in just three-hundred-and-sixty-five-days.

That seems obvious, right? But I'll be honest: I have a hard time remembering that.

24 is supposed to be rough, right? That's why the show had so many explosions and frantic bald dudes. (I've never seen 24. It's about the age, right? No? Huh.) Well, I think 24 is supposed to be rough. Or at least I tell myself that when I get slightly crazed and exhausted. So, sometimes, when I'm going about my day, living life as a twenty-four year old, I get it in my head that things won't ever change. No, not like in the happy way eight year olds think summer, sprinklers, ice cream trucks, and being eight will last forever. In a more frightening way. In a "student debt, constant exhaustion, loneliness, and living off $2.00 boxes of pasta will last forever" kind of way.

There's a lot of stuff about my life right now that's not how I ever would have pictured it. Like, not even the part of me that was practical and knew that life is hard and work is reality and the economy crashed so now business only want to hire part time workers pictured my life like this. I mean: I work two part time jobs. And, despite the fact that I love both of them, I think whoever is trying to collect on my student loans would agree the situation isn't ideal. I still don't have a boyfriend, a pet rabbit, or enough money to visit Renee in Australia. I still haven't figured out how to figure out how to make any of my personal projects profitable. So when I'm running from one job to the other, eating $2.00 pasta mixed with whatever vegetable is featured in all my meals that week, and using my thrift-store shirt to try and rub a mysterious stain off of my thrift-store dress I think, "This is okay for now, but..." and then I imagine myself doing all the same things with the all same scenario as a thirty-six year old and I get a little bit panicked.

But then, every now and again, I can quiet the voice in my head that says "whatever is hard about right now will always be hard forever and things will never ever ever change" and at those times I can remind myself that things have already changed so much.

I feel like I need to take a breath for a second to assure you: life is actually super good right now. I don't want it to seem like I'm complaining or anything. I'm not trying to do that, so if it sounds like I am: I'm really sorry. I have two jobs. I have a solid support system formed by family, friends, and my church community. I'm armed with an education and a dry wit that won't quit. (Kind of maybe sometimes.) So, yes, sometimes things can be hard and discouraging, but that's life, and the things that are hard right now I can deal with because, right now, I'm young and still relatively full of energy. So I'm not complaining, okay? I just am taking a moment to reflect and remind myself (and you, reader, you, too) that life is always moving forward. Sometimes it can feel kind of stagnant. But it's not!

Okay, so, I'm going to rewind a bit and revisit this time last year.

Exactly one year and twenty-six days ago, I was unemployed. After graduating, I had a terrible, terrible time finding a job. Two things were working against me. First, I got kind of a late start on applications because right before graduation I was informed that I hadn't completed one of my course requirements, that I had genuinely, genuinely believed I had completed. (It's a long story filled with boring technicalities. I'll save it for another day. Just kidding I'm never going to tell you that story because it's exhausting.) So, I was in something like a dispute with my college as to whether or not my degree was complete for several weeks. Eventually, it got sorted out, I graduated, and there was something clear to tell future employers. The other thing working against me was: despite the fact that I knew the job market wasn't stellar, I was convinced that I could find this one particular type of job. (Salary, benefits, full time, office probably.) As time passed, I started looking outside of those criteria, but by then I had a chunk of time that I'd been "unemployed" which made me "unimpressive" to potential employers.

Exactly one year and twenty-five days ago, I started working, part-time/hourly, at an insurance office. A friend helped me get the job. I was relieved to be working even though it was just part-time and it was just hourly and it involved staring at applications on a computer screen for four straight hours.

Shortly after getting hired at the insurance office, I pulled out of my unemployment-induced depression which did several things. First, it mostly cleared up my skin. (Thank goodness and knock on wood.) Second, it made me a more pleasant person to be around. (Seriously, I'm just thinking back to what a brat I was one year ago and I'm actually shuddering. My poor friends and family!) And finally: it got me back to church.

Being back at church has made a huge impact on my life. Here are just a few ways that my life has changed since being back at church: I now have the aforementioned small group. They're some of the best friends I have. The first time I went to Amy and Ian's house, I chucked their teapot off their deck and broke it in half, and then they still let me come back a couple of times (in fact, they gave me free reign one weekend when they were out of town, just because I said I'd feed their dog). Jake is forever having to put up with me hanging out in their living room while Jen is forever having to put up with me talking to her for hours. (Seriously, I'm a little surprised they haven't hired a bouncer or something?) Not to mention, despite the fact that I'm not related to any of them, they all still hang out with me after that one time we played Nertz. (I honestly don't think my family would keep putting up with me post-Nertz if we weren't blood.) Since being back at church I also have weird responsibilities now. Care Team, Leadership Team, and once a month I write Miracle Word. Responsibilities-galore. Most importantly, I have a sense of belonging.

Eleven months ago, I started working my second part-time/hourly job. I became a page at a public library. After about two, maybe three, weeks I was sold: this was the best place I'd ever worked. I was surrounded by books. Books that I could take home at the end of the night without losing a chunk of my paycheck! I liked everyone I worked with. I liked the environment, I liked the bookshelves, I liked that sometimes the break room would be full of baked goods.

In May, my life really felt like it was progressing towards real-life, full-blown adulthood. I moved out of my parents' house and into an apartment with a friend from college. Along with that, I started owning weird things that a person can own. Like mixing bowls. Now I have mixing bowls! My own mixing bowls! Not my mom's, but mine! (Okay, yeah, so they were originally my mom's but now they're mine and that's my point.)

So, between October and May, things were steadily getting better, right? Jobs, Jobs, Clear Skin, Church, Apartment... Well, in June things slid back a notch. My car caught on fire. I don't know if there's a kind of "car fire" that your car can make it through, but if there is... well, this wasn't it. After one distressing evening of "OH NO EVERYTHING IS BROKEN AND I CANNOT FUNCTION ANY MORE" I bounced back. "This is just my new situation." Became my mantra. I figured out the bus system, after a few missed stops, and started kind of navigating my way around the city. (Side note: I did get threatened, but only once. I think. After that I started wearing headphones.)

In July, things got a little bit worse when my position got "dissolved" from the insurance office. (Side note: the "little bit worse" refers to my financial situation. The job had been progressively getting more stressful and I had been continuously feeling less appreciated. So, honestly, getting dissolved was probably the best thing for my soul, just not the best thing for my bank account.)

By August, though, I'd found new employment. I worked for about a minute at World Market before getting hired at a spice shop. At the spice shop, I have always felt encouraged, supported, and appreciated. The supervisors take genuine interest in the ideas of associates and my coworkers all double as friends.

I also got promoted at the library.

In September, my grandparents graciously gave me one of their cars. It's beautiful and adorable and every time I drive it I think about my grandparents, I feel loved and supported, and I feel humbled. They were so kind and generous, and I know that there wasn't anything I did, or could ever really do, to make me deserving of that.

And, now, we're back in October. In the past year, I have had four separate employers and five different positions. I have had two cars, and the opportunity to figure out the bus lines. I re-watched all of Gilmore Girls (once, though if you ask my brother, he'd say it was three or four times.) I went from "oh, d'you remember that that one girl..." at church to a member of the "will agree to help out" team. (Is that a team? No? Huh. I thought it was.) Former acquaintances have become official friends (as have coworkers, total strangers, and some of the baristas at my favorite coffee shop).

Okay, okay, okay, see, this is getting kind of long-winded. Which I guess isn't really necessary, right? The point is: life goes on. In the past couple of years, I have had some really stressful, trying, hurtful, and tumultuous times. But, when I just take a step back, it's easy to see that life is ever evolving. Have you ever heard that question: "What were you worried about one year ago today?" See, what I'm trying to say is this: things feel so big when you're going through them, they can feel like they'll last forever. But, they won't, see? Eventually, the seasons change. The storm ends. You get to the other side just by taking steps forward.

It'll be okay, I guess. That's what I'm trying to say.

My Instagram Freaks Me Out

Sometimes, when I look at my Instagram, I think this person isn't me. I mean, of course, she is me. Or at least, she has the same face as me, does the same things as me, eats the same food as me, has the same parents as me. It's just, she doesn't really seem like me. She seems more like the fun-house mirror reflection of me.

She's happier. She has more adventures--and the adventures she has she views as adventures and not as hassles. She's more observant. She finds something to laugh about everywhere she looks. Everything, to her, is interesting or beautiful or entertaining. She always has somebody to hang out with or something to create. She's always polished. Even when she's goofing off, she's at least posed enough to be somewhat poised.

She's all the best bits of me.

She's creative.

She's friendly.

She's adventurous. 

 She's funny.

She's close with her family.

 And the thing is, she's not not me. But she also isn't me. See, there's me, the real me, the one sitting makeupless in a darkroom, wearing a baggy t-shirt and a ridiculous flop of a braid, the one half-typing, half-playing Kim Kardashian Hollywood (which, by the way, is an image I would never let the internet see)... and then there's the Instagram version of me. I suppose all of my social media personas are diversions from my real identity... but Instagram (and I guess Facebook) are the furthest from the truth. On Twitter, I'll occassionally slip into mope-mode or honest frustrations. On Tumblr, I'll post my angst-ridden honest poetry. But on Instagram and Facebook, I think I subconsciously (or maybe sometimes consciously) tailor my posts to portray an image of myself that is a little more idealized.

I mean... an idealized version of 24-year-old-still-a-borderline-train-wreck-mess... but an idealized version nonetheless.

See, I, the real I, have been going through a hard time lately. A really hard time. A cried this morning during church hard time. (I did. We were singing this song which is essentially just Micah 6:8 "He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but do do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." And then I cried.) But do you know who hasn't been having a hard time lately? This girl:

She, rather than having a hard time, has been hanging out with her cat, trying fish for the first time in about a decade, and pretty much constantly drawing. She's been happy, whereas I've been struggling. And it's like... we do technically do all the same things. But she's absolved from the stress, the anxiety, the constant pressure of existence.

But I realized, too, that the version of myself I've created through instagram is just that, snippets of me. It's not really like I'm pretending to be someone else. It's just that I've cut away the bad bits and left the rest for my followers and facebook friends to see. I cropped away all the ugly, stressful, and difficult. I show just the pretty bits:

It's not that I think it's necessarily a bad thing. Maybe for a split second as I'm editing and presenting the version of myself I want you all to see, I genuinely embody that version of myself. The adventurous, creative, friendly, excited, interested version of myself. I also like to try and be some sort of entertainment source, and I think if I just embraced the bummer bug whenever it bit on my social media, I might just be spreading bad moods. 

But, I think what kind of freaked me out when I realized that this girl--the one on my Instagram--wasn't me was that at times like these, when I--the real I--am going through an incredibly difficult time, I--this other I--is the one who is connecting with my friends and family. Which means I--the real I--feel a little bit disconnected, like I'm slightly out of reach of support. And it's a predicament I've put myself in by fabricating this version of myself in the first place. 

I'm still going to do it, though. I like looking through my Instagram from time to time and feeling like I'm the girl in the pictures. The one who notices the light throughout the world and strives to make other people smile. I like her. I'd like to get to be her a little more often.