So Ambitious for a Juvenile

The other day, my professor asked: Why are you here? What do you want from your major? With two months left in my undergrad, I ask myself that question a lot. I hate when people look at me like I chose a major that will be useless in life. I hate when people think that the only things worth studying in college are those that so obviously mean that you'll have money. On the first day of my class this semester, my professor asked the same question: Why are you here?
Every person had a different path to be in that class (everyone in the world takes different paths). But a part of almost every person's story was along the lines of, "studying things with the goal of making money seemed pretty miserable." - now before I go any further, I need to make two points:

1. I like nice things. I intend on making money in life, I understand people who study things that they hate in order to give their future children a sweet life. I super respect people who enjoy studying those subjects that make a lot of money. We need  you in this world. And by goodness, everyone should just follow their passion.
2. I am not studying a dead-end subject. There are a fairly significant amount of jobs that I am qualified for that I could make a lot of money doing without a master's degree. So please stop thinking that I am destined for poverty.

But I want to answer the questions: Why are you here? What do you want from your major?

Honestly, I want to change things. I don't need to change the world, I just want to somehow make a difference. Which in reality, a lot of people want to do. This is the path that I've chosen to do so. I am where I am because I picked myself up each time I fell down, because I found something that I'm passionate about and I want to be happy with my life. As I apply for graduate schools, I find myself questioning everything. It's a scary life. I wonder if I am devoted enough. I wonder if this is what I really want...

And honestly, sometimes the answer is that I wish I was playing my trumpet twelve hours a day. Sometimes the answer is that I wish I was becoming a teacher. Sometimes I wish that I was going into clothing design. I wonder why I'm not applying to medical school and becoming the doctor my mom dreamed of. And some days, I wish that I could just sit at home and raise children with the husband that I don't have.

You can tell a lot about a girl by the contents of her shelf.

But then I remember. I love what I study. I love it with all my heart. It's not easy. It can be painstakingly frustrating to want to change everything and have no influence at all. It can be hard to love so many people and want to understand so many people but slip up and hate some and don't understand another culture. But for every little slip up, there are little victories. What I'm studying makes me a better person every day. I don't feel like I'm changing things yet. And though I love all of the small things I can do to make a living in this world, I know that I'm going to be much happier when I feel like I am inspiring change. I hope to reach that point somehow. Someday. A lot of times, I think this song was written for me.



I want so much. But I know that the only way I can get there is through the little victories. Even as I write this, the dreams I've dreamed for myself seem too big. It feels impossible. It feels like something I don't know if I really want.

But the thing about passion is that it doesn't matter how impossible life feels, it drives you forward. 

I wish I could explain to you what these words mean to me. But from the same talk this was given in, there was another quote that helps me remember what all of this is truly for:

this work is about love - not statistics.

Being Alive

I know I've been a bit dormant in my blog writing lately, but I've been a little busy. It is my last semester of school and I just can't even express to you all the crazy wonderfulness that is happening in my life.

BUT - it is time for my Independence Day post, if you are confused about what I mean then I suggest you check out these past posts if you have time:
Past and Present
It's Time to Begin
Honestly, I want to see you be Brave

I often say that I should rename this blog "Young, Alive, and Free." And I think that's what Independence Day celebrates. It's the celebration of being these three things and how I improve each year. Last year, I felt like I had made so much progress, but I am amazed by how much more I've grown.

I had a lot of growing opportunities this year.

I learned this year that I have strength beyond my own comprehension.

I have had to learned to look at myself and recognize the problems, but not let them paralyze me. This has allowed me to work on them.

I've had to learn how to pick myself up after falling flat on my face.

 I have learned to trust. I have learned it repeatedly. I have learned about hope.

I have learned that the support I have from my friends and family should not be taken for granted. 

I have learned that true happiness is being happy even when I'm sad.

I know who I am, where I'm going, and what I stand for. I know my purpose. I know that God has a plan for me. And I trust so fully in that plan. In these things. I feel happiness.

I am young, alive, and free.

I say all of these things knowing that I have not perfected anything. I have so much more growing to do so I can have something to celebrate next year. And that's exciting to me. I selfishly hope that I can inspire more people to have their own Independence Day. A day when they realize their own beauty, their own power. A day to recognize who you are, where you're going, and what you stand for - whatever that may be.

The lockscreen of my phone is a picture that says "YOU ARE ENOUGH." And I think that so often we focus on where we are lacking, that we forget that we have already done so much. And because of how much we've grown, we are capable of becoming so much more. And what we have within us is enough to become that. We just have to keep progressing.

So, Independence Day has come. And more than ever before. I feel young. I am alive. And I am incredibly free.

when it rains, it pours. and then it runs out.

"I don't want to become someone who can't live up to what they've already done"

I have yet to graduate from college. But it is going to happen soon. So I find myself preparing for the future.

There is so much I'm planning on doing with my life and so much I need to do in order to make that future possible. It's overwhelming. It's exciting. It's something different.

But then again, as I evaluate myself today - it is something different than what I could have ever imagined for my life. I never knew this is what I wanted. I never knew that this is the person I would become. 

For instance, when I came into college, I said I did not ever want to go to graduate school. I wanted to get a bachelor's degree that could support me without any sort of post graduate work. I did that. But I am choosing to apply to graduate schools because I have found the things I love and I want to do so much about them.

And that's what really matters to me. That is what should matter to everyone. To find a passion. And then do whatever you can in order to make the passion something you can do every day for the rest of your life.

I didn't always know my passion. Like I said, I thought I knew what I wanted. And there was honestly a point in my life where everything crashed and burned in front of me. But the beautiful part about things that burn down is that it allows for regrowth, rebirth. In my life, it meant a realignment of goals and desires. I recovered in the best way I could. And I'm now allowed to live a life better than I could dream of.

There are some things about that crashing phase of my life that I have come to terms with. There are so many things that feel resolved and so many things that I'm at peace with. In fact I wrote this blogpost to express my feelings of moving on. And I believe it. But I find myself wanting to make amends. I want to make a comeback. It's not so much that I haven't let go - it's that I hate being on bad terms with anyone or anything.

I like to think that it's a sign of being at peace with my life how it has turned out. Because I am. And in that way, I have comeback. I have comeback from the darkest, deepest failures of my life and I have made them into something beautiful, happiness.

So I don't need to make amends. I have already lived up to what I've already done. I have already passed that, I don't need to go back. It's so easy to want to go back, to change a specific failure into a new victory. Which is basically how I was feeling. But then I remember that the victory which is my happiness now - would have never happened if I hadn't have failed. Sometimes you have to lose a battle to win a war. Sometimes your comeback doesn't mean fixing what was wrong but moving past it.

And when you find happiness. You keep that. And don't question it. Take it, and run with it. And don't let it go, just let it grow.

p.s. This is a shoutout to the beautiful people in my life because I failed.

Nothing Comes Easy When Everyone's Rushing

There's a great movie I watched a lot as a child. In it, there is a character that is an immigrant to the United States and as he tries to give a pep talk to the main character he says very simply -

"Peoples is peoples, okay?"

In the movie this part is kind of funny because it's this man rambling on about something that doesn't really make sense and the line sounds so obvious and redundant. After some recent events though. I get it. I get what this character was trying to say. I get why they wrote it. It's because peoples is peoples.

People are not obstacles, people are not objects, people are not problems to be solved. People are not to be used. People are people. They are real. They have feelings, they can change, they can act for themselves. Just because someone has a problem doesn't make them one. We must separate the two. We can't define people because of what they've done or what they've been through.

I had a friend a few years ago. He left a huge impact on my life for how little I knew about him and for how little he knew about me. But that's actually why he had such a huge impact on my life. He didn't need to know about people's pasts to be their friends. He didn't have to know what you had done or where you had been. He met people, talked to them about their days. Talked to them about their beliefs. Talked to them about the person they were that day. And his friendship meant everything to me because everyday was a new day and I was able to be the person I was, I felt like I could be the person I wanted to be too.
He understood. He knows. That people are people.

I know that this is probably confusing and I'm pretty sure I'm not saying anything the way I want to. But I just think I need to remember to accept people for who they are. Even if I do know about their past - that's not who they are today.

Because peoples is peoples, okay?

The Heart Of Life

As most people in my life know - I worked at a lake three summers ago. It was the most beautiful, incredible, life-changing thing I've ever done. I talk more about those four months of my life than the other twenty-one and a half years I have lived.

It's not like it was easy and the most fun. Don't get me wrong. There were hard times. There were sad times. There were time when I wanted to pack up and go home. But I promise you, every single second I spent there was worth it. I became myself there. It is one of the places I feel most at home. 

I insist on going back to the lake every summer. And when I get there. I feel so natural. Life makes sense. I understand things better. I slow down. Three hours at the lake is equivalent to about three days in regular people time. I never want to leave. But every part of me knows that I need to. That the lake has done it's work and that I need to move on. But I can never and refuse to ever forget it.

 

Whenever I go, I take several photos. It was this time around that I realized something...this place. It never changes. I have so many pictures of the same two mountains just on different days weather wise. But I fear that I'll forget them. And every time I see them, I'm reminded of how majestic they are and I feel an intense need to save their beauty and have it with me wherever I go.

But I realized something else.

Every time I see this place, it means something different to me. It's not like it visually looks different. It's not that the mountains change. I change. 

When I left Redfish, I knew that my life would never be the same, but I didn't realize what was coming toward me. I didn't realize that I had so much more change ahead of me. But those changes would have been so much harder if I didn't know who I was. And I'm so glad that during my time at the lake, I found out who I am.

Because no matter how much changes in my life and how much I change. I know who I am. And I know that because of four beautiful months in a beautiful place.

 The previous three photos were taken in three different  years.

This is from my 19th Birthday. Never have I felt so loved by being thrown in a lake. Twice.

I feel like I will never be able to adequately express what this place means to me. Words are never enough for feelings. But I promise you. I feel things.

No matter where we go. We always find a way back home.

Still I Call it Magic

"It is better to be trusted than to be loved"

Recently, I went through an experience and I tried to classify it as heartbreak, but that was foolish of me. What really happened was that I felt like I had been betrayed. I felt like I trusted someone so much and it all fell apart. I had too much trust and now it just feels like a lie. It hurt so much more than any heartbreak and it's been harder to recover from than anything I could imagine.

I wish I could define trust. I wish I could understand it better. I wish I could say that trust is tangible and measurable. I think trust is so much more than honesty and truth. I think trust is your expectation of a person. It's how much and what you believe the person is capable of doing in your life.

It is when a person discontinues to meet these expectations that things fall apart. The person no longer becomes capable of all that you believed they were. And that's when trust fails us.
Trust is such a personal thing. It's choice that each of us has to make for each person we meet. It's something that we create, that we each define differently. It's a feeling.

I put too much trust in one person. It's not his fault that it hurt when it all fell apart. It's my fault, because I was the one who set those expectations. And that's the hard part. Knowing that I made it possible, and that I could do it again. Because it is the trust I had that hurt me so much, I'm scared out of my mind to trust again. But the pain is going away. The trust that I felt was broken before is being strengthened again simply because the love that I had is stronger than one person's mistakes. Than my mistakes.

And that's beautiful.

People can do much good when they feel trusted. People are able to see what they are capable of when we see it for them and show it. It's incredible. Trust is worthwhile, it can strengthen us. We can't stop trusting.

So I don't know if trust is better than love. I think they're interconnected. I think they build on each other. That's just what I think, but what I know is that it's all going to be okay.

"And if you were to ask me

after all we've been through -

Do I still believe in magic?

Yes I do.

of course I do"

Feel Again

I honestly have more on my plate than is comprehensible to me right now, so obviously, I'm writing. I just had a breakthrough you know, well maybe not a breakthrough...but a thought.

I have bragged in the past about my independence, my ability to be free and be myself and to be happy. And I don't take that back. But I do think that I have spent more than a fair amount of time in life waiting for a man. There. I said it. It's not that I need one, it's that I feel so awesome that it's almost like I deserve one.

I'm not delusional, I know that it takes time to find someone that's good for you and that there are plenty of lovely girls around me that have never had the opportunity to even date a boy. And that is unfortunate for them. And it's not unfortunate because they've never had the opportunity. It's unfortunate because literally OUR WHOLE LIVES have been filled with the church, our families, books, movies, television shows, our friends and advertising telling women that men are basically guaranteed in this life. How are women supposed to feel when that just doesn't magically happen in their lives?

I feel like I've wasted so much time planning a future that isn't actually guaranteed, who can actually guarantee that? I can't. Many have tried. But sometimes, I can't help but wonder why. Why love? And maybe I'm just upset or bitter or sad or frustrated with love right now, but that's where I'm at.

And then I realize. That I know why everyone is obsessed with it. Why the world raises us telling us that love is guaranteed. How love seems to work it's way into every part of our lives and why it can be frustrating and why people make it out to be so important.

It's because love is worth it.

And I sometimes almost resent love for being worth it. But then I remember that it's fantastic. It's powerful. And I'm not talking about friendship love either, I'm talking about straight-up romantic, unconditional love. It's wonderful. The way that it can hurt and help and break down walls and solve problems and make everything okay again. It's better than the movies. It hurts more than the movies let on. It does more good than the movies let on. I don't know. I know I should be feeling awful most of the time, but I can't. I can't feel bad because of what happened, I can only move on with hope. Because I know that it's possible. I know that I'm capable. And maybe I'll get to fall in love over and over again. Maybe I'll never feel this way again. But at least I know that I can. At least I know that I have. And that is beautiful.

So maybe it's misleading, and maybe it's hard. But I'm glad. I'm glad that we live in a world that believes so fully in love. Because love is worth believing in.

Be Here Now.

I'm taking a lot of credits this semester. I feel like I'm always busy and that I can't give enough of myself to all of the people and things in my life. I just want to be able to give more. And be more. But as I get myself worked up about being perfect, being a good friend and being someone worthwhile. The type of person that other people want to know and be with. I realize that I need to stop getting worked up and just be. And of all of the physical things I can give, aside from love (which I give unconditionally to many many people), one of the greatest things I can give is time. And whether I'm giving this time to my classes, my employers, my friends, or God, this time is valuable and I need to not be distracted. Which leads me to this simple phrase that was said in one of my classes and I have been saying to myself several times a day ever since:

Be where you are.

I have not perfected this art yet. I still let my mind wander and don't give my all to where I am all of the time. But I'm trying. And I love the idea of making the most of my time not by multi-tasking. But rather giving my devotion and self to where I am. To focus on the people who I am with because if I'm there, I made the choice to be there and I need to make people believe that I want to be there.

This applies to classes, work, hanging out with friends, and homework. Like I said, I'm not perfect. But I've noticed a difference. It makes me happier and I'm getting more out of what I'm doing and I still have time to accomplish everything I need to. And I don't freak out so much about being enough of a person. Sometimes it still feels like there aren't enough hours in the day. But less-so now. So 

Be where you are.

Make the most of your time.

There's more to life than trying to get everything done as fast as possible.

Enjoy what you do.

Love yourself and love your life.

I Love You Better Now

- and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy -

Thomas Merton was a monk and a writer. He was born in France and eventually moved to the United States. And months ago, I read this quote by him. "Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business, in fact, it is nobody's business, what we are asked to do is to love and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy." It's truly beautiful but what I've never really noticed is the end where it says that loving itself  makes us worthy of love.

I would like to say that I was recently thinking about love, but I mean, it's something I think about a lot and have been thinking about for a while. But at church today the question was posed

"How do you better love yourself?"

Loving oneself is a delicate balance between, self-confidence, self-esteem, vanity, and humility. But Thomas Merton says that when we love others, we ourselves become worthy of love. Every human being has loved. Romantically, platonically, completely, unconditionally, unrequitedly, perfectly, or imperfectly....humans inherently have a great capacity to love. [This is a long and beautiful subject that I'm not going to go into completely - but if you're interested, check THIS out] But really I believe Thomas Merton. That if we can love others, we can love ourselves. We are worth loving, we are all worthwhile. And if we have applied love in our lives to others, why shouldn't we be able to apply that love to ourselves?

In a book (movie) that I love, it says, "We accept the love we think we deserve." The moment I heard this, I tried to comprehend it. I often associate it with a quote from another movie it says that "Every woman has the exact love life she wants." and then later on in the story it says "But I can't imagine that this is what you want."

I know that might seem unrelated, but in my head it makes sense. It all comes together. No person on earth knows how to love perfectly. We all have things we have to learn about love. But I think we too often forget the importance of loving ourselves. If we love others, we can love ourselves (even if it seems hard sometimes, trust me, I KNOW). And if we love ourselves, we want more love. We want to be loved right.

We are worthy of love, most certainly from others, but just as importantly, from ourselves.

So Bring on the Thunder

I once was talking with my friend and she said

Lightning doesn't hit the same place twice in a row.

Now it doesn't matter if she was speaking metaphorically or what she might have been metaphorically speaking about. All that matters is that I've thought about it so much since she said it.

Growing up in Northern California, I'm not a stranger to thunder storms. But usually, when I think of lightning storms. Two very specific events come to mind. The first is the storm that was happening as I was at high school orientation for the first time. I didn't know at the time that it was going to be my last California thunderstorm. But I'm so glad that I took the time to appreciate it. The second storm I always think of is the first storm we had at Redfish. Each of these times make me think of the changes that went through after them. My move to Idaho, my intense growing experience that happened while I was as Redfish and the semester that followed it.

This friend of mine was trying to remain optimistic for me. And I appreciated it. But the metaphor was a lie. Lightning struck twice in a row and it was hard. Both times. And both times require extensive recovery. And you know what, that's okay.

The way I see it, lightning is always followed by thunder. Lightning signifies change. Once it does hit, good or bad, better or worse, things will change. So even though lightning did hit twice and yeah, it was not fun. Change is on it's way. Because if you want to dance in the rain, you're going to risk the sting of lightning. But then you'll experience the rolling beauty of thunder and the storm will rage on. And by all means, keep dancing. Keep experiencing life. Allow the lightning to come to you. Allow yourself to be hurt. To mend. Allow the progress to happen. Don't sit inside, wishing for the rain to stop. Wishing that you could walk into the sunshine without any pain.

I'm not sure if this makes much sense. I have a lot of emotions flowing through my body today. And I really like that. Because it makes me feel alive. It makes me feel like I can change. That good things are happening and better things will come.