To cure my doubting blood and drain me of the sins I love and take me from my disbelief. I know it should come easily, but it remains inside of me

It's funny how content and happy one can be and be missing so much. Perhaps I've learned to find joy in the little things and knowing because I have God, I have everything. I've never feared expressing myself because I know myself better than anything and I'm confident in the woman I have come to know. I feel things and I know they're real, but I haven't always believed they matter. For the brief time I found myself in St. Louis where I had a community encouraging and affirming, I felt safe and secure. I've lost that security in a sense. I now see a great deal that I took for granted and a need that is crucial to the survival of the soul. I know where my worth is and I know how much strength and growth I've endured to get where I am- yet here I sit needing that affirmation. I know it in my heart and in my head because of who God says I am, but the encouragement I received from those that choose to love me really meant the world. When life starts to crumble at my feet and discouragement surrounds, just those few words became sacred. I don't think most realize how powerful the words of an encourager truly are.I've always believed that you speak things into life. We don't realize how much one needs to be affirmed not as a constant reminder, but perhaps even more than that.

I look to future more often than I focus on the present or the past because it's something I'm investing in and hope holds better days. I almost wonder if this is deeply routed through generations. Every person I know looks to future because it holds something for us, a hope,desire, and change. I am able to create wonderful dreams, but there's so much here in front of me. I become discouraged if I look at myself today or look at where my feet are planted. I am constantly weighing my success in what I will one day accomplish. I am overwhelmed with a feeling of joy and incredible happiness when I think of becoming a successful teacher and graduating. I have been waiting for the day to finally make someone proud and to make myself proud and that day always seems so out of reach. Perhaps it's God's way of showing me that I'm worth that pride and joy now. I do believe that I have something to offer, I'm a good person and have a great deal of love, but it has lost its tangibility. Everyone feels a sense of accomplishment and joy by sowing into something. I have school, which I enjoy and I get excited about and I love my job. I have a wonderful boyfriend and new friendships I'm learning to pour into. I realize I've been my own enemy the past year. In order to feel that intimacy and have that support I so desperately need, I have to create it myself. I have to put myself out in the open and be vulnerable. In the past I felt like I was influencing lives, I brought something to the table even if it was for a laugh, but I don't see the results of what I've sown and that's what is ultimately discouraging. The only words I hear of what I've accomplished are the words I speak. The only words I hear about what I'm doing in this moment belongs to me. I know my Father is proud and He takes joy in who I am, but why do my efforts seem as though in vain? I take pride in my own work, I am incredible with kids, it's the easiest and most satisfying aspect of my life, I am patient, I'm kind, and I'm learning to be gentle, assertive, and confident. I don't want to be who I used to be because I love who I am now, I think I'm just waiting to find people who love me now, too. I know my friends and family love me now just as much as they did yesterday an the days before and I am not seeking approval. For the first time in my life I not longer crave approval. Ironically I'm more confident than ever in who I've become and who I'm becoming. In a sense I'm childlike in that I am so excited about so much in my life. I just want to hear the excitement in the voices other than my own.

I used to desire many, many things, but now I have just one desire, and that's to get rid of all my other desires

I find it pretty ironic that the harder I tried, the worse it go. Writing that is. I remember writing as much as I could just because I wanted to, but now it's as if the words are only allowed to come out full of bull shit. It's all honest, really. It's just forced. I remember once someone told me, "You're true blue- you have more grit, fire, and determination than anyone I know". Maybe that was bull shit,too. I suppose that doesn't matter much. I've been listening all night to songs that instantly take me back to moments that I felt things I forgot existed. It's a type of nostalgia that makes me think, but I can't say it makes me want to go back or wish that things were different. I can't even begin to count the days I pined after something that wasn't real- I often wonder if I spent three years dreaming. I find it incredible how I felt things so real and yet there was nothing tangible for a reason. I actually feel embarassed at times because of who I was. I suppose not who I was as a person, but what this imaginary obsession took over. I definitely don't want to go back and I can't say that I want to change it either. I just wonder what I missed out on or if I did at all? I can say that I feel something real and I live reality rather than dreaming what reality looked like in my mind. I'm happy. I'm not the only one who dreamt to never feel. I see people everyday in some other world and I get it now. They take their troubled lives and dream a life rather than living a dream.

Action expresses priorities

God
Family
Kevin
Friends
School
Work
Love- This makes EVERYTHING a priority. If I can't love, I can't make anything a priority
Joy
Seeing the world
Being myself


I hope that someday my future will hold the same priorties

See everything; overlook a great deal; correct a little

Note to self:

Practice what you preach


He still prays for me


Love a little more


That miracle WILL happen


Dreams do come true


There's nothing in my way but myself


I'm full of grace and love


Don't sell myself short


Jealousy, anger, resentment, and guilt keep me in the same place


Life is too short to spend worrying


I'm good enough

I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.

I'm so happy to be alive. Thank you for loving me enough to create me.

There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still

I don't know how not to move.

Yet I forget how to keep going forward

I'm incredibly blessed and full of grace

I'd like to show some of that mercy and grace

I've grown certain that the root of all fear is that we've been forced to deny who we are

I'm finding her again...

Confusion is an often too subtle sign of paranoia

I never was enough
I'll never be enough




I know what I am and I AM enough.



Prove it.

Take up your mat and walk

I’ve been thinking a lot about what freedom really means


Or at least what it means to me


To be myself and be loved anyways
To love others passionately



I remember as a young child my grandmother and mother reading to me and spending my “room time” when I was in trouble reading as many books as I possible could before I was free. I loved reading everything and anything. My grandmother walked me to the library every day I spent with her. One of my most fond memories was writing a puppet show and doing it in front of all the other kids in the children’s room. We wrote and we did it together. I still have access to so many books and so much knowledge that I don’t have to pay for or even really work for and yet it isn’t take advantage of. I’m lucky. WE as American’s are truly lucky. I look at my freedom as something normal and a given in a lot of ways.



Knowledge is freedom. The more we can know, the farther we can fly


Not being anxious and tied to fear in every aspect of my life is freedom


Letting go of insecurity and bitterness is freedom


Allowing God to have control is freedom


Joy is freedom


When I’m running and all I allow myself to focus on is my breath and timing it with my feet, that’s freedom.


Freedom is knowing myself.


I’m terrified of being controlled by things and people around me. I see it all the time with clothes, makeup, images of who you think you should be, money, countless material junk, status…Living simply is freedom. I admire people who can sell all their things and move on without a glance back. I don’t believe that having things controls you, but the priority is has on your life can be a scary thing.


Freedom is life without evil. Someday I’ll know what that feels like.


My independence and full confidence in myself is freedom


Living without debt is freedom


I know there are so many ways that I can live my life free and the more I live, the more I hunger for that freedom. I hope I stay hungry forever so I may never know complacency.

To learn and never be filled, is wisdom; to teach and never be weary, is love.

Coffee, where have you been all of my life? I never knew how glorious you are until recently. I think we're going to be very good friends from now on :)


I have never been this excited about my classes and wanting to do so well until recently. I loved being in St. Louis and I definitely got excited about what I was learning, but I never really felt like it was preparing me for my career. I'm definitely thankful that I am not prepared to think for myself and have developed a faith I would not have otherwise, but now I'm even more excited that I am made a teacher. I always thought it silly that people would say they were born to do something and I never understood how you could possible know that. I finally get it. Everytime I imagine myself in a classroom or everytime I have the opportunity I get butterflies and i'm scared beyond belief and the 30 seconds into it I'm filled with joy and an adrenaline rush I can't get elswhere.


I'm baffled by the fact that I'll be a teacher in two years...everything I'm learning in my classes, all the cute ideas, projects, and lessons are going to be reality. I remember throughout high school and the last 4 years of college, I have just thrown away my work after my class was over and just stored my books that I thought I'd never need. Now it's a reality and I actually will be using the things I' learning. I constantly imagine what I want my classroom to be like, how I'll be different, what my pedagogy will be like. I go back to Escalante Middle school today and I'm excited because the kids are hilarious. I don't want to work with middle school kids, but I'm still learning an unbelievable amount about teaching and classroom dynamics. A ton of memories of middle school are being brought back. I forgot most of that period of time because it was pretty miserable, but I find a lot of humor in it now.



I want this in my classroom:



My kids won't fear speaking up, asking questions, standing up for themselves, or fear of peers.


I want to teach first graders about fractions through cooking


I want my kids to not just memorize rules and learn things to get them through, I want them to use their hands and make things to apply it to the real world


I want my kids to grow a garden


I want my kids to know that they are valued and they ALL have worth


I want my kids to be confident and develop their strenghts


I want my kids to not be smushed together as a group, but want to be an individual


I want to learn math so well that my kids will know HOW it works and know why it is important and will be able to apply it in the future


I want my kids to know and appreciate reading books


I want read the Box Car Children to them


I want to do edible math


I want them be excited about learning



I can't wait :)

Time to pretend

I'm not sure what prompted me to start blogging again, but it's nice to do it again. I deleted a blog I kept through high school and my freshman year of college, it felt so good to delete that thing. I hated reading back over all the things I had once written...I think mostly I just wanted to forget and majority of it wasn't even worth remembering because I did forget until I read back over it. The only thing I gained was knowing who I never want to be again. I don't want my blog to be just a place I complain about everything that sucks in my life. I'm actually pretty lucky to have the life that I do and when I step back and look at everything, I smile. I've had so many questions and random thoughts lately that I just want to put them all down so I don't go crazy. I'm not sure my brain every really stops running in circles. I wish I had a call center somewhere in my brain to just take all the questions and I could rest for a while.

Dream group has been one of the most incredible things I've been able to experience and be a part of. I forgot just how intense and wonderful it really is to be a part of something that like that. My dreams are bringing epiphanies left and right and there are so many directions I want to run straight towards because something is making sense. I seriously forgot how much of our unconscious finds its way into our waking life. All the fears brought up through dreams represent things I need to face instead of running from them. The second I acknowledge what's really scaring me, my dreams stop bringing the same image up and I find rest and closure there.

I have so much to wonder about and am in constant awe at how life works and effects so many people. I find strangers and people in general so fascinating, but I always wonder if anyone finds me interesting. I used to think that I was unique and my positive bubbly personality is what drew people to me, but maybe no one really cares. Then I start to wonder why everyone is so "me" focused (facebook, myspace...). If I'm honest with myself, I know that I probably have a little self centeredness myself. I don't really think of myself as something special that the world needs to see or know, but I like to think that I'm fascinating to someone in this world. It's sort of like when someone adores you, there's nothing that makes you feel more special than being adored. I know that the people in my life love and care about me immensely, but are they ever intrigued? Does my rambling ever evoke any thought or pondering? Sometimes I come across people I know very little about and yet I'm fascinated as they tell stories, jokes, dreams, and passions. What happened to intimacy? We'd rather stay in silence than dig a little deeper. I see a treasure chest that's buried deep within the ground and no one wants to dig it out because they're tired, they don't have time, or they're afraid of what they'll find. But the one person that digs the treasure knows exactly what they have found and how precious it is. Everyone no matter how scared they are, at their core wants to be known. To be known and accepted. That's why I love so easily and so much, the reward is endless.

I'm alone for the first time in a week and it feels so good to be with my thoughts as they linger and dance around too quickly to make any sense.

My journey is yet another vine clinging to my heart. My whole life I've always moved forward because time continues whether you want it to or now. I believe and cling to change with faith, but what about the journey on the way? I think it's easier to keep looking ahead because it makes the present appear stable. My best friends are married or getting married and every time I look around someone else is engaged or having a baby. I'm elated at the blessings and adventures headed their way. I see myself having a family someday and I can't even begin to articulate the dreams I have for that to happen someday. I've looked ahead for so long that reality is catching up to me. I am still young and have so much ahead of me and much to learn, but I have been recently slapped in the face with the reality that I'm not a kid anymore. I watch silly shows on t.v about girls in high school and I remember all the things I thought and felt about love, life, and where I would be. I think of all my friends beginning their lives forever with another person...that is really scary. I've never been scared like this before. Do people ever question if they'll miss the feeling of falling in love, or a first kiss, or the butterflies inside their tummies? I start to ask this and then I realize how much better all of the other firsts will be once they are married. The butterflies don't have to go away and falling in love doesn't just stop. I think people let that happen, but what do I know? I'm just a little whippersnapper. Love honestly leaves me in awe. I'm excited by love because it's a mystery and I want to figure it out. I don't think it's a game where you win or lose or even finish. The best mysteries always leave you with questions. I'm looking forward to finding more treasure and seeing more of myself as I see more of someone else. I think of Kevin and his heart and how much I know and how much more there is to know and that excites me. Love doesn't stop growing, but it changes. It's a beautiful change

Maybe I'm not fascinating, but I'm content knowing that I have a heart so big I can love more than there are words and I know when my soul speaks.