Difficulty Level

It's pretty ridiculous. I'm back from Russia for a little more than two weeks now and I haven't blogged about it a single bit here. To be honest it's because I've felt so disappointed in myself from looking at the bad and having it outweigh the good in almost every respect. It was a six week trip with many lessons, but for the sake stress (and me being sick at the moment) I'm going to just relax and... move on.

Some weird stuff has been happening lately. I definitely felt myself slipping away spiritually. I couldn't bring myself to pray, I couldn't bring myself to dive into the word, and I couldn't bring myself to stop letting things purposely distract me. I even have a schedule and planner to get organized (which I actually can't find at the moment) and thinking it over I think it made the situation worse- I became busy and used all of the busy schedule stuff to purposely keep me from time with God... And though I didn't want to admit it to myself it was making me depressed and unhappy.

Among other things I've been trying to think about Graduate school, preparing for the GRE, continuing my research, and maintaining a sort of social life. I'm working a bit this summer and trying not to think about the bills that, to me, seem impossible to pay. And others' opinions on the matter aren't totally helping... I wonder if that is something I need to work on. If how I react or respond internally to others thoughts is a matter of interest. Two things happened recently though very small triggered a strange response.

1) Potatoes. So I helped go shopping for potatoes and I thought and expressed baked potatoes for the fourth of July part would be a great idea. The person purchasing the potatoes had no qualms against it, at least I thought. We get to our friends house and the potatoes are cut and the lady of the house asked if they were all for mashed potatoes and I rose my voice to speak and the person who bought the potatoes cut me off and answered in affirmation. The lady caught notice of this and asked if it were up for debate and again I was cut off with the purchasers negation to the latter question. In almost a sort of panic I brought up that I considered having baked potatoes which is why I was excited about sour cream and salsa. Trite and banal- yes. But I couldn't help but realize that if I hadn't said anything my idea would have been thrown out the window. And that isn't the first time I've had it happen in a small group setting. I sometimes feel I have to scrap my way to the top in order to not get tossed aside.

2) Headband. A very sweet woman has been helping me get things on track. But think I might have worn out my need for advice from her. She was over at my house one day and she eventually got up to leave and upon giving me a hug, she looks at me and goes: "You need a head band." and walks away. I was stunned for just a second and I turned around and smiled and asked "why?" And she made gesture of what my hair would look like if I had a hair band. Commonplace and unimportant- yes. I think I'm just sick of feeling like I need to get fixed. I'm not one to take offense to much of anything, but don't talk about my hair. It's a touchy subject that unfortunately still has some sore ties. What made me happy is that later on that day my friends Aaron and Marlo said that they were so happy to see how much I've changed for the better in life. It was honestly among the first real genuine compliments I've received this week that weren't ways to "encourage" me or to "reassure" me of anything. It was pure and honest "Hey you're doing great and I've seen it over all these years." And it wasn't disguised in the form of a lecture either.

So yeah there is that... and then there is stuff with my mom. Surprise surprise. I talked to her today since she called me about a letter I got from a bank that was sent to her house. (rant: Which really pisses me off because that is NOT the address I gave them to send anything too and it is none of her business about that account even if she is my mother. It's really frustrating.) And that was it. That's really the only reason she called me and then our conversation changed to something about her job and shish-kabobs... And then she put her boyfriend Johnny on the phone... He asked me how I was, instead of harping on how I sounded and barely listening to what I was explaining. He asked me about school and I told him about grad school and where I was thinking- and the most peculiar thing happened... my mom interrupted him and started talking to him since she had to go to work and she wanted him to take her.

There are multitude of things wrong with that for me:

1) I felt like someone was taking candy out of my mouth

2) For the first time someone who was in a relatively legit familial possession in my life was paying attention to me.

I keep reaching for things that aren't really there. I insist on having hope for authoritative figures in my life that are related to me... that are from where I'm from. In any case I'm at square one with that. And the only way I know how to deal with it is to ignore it.

"Driven by the strangle of vein,

Showin no mercy, I'll do it again

Open up your eyes, you keep on cryin

Baby, I'll bleed you dry."

Maybe I'll stop feeling like life is on the EXTREME setting when in reality it's on NORMAL.

Alive and Kicking

Non point was an excellent way to top off the Spring Semester. I'll admit I'm pretty jealous that the graduating seniors got a speech from the lead singer. It was pretty fantastic.

Last night I got a full idea of the kind of power I have within a group of people. People always told me that my personality is rather striking. (this is me paraphrasing of course) I can light up a room without trying or bring down the mood if I'm not careful and paying attention. I went to this concert alone and met a group of people that were very chill... and more than likely very spiritually lost. It didn't matter I just hung out with them and smiled and was positive. I kept being nice and friendly to the surrounding people around me and it turned out to be a good time. I got two numbers from two guys. Apparently I leave an impression on people. The most amazing thing I felt while in this concert setting was this overwhelming respect I received from the guys that were taking notice in me. They at the most ONLY dreamed of placing their arm around me or getting fresh with me in any regard. I felt like my attitude and confidence set the tone for how they were going to treat me even the way I dressed which was normal and not sexualized. It was a rather beautiful display for me. If God was trying to show me the new me in such a setting He made me blush with a good modesty.

So I rocked out, had fun, met some very sweet people and I finally get to settle down and just focus on packing for Russia and unpacking in my new permanent home. Russia will be good for me. Living with the Peck's will be good for me. I'm learning to kinda just give everything to God. Including love interests, homework problems, frustrations with people... all of it. I'm learning all to quickly that if I don't let it go now it'll just fester and bite me back in the end. I was told that my mood is very powerful too... and I'm responsible for it since it does affect other people as drastically as it does. Maybe that's what I was putting to work by not creeping off to myself and being the strange lone dog at the show....

Let's see how I do in Russia when I leave this Wednesday...

"What's wrong with me? You wanna know what's wrong with me... I could ask you the EXACT same thing."

To Russia... 2

Holy cow! I really really wish that I had about 3 more weeks added on to this semester! But I'll be okay as long as I stay disciplined. So far so good.

I've been staying at Lani and Renee's quite a bit since it seems to be the only place where I can sleep. Being in my dorm is simply no longer enticing. It's not as quiet as I once thought it was it would seem. I've been waking up earlier and the commute to school is proving to not be as much of a hassle as I thought. I like being awake in the mornings. I feel useful.

My hair. There is a subject I don't talk a lot about given the name of this thing. My hair is awesome. It's so long now and I seem to refuse to give it the credit it deserves. I can put my hair in a pony tail and not have to bobby pin the whole thing. I can wear my hair out for days and watch as it gets bigger and bigger. People play with my hair at any given moment which I know for some is blasphemy, but for me it's a complete complement. No one really wanted to touch it before. It's pretty awesome to watch how I've been finding ways to limit my time in the shower. I'm getting really good at this. I used to take about a 20 to 40 minutes in the shower with detangling and what not, and that was a step down from two showers because of DTing! But now it's about 15 minutes not even to shower and wash my hair and I all of my detangling out of the shower. Saving time, money and water. Although recently I've been having issues with dry scalp which is never good. My scalp started to develop some scabs I think or at least high levels of irritation. I couldn't tell. I think washing and messaging with water has been the most help with that. Huh... feels good to be writing about this again. But now I'll have to admit I was absolutely obsessed in the beginning.

I've been good about not adding boys to my list of attractions recently. I'm proud of myself. Lots of cute guys too. I'm becoming impressed with myself. This sexual healing bible study I've been doing has really helped me to relax. I've come to (one of many) conclusion(s) that my trust in God will reflect how I will react to dealing with the opposite gender. I'm finally beginning to trust Him and His work through me is showing. I think I'm awesome now. I think I'm attractive, I think I look great (I've been working out lately it's part of my discipline.), all these things I once needed a guy for I no longer have pressure about. It's a beautiful thing not wanting to be with someone as if it's something necessary. Maybe that will help me with my fear of settling.

I leave for Russia in a matter of weeks. How frightening! I'm excited since I know there are a few Christians coming along with me on the trip. That helps me feel safer and less alone spiritually at least. I want to take pictures, I want to see the sites, I want to learn the language! Everything my heart has been set on is finally coming into play... I need to write down what I pray for. Sometimes I forget and I don't realize that it's something that I had wanted for long time. I'm getting this. I'm going. God has allowed it. I hope He has blessed it. I'm excited.

Getting Out

I hope to look back on this blog years later and want to delete a lot of the stuff that I wrote especially thinking back now just how incredibly stupid I've been. Things that I worried about, things that I've stressed about. I hope to look back and "burn" all the pages written by the troubled girl I once was.

Not that i think I'm any better now. Even now as I type this I'm stuck in my own head. I have troubles and inner feelings of discomfort and aggravation that are mainly present because of one very consistent problem that I have... The inability to let it go. I used to be infuriated with the very idea. But back then my mother was telling me to let go of six years of abuse by my uncle without apology or care. The unrighteousnesses of it all was enough to drive anyone without God to hatred and wrath. But now.... *sigh* now it's over stupid acquaintance/boy stuff. I deleted some people from my facebook. Kevin and Musca being among them. I had really hoped Kevin would have been willing to be a good friend to me, but instead he just chose to ignore me... even after telling me he wasn't going to disappear... even after saying that he loved me like a sister. It's heart breaking actually. Since even for a little time I thought he'd be a friend at the very basic sense of the word... maybe me being saddened by the whole thing isn't stupid boy stuff. It's a wake up call that just makes me want to cry. Well... glad that's over and done.

Musca is incredibly obvious. Apparently even when your 25 you still determine to ignore girls that you ultimately know you're not going to end up sleeping with. Surprise surprise. I just want to be friends with people that love Jesus already! Is that so hard to come across? Why yes, actually. The world sits in the lap of the evil one. Those who follow God are sore thumbs which the world openly intends to suppress. I'm not sure if this is how Traci feels, but I have a strong desire to leave Florida... but not without Church family.

Sometimes I wonder if my desire to travel and go abroad was something set on my heart by God or something that I'm using to avoid pains (not so much responsibility) I don't regret coming to FSU, but romantically I'm so tainted here. It shows within me when I walk outside and I feel so immensely unattractive. I'm so thankful that I'm finally officially not wanting a relationship, but it's because I'm sick of the obsessions I put myself through. Yet all of this wouldn't really change if went somewhere else... it would be like a clean slate of new people for me to screw everything up again either way.

I need to get out of my own head.

I need to let God speak instead of giving so much room to the gray voice... the voice that I'm realizing spouts bad things about me I wouldn't normally think. The one that thinks I'm stupid, the one that thinks I'm not pretty, the one that thinks I'm fat the one that thinks that I can't do anything right, the one that makes me question my worth as a woman, the one that makes me think of how worthless I am because of my skin color. The same voice that makes me think God is out to get me and punish me for nothing. Lies. Every last one of those is a lie. I'm going to trust God. I'm going to trust him through the promise through Jesus that He gave to me and everyone else.

On the grand scheme, Death will be over come, Life will be given and the Lord I've come to know and love will reign supreme.

How can I be defeated by the world when I have that kind of promise?

"My God He was, my God He is, my God He's always gonna be."

I'm on Fire

Reading my last post completely embarrasses me. I'm tempted to delete it, but I think I'm going to keep it for a little while. And maybe do some editing to it of things that I've learned and realized now that I'm not hyper emotionally involved.

I'm pretty convinced that God has set up a method with me to deal with things. He isolates the problem for me... makes it stick out like a sore thumb, so I have no choice, but to deal with it. I could be wrong. And I don't think He has set me up to fail. But I have a number of choices when guy stuff comes up. Only when God is involved I actually have two. His way or my way.

It's never been so ridiculously apparent that I have crazy issues when it comes to the opposite gender! It's never been so in my face and frequented until now. I guess I can't say that it's never been a problem, but it has never been a problem that's stood out so intensely as it has been recently. I felt the same thing when I was dealing with having to love people that I don't like (i.e. stupid, ignorant, or selfish people). It was a pretty powerful thing I dealt with then too. So now I'm having to keep my eye-candy search in check. Otherwise I'll end up with another 'Musca situation', which is a recent name for the type of situation that I've always dealt with from guys in college.

I started this sexual healing bible study. It's forced me to begin this really hard process of having a real relationship with God. The book is so small, but it's packed with such powerful realizations. What makes the relationship aspect so difficult is having to let go and/or completely confess to the things I will never be proud of, never be able to fully explain to anyone, and things that I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to be forgiven for. It's daunting. But I do have to remember that I am forgiven and in order to heal I need to lay it all on the table. So far so good

"I'm standing on the edge of me,

I'm standing on the edge of everything I've never been before"

Learning to live with the Grey

I cried sooo hard last night. It was painful. People say it's always a bad idea to drive while under emotional stress. I did alright for the most part. Musca really told me how it was....

There are lots of things people must heal and go through in life. My question to the God I'm understanding and loving is WHY did it have to be sexual issues? WHY did it have to be issues with men in relationships? WHY do I have to have a fight or flight response when it comes to guys I'm interested in? WHY do I get insecure? WHY can't I just relax? People ask me that as if I can actually achieve anything positive on my own.

Of all things to have a fucking problem with WHY did it have to be this?

Musca told me and I quote:

"I used to be like you.

I wanted black and white

couldn't handle grey.

Lost the best woman I've ever met because of that.

Live in the grey for a bit. It's not that bad. Unless you have nothing else going on.

I'm gonna go to sleep now.

goodnight."

Apparently that's where my desire to relax and let things be disintegrates. There is a level of grey are I can't deal with apparently. I have to know how things are and how they must be and I can't relax. Either a guy is interested in me or he isn't. Either I can talk to him just about whenever or I can't. Either they better tell me the truth or not speak to me... the last one has bit me in the ass because when they choose not to speak I flip shit because lack of closure is where I snap back into "mother/daughter" phase. The phase where I blame myself for everything and allow for any and every bit of manipulation to take place. Where I trap or get trapped in the very thing I'm longing to get away from because I don't know how to get out...

I kept running it through my head. About how much I'm a screw up in situations with guys. How much I push and push the limit with talking to them like I'm purposely sabotaging the whole situation. Kay says that it's really the one area I'm weakest in. She says that it's insecurity basically because I've been hurt so much by men in my life whether they've been present or not. She told me that I've gone through so much and have grown and have been strong through so much and that I'll come through this too. I want to believe that.

I wish I could just stop wanting to be with someone. And stop meeting people that I'm attracted to. It sucks because I try so hard not to get hopeful, that I get hopeful and end up feeling like a dolt by the end. I don't want to think about it. I'm sick of crying before, in or out of a relationship. I'm sick of crying when I'm not even staring down to a relationship. It's fucking aggravating. It makes me hate myself. All of my experiences from my abuse to my last relationship have just rendered me so tired- tired of myself and tired of wanting something that I can't seem approach properly.

I want to live with the grey in peace.

OR... I can listen to the woman in my life that told me that when a guy who loves God is interested in you it will be clear and he won't ask you to "go with the flow." Another aspect to this is to realize that what he told me was blatant manipulation. He's asking me to just sit there and wait until something happens and in the end it's rude and kind of disrespectful. The woman I talked to said to me that a man who expects you to sit in a grey area knows that you may have baggage and stuff you're going through and isn't willing to deal with it and love you as you need to be. She said that a man that is interested in me will see that I need things in black and white and will be very clear and willing to walk with me through my learning and healing stuff. I fell into my "mother/daughter phase" without even trying. Manipulation is the name of the game apparently. There is a truth about love and relationships that I don't know... I'm half determined to find it, but not through trial and error. I might be able to just shut the case for Musca down now.... thank you CK.

Kay also told me something very strange that I hadn't been able to sort out. She says that I seem to have a hard time loving myself. I can love other people, but the reason relationship stuff is difficult for me is because I'm not very good at loving myself. I cried even more at the thought!

Have I really spent so much time loving other people I've left myself out of the equation? Am I equating myself loving other people as loving myself? I feel like I'm doing something ridiculously wrong by even considering what "loving myself" is. I haven't talked to anyone about it, but I probably should. How do I love myself without turning away from God? I understand what having dignity and self respect are. I know what I'm worth. I have an idea on how to act like it.... but to love myself.... I missed that memo I guess. I could start with being nice to myself I suppose. Cutting myself some slack on things that I end up doing in his pathetic relationship cycle I place myself in.

I want my appetite back now...

Almost

This spring break is awesome. Good music, good friends (for the most part), video gaming, and plenty of sleep. It's fun seeing how relaxing can truly transform you when you're out of the chaotic elements of life.

Lani got back last night and we went to a coffee shop today. I was trying not to eye the cute guy at the coffee shop, because that's what I do haha. But I remember drinking my cappuccino and thinking more and more how much I don't really care to be in a relationship with someone.... It was pretty cool. It was a peaceful calming thought...

I almost managed to grab a hold of it and then somehow I slipped back into the wanting to be married thing and I felt temporarily defeated! How close I was to being completely okay with being single!!! Gah! I think it stemmed from me seeing the pictures in the coffee shop; images of a missions trip perhaps in India where young people were spending time with the kids and it was pretty amazing. I thought about Grad school... and potentially joining the peace corp as a part of my degree. I was telling someone about how I could easily end up in Africa with my future Planning experience, but I genuinely found myself being worried about things like not having the conditioner I need for my hair and warm water and such things that aren't important really, just things that I'm used to having available to me... But lately I've eased up on the idea that I could still end up there... or anywhere else for that matter. The whole thing in my mind turned into me just needing to be available to go where I need to go... and guys just weren't a part of that plan- and for once in my mind that was alright.

I'm almost there. I would really like to get there it would be really liberating I think... Well back to work.