Please know that I am aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be a challenge to others. -Amelia Earhart

I’m a together kind of gal. I get good grades, I generally stay out of trouble, I’m a nice person…but none of those things render me immune to having days or weeks of feeling grossly inadequate and inexperienced. I’m not saying these things to garner sympathy or affirmations…I’m just throwing them out into the void because writing helps me think.

Impending graduation from my master’s program seems to elicit these inadequacies as a way of coping with what I don’t know, which is life outside of the academic calendar. I don’t know what I want to do next, exactly, and the not knowing makes me feel like I’ve failed at something. I’m nearly 25 years old…and yet all of the growth and progress and reality of “yeah, I’m in a good place and I have nothing to feel inadequate about”…gets quiet sometimes.

And what makes it an even less productive frame of mind is my tendency to believe anyone who feeds it. Anyone who makes me doubt my abilities and experiences automatically becomes louder than every encouraging word. To me, pressing through that is what dreaming is about. We laud this idea that it takes something special to be a dreamer…finding inspirational quotes and losing ourselves in stories.

The real truth of it, though, is that the dreaming happens when you can tell those voices to shut up. When you can hear them and acknowledge them, but still have hope and a sense that you’re made for more and bigger things that aren’t based on success or failure. That you don’t have to give up. And I think that’s something we’re all capable of. We’re not special in that capability…instead it threads us together in this tapestry that I love to look at and think about. Sometimes I have to just to keep the cynicism at bay.

Getting rejected from multiple jobs this summer didn’t make me feel good. But it did make me confront my doubts and decide what I was and wasn’t going to let define me from what other people perceive me to be, from my parents to my peers to potential employers. I’ve got nothing to prove to anyone but myself. If that was the purpose of enduring rejection, I’m glad I encountered it.

For the record, I plan to be a kickass counselor someday. :)

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Be smart, be strong, be proud, live honorably and with dignity, and just hold on. -page 195

Finished “A Million Little Pieces” yesterday…er, very early this morning. I’m reluctant to admit how connected to James I felt at times while reading the book. And how connected to everyone else on the planet who struggles to make sense of impulse and desire and to learn what it is to take responsibility for beliefs and actions.

“Addiction is a disease” or maybe it is not…I don’t know what I think yet and that does not bother me so much. If there is something that I have learned in my faith journey it is that some things will be mysteries, perhaps for a season or perhaps until glory and so right now I merely aim to seek truth and to make peace with uncertainty. I find addiction to be a thing entirely captivating and entirely relevant to faith.

It seems to me that in recovery or otherwise, one must confront matters directly related to faith…matters of rebellion and responsibility, matters of pain and fear and pride and self-loathing and trust and pleasure. And so then how am I not different, if those are things with which I struggle and sometimes often screw up? One is not required to be acquainted with the depths of addiction to understand or experience those things. To me they are a product of humanity, and so in theory it is not hard to imagine loving the unlovable. In practice, my greatest obstacle is merely my Self…my fears and insecurities and selfishness.

I have been shown great mercy, both in ways I understand and in deep parts of my soul and experiences that I have yet to plumb. By people and by my God. Therefore I want to savor and extend that mercy, and with it learn to embrace righteous justice…not condemning judgment, but to be the kind of person who can honestly and vulnerably ask tough questions because I am not afraid of the answer…my own or that of another.

I have been told perhaps that I am too idealistic. I don’t know any other way to be. I don’t see it that way. I see it as being willing to live with an open heart and I will do all I can to hold onto it because my knowledge of my self is that the alternative within me is not what I want to be. I am young, yes. I have many lessons to learn, yes. I believe myself to be an insightful and relatively self-aware creature…one who is no stranger to the matters mentioned above, despite my meager stores of “life experience”.

I go into this next season with tentative confidence and a healthy amount of stubborn determination. I am not fearful of messing up or being wrong, just of failing to recognize the significance of those moments. I hope that 20 years from now I can still be described by many of the same words that describe me today.

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As is typical of my room-cleaning tizzies, today I found myself browsing boxes of cards and photos (I have a lot of embarassing photos of my high school friends that I could scan in and post to Facebook someday) and mementos (I try to keep my hoarding limited to “only things that hold true sentimental value”…) and came across my poetry portfolio from the spring of my freshman year of college. Sometimes it’s hard for me to recognize myself in the girl who wrote those phrases and stories. What I do know is that I probably read too much e.e. cummings as a preteen.

She observes as the delicate leaves begin to blush.
These bright, expressive reminders of the sweet warmth of late summer
are steadily fading in the uncertainty of transition,
and her heart starts to ache with the perception of imminent change.
The air breathes, softly at first, cool and crisp and coy.
As the wind kisses the now crimson leaves, they swell in response.
Soon, they grow brittle and tremble on the fingers of the changing season.
The first one falls.
She reaches out to catch it,
cupping it gingerly in her hands.
Another spirals through the air
and soon they are falling so fast that she can’t grasp them
as she scrambles fruitlessly and frantically,
terrified that she won’t be able to save all of them.
She collapses at the base of the tree
that now stands naked in the frigid crisp of coming winter.
As she tenderly rises to her feet,
she discards her innocence and fear among the fallen leaves.

Someday I’ll get around to taking seriously my instructor’s final edits and suggestions, because I really do like this one…but I know that it’s not finished.

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When I was in elementary school, I started doing this thing where I pause and take mental snapshots. I think it might have just been my way of handling my otherwise overactive mind, but it’s something I’ve carried forward into adulthood. Usually, there’s something going on that strikes me as particularly peaceful or happy and I realize that I want to hold onto it and savor it. I force my mind to stop racing and just absorb the sensations around me, even if just for a few seconds.

The first time I did this, I remember that I was watching my dad and brother play out in the backyard from where I had just come. For some reason, this moment struck me as poignant…something about what it represented spoke to my little kid heart and I stopped in my tracks to remember it.

As I got older, sometimes the moments would come when I realized the end of something good was near and that was a little bit different. I put pressure on myself to enjoy the remaining time of whatever was going on and sometimes that took away from the experience of it. I still do this sometimes, because I hate endings as much as I love beginnings.

Sometimes they’re simple, like the other day when I was sitting next to the pool, wrapped in a towel and waiting for the sun to dry my skin. I closed my eyes and breathed in the summery-ness of it all.

Sometimes they’re in the middle of an otherwise chaotic collection of people, like sitting at a campfire with my crazy crazy family. Everyone’s talking and laughing and I feel happy and peaceful and blessed.

One of my favorites was last summer when our mission team was on the boat leaving Puerto Galera and headed for Batangas. I was listening to music and hanging my head out the side of the boat and watching the brightly-colored bamboo outriggers cut white lines into the blue South China Sea and the midmorning sun was pure and warm. I closed my eyes for a moment, thanking God for such a precious experience of joy and peace. There was nowhere else I could think to be in that moment.

I love this silly quirk of mine. I love that I can draw on these moments anytime. I love that most of the time they don’t matter to anyone else; rather, that no one notices or needs to know what I’m thinking.

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