It's all alright

Today was good. Really good.

It started out HORRIBLY. Absolutely horribly. I slept for about 3.5 hours last night, woke up 5 mins before I had to catch a bus, caught the bus with no makeup on and half asleep, went to class in said state, left class early in order to finish a paper that was due 2 hours later, and found out I had to restart it. But hey, it got better.

I spent the day with my lovely friend Jaime D'Souza. She's beautiful. She has long, wavy hair that's chocolate brown just like her eyes. She helps me make sense of life when I feel like I'm falling apart. Jaime and I laugh, a lot. She just makes me smile. I camped out in her room today and wrote a paper. Then we proceeded to have a terrible dinner, adventure for s'mores, feed the ducks, scare away children, voyage into georgetown and have successful missions. It's all in an evening's work.

It's legitimately startling how much time I don't have left here before I leave for the summer. I feel like I just now got to know so many amazing people and now I'm just peacin' out. It's such a bummer. Days like today feel like the beginning of summertime. You forget about the fact that you have 3 quizzes and a lab report and go adventuring instead. You put the dumb stuff aside for a beautiful second and remember how to feel free again. That was today for me. Such a good reminder. I have a week and a half left to LOVE where I am, who I'm with and what I'm doing.

Third eye blind is singing my sorrows away.

My phone refuses to send texts right now... why?

Did I mention that I fed a duck today? And walked barefoot on a stone wall? And ran up a broken escalator just to beat the slew of people on the moving one? And wore a tank top today without being cold?

I think life is a pretty cool song to dance to.

Peace.

Stop skimming the surface. Today is a day for love, rejoicing, reveling in the ability to be.

Procrastination at its strangest.

Wednesday day: full of chaosminded tom foolery. I feel like I'm drifting through life, like my feet aren't really on the ground. I can't decide if it bothers me or if it's a sign that I'm doing something right. Lately Ive been restless, as I've let on, but I think I'm steadily attacking the restless monster. Maybe this is what it feels like to get a new start. Because I haven't quite invented a new foundation yet. Doesn't mean I'm not on the right track :)

I'm in the library now-- looking like an absolute mess. I haven't worn anything outside of the "sweats" category all week long. Unless you count for work yesterday when I wore a skirt and boots, for no other reason other than that all my jeans and sweats were dirty. You know it's bad when dressing up is a last resort. My body feels like it's telling me that I haven't slept in weeks, but I have so I don't know what's going on. Every time I sleep, it seems impossible to wake up. Hahaha, i turn off my alarms without realizing it and NOTHING motivates me to get up. I need to fix this...
I've been meaning to edit this paper for a week... it's my american literature paper and it's on a short story, You think the professor would tolerate some original thought on the story and the paper topic but apparently not... This is the most frustrating revision EVER. He's insanely picky. mrehhh.

I haven't been to the gym in a frustratingly long time. I can't stannnnnnd it.

We have two weeks of school left. That freaks me OUT.

I'm going to miss so many poeple this summer... I almost don't want to leave even though I'm freaking ready to get out of school. I'm gonna miss jaime and chelsea and emily and the other emily and becca and everyone else. This summer will be so fun but I'm gonna be so lonely without my gang.

Any bets on how much longer I'll procrastinate writing this thing?

I like the word "absurd."

I found an online scrabble website. Wohholy cows.

I found out today that I have $12.35 in my bank account. That's just a little bit frightening... No gum or energy drinks for Mary for the next few weeks...

I miss Val. So much.

I can't wait for it to be summertime. You know when the sun is setting but it's like the world isn't quite ready because everything outside is still humming a pulsing, sunsoaked sound? I can't wait for mosquito-swatting front porch heart to hearts with mom and a glass of wine. I can't wait for swingset bonding with my big little brother. I can't wait for adventures with Valerie and heart to hearts and forever memories. I can't wait to hear renee and katie anne again and I can't wait to see roger's car in my driveway. I can't wait for morning runs when the sun is already hot and the neighbor's sprinklers are already clicking. I can't wait for pensacola beach-- the thick, smooth, salty air, the constant lullaby tide, and the sugar white sane that stays everywhere. At the beach, cocktails are at five, dinner is anytime after we feel like cocktails are done. Usually around 8 :] Becca is bringing her man to pensacola this summer-- i can;t wait for him to meet the family! what a keeper, that billybear.

I really need to start this paper, I'm going to be in here all night.

I am tired, but trying. Kinda lonely, but hopeful and happy that tomorrow's sunshine will brighten my soul a little. CRAP I HAVE CHOIR IN 30 MINUTES.

I'm going to finish this paper.

I have a five page paper due in approximately five hours. I have one sentence written. But it's okay. I'm going to soldier through. I don't have caffeine but that's what jumping jacks and excedrine are for, right?

I'm eating applesauce, wearing fuzzy pink slippers [which I found out can survive going through the washer AND the dryer], I am unshowered because taking a shower is my incentive for getting this paper done. Is that gross? Yeah probably. Well, I'm not going into public, so It's an okay method of self-motivation.

It;s almost friiiiiiiiiday. Springfest. Springfest is tomorrow! Free t-shirts sound like a good plan to me. And moon bounces. Im so excited.

It's sunny outside. Im going to finish this paper so I can get out there and get me some Vitamin D :)

For everything.

Twist them around your finger,
your desires and wishes, your selfish wants.
Wrap them and coil them,
transform them unrecognizable;
your future, your life, is not yours to perfect.

Tangle the allure, the lie of
countless reminders to take control of what you
CAN'T.

Give the mess you've made to
whom it first belonged before you went and
tried to carve a mountain with your own dull tools.

Realize, trust, rest in knowing that only
He can make a straight line out of your
overturned and disconnected actions.

Heart, stop looking.
Mind, stop wrestling.
Legs, stop running.
Soul, stop sleeping.

Happiness is only found when you realize the
perfection and advocacy of the One who created it.







Today is a day for relinquishing the clutch I've had on my life. Today is a day for realizing that God knows and has planned for me SO MUCH MORE than I could ever even begin to imagine. Today is a day to give my mind, heart, words and actions to the heart of my God. There is not problem he gives me that he does not have a solution for. There is no path he will put me on that does not lead to something. Today is a day to realize that HE KNOWS WHAT HE'S DOING. There is nothing I can do that he can't do better. There is no string of words I could articulate that he could not say a thousand times more perfectly.
We are halfway through lent. Honestly, I've sucked so far. I've cheated on what I gave up, I ate meat on two Fridays [because of travel, and then forgetfulness], and I haven't had sufficient prayer time. BUT in church this weekend, the priest caught my attention in his homily when he said that we still have time. We can still go all out. well, I'm down. I want this lent to shape me. I want to get the real meaning of it. Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. We start lent by hearing this, but how often do we think about it? It illustrates the crux of our whole existence: we would be nothing, if not for God. We ARE nothing without him. He is our MAKER. We come from the very work of his own hands. So why the HELL do we have any business thinking we can live without him? Crush the lies you see on tv and read in magazines. Sex has been transformed from the perfection of the human relationship in God into an entire CULTURE of lies and depersonalization and emptiness. The meaning is lost but the actions remain. It's heart wrenchingly sad, what we've accepted as normalcy. The only fullness, the only happiness and strength of character and personhood comes from God. What a beautiful thing to have Him. What a tragic thing to have lost sight of.

Today, you should breathe.
Have a heart to heart with yourself.
Realize what you can be grateful for.

I am grateful for FAMILY, for weekends at home with way too much food and amazing conversations, for my mom and her mind and heart and soul and advice, my dad and his steadiness, his willingness to give all of himself for his family, heart to hearts with my brother over smokes and elementary school swings, for gum and water and life cereal and shuttlebus drivers and weather that tangibly hints at summertime, for warm showers and good running shoes and DC date-adventures picnicking with jaime d'souza. For heart to hearts on the lawn at night with my best girlfriends. For valerie and her constant sunshine, her everything. for dillon and his adventure stories and awesomeness. for the holding-the-door-open-for-you-people, for the cafeteria lady, for 395 south, harris teeter and crack cookies. and kites.

for my life. for my mind. for my heart. for everything.

Im grateful for everything.

Ready, set, go.

You know, God really rocks. He does. I'm trying to make more room for him in my life lately, and I'm beginning to see him everywhere. In my conversations, in my assignments, and just in general. I see him in my conversations with Asia about relationships and how difficult it is to wait for the right person, I see him in the encouragement I get from my friends, I see him in my cup of coffee+dark hot chocolate every morning, and I see him between the lines of my meditation book from Valerie. It's all kind of starting to make sense, my life. In a really discombobulated, chaotic, dysfunctional, perfect way. Because right now, I feel like my life is kinda like a crazy, tazmanian devil whirling dervish of emotions and thoughts and exhaustion and schoolwork and jobs and drama and far too little sleep. But that's how God works, he fits into the gaps in the weirdest, most unsuspected places. I was on a "holy-crap-i-am-going-to-jump-out-of-my-skin-if-i-don't-do-something-right-now" adventure run on monday, and in the midst of my "adventuring," I got soooo lost. Like, I ended up on a back road with no sidewalks and dangerously sloping embankments and fast oncoming traffic. At first I was angry, thinking stuff like "wow God is laughing at me right now, I am so pathetic, I can't even go on a 3 mile run without getting lost," but then it hit me. That whole situation, me taking weird turns and ending up stumbling rather than running along a road with cracked pavement and crazy opposing traffic, is exactly how my life is right now. I'm trying to swim against the current. Im trying to run without sidewalks on a congested, narrow road. I'm trying to take too much control over what I CAN'T control. I'm trying to do everything without God. That's how it feels. Like struggling against a current that's impossible to beat. God is way too big to tackle, you can't reverse oncoming traffic no matter how fast you're running in the opposite direction.
I need to stop running. I need to stop fighting. God is sending me so many signals and I'm ignoring all of them. He's begging me to take a breathe for once. To just stop and LISTEN instead of drowning him out with all the noise in my life and expecting to hear him over all the commotion. It's time for me to cool it. It's time for me to realize that it's impossible to keep trying alone. I don't have to be alone-- I'm NOT alone.

I need to be crisscross applesauce on Valerie's kitchen floor, pouring my heart out to her while she makes me one of her trademark grilled cheeses.

I want to be laughing hysterically and unstoppably at absolutely nothing with Renee and Katie on Katie's basement sofa.

I want to sing "O Magnum" with the Chamber Choir again. I still have it memorized.

I want to sit on my front porch with my legs stretched out and crossed on the banister and swat away mosquitoes in summertime dusk.

I need to realize that I am capable of changing my mind. It takes will. It's not enough to haphazardly wish things were different. If you actually WILL it, God will flood like a ribbon through your life. I think I will it. I want to be all out for him. Seeing Valerie's pictures of Haiti made me cry, a lot. And reading the journals she wrote there and everything she learned... it's all in my heart too. I feel it ALL. But I haven't voiced it. I feel like people, especially here at college, don't know my heart. They may know me as a sweet, nice person who's easy to get along with and laughs alot and has crazy hair and a cool eye and a weird middle name, but they don't know my heart. And I want that. I want people to know ME.

I find extreme beauty in really simple things. Like the sunrise. And sand.

I am a really internally emotional person. I don't show it very often.

God really is the love of my life. I need him, I am empty without him.

My parents taught and gave me an INCREDIBLE disposition in life. I still don't understand how they do it, they're amazing. I have the guiltiest conscience in the world, I know how to pray, I know how to love because of them.

I love being alone. Especially when I'm driving.

I write when I'm stressed out. Poetry, or rambles like this one.

I love to love. I think I'm good at loving people. I've figured out that it is very, very possible to love someone and not like them at all. Love is not all rainbows and butterflies, it is work, it's miserable sometimes. It requires humility and sacrifice of self in order to love other people the right way. I try to though. I am by no means an expert though. My mom is.

But really, she is.

And Valerie.

I want to lay it all down, love foolishly, hold nothing back, not let myself be tied down by things that won't matter in five years. I want to be preoccupied with what will matter FOREVER, my heart and my soul. My lack of sleep and excessive caffeine intake and my frustration with professors and stress about tests do not collectively amount to the power that actively loving does. It moves mountains. I wanna move a mountain. Readysetgo.

i choose the whole rainbow.