Category Archives: Human Interest

Dirty Dozen: Bad Habits

14 Sunday Apr 2013

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I have been mentally writing this post all weekend, which hopefully is pretty self-explanatory. Here I will list out some of my worse habits and personality traits and what not, just for kicks.

  1. I prefer to yawn loudly like a lion. In fact I usually pretend I am a lion when I yawn.
  2. The only thing that I regret about shenanigans I perform when I drink is that I have never once blacked out. I am cursed to remember every embarrassing moment. If you see me randomly cringing for no reason I am just remembering something I wish I hadn’t done. Or at least hadn’t remembered.
  3. I smoke cigarettes. I know. Gross. It’s a revolting affectation but it soothes me.
  4. I tend to judge people by whether or not they understand 30 Rock’s humor.
  5. I have a deep love for all carbohydrates. I could eat carbohydrates for… ever.
  6. If I don’t like someone I will be so angry when they do something nice for me. Once I got super pissed off because I was hungry and a girl I didn’t like gave me half of her sandwich. I was offended because not only did I not like the girl but I also hated the kind of sandwich she got. Even her choice in sandwich offended me! And then she had to offer it really nicely, which would have been rude to turn down, and I had to eat it and it was only moderately disgusting.
  7. The worst fights I get it happen between myself and either my best friend or my mother. These fights are usually the stupidest things ever and at least 50% or more my fault.
  8. I hardly ever clean out the shower drain.
  9. Mornings are the worst and so even when I wake up fresh and focused I still buy myself breakfast most mornings.
  10. I make really inappropriate jokes at inappropriate times. These times include funerals, church, public.
  11. I am so nervous at job interviews that I can’t smile. Literally, I will never be seen looking anything less than anxious and uptight at a job interview.
  12. If it’s on sale there is a 75% chance that I will buy it. dirty

Happy 2013.

17 Thursday Jan 2013

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tumblr_m4e8nbQADc1r50vbpo1_400I recently read an article about using identity based habits to stick to goals and have started trying to wrap my brain around using this kind of thinking to stick to and possibly even achieve my goals for 2013.  My goals for 2012 didn’t all pan out, but they did carry through and I would like to keep myself focusing on some of them.  Looking back at them should bring me a little bit of satisfaction in the changes I’ve made in my life, but honestly it is a little discouraging.  I’ve been wrapped up in a cocoon of bad habits in an attempt to numb myself to the tempest of emotions the recent changes in my life have brought about.

These recent changes, consisting of moving from MA to ME to live with my family, getting a job at an oil office and a dear one departing, have come about really quickly and consist of everything that I’ve been trying to not have in my life for the past 2 years.  I didn’t want to come home.  I didn’t want to leave my community, the state I’ve been calling home, the public transportation system.  I wanted to work in a salon, I didn’t want to put effort into getting a cosmetology license so that I wouldn’t use it.  I didn’t want someone I care for to die.

As a consolation, moving home and not working in a salon have become such trivial issues when compared to the death of a loved one.  Anything that can comfort me, like having a place to live and a job, have become parts of my life I can hold on to.  These simple things can remind me that God hasn’t forgotten me, that He is still working on me and with me and that He still picks me up and puts me where He wants me to be.  I try to remember that daily, that He is good and for me, because when I don’t I remember the catastrophe that tipped the scales in favor of this plan.  I remember that someone is missing, and he won’t be coming back.  I catch myself thinking of things to tell him and then I remember that he’s dead.  He will die over and over again for the rest of my life.

I have been rereading The Sky Is Everywhere, by Jandy Nelson, a story about a girl whose older sister dies suddenly.  I can’t read it all the time because it brings up the rift that developed with much expediency over Christmas between me and my sister, as well as the kind of mourning that I’m in denial about going through.  It’s comforting though to see that I’m not the only one who becomes irrational and unhinged after someone dies.  I am not the only one who sees facade or fear and can’t stop from pointing it out.  I have taken stock of my life and decided to make some of my goals synonymous with priorities, and to put them in their proper order.  These goals/priorities have become even more like the ones I had as a child, which could be progression or regression, depending on the day.  One of them is “Don’t be afraid to start from scratch” and it seems to be exactly how I’m starting my year off with in some ways.  I’ve also decided that I will not hesitate to be honest as often as I have in the past.  There is so much that can be resolved, discovered, sorted if people would start saying what they mean and feel instead of what is proper and polite.  Confrontation doesn’t always mean a fight, it can mean a revelation.  It also means being a little more honest with myself about what I want.  Not that it’s helping anything.  My head is a scrambled mess and my heart is a sea shell at the bottom of the ocean.

“Let me just unsubscribe to my own mind already, because I don’t get any of it.”

So while I am trying to become a little more like the kind of person that I want to be I have come across some obstacles.  They are mostly made up of my own habits and decisions, but I refuse to let that stop me.  I also sometimes refuse to try to change, but I have started slowly to build upon habits that will change the kind of person I am.  For instance, I’ve started eating more salads.dirty

One Step Forward Two Steps Back

30 Friday Nov 2012

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lifemanI used to think that I had faith.  I really thought I did.  But when I am challenged my heart reveals that I don’t, that it’s not as engrained in me to trust God as I thought it was.

It’s difficult for me to accept that my anxiety, my freak outs, my mind choosing to believe the worst, my bad habits, are all symptoms of failure at trusting God. 

When I think that I’m doing well with trusting Him I get a new thing thrown at me that proves that I don’t.  Something bad happens and I just know in my heart that for some reason I have to be put in a situation where I’ll want to kill myself, and for some reason I think that will be the challenge, to survive it.  I don’t believe that God will do something good because I feel that I deserve to be miserable.  When I don’t get to have the things that I desire I believe that it’s because I am still too messed up to be able to receive something good from God.  When good things do happen I am afraid to enjoy it because it will be taken away, and missing something is worse than never knowing it. 

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”  – Colossians 3:1-3

I have been trying really halfheartedly to turn my perspective from inside my own head to one from the eyes of Christ.  I have been allowing myself to be run over by the garbage truck of depression and fear, resting uneasily in the lie that my life will never be what I long for it to be.

But the truth is that God is still just and good, that Christ is still my one and only, and that even if this life is never what I long for there will be another life after this one where I will know what it is to be completely full of joy, to be satisfied entirely.  Until then simply to the cross I cling.dirty

TV Teaches Me Things part 2

14 Wednesday Nov 2012

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Here are the incredibly important life lessons I have learned from watching 4 seasons of The OC multiple times.

  1. Taking things personally is the best way to ruin a relationship. It’s one thing to get upset with your girlfriend when she developed a dangerous drinking problem sophomore year of high school… You just want what is best for her. But when someone makes a mistake and is honest and repentant, that is not the time to dump them like last week’s brown guacamole. If someone says they need a little space and time to sort something out, that is not the time to stop supporting and loving them.  When people have other things going on in their lives it’s incredibly selfish to assume that you should be their priority.
  2. Calling people by their last names shows a level of familiarity that makes the person feel special. It’s also infinitely cool.  Summer calls people by their last names all the time, and we all know she was the coolest character in the entire series.  She was so cool that she went on and got her own show in the south called Hart of Dixie when the OC creator got to start spanking out dramadies for the CW.
  3. Don’t be an idiot about money. If you can’t be trusted with it then let people know. Don’t get credit cards. Don’t buy what you can’t afford.  Jimmy uses his investors money to pay for his family’s way of life in season 1 and legit spends the rest of the show trying to pay everyone back.  For a nice guy he wasn’t too smart.   And don’t have it be the only thing that makes you happy, because you will always be miserable.  Julie Cooper was a money-digging harlot for most of the show, but it was only when she found herself falling for the poor guys that she was really happy and not grasping desperately at everything and everyone in order to feel secure.
  4. Be honest with yourself and others when something is bothering you.
  5. Or get drink and cause a scene in public.  It’s the WASP way of doing things.  Marissa Cooper, Kirsten Cohen, Summer Roberts… all have had times when people around them thought seriously about sending them to rehab because home girls couldn’t face their problems like adults.  In fact, Kiki did go to rehab because she had the adult version of getting drunk at parties: Alcoholism.
  6. Being ones self is what will bring you fulfillment, and pretending to be someone else will lead to unhappiness, guilt, and usually some big “you lied to me?” moment with the people you care about that ruins their ability to trust you.  It happens so often in this show I can’t even pick one person to give an example of.
  7. Have some quality time with your same sex friends.  Seth-Ryan time was a big deal to the boys because they knew it was important to invest in your friendships.  It’s a sign of commitment to a relationship, and it’s a sign of honesty and authenticity to spend time with someone just to spend time with them, and not to get anything out of it. 
  8. If you need people let them know.  There are a lot of cases in life where we want to have other people around for company, need other people for support in hard times, and we just don’t tell anyone because we think it makes us look weak.  Guess what?  No one cares if you are weak.  They care if you’re ok.  Put the pride on the back burner and allow other people to come and walk through things with you.  Ryan Atwood was the stone-hard rock-wall fortress of the show for quite a bit of it, but my favorite episodes were when he would allow Sandy and the rest of the Cohen family to be there for him in rough situations.  He always figured that they would get mad and he would get in trouble, but most of the time they were able to help him wherever he was and get things back onto level ground.  That’s the thing about those who love us, sometimes we have to allow them a chance to support us in order to find out how supportive they really are.

Why I hate weddings.

03 Monday Sep 2012

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I hate weddings for a few reasons.

  1. The sheer amount of people I have to play nice with intimidates me.
  2. I have to dress appropriately.
  3. These days the amount of people I know at these weddings has grown exponentially and it’s difficult to play nice with people I barely know or like.
  4. My favorite way to handle 1 and 3 is to drink, sometimes to excess. (At some point soon I will be posting about this drinking thing)
  5. There is dancing, which because of 4 I usually end up doing and being embarrassed about.
  6. There are two kinds of weddings for me, the first being weddings I am invested in and the second being ones I am not.  They each have their own sorts of problems, for instance when I am invested in a wedding in some way, by doing hair or makeup, by being in the wedding party or close to those who are getting married, I feel a certain pressure to make sure to perform well.  This means that I’m putting on a performance, which I am generally not down to do.  With not being invested it feels incredibly stupid to be there.  I don’t know why I have to be at the ceremony or the reception when I don’t know the person particularly well, or why I have to be on good behavior.  I don’t know why I am chastised for being myself when I wasn’t really important to the bridal party in the first place.
  7. I find going to weddings difficult because like most girls that are in my age range and still single I find it difficult to see people getting to have what I cannot at this time.  I get really tired at times of accepting that God has a great big plan for me that includes me being single right now and that excludes me knowing that I will be married at some point.  I am so blessed to see my friends get married and yet I take it as a burden because I am not.  Is this normal?  Perhaps.  Is this right?  No, not according to what I am professing to believe.
  8. Ceremonies are the WORST.  They are so filled with meaning and special things that apply to the couples, and they are so full of reminders of what marriage really is: a reflection of what the church is to Christ.  The church is the bride of Christ, which is implicit in the bible in many places.  To see even a shadow of that played out in life surrounding me is really difficult to handle.  I can’t imagine being loved to the extent of someone pledging their life to be entwined with mine on earth, and I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that Christ has accepted me as a daughter/sister/wife/anything other than scum beneath his shoe.  These are things that are too big for me to handle, and by handle I mean allow myself to understand and cry about in private much less in public.  I am grateful that God knows how slowly I need this pace to go, even when I am impatient and petulant.  He knows the perfect timing for my life and is continuing to pursue my heart and lead me to a place of understanding what this love is really all about, which includes leading me to accept that someone might be able to love me past my flaws and sins for a lifetime, much less all of eternity.