Tag Archives: Personal Update

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

Posted by in Dirty's Reports, Human Interest

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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

Dynamic Life

31 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by in Dirty's Reports, In Memoriam

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DEREKIn November my brother Jake and I got to take a drive to Logan airport.  The GPS on his phone sucks, and he didn’t listen to me when I would try to direct him, so we had to turn around a few times.  We just wanted to be at the airport before Derek landed. 

Derek and Jake had been the best kind of friends for 10+ years.  We all met in church, and they ended up going to the same private school before going to the same public high school.  Derek and his family even moved into a house around the corner from us at one point.  Derek and I had always gotten along just fine, and he knew that if there were something rebellious going on who to call.  He seemed to be a fixture in our lives not because he and Jake spent all of their time together, but because they didn’t have to.  They had ups and downs over the years but had finally found their balance by the time Derek joined the Coast Guard.

The weekend before I started Cosmetology school, the last weekend in February, I went home to visit my best friend.  We stayed at my parent’s house, and my brother was on a trip to New York with our former foreign exchange student Larissa.  On the same day that she left to go back to her life I found out that Derek was having a party that my brother was missing, because he was back for some reason I can’t remember.  My father, who was in the Coast Guard, had found out a bunch of information about where he would be going and looked up as much information on it as he could, printed it out and gave it to Derek in a Coast Guard folder.  My dad, who hardly likes anyone, loved this kid.

Luckily I had my “big girl” camera with me so I took pictures during the party and before the party dispersed I took some pictures of Derek with his friends, with my mom, and someone took a few of him with me.  Then we made a plan, Derek and I: to pick up Jake at the airport and pick him up together.  We went our separate ways to finish out our family business, which means he went and spent time with his family and I watched TV and ate something at my house.  When he showed up to our house he was exhausted.  Later, while he was visiting his family for thanksgiving, he explained to me how little he slept at home because he was trying to fit in as much with as many people as he could.  He crashed on our couch for a while, and then I woke him up and we took my dad’s truck to get Jake and Larissa.  On that drive we got to catch up, talking about the past, touching on relationships, what we were reading in the bible, how our families were doing, hobbies, what his experience in the USCG had been like thus far.  I told him I would write him and he was stoked, his love for writing letters coupled with his love for people made it a perfect parting gift.

When we got to the airport we didn’t have to wait long for Jake and Larissa, and I could tell that Jake really liked that Derek was there.  I also knew that he was really not happy about missing Derek’s party earlier in the day. 

When Jake and I were at the airport in November we were picking Derek up so that he could surprise his mother with being home for Thanksgiving.  In return, Jake decided to surprise Derek with my being there to get him at the airport.  In the 10 or so months that he had been gone we had exchanged a handful of letters (his letters absolutely destroyed, and I always got them on a day I needed some extra sunshine), and he made sure to call me every once in a while as well.  I hate talking on the phone, but I always tried to stay on the phone with him as long as possible, to really connect with him so that he wasn’t wasting his minutes, to challenge him to keep in the Word (which he did).  He would tell me about his adventures, about how life was on the boat, how hard it was to find any real believers, about what he was reading in the bible, and about where he was heading next. 

When he came across the baggage area I managed to get a video of him, heading over with his carry-on.  He came straight for me to give me a hug, but I shooed him away so I could get him and Jake on camera.  The video is short, but his smile is so big. 

I put the phone away and gave him a hug, and then we proceeded to get his luggage and to head to the car.  He told me he wanted to show me something, and pulled out from his bag a large throw blanked. 

“Isn’t it cool?  See, it’s got the Coast Guard crest and the name of my boat, USCGC Munro WHEC-724… Isn’t it neat?  Do you like it?  It’s for you!”

He tossed it to me.

“Whaaaaat? No it’s not, what?  You didn’t get this for me.”

He was all smiles. 

“Yeah I did!  Oops…”

He grabbed it back.

“Let me see that for a second…”

He ripped the price tag off.

“Ok, there you go!  Yup, it’s for you!”

They took me back to where I was living, and ended up staying to hang out for about an hour, Derek and I catching up and Jake playing with my computer.  We agreed that while I was home for thanksgiving we would hang out again, which we did.  We made cheeseburgers that were extremely delicious and he let me read some of his poetry and give him some honest opinions on it.  When he left there were hugs.  Jake spent more time with him while he was home. 

I have always hated the military.  I told Derek not to join out of selfish reasons.  I was sure that he would end up going overseas into a troubled area and getting himself shot.  I had heard too many stories; I didn’t want this boy to get into harm’s way.  I realized on his visits home that he wasn’t the same boy I had known before, that he had been growing while he was away.  He wasn’t a kid with a sunny disposition anymore; he was a man with sunshine in his soul. 

I shouldn’t have worried so much.  Derek didn’t get himself shot.  He slipped and fell off a mountain.

On December 22nd Derek went to climb Mount Barometer alone and went missing.  On December 25th Rescuers found his ice ax and skid marks 2,200 feet up the 2,450-foot mountain.  His body was discovered 1,000 feet below that point a few hours later.
It doesn’t matter how well anyone knew Derek.  If you knew him at all, you grieve losing him. 

I have been struggling with two things during the past week.  First, something I have always struggled with when people die, is how much I am allowed to grieve.  There are so many closer to his family, so many who were closer to him.  What I can say is that Derek cared for each person in his life, and that is why so many are mourning.  He loved his family, especially his little sister Mercedes.  He genuinely cared about people and what was going on in their lives, each person he knew.  He was a supremely loyal friend, and even when he couldn’t feel the love from others he was usually giving it to them anyway.  He had a heart that just ebbed and flowed with the best kind of love, the one that is seasoned with mercy and grace. 

The other thing I can’t wrap my head around is why this happened.  I keep asking God but I haven’t gotten a straight answer.  He has, though, reassured me of something.  I will never wonder about how much Derek cared for me, because he made sure to leave tangible evidence of it with me while he could.  I think that he may have been smarter than the rest of us, because he sent as many letters, experienced as many memories, and gave as many gifts as he could to make sure that the people he cared about knew without a doubt that he was intentionally holding them in his heart. 

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.  I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.  I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him.  That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.”  – Ecclesiastes 3:11-15

I don’t understand how to navigate all of this, so I am trying to as gently and as harmlessly as I can.  Most of the time I push it away, but just like the night he gave it to me, every night his blanket keeps me warm.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

What Is My Motivation?

26 Friday Oct 2012

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One of the most difficult things I wrestle with is impure intention.  I go into things with intentions that are not of God all the time.  I decide to read my bible because I know that when I don’t I get crabby.  I decide to stuff my anxiety down because it’s going to make me miserable, and it’s not being a very good Christian to have anxiety.  I go into Christian settings like church or bible study to see if I am still able to get or give anything to the group, and if I haven’t gotten some affirmation from someone that night I go home defeated. 

My faith seems to have become a word I throw around and don’t internalize.  I have been using it as a bookend, a wall, a refuge, but not in the right way.  I say that I have faith and then I turn around and don’t let myself think about things, give things to God, or pray.  I still walk the same way, wading through the same sins, because I don’t use faith as a reason to hold onto God’s promise of having been credited righteousness, just as a reason to pretend I’m tougher than the problems I am facing.

Stagnancy is gross guys.  It really is.  I’ve managed to let what could be a renewed heart turn into something you don’t want to find in the back of your fridge.  Today I am trying to turn my heart towards the light of God’s mercy, and there’s a little more shame to it than I thought would be.  When did all this mold get here?  What have I been doing with myself?  When did I decide I was too full to continue seeking God’s word?  I was so convinced I was full that I’ve started to starve.

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.  Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.”

I thought I was going to write something else this morning, since it’s only been a month and a half since my last post.  But I did start this blog with the intention of being honest with myself and others, so perhaps a little honesty is all that is needed in this moment.