I promise I'm worth it

I can't stop listening to Adele! Svingen gave me her "21" album this weekend, and I just can't keep myself from listening to it. Top songs: One and Only, Turning Tables, Don't You Remember, Someone Like You. I want to listen to them forever and always.

As Svingen said, I like songs with feelings.

Super-busy lately. Hopefully a better post will come soon. I just need to find something to be passionate about in my life right now.

Thoughts without words

Two long bodies
stretched out on a dorm bed
intimate moments relaxing
in the space between
Thoughts without words
displayed through
a head on a shoulder
a hand on a knee
Resting their tired eyes
until the music runs out
then into the silence
comfortable and easy

The weakness, the sadness, the sirens, the madness

The pounding in your chest...like you're racing the street in an ambulance.

I don't know how to feel today. It's almost like I don't want to be happy right now. I just feel like being bitchy. Yikes.

I'm attributing it to my lack of sleep and the crappy duty from last night. There were just things to deal with, people who wouldn't stop talking...blah. I was up until 4:15 and then had to get up at 7:15 to pick up a friend and go volunteer at Project Homeless Connect Omaha (which is really amazing...so many resources for the homeless community of Omaha!). Plus I had the duty phone, which I really didn't want to be carrying around with me at PHCO because...well, why would I? Also, it snowed last night. Thank God I didn't fall this time.

I was parked in the garage, which is halfway across campus. Then I couldn't find a parking spot to fit my car, so I ended up going back to the garage after dropping off Elane (aforementioned friend) at PHCO. Then I ran back to drop off the duty phone at the front desk because it was finally 8:00, then ran to PHCO to check in. Whew.

My PHCO clients took longer than expected, mostly because there were two of them and only one of me. So I got out of there about an hour later than I had planned on, which was fine. Then I had a meeting at 12:45, which went very well, but immediately after that I had to go do two other things on campus before I had to work at 2:00...uggggh. Then I worked til 5, and then I had to check in for duty for the second night in a row. Now I'm working at the desk again, and it's fine. I'm just sick of dealing with people and I want them to read my mind.

So it's been a crazy day with hardly any time to just take a breath.



Yesterday, however, was really relaxing up until the evening. It was wonderful - I slept for 9 hours, got a free cupcake, helped some friends out...beautiful. But then duty happened, and people had their super-sassy pants on and I wasn't feeling that. My mood just kept steadily decreasing until I finally just let go while Eric was hugging me. All I needed was to be held for a second - really, that's all I ever need.

Maybe it's just been building up all week. Starting with the tests that didn't go well because I didn't feel like trying, followed by a talk with my boss that I never really planned to have (and actually have never had with anyone else, even Patrick or Steph - btw you two, feel free to ask if you want to know), then possibly unintentionally (and regrettably) putting myself in the friend category with someone...then last night...then today...blaaaaaaaaah.

Good things did happen, though - spring training for next year's ResLife staff, lunch with same someone, lunch with others, going out with friends from home...lovely. Got re-hired for camp, getting an email instead of an interview for the job I had last summer, interview for the job I actually want this summer in a couple days...fantastic. But this mood just isn't going away.

I need sleep.

She's on your mind

It's been a few days full of The Fray for me lately. Sorry, I don't really have time to post anything right now due to a physiology exam that will be over 12 hours from now, but here's a song for you to consider. Love you all. ♥

Blue skies are calling, but I know that it's hard

Blue Skies - Noah and the Whale

Such a beautiful song. Something about it just makes me stop and listen when I hear it.

Blue skies are calling. They're calling out to me, waiting for me to find them. And I'm getting so close.

Caught up in circles, confusion is nothing new

If you're lost, you can look and you will find me, time after time.

I wish I could say that tonight was perfect. It was so damn close.

Going out, dancing the night away, being young and wild and free...amazing. A hand held, a good mood.

But then that ending to the night sucked. Absolutely sucked. It's actually pretty painful when it seems like someone wants you around, wants to talk with you, and then forgets what he said and tells you that you should go away.



I don't know if you realize it, but you never said thank you for your gift. Saying thank you really isn't your strong suit, is it? I've seen it - it was in that look when you saw that I wrote in the book, and it was in your voice tonight when you said you noticed that I had actually paid attention to what you wanted. I did, trust me - it took me weeks to decide what to give you. I'm the type that needs to hear things sometimes...but it looks like I just need to look for it instead of expecting to hear it.

But that realization doesn't mean I'm not going to cry it out now.

Student - Ted Kooser

The green shell of his backpack makes him lean

into wave after wave of responsibility,

and he swings his stiff arms and cupped hands,

paddling ahead. He has extended his neck

to its full length, and his chin, hard as a beak,

breaks the cold surf. He's got his baseball cap on

backward as up he crawls, out of the froth

of a hangover and onto the sand of the future,

and lumbers, heavy with hope, into the library.

I'm sure you can all figure out who this is for.

I'd build you an empire

I am happier.

I won't lie to you - I'm not completely happy. There are still sad times to balance things out. But I'm getting pretty good at starting to recognize them...I can feel it coming, and now I have ways of dealing with it.

Right now, though...I'm pretty happy. There are reasons I can't discuss here, but some of you already know those. Some of you don't, but I'm okay with that. Bahahaha.

Other reasons:  I feel better about myself than I have in a while. There are lots of things I can improve, with both my health and my daily life, but I'm beginning that process. I have tons to do in the next few weeks, but now I feel like it's manageable instead of feeling lost and drowning in the work that I have to do. I think things are going to be improving with my mom, after the very tearful conversation we had the other day. I'm starting to be myself.

I'm starting to be myself.

A song for Steph

"Here we are now with the desperate youth and pain - we're awakening." Made me think of you, darling, and how maybe both of our lives are being awakened now. With love ♥.

(The video's a little random, but I think it's kind of fun to watch).

Well maybe...the landslide will bring you down

I know I haven't posted in a while, but I'm not going to apologize for that. Honestly, I haven't felt the need to say anything over the past few days. Lately I've been writing things out in my notebook...most of what I want to say is a little too private to be put in a post for anyone to read. I also had a really wonderful conversation with one of my absolute best friends (shoutout to Steph) yesterday; I finally got something out that I've been holding in for a very long time, and I couldn't have asked for a better listener.

I realized recently that I've been taking a lesson from Glee lately - there are so many songs that can describe how I'm feeling so perfectly. In case you haven't noticed or figured it out yet, almost all of my post titles are song lyrics - each one matches how I felt at the time, or at least was playing in my head for some reason. This time, it's Landslide (originally by Stevie Nicks). I would prefer the Stevie Nicks version, but I couldn't find a good recording of it...or I didn't try very hard because I actually really like the Dixie Chicks version too. I never really understood what this song was trying to say in the past - I guess I never really listened. But yes, it was last week's episode of Glee that made me re-examine it. I had to figure out what the characters were trying to communicate, and I wasn't getting it just from the show. I had to read the lyrics, I had to listen to the melody, I had to look at my own life.

Can I handle the seasons of my life?

I ran to the tower where the church bells chimed...

...and I hoped that they would clear my mind. They left a ringing in my ear, but that drum's still beating loud and clear.

I went to Mass with my mom yesterday back home.

I've been thinking lately that maybe church is what's missing. Maybe I just need to rebuild my relationship with God and the Church to figure out my life.

The thing is, I think I already have a pretty good relationship with God. But that means that I have my own beliefs...which are not necessarily the same as an organized religion's.

The priest focused his homily on foundations. The Gospel reading was Matthew 7: 21-27 - foundations. The wise man builds his house on rock, unlike the fool who builds his on sand. We're supposed to build our faith on the teachings of the Church, and it'll become our rock. With the Church as our foundation, we can't go wrong.





Right?

But I have my rock. My rock is made of the people I love. My rock is the belief that God is love - all-encompassing, unending, unwavering love. As Father Greg Boyle, S.J., said, "This is a God who's too busy loving you to be disappointed." I think God loves every person. He created us all, didn't he? Didn't He make us exactly the way we were to be made? So how could he possibly NOT love us? God loves us. That is my rock, my foundation.

Then why is the Church grinding my rock into sand?

How is it, then, that if we are supposed to love our neighbor, if God truly loves us...how does it possibly add up that we can't let love happen? Why can't people I love so much love each other?

Yes, this is turning from a religious rant into an LGBTQ rights rant.

Love is love. You can't tell people I love that they can't love each other based on which gender they are. You can't keep them from loving each other by withholding the ability to marry. That's not how love works. The heart works, regardless of a piece of paper. But it would be nice to allow them that sanctity, the ability to prove that they will love no one else the way they love each other for the rest of their lives.

Also, this is becoming a save-the-world rant.

We just sit there in the gorgeous brick building, filled with heat or air conditioning that's so plentiful we complain about it, listening a man wearing a robe stitched with sparkling gold-colored threads, under a crucifix hand-carved of bleached wood. What good is any of that doing for the world? Why do we have such nice things when so many people have none, and why are we enjoying them when we could actually be doing something worthwhile?

I felt like I needed to leave partway through Mass. Just run, drive away to where no one could hear me, and scream. Scream in frustration at living such a privileged life and not realizing how much I don't deserve until now. Scream in fear for the rest of my life, afraid to lose this. Scream in confusion, not knowing where to start to make sense of it all.

So all in all, going to church at home made it worse. Thankfully, I'm at Creighton, where a lot of people seem to feel similarly. A lot of those people happen to be my friends.

I think I need to start going to St. John's more, but not St. Patrick's.

Take your bags upstairs, tell yourself you still live here

How to return home.

I didn't want to be here. Honestly, I still don't really want to be here. I want to be back in MY room, the one where I do my real living - not the one here in this house, the room that could have been cut out of a magazine. Here in this town, the one that goes to bed at 10:30 and wakes up at 7, goes to the YMCA and runs errands at HyVee and Miller Pharmacy.

Why don't I want to be here?

To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure. I just want to be in Omaha.

I like Omaha. I like its sunrises and sunsets, I like its city atmosphere, I like the pedestrian bridge and Jones Bros. Cupcakes, I like that my friends are there. I like being on campus, especially those times when I have it to myself.

I think the issue here is less about spring break and more about summer. I don't want to feel so much like a child, the way I do here. My mom leaves me a list of things to do each day, including things like working out and doing the laundry, buying groceries, cleaning my bathroom, etc. If I was living on campus by myself this summer...I can just imagine it. I'd be so much more independent. I'd have work to do during the days, of course, but then I could go to the Farmer's Market or ride my bike to the pedestrian bridge and just sit for a while. I'd be able to take care of myself and not have to worry about doing things just to make my mom happy.

I might be growing up.

"It's a funny thing about coming home. Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same. You'll realize what's changed is you." - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Loving you should be easier, but say the word and I might have to stay

"Watching your chest rise and fall, the numbers don't add up at all when all we are is 100 trillion cells, 206 bones, 5 quarts of blood, 45 miles of nerves, nerves, nerves, and 100,000 hairs, and too many organs, and 60,000 miles of arteries...we must have been made by a man, because a woman would've made us more economically."

That song, as well as the album it comes from, is providing thoughts for the week...possibly (read: probably) much longer than that. The album is titled Our First Mistake and is a compilation of songs written by Kerrigan-Lowdermilk, a musical-writing pair that I fell in love with when I first heard my choir teacher sing Run Away With Me sophomore year of high school. Run Away With Me, from the musical The Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown, remains one of my favorite songs ever.

So...there are no decent YouTube videos of my favorite version (by Josh Young - iTunes it up, people!), but I just found this 3-part version! Aside from it not being the best recording, it's actually really good. Watch it watch it watch it...waaaaaaaatch iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

But back to the album. How to Return Home, Last Week's Alcohol, Not a Love Story...so much emotion, so many things to consider.

It's hard to describe it...but this is an album that you can't just listen and sing along with. You need to pay attention to it, digest it, let it impact you. It's so perfect. It's so wonderful. It's so...not for everyone. Just so you're aware. You might not like it. But maybe it'll surprise you how much Last Week's Alcohol's beat gets stuck in your head, how you remember the verse from Five and a Half Minutes so easily.

Give it a try. Prepare for a different musical experience.