i hate emotional roller coasters.
along with all of the things i am now i am also
still selfish and insecure.
this becoming a better person thing, while it seems
important, requires a lot.
dealing with family crap, the ones i am currently
close in proximity to, and the ones back home, is
just plain hard.
those walls have been so high for so long i don't
remember every seeing over some of them.
the need to protect myself from discomfort and
rejection was shaken today.
i entered a piece of art i had painted into a gallery
show and i didn't get chosen. for the show. it's on
a door and they didn't like that.
i felt sad.
i told my cousin that my feelings were hurt and i
could feel bitterness building and that opened
a can of worms for us to discuss.
i realized that i have been reaping what i sew in my
relationship with my sister. and it's not been good.
Lacey was here only a week and she said i was mean
to my mom.
today i am at a loss but it's ok.
today i suck. that's ok too.

honestly there is nothing like a little piece of your past to
remind you of who you used to be and how far you have
come.
i am always the first one admit my need for continual
change. i feel, and have said, that i have been 100
different people over the last 7 years. i knew some major
things had happened for me since coming to washington
and having shared them with my accountability partner i
knew they were real and apparent, but i had no idea the
extent of them until yesterday.
i mean i have guraded my heart for the first time.
i have allowed God to guard my heart so deeply that when
my head went places my heart did not follow.
i have had conversations with men that while expressing my
feelings did not deteriorate into manipulative drama.
i have set boundaries in all of the relationships in my life and
most of them never even existed before now.
i have learned that i can and want to do things for God and
through God that once scared me.
i have discovered that music is my soul and missions is my
heart and writing is my life.
and knowing those things has opened me up to only God knows
what at this point.
i have never felt more hopeful.
i have never been more out of controll.
i have never been more sure of who i am and what i want.
i have been needy and emotional and helpless.
that has been answered by care and charity and encouragement.
good lord.
Good, Lord!

i can't believe it's been so long. i imagine no one
is even reading this anymore. i guess it doesn't
matter since most of it will get used in the book
at some point i figure.
anyway it's funny how things with God can just
change on a dime. it's also funny how if you let
Him He can heal you to the point of being able to
accept the change without too much drama.
i had once felt like there were things i couldn't
do without a husband. there were other things
i didn't want to do without one.
today... it's not even on my radar.
i mean i still want that but there are so many
exciting things on the horizon and for me today
just the way i am those things are mine.
it's not even the certianty of specific things.
just the hope of waking up tomorrow and having
the whole day and using it to move forward in mind,
body, and spirit.
i sat in church tonight and realized that i'm not
supposed to go there anymore.
it's been a long time since i was on a different page
than the pastor of the church i was attending.
i started the application process for the peace corp
and for elic - english language institute china.
there are pluses and minuses for each so i'm just
knocking on the doors.

i'm experiencing something really great right now.
i feel focused and purposeful and so much that
i'm not letting anything deter me from my goal.
that's good too but something i realized and i
guess have always felt but never admitted is that
i don't believe there is enough to go around.
i eat faster when sharing, i am not totaly happy
when others win, and when i think an idea i had
has been done, i feel like quititng.
lately, no so.
i am grasping my uniqueness and instead of being
prideful about it, i'm humbled by it.
i love it!
i don't need it to define my importance.
my friend tasha believes and lives like there is
enough to go around and even in the competetive
work environment she is in she still helps other
people by referring them to other photographers.
i think that if you live like there is enough, there
will be enough. and vice versa.
i want to believe there will always be more!
more time, more love, more energy, more work,
more inspiration, more passion, more people,
more room, more heat, more laughs, more music,
more money...
this is a god one. there is freedom here.

Deepak Chopra said that all of the artists that he knows
who are creating new things and moving forward are
aware of their insecurity and they are comfortable with
it.
i was looking in the mirror this morning and really seeing
myself and i feel like my face is too round and i see the
double chin looming in the background and i wondered
if instead of affirming myself into believeing that i love
myself just the way i am today, which never happens,
or trying to whip myself into some shape i think it could
be...
whst if there is a certian level of dissatisfaction that i can
be comfortable with?
realizing that no one ,even super models, likes their bodies
(which always sounded like a crock of shit to me)
and accepting that the way it is, the way it could be, even
the way it used to be, isn't ok...
and that's ok...
that i just learn to be ok with it not being ok.
is sounds absurd.
it feels brilliant.

a little footnote here-
all of the recent revelations God has given me lately have
been from sources i would have prior to this new season
shunned as heretics, blashpemers, and kooks.
my sweet friend kenny in all of hist northwest political
correctness wishes God were more compassionate,
less judgmental, and just plain nicer.
what if He is?
what if each piece out ther adds to the puzzle?
instead of making division and war?
what if our fear keeps us on this stariway to hell because
without more information it's only partially helpful...
or harmful even.

here we are with purple again.
you know what that means...
royal revelations!
so one day while talking with dimitri i shared
how sickening it was to be constantly looking
for 'the one' and trying on every guy, and i mean
every, in a mental game of 'could it be him?'
as i said this i felt sick to my stomach.
literally. he even asked "really?" when i said i
could throw up. i almost did.
not only is it desperate, but so sad.
sad that there is this hole in my life that will be
constantly nagging at me until it is filled with a
man. keeping me from living my dreams at this
moment and holding me hostage in some absurd
game of relationship poker. who has the best
'hand' and does he like what my 'hand' looks like
in this shirt?
so i've been playing around with the idea that i
may have met 'him' and even allowed myself to
hope (which i never do) for a future of grand
adventure and love perfectly suited to me. and
the part of it that has opened me up to love and
hope in that area is good...
the desire for that still makes me nauseaus.
so last night our artist group met here at jen's
and there are a couple of guys i adore in it and
we started talking about all of this stuff. love and
relationships and all.
a very wise kenny shared this with me.
he said that he could see how it would be harder
for women because guys get to decide when they
get married and then they go out and chose.
women just kind of have to wait for it to happen to
them.
i was so angry! that is the victim mentality that
has kept women oppressed for centuries. and
the one's who fought it turned it into a feminist
thing and tried to make us men which only made
things worse.
so again i was faced with calling out a lie.
that i am uninvloved in the chosing and destined to
wait on the man's decision to chose, or not chose, me.
that is a lie. and i believed it with everything in me.
then kenny topped it off by reminding me that what
my heart is really built to desire is relationship with
God and that my desire has been misplaced by a
society who puts too great an importance on
marriage by a certian age, and sex, and does not
at all understand solitude or the spirit.
i have always know this, but last night after calling out
the lie- i could see the truth.
i have been trying to settle for a relationship that
will never be as romantic and full and deep as the one
i can have with my creator
and i was doing it because i felt i had no say so and
that i had to just wait for it to happen to me.
as i walked down the street today i considered that
if i saw 'him' coming toward me,
i might just keep walking.
that's being impowered.