cousins.

me and kids have the oddest relationship.
i used to think that i hated them . . . well, at least all american kids. i thought they were all spoiled brats who had watched entirely too many television commercials.
and then i started to think that some of them were ok, but only if their moms didn't let them eat sugar cereals and if they had imaginary friends named "giant".
now, i think little kids are the best.
my cousin claire is staying at my house right now, and she is a riot. she is like 8 or 9 . . . i can never tell these things. she is really into the game "dance, dance revolution" and she will sit on my lap and get right in my face and demand that we go play "ddr", as she calls it.
it kills me.
tonight, she got baptized in our hot tub. she waited until i got home from work and then she had my dad ("uncle pastor greg") baptize her and my sister read from psalm 1 and then she had us all sing "hark the herald angels sing".
i sang so loud that my lungs hurt.
claire was smiling her picture smile, and i loved it.
she just got a retainer that looks like a watermelon, and she is so proud of it.
i think the reason i like little kids these days is because they are honestly the least complicated people you will ever meet.

fear is the heart of love

my problems are so . . . how do i say this? um, first world. and by that i mean they mainly revolve around things like social anxiety and loneliness and the fact that i can' afford an ipod because i refuse to go into debt.
man, i annoy myself everytime i stop to think about the fact that i am not crazily happy. but i'm not and that's the truth of it, folks.
i have been more emotional than usual lately (i kind of remind myself of that lady from tbn . . . the one with the purple hair who cries about the children . . . i am well-intentioned but misguided). it's rather exhausting.
and then i will be doing something mundane, like changing the garbage bag liners at starbucks, and i will have a thought that makes everything feel better, like the one i had this afternoon:
"well, i guess the fall (of genesis origin) is partly to blame for my messed-up thinking".

i know it's crazy, but man that made me feel better.
i think a lot of the reason that i want to live overseas so badly is because i think i will have more justification for being unhappy.
i think this is faulty reasoning.
i think that no matter where i am at, i am never going to be truly happy.
i am always, always going to be homesick. until christ leads me home.
this thought also makes me feel happy.

also a random thought i had today:
"christ is the only one who loves me like i want to be loved"
it was nine o clock in the morning and i was staring at my face in the mirror.
and i immediatly started crying.

merry christmas eve eve.

there is a difference between being irritable and being inexplicably, achingly sad.

oh the weather outside is frightful

it is snowing/sleeting outside. i absolutely love it.
yesterday morning, i woke up with a strange feeling. i wasn't feeling sorry for myself.
for the past month, i have had a chip on my shoulder--i kind of felt like i wasn't getting everything that i deserved out of life. i felt like i was lonely, that people were shallow, and that the right people didn't like me in the right ways. i was moderately miserable, and quite surprised to find myself that way. i dreaded talking to people, especially on the phone, because i never felt like it was me talking. i walked around sure of the fact that my emotions were as transparent to everyone else as they were to me. most of all, i felt guilty for feeling all of these things.
and then yesterday morning, when i was half awake, i had an epiphany.

i am blessed.

that's how it started. simply: i am blessed.
and then it went on from there.
i have traveled around the world.
i have gone to three different colleges.
i have worked upwards of 8 different jobs.
i have a family who loves me very much.
i have met the most random people in the most awkward situations, and i have been able to laugh about it not to long after the fact.
i have traveled america in a motor home.
i have owned cats since the age of 11.
i have returned movies to the movie store without hyperventilating.

and through it all, i have never been alone. the very presence of christ is with me. i think i am a much more resilient person than i give myself credit. how can i possibly feel sorry for myself when there is nothing to feel sorry for?
i think i am going to have a ramshackle life.
and i think that i am very excited about it.

retrospect is priceless

earlier today, i thought about writing down these words and then posting them:

my eyes were watering. i don't know if it was from the cold wind or from the fact that i miss you and you aren't even gone.

ha! this strikes me as hilarious when i read it to myself now. i did cry alot today, however.

sniper.

so one of my old best friends is getting married this weekend--shotgun style. i kind of hate to even think about it, really. i really loved this boy in high school. he was so down to earth and funny, and his new zealand accent fascinated me. i was there for him when he started hearing voices in his head, when his girlfriend left him for a 52 year old convicted felon, and when he joined the army in order to "shoot people in the head".
and now he is getting married.
i think the thing that scares me the most is the realization that lonliness causes people to act crazy. i remember two summers ago, when this boy and i went on a road trip to canada. we had some good times, some crazy times, but mostly we had awful times. he was trying to use me to fill the hollowness that was in his heart. and i wouldn't let him. we argued about war (i took a get-out-of-iraq stance just to piss him off), about directions (he wouldn't let me drive), and about his feelings for me (i refused to validate them).
he was, i remember thinking, the walking wounded.
he dropped me off after that fateful road trip and left without saying goodbye. i knew that he was going downtown in order to meet up with two different girls, to see if they "would work out". i guess every guy in the army needs a picture to hold at night.
one of the girls did work out.
he is marrying her on saturday.
they will be living apart for at least 3 months, and then he might be going to ranger school.
i heard about the marriage from my dad, who is performing the ceromony.
my old friend keeps calling my phone and i can't bring myself to answer.
i don't know what he is going to say.
and i can't trust myself to open my mouth.

and we all try to fight it

i am so blessedly lonely that i find myself crying at books that are about old toys who don't get played with anymore. I am so lonely that it is hard for me to register the feelings of other people around me. I am so lonely that I take every single reaction aimed my way and turn it into a personal rejection.
damn it. the feelings came back.
i was doing so good for awhile . . . in the loneliness factor. recently, i erred on the side of being semi-popular, and that wasn't any fun either. in fact, having a lot of people want to hang out with me made me realize just how much i desire to use other people for my own gain.
i have never thought of myself as attractive, but just recently i have begun to understand the power of a females attention. and you know what? i love boys. i really, really do. and it annoys me to no end that i care so much what they think of me.
and so, last week, i decided to knock it off. i stopped responding to witty comments, veiled suggestions, and pleas for attention. i stopped (for the most part) calling people. i spent a couple of nights at home. i hung out with my heart-numbingly normal roomates, and watched all 6 hours of Pride and Predjudice. i felt pathetic, i felt empowered, and i felt obedient.
but most of all, i felt lonely.

tonight, i helped my family set up the house for christmas. my dad was crabby, my sister hilarious, my mom all warmth and interest. it was exactly what i needed.

but we all sleep alone. and i am sure that i will get over this soon.

i don't want to grow up

yesterday was a pretty interesting day. i was at school all morning and worked at the library for an hour. i wandered around campus, trying to be sociable without feeling cheap. i got a free meal in the cafeteria, and read a book by a christian indian mystic. generally, i just tried to kill time, because i was dreading going to help my refugees move into their new house. finally, i went over at 2 . . . and it was pouring rain. as a complete side note, the jacket that i had just gotten for free (and forgotten to wash) smelled like an old hamster cage as soon as the rain hit it. and i had to wear it all day.
anyways, when i got to majuma's house, everything was all packed up, but there was no moving van. a somalian man, alisheck, was supposed to have gotten them a uhaul . . . but i found out very quickly that he had changed his mind that day, saying he was "too busy". i started loading up my teeny little car with an increasing sense of futility. just then, an emplyee from the refugee resource center showed up. her name is jennifer, and she was completly stressed out. we quickly figured out that neither of us had money for a uhaul, but that there was no way we could move the bed frames without one.
i didn't really know why jennifer was so stressed out . . . i figured that we could get the uhaul the next day and it would all work out. and then i remembered hassan.
hassan was in the hospital, and needed to come home that day. i didn't exactly know what was wrong with him, but jennifer told me that if he stayed an extra night in the hospital it wold cost hundreds of dollars. and the hospital had just told her that they would not release hassan unless there was a clean bed set up for him at the new apartment.
jennifer also told me what was wrong with hassan: the medication that he had been on for treating his tape worm was causing his internal organs to liquify. that explained to me why his eyes were turning gray and why he had seemingly aged 10 years in two months. basically, he is dying. not today, and probably not tomorrow, but sooner than later.
so. i found all this out, and we still needed a uhaul. jennifer ended up having majuma write her a check, and she went off to go get the truck. and then i had to start doing grown-up things.
i called the hospital and convinced them to discharge hassan at 4pm, and told them where to find the new apartment.
i took one of the somali ladies (suleka), filled my little car to the brim with trashbags full of pots and pans and went to the new apartment complex to start getting a bed ready.
i picked up my friend weston so he could help load/unload.
i helped finish cleaning majuma's apartment, and took her and her three daughters to their new place.
i talked to social workers on the phone.
i went back to the hospital in order to pick up the medication that they had forgotten to give hassan (don't even get me started on this one).
i went back to the apartment complex and tried to explain to hassan how to take 13 different kinds of pills.

and then . . . . i was done. i was so tired. and happy-sad. the somalis are the most amazing people you will ever meet in your life. there must have been 25 people in the new apartment (half of them little kids) all yelling and shouting in somalian, helping out out majuma simply because she was one of them.
i remembered the hundreds of times my family has moved, and i can't remember ever having that many people help us out. africans teach me so much.
its hard to grow up, especially in one day. but the stretching makes me stronger, and it makes me feel like i am alive. i have a suspician that days like this will be the kind of days that i remember when i am old and gray.
if i ever make it to that stage.

a new blog is born.

some people think i am mysterious. some people think i am really emotional. some people think i am okay at writing. some people are really nosy and i want to write about them without fear of them ever reading it. hence, this here blog. do with it what you will.