girl, put your records on

i have learned some things over the past few months of my life - some serious, some silly - but i thought i'd share them with you.

1. it is okay to fall asleep on the couch watching a movie until after midnight - even on a work night.
2. when you really practice believing that God hears you when you talk to Him, and that He will answer your prayers, it's amazing how much your prayer life will grow and change and how much more you'll notice the Lord answering your prayers.
3. the difference in edible popcorn and burned popcorn is 1 second. no lie.
4. dancing around in your apartment by yourself is definitely good for you.
5. you don't have to be in love to appreciate it or to understand it or to celebrate it.
6. you are not a bad christian if you don't have a quiet time one day. He's not going to condemn you. trust me.
7. if you fall asleep with your make-up on and without brushing your teeth - good for you. i think that's healthy every now and then.
8. it's okay to stay in and do nothing on a friday night but watch movies, eat Ramen noodles, and read.
9. it's very hard to tell when chicken is done.
10. you should never make a decision about somebody before spending time with them. i do this a lot (i'm working on it), and i'm always wrong.
11. there are very, very few people in this world who will go out of their way to be a good friend.
12. take advantage of every opportunity to spend time with family and friends. it doesn't matter if you're out too late or you have to drive a couple of hours. i will always choose time with family and friends over sleep. always. you can sleep when you're dead, but you never get moments with people you love back.
13. there is no point to living with regrets. whatever it is, no matter how insignificant or significant, it's over. you can't change it. might as well learn from it and move on.
14. if you want to eat a brownie, eat a brownie. if you don't want to work out, don't work out. life's too short to worry too much about this stuff.
15. try new things. especially now that i'm single and living on my own, i'm discovering a lot of new things that i'm interested in. painting, for example, and volunteering. i also enjoy documentaries. weird.
16. if you put a candle that's in a holder of some sort in the freezer, the candle will pop out within an hour.
17. everybody should live on their own at some point in their life. no roommates, no spouse, no parents. it's liberating, and it teaches you a LOT about yourself. it's been one of the best experiences of my life.
18. wasps can be killed with roach spray. i learned this the other day when a wasp flew into my apartment. i was too scared (and screaming too much) to try to kill it with a fly swatter, so i sprayed that sucker down with about a whole can of roach spray. killed it.
19. it's a good idea to make sure your vaccuum cleaner is hooked up right before turning it on. if you don't, you could end up spraying crap all over your apartment. not that that's happened to me...
20. if you don't tape the molding when you paint, it's real easy to make a big mess real fast.
21. nail polish remover will take the paint out of carpet.
22. if somebody will talk to you about somebody else, there's a good chance they're talking to the person they were talking about about you. we all need to stop this.
23. plants will die if you don't water them...ever. even if they're outside kind of near rain and sunshine.
24. if you keep your feet shoved in to ice skates that are very tight for a very long time, your toes are subject to go numb and stay that way for several weeks after you went ice skating.
25. you can be a girly girl and not be high maintenance.
26. it's okay to be weak.
27. the saying really is true: you should be nice to everybody, because everybody is always going through something.
28. you are not a bad person if you leave dishes in the sink when you go to bed. they'll still be there when you wake up.
29. if you want to sleep until 2 pm on saturday - go for it. that's good for your soul.
30. everybody needs somebody that they can call at 3 am when they've had a bad dream.

hearts were made to be broken

a heart is a fragile thing, that's why we protect them so vigorously, give them away so rarely, and why it means so much when we do. some hearts are more fragile then others, purer somehow. like crystal in a world of glass. even the way they shatter is beautiful.

-john pogue

have you ever stopped to think about how fragile we are? humans in general, i mean. well, actually, i know some humans who wouldn't want to be considered "fragile," so i'll speak for myself here.

i am completely fragile, and i realize this more and more. not fragile as in unstable. i have a lot of accidents. i trip almost daily; i have bruises all over me from people LOOKING at me wrong (that's how easily i bruise); i cut myself shaving every single morning; i lose contacts; i bit my lip; i slip and fall on perfectly level and dry concrete. i get my feelings hurt; my heart breaks easily; i genuinely hurt for people over the silliest things; i'm relatively sensitive. when you get down to it, i'm rather weak. now obviously, i've been through some tough stuff (who hasn't?), and survived just fine. so sometimes i like to think that i'm pretty strong. but i'm not. nobody is.

i will go out of my way to protect myself. i don't get involved in relationships. i try not to let (most) people see me cry. i act like everything is okay when it's not. i use sarcasm to keep people at a distance. i have only shared the most intimate details of my heart with two people ever (thank you, sara and joanna). i can't do much to protect myself phsically, because i'm just an accident waiting to happen. why do i do this? because i know i'm liable to break.

sometimes i think that's a sign of weakness - like it's a bad thing. but i think that's the beauty of being human. i'm breakable. everything about me is entirely and completely breakable. my heart, my spirit, and my body can all be broken in a matter of seconds. isn't that strange? so often today we're taught to be strong, to be self-sufficient, to deal with life and get over it, not to show our feelings or emotions. ridiculous. i'm not strong and neither are you.

some of the most beautiful moments in my life have been moments of complete and utter destruction of my heart. those are the moments when you feel everything. everything is sharp as a knife. you feel the shattering. you feel the sadness. you feel the desperation. you feel the pain. you even feel the hope. it's all so much more acute. and not that i'm asking for something bad to happen in my life - not at all, i actually am scared to death for something "bad" to happen to me - but i wish i could experience everything in that very same, very real, very near way EVERY day, even when everything in life is going well.

i want to remember my fraility. i want to celebrate it, even. i think life is sweeter when we're more vulnerable. this is what i'm longing for in my life. i want to be honest with what's going on. i want to ask my friends how they're doing, and for them to give me a genuine, real answer. if i hear "i'm fine" one more time, i might scream. nobody is ever just "fine." i don't believe that. everybody is always dealing with something or celebrating something. and that is NORMAL. that is life. and we should share in that with each other. it's okay to not be happy. it's okay to be frustrated. it's okay to have a little heartache. i'm learning so much about this lately, and i didn't really even realize that until i sat down to write this post. i should note that i am excluding drama queens who always have some horrible life-ending saga going on in their lives - that is NOT who i'm talking about.

anyway.

what i'm saying is this: it's a beautiful thing to be breakable. i think about a set of beautiful, hand-painted, thin as paper glasses my mom has. they're gorgeous. i'm almost afraid to use them when i'm home, because they're so fragile. but of course, i do use them. i don't pick it up and slam it down on the table like it's a mason jar. i handle it carefully. taking cautious sips out of it, and setting it back down gingerly. the fragility of the glass is part of what makes it so spectacular. it's the same with us. and obviously, glasses can break and are usually not able to be put back together, but you get what i'm saying. jesus recognizes our susceptibility to be broken - and he tells us to go ahead and be weak because his strength is made perfect in our weakness. and what's also an awesome thought is that one day, the man i'm supposed to be with, is going to see my fraility and my sensitivity and he's going to LOVE that, and he's going to cherish that, and take care of me, and protect me - the same way i carefully hold on to those beautiful glasses my mom has.

i'm not sure how to end this post. there could be more on this later. i guess lately i've just been doing a lot of soul seraching, and as corny as it may sound, i've been figuring out who i really am. when you move away from the town you grew up in, away from your parents, away from everything familiar, you really get to do that. it's been kind of nice. jesus is teaching me a lot about myself - and about who i am in light of who he is. i'm interested for you to share your thoughts on this post. do i make sense, or am i crazy? haha.

stay tuned. i'll probably follow this one up soon. : )

my lyrical soulmate

i love music. a guitar and a raspy but sultry voice and deep jazz, almost blues, sound makes me weak. but it's the lyrics that get me. good lyrics - happy, sad, romantic, angry lyrics, it doesn't matter - move me. i can be driving down the road happy as can be and break down in tears, because of a song i just heard. i love that. music is so powerful. my all time favorite song is "slow dancing in a burning room" by john mayer. when i say i love this song, i LOVE this song. something about it breaks something in my heart every time i hear it - and i always cry. i think because it has meaning from a different part of my life, mostly, but also because i absolutely cannot stand the thought of lost love. i can't take it. i feel physical pain when i think about anybody losing the love of their life. when i was reading the second book in the twilight series, i got to the part where edward left bella. i literally was on the floor sobbing. when tristan dies in the movie "tristan and isolde" i feel like my heart is going to burst out of my chest, because it hurts so badly. when jennifer dies in "love story" i feel like i'm sure to run out of tears. "slow dancing in a burning room" is all about love that isn't going to work - it's not going to last. but the beauty of the song is that the couple is going to hang on to each other until the very end - until the room burns away. let me a share a few of the lyrics with you real quick:

it's not a silly little moment
it's not the storm before the calm
this is the deep and dying breath
of this love that we've been working on
can't seem to hold you like i want to
so i can feel you in my arms
nobody's gonna come to save you
we've pulled to many false alarms

just take that in for a minute.

recently i've come to really appreciate and enjoy music by rob pattinson. he doesn't have too many songs out there, but what i've heard, i like. his song "never think" is in the movie "twilight," and i'm quickly becoming obsessed with it. a glimpse into the song...

tell you to hold off
you choose to hold on
it's the one thing that i've known
once i put my coat on
i'm coming out of this all wrong
she's standing outside holding me
saying, 'oh, please, i'm in love'
girl, save your soul
go on and save your soul
before it's too far gone
and before nothing can be done
cause without me
you got it all
so hold on
without me you got it all

i don't even have words to process those lyrics. how horrible, to be so in love with somebody, but to feel like the best thing you can do for them is to not be with them - for their sake. ahhh. i can't take it!

part of me wants that kind of love. that dangerous, this is going to be really hard, you shouldn't be with me, huge risk kind of love. i think that would make the love itself so much sweeter - when it's put to the test. but then i just don't know if i could handle it. and then that leads me to a whole different point:

i want to fall in love. i want to find the person i'm supposed to be with and spend my life with them. however, when i think about that, and i actually think about being THAT close with somebody, it scares me to death. like honestly, seriously, straight up scares me. i don't know if i'm prepared for love. i don't know if i'll ever be able to go there with somebody. and that worries me. i'm so guarded - and i don't appear to be that way, but trust me, i am. i don't let myself or my emotions get involved. i've had a few very casual relationships in my life, but though several of the guys were totally honest and emotional and revealed their feelings for me, i got scared and couldn't do the same. then in college i thought somebody wonderful had finally come into my life, and i gave in and completely gave myself to this person mentally and emotionally and spirtually. and then my heart was torn apart when that ended badly (see previous post about my testimony). and now i just don't know where i go. i say i'm open to love and i want to fall in love and meet somebody, but i'm absolutely so shut off from it that i don't know how i'll ever get there. i wonder how many times the lord has brought somebody in to my life that i've completely ignored. maybe not ever, but maybe he has - and i missed it. i'm so wrapped up in not getting hurt again, that i don't give anything or anybody a chance. i don't want to get too close. i don't want to take a risk. i'm so scared of what happened in the past, that i can't figure out how to move forward with something new. and this is the only area of my life that this applies to - in every other way i am totally healed and whole and "over" what happened. sara and joanna are really good about talking me through this, and they seem to somewhat get what i'm saying. we've kind of figured out that i'm just still "grieving" over the loss of this person. lindsey says i need new love to replace what was lost - and i think she's partially right. but how do i get there when i am completely closed off from love? i have no idea. i'm dreading seeing the new movie in the twilight series. i mean, i'm excited about the movie, but i'm absolutely dreading watching edward leave bella. and i know it's just a movie - i KNOW. but i am certain that i will be curled up in my chair weeping, because i know that feeling of having something ripped out of your life - something that your heart is holding on to for dear life. that is why my heart breaks when i listen to the two songs i mentioned earlier. i guess that's how i got from john mayer all the way to here. haha. funny how women can connect everything to everything else.