blog move!

I'm moving my blog over to wordpress because...well...I like it better (yes, ruth, you can make fun of me now). my blog is now at Second Thoughts.

quote of the day

Ruth: i feel like the springs is very similar to faulkner's communities in yoknapatawpha county
so much history
everyone knows each other
you're tied in to your past

me: gosh yeah

Ruth: none of this modern escaping your past

me: I don't want to escape my past
I just want it to shut up and leave me alone

He's Just Not That Into You

I’ve learned just enough in my short life not to set my expectations by chick flicks, which, as many of my girlfriends and I know, is hard not to do. It’s hard not to envision (or want) the swelling music, the sweet speeches, the everything-works-out-perfectly situations. But reality eventually sets in and reminds you that, no, he is not perfect, and no, you will not, say, walk into your house to find him on one knee in the middle of a room filled with roses. You might, but you’ll hit more pitfalls than Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey to get there, and those pitfalls will not melt away in the midst of symphonic music and sappy-eyed glances.

My, I’m becoming a cynic.

But with all that said, I liked He’s Just Not That Into You. Maybe because of all of that. There’s something incredibly freeing about the concept—the idea that instead of stressing and analyzing and caring so stinking much, you can just accept that you don’t mean enough to him and move on.

He claims to like her, but he doesn’t want to date right now.

He says he loves her, but doesn’t seem too motivated to marry her.

She calls him, but he can’t be bothered to call her.

And ultimately, he just didn’t care enough. At first it feels vaguely pride-shattering, as though something’s wrong with you, that this guy you thought was everything didn’t quite think as much about you. But then you have to stop. No, it’s not you—and, in a way, it’s not him. Love or affection or flirtation that is primarily one-sided is good for no one. Don’t you both deserve a lot better? He needs someone he can be passionate about, a girl he thinks holds the moon, and you shouldn’t have to waste your heart on someone who just doesn’t feel enough to give everything back.

But there’s more to it than that. The movie still felt somewhat helpless, as though even though some people got their happy ending, others were doomed to wander still, wondering if it would ever come along. But I’ve got something more than that, something that should make me stop and realize that being alone doesn’t mean anything, that I shouldn’t worry about what is or isn’t happening in this moment. If God is hammering one thing into my head—and has been, these last few months—it’s this: My happiness depends not on everything going my way, but rather on everything going His way, and me having enough courage to hang on for the ride. So if I’m alone, it’s because that’s what I need (and frankly, even I know that right now), and if He ever brings me to a place of being ready for someone, He’ll bring him along, without any prompting or prodding or pursuing or pity-partying on my part.

[moments]

The distance between being angry and being peeved is about the same as the distance between actually caring what someone thinks of you and not. Today's forecast: peeved.

[done]

Of all the glorious moments was the one where I actually stopped, stopped and thought, thought before speaking, and spoke honestly. It is an interesting situation when both people are committed to not sugar-coating everything, when the world has reached a point where there is no reason not to be blunt. I think my life would be a lot better if I felt comfortable enough to do that all the time.

[moving on]

We were both running in high heels and laughing--beat the crowds! "There's a bottle of vodka in the women's restroom," she whispered, eyes wide. "At a Christian concert!" Brief flashes of worship, being still, music swelling, pulsing; My chains are gone--the insane-beautiful moment of realizing none of it matters, that I am no longer defined by that which I have let define me for so long.

[breathing]

[laughing]

[hoping]

the doorstep of hell

"When the Enemy fails in his attacks from the outside, he then begins to attack from within; and one of his favorite weapons is selfishness. If he can get us thinking only about ourselves and what we want, then he will win the victory before we realize that he is even at work.

Selfishness means putting myself at the center of everything and insisting on getting what I want when I want it. It means exploiting others so I can be happy and taking advantage of them just so I can have my own way. It is not only wanting my own way but expecting everybody else to want my way too. Why are selfish people so miserable? I think Thomas Merton said it best: 'To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell.'”
-- Warren Wiersbe

are you not entertained?

"What is the point of being almost twenty-two and still having so much to learn?"—Emma

gossip is the most insidious of sins; it creeps in, affirms itself through groupthink; and for me, showcases a biting wit that makes me feel clever, funny, superior. here I am, living to maintain these relationships and cultivate new friendships, an entertainer, always thinking of how to catch attention and start a conversation—and the path I have chosen is the very thing that can destroy all those things. it works in the short term, but it takes not so long for me to hurt someone I care about—for how can I be sarcastic without having a target? and eventually I choose a target that I want to call a friend (although clearly not enough, or I wouldn't do this, would I?), and lose their good opinion; and I have shattered everything I hoped for. what would happen, I wonder, if I chose not to speak? if for once I did not join in when it was the easy thing to do, simply because others were speaking thoughts that occasionally or often run through my warring mind? if instead of doing the things I wish I would not do, I chose the harder way that eventually is less painful? what if I actually stood up for what is right, stopping gossip instead of letting it go on long enough that I feel compelled to join in?

I feel a bit like Emma, with no Mr. Knightley but my own conscience snapping at me—"Badly done!"

life in stop-motion

it was an off week. I felt entirely not myself until friday, when I was suddenly inexplicably happy. wednesday I had dinner with kyndell, and tried to explain to her everything I was feeling and not feeling, words tumbling out and lying scattered on the table like so many puzzle pieces.

"read philippians," she told me.

I will confess to being a bit disgruntled with paul. as a writer, I love galatians, ephesians, and philippians for the words, the thoughts, the beauty of expression. as a person, it annoys me to no end that he seems to have it figured out and doesn't offer much explanation--or, at least, explanation that satisfies me.

and so it was with philippians this morning. "I have learned the secret of being content," and I imagined paul saying it in a smug voice, as though this were no big deal, as though it were something I should know how to do. oh? care to let me in on that? I thought, thinking of all the past times I have made resolutions to be more content, only to be hit in the face with something unexpected that makes me anything but.

and then it hit me. he does say what the secret is, in the very next line. I'd always separated the two in my head, twin paul-soundbites, different ideas expressing equally lofty concepts.

"I can do all things through him who gives me strength."

the secret to contentment has nothing to do with anything I can do. I have always known this mentally but never has it hit me so hard as today, after a good month of realizing I should have been catholic, for all my need to do things to feel that I deserve God's love and forgiveness. I have been looking at contentment as though it were a fractious horse, that if I just focused on being content hard enough, I would subdue all of these tumultous emotions and wonderings and what ifs. 

but grace is easier and harder than that. he has asked for nothing more than for me to rest in his arms and his promises and his love, to stop striving to make my life something he has not chosen for me; and that is so hard for me, because I am a tempest of emotion and turmoil and needing to do to feel something. but contentment is doing nothing; it is not an action, it is a rest. and he offers me his strength to do just that.