Everybody Look What I Did

Well, since nobody is talking and I'm bored and trying not to get depressed, I joined a club. I even put my picture up, sheesh. Everybody run and hide.

Things to do for self tomorrow (err...today...???)

1. Finish paper for school.
2. Go tour at least one apartment.
3. Get a frappacino.
4. Go to class.
5. Do something fun. (yeah, riiiight...)

In less than 24 hours...

...my resolve to be positive is wearing thin. I need someone to just talk to, so I can't hear myself think, as per the usual...

...and not a soul is online to talk to. I hate these nights...

The "Have not"s and the "Have"s

Isn't it weird how one morning you wake up with gloom n doom in your heart and the next morning you wake up with a totally different perspective? At least, that's what happens frequently with me. Maybe it's because the long, quiet summer is drawing to a close. Although I'll certainly miss sleeping in and chatting with friends online, I really need to get active again. In the quiet, I sometimes think too much and my thoughts get all out of alignment with my disposition to already feel lonely here in Jacksonville.

A friend was recently trying to point out to me, as have several of you in the past, that I do have friends despite the fact most of the ones I have seem to be miles away.

Count that as something that I have.

Forgive me for my self-pity. Thank God it comes and goes and isn't there constantly, or perhaps none of you would put up with me. But then again, maybe you would. You all are not to be underestimated, I think. :)

Anyway, so I've made this decision to start thinking on the positive, on the things that I have rather than the things I don't. I think I've come to this conclusion before and have lost sight of it...

...so I'm asking that you all give me a good swift kick in the butt (an internet kick if necessary) if and when I slip into my focus on the things that I don't have. Because it will happen, such is life...a rollercoaster ride. Sometimes I think I'd like to get off the ride, but then I realize that perhaps someday surviving the rollercoaster will make life worth living.

And in the meantime, all of you guys make it worth living too. Count that as something i have. I know, I already counted you once. But you're good enough to be counted twice.

So yes, I'm lonely here in Jacksonville and lacking on friends and a social life. Definitely things I don't have. But on the flip side, I've got a caring family, a job that I feel valued and needed in, a bunch of kids I teach and guide daily despite their disabilities, and I've got my faith and trust in God. Thank goodness for this final one, for if I didn't I'd be wondering just why in the world the world is worth dealing with at times.

At any rate, those are alot of things that I do have. And if I haven't mentioned it, my long distance friends mean the world to me. Thank you all for putting up with my moments of loneliness and self-pity and for sticking it out. The loneliness will come back, it always does. I feel displaced here in Jacksonville, FL...

...but I'm resolving to try to get past that. Somehow. I do have some presence of mind to do so and the faith to lead me there as well. A major thing that I have.

And if I haven't mentioned it, I've got some very good friends... :P

Yay, rah....

My head hurts, I still want to be asleep, and I have a paper to write only I don't want to and I think I'm getting sick.

Wonderful way to start out the day.

Hold On (Love Will Find You)

Yeah, I know I post alot about being down and out and being lonely. And I also know that I post alot about my Christian faith. One thing I want to make clear is this: Being Christian makes me no less human. I still make mistakes, frequently. I still feel pain and hurt and loneliness...

...and all those things can, like the reverse, be a very real force in my life. That's why, even when I'm frustrated with my church, I still end up going each Sunday. And this set of song lyrics I'm about to post is the reason that I keep going to the same church, despite its faults. And after all, the church, like all else in this world, is made of humans just like you and me.

And I know for sure I'm not going to find alot of churches who have the nerve to use songs like this in a Sunday morning church service. This song is powerful. And it really relates what I truly, deep inside, believe, no matter how I might try to deny it.

Hold On
(Nichole Nordeman)
For Meredith and all I wish I'd said)

It will find you at the bottom of a bottle
It will find you at the needle's end
It will find you when you beg and steal and borrow
It will follow you into a stranger's bed

It will find you when they serve you with the papers
It will find you when the locks have changed again
It will find you when you've called in all your favors
It will meet you at the bridge's highest ledge

So baby don't look down, it's a long way
The sun will come around to a new day

So hold on
Love will find you
Hold on
He's right behind you now
Just turn around
And love will find you

It will find you when the doctor's head is shaking
It will find you in a boardroom, mostly dead
It will crawl into the foxhole where you're praying
It will curl up in your halfway empty bed

So baby don't believe that it's over
Maybe you can't see 'round the corner?

To hang between two thieves in the darkness
Love must believe you are worth it

Poetry, Again

Forgive me for the smaltzy-ness. It's all I can come up with right now.

I sigh
And I cry
Still the night passes me by

I wake
Dreams at stake
Yet the dawn still each day breaks

You stay
Far away
Yet I long for you come what may

You see
Not in me
What you long for there to be

Are you lost?
At what cost
Can our two lives ever cross?

Are you there?
Do I dare
Show you how much I care?

Do I see you?
Do you see me?
Can there ever be a we?

Am I one
Is this done?
Will I ever see the sun?

Or shall I sigh
And cry
Dreams at stake
Never to take

CMH 7/21/06

"Do one thing every day that scares you..."

...from the Sunscreen Song

And yeah, I need to do one thing every day that scares me. Because somewhere in the past couple of years I've lost my nerve.

I think I'll start out with one thing every week that scares me. This week: drive across town to Northeast Florida Astronomical Society meeting. Right after I convince my parents, who seem to still think I'm sixteen, that I won't be raped by an axe murderer on the way there or the moment I step out of the car.

Wait. That's TWO things that scare me within one week...

...let's see in a week if I can hack it.

The Race

Run the race alone
Surely I need not a friend
What fool would believe?

I need people to survive
The race is too long alone

CMH 7/15/06

Goodbye, Alice in Wonderland...

Ok, so I really like this song by Jewel, if not for the acoustic guitar (which is one of my favorite sounds) then simply for the lyrics of the song. Granted, the first verse is more applicable to Jewel's own life, but she goes on in other verses to say things that very much strike a chord (don't you love the pun?) with my own life. Here's the lyrics (and here are the lyrics along with the actual recording of the first verse of the song).

I'm struck with the honesty of the lyrics, "Goodbye, Alice in Wonderland/Goodbye yellow brick road/there is a difference between dreaming and pretending" and "growing up is not the absence of dreaming/it's being able to understand the difference between/the ones you can hold and the ones you've been sold/dreaming is a good thing cause it brings new things to life/but pretending is an ending
that perpetuates a lie/forgetting what you are/seeing for what you've been told"

This artist, in her element, writes some of the most profound, folk lyrics I've heard. This song is definitely one of those.

Goodbye, Alice in Wonderland, lyrics and music by Jewel Kilcher

Its four in the afternoon
I'm on a flight leaving LA
Trying to think about my life
My youth scattered along the highway
Hotel rooms in headlights
I've made a living with a song
guitar as my companion
Wanting desperately to be belong
Fame is filled with spoiled children
They grow fat on fantasy
I guess that's why I'm leaving
I crave reality

So goodbye Alice in Wonderland
Goodbye yellow brick road
There is a difference between dreaming and pretending
I did not find paradise
It was only a reflection
Of my lonely mind wanting
whats been missing in my life

I'm embarassed to say
The rest is a rock and roll cliche
I hit the bottom when i reached the top
but I never knew it was you
Who was breaking my heart
I thought you had to love me
But you did not

Yes, a heart can hallucinate
If it's completely starved for love
Can even turn monsters
Angels from above

you forged my love just like a weapon
and turned it against me like a knife
you broke my last heart string
you opened up my eyes

So goodbye Alice in Wonderland
Goodbye yellow brick road
There is a difference between dreaming and pretending
That was not love in your eyes
It was only a reflection
Of my lonely mind searching
for whats been missing in my life

And growing up is not the absence of dreaming
Its being able to understand the difference between
The ones you can hold and the ones that you've been sold
Dreaming is a good thing
Cause it brings new things to life
Pretending is an ending
That perpetuates a lie
Forgetting what you are
Seeing for what you've been told


Truth is stranger than fiction
This is my chance to get it right
and life is much better
Without all of those pretty lies

So goodbye Alice in Wonderland
and you can keep your yellow brick road
There is a difference between dreaming and pretending
these are not tears in my eyes

they are only a reflection
Of my lonely mind finding
they are only a reflection
Of my lonely mind finding
I found whats missing in my life

Fear of Loneliness?

It is not my typical mode of operation to retreat to myself when I'm upset about something, despite how it may at times appear. In fact, I don't even care to be alone. As I've mentioned before, this is part of the reason I can tend to be, I KNOW, obnoxious with IMs. Not much here to do, no one to talk to, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda. I find it strange that, while I don't like to be alone, I don't really trust anyone to go out with either. I suspect that everyone that I don't know could be an axe murderer, as though I'm the actress in "Single, White, Female."

But really, it all boils down to the fact that I really fear loneliness. When the IMs are going, or someone is around to talk to, I'm fine. Take away that personal interaction, though, and suddenly I'm depressed and crying.

Makes me wonder if the person I'm really afraid of is ME, instead of everybody else...

This Time...

I'm fairly certain I've posted the lyrics to this song before, but tonight they strike a particular chord with me. Just as a reminder, to all of you out there who might be reading this who are facing hard times...

...believe in yourself. Cause I believe in you. And to be quite honest, I know that God believes in you too.

This Time by Three Doors Down

Unsure of yourself
You stand divided now
Which road will lead you there
Last time you fell and you hit hard
Your wounds have healed by now
But you still see your scars yeah

But it’s not the way it used to be right now
You've come so far to just let this go my friend
don't go out

The same way you did the last time
You’ll break when you fall
Don’t make the same mistakes you did all over
You’ve got to believe in yourself this time

Live on, live it up today
This life’s your cup
So drink it up I say, yeah
Say it’s mine so give it all up to me now
And walk that line, don’t let this go my friend, don’t go out the

Same way you did the last time
You'll break when you fall
Don’t make the same mistakes you did all over
You’ve got to believe in yourself this time

Life’s your cup, life’s your cup
Drink it up
Life’s your cup, life’s your cup

The same way you did the last time
You’ll break when you fall
Don’t make the same mistakes you did all over
You've got to believe in yourself this time

More Poetry (quick, run, she's going to get smaltzy again...)

Where is everyone, and why am I still sitting here?
I crave freedom from this
Yet I fear in breaking free I might not survive.
When everyone is on their merry way
Or they are suffering in grief
I know not, for they do not tell me.
I am certain I am at times misunderstood
For I am not certain that I even understand myself.
The strength to weather this storm must come from Above...

...for it is simply not in me.

CMH 7/6/06