M.I.A.

Dear Internet,

This is the view from where I'm spending the week:

I took that picture with my cell phone; you can imagine how wonderful it is in reality.

So you see, I have very little use for you right now, dear internet. But don't worry, I'll be back on Monday, and I'll be addicted to you again.

The weather is here, wish you were beautiful,

P.S. Apparently I write blog posts in letter format now. Hmmm... It won't last.

Wedding March

Dear Recently Married Friends,

Just one question:

Why didn't we do this in all of your weddings?




It would make being a perpetually single girl at the never-ending stream of weddings ever so much more enjoyable.

Love,

Hope

p.s. muchas gracious, sdq.

8:30 to 5 o'clock

I have some lofty ambitions.

Tonight at 5 o'clock, I took my sexy red briefcase out from beneath my desk, un-docked my laptop from its port, and carefully placed the wonder of technology next to my neatly labeled "volunteer" binder inside the briefcase. "I will work from home!" I told myself.

But do you know what I found when I sat down at my dining room table, spreading my work out around me at 9:47 pm?

I found some new blogs to read, this beautiful new blouse that will look completely fabulous with or without a suit jacket (JACKPOT!), and my new favorite youtube video was there to watch yet again (I blame you, Joe Jones.)



No, I did not do any work post-5 o'clock.

Yes I said sexy briefcase.

I Can Be Funny!!!

Okay so here it is:

This blog can be kind of depressing. All these serious life questions and pseudo-deep, intellectual thoughts. I've been thinking about starting another blog for the sake of being snappy and sarcastic and cuss-y, because in real life, that's what I'm like most of the time, and damn it if it's not hilarious! (Or at least I think so.) But why start a new one that has a totally different personality? My real life personality is irreverent and sometimes without a filter, but it's also one that questions things like the meaning of life with a what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here-I-think-I-need-to-cry sort of attitude.

So I've decided that henceforth I'm going to be more intentional about allowing my blog posts to be a more realistic reflection of real life me.

Because some days I just want to be shallow and read trashy romance novels.

Doubt

I question a lot of things. I question my faith—the parts I was raised in and the parts I’ve come to believe for myself. What if we just tell ourselves all these pretty little things like “God is still God, on his throne” and “Jesus loves me exactly where I am” so that we don’t feel the intensity of pain and hurt and loss that forever threatens on the brink of our peripheries?

My heart physically hurts, my stomach is tumultuous, I can’t eat, but when I listen to music that proclaims “I believe that you’re my Healer; nothing is impossible” and “how deep the Father’s love for us”—when I hear those words, something of the burden lifts. No, not all of it, not nearly all of it, but a very precious bit. Enough so I think maybe, maybe it won’t be so bad, maybe this will be better for me in the end.

I sat in a book group last night—we’re discussing C.J. Mahaney’s The Cross-Centered Life— and I felt like everything we were telling ourselves about focusing on Christ and what the Christian life looks like was nothing but words. Words we’ve always said but when it comes down to it what do they mean? I feel so cynical. I kept silent because most people don’t want to hear these questions out loud. Most people don’t want to doubt. I can’t blame them; it is ever so much easier for me to tell myself that if I praise God now, even when I don’t feel like it, I’ll feel the effects later. It is oddly comforting to even hear that with the smallest bit of belief in it.

So then, is it the power of my own words to myself, or are the words true and that is why they comfort?

Wouldn’t it be great if I had all the answers?!

Honest.

Do you know that feeling of being surrounded by people and noise, of knowing there are several people you could call to spend time with right at this moment, but still you feel lonely? Is it just me who is stirred with this feeling more often than, I think, should feel normal?

There was a guy I dated for a very long time and he used to really get worried about me when I would get like this, but I didn't get why, because I thought my feelings were normal. But now I worry about myself too-- not in the "what will happen to me?" way, but in the "I hate that I feel like this but I don't know how to stop it" way. So I ride it out and eventually it goes away for long enough that I forget it, again.

My boyfriend tells me that I spend too much time in the hypothetical. He's right. But when I feel this way, this stress, this house that is so very large but closes in around me, this twitch in my eye that won't go away, these tears that won't roll down my face-- the hypothetical is just easier.

I care too much about my weight right now. I care too much about what my stomach looks like in a bathing suit. I care too much about what particular people think of me-- so much that I doubt I will hit publish on this post because it looks like I'm crying out for help when really it's just cathartic for me to write words. I wrote this post and I feel relief now. I used to write this blog in secret and I always wrote really honest things and somehow I kind of stopped when I knew who was reading it, but here is this post and its truth, and damn it if it isn't the core of me right now.