Christmas in August

"Em, I still don't have a Christmas list from you," my grandma would nudge as we chatted int he kitchen working on Thanksgiving dinner. "Oh, yeah, okay..." I respond though truly wishing we didn't have to go through this ritual again. I did't want to compile a list of what I want, that felt vulnerable and greedy. Sure, there were lots of things I wanted but it's as if somewhere deep inside me, I knew it didn't matter. I don't know why I wrote that in past tense, it still happens. 

So, Em, what do you want?
The question arises year after year and I've become quite gifted at slighting my discomfort by dropping emails of things on my "wish list" to my parents and grandparents throughout the year. The email I sent my mom last week doesn't feel so awful to say... "hey, I think this Lilly Pulitzer dress is whispering to me. It's saying it would like to make an appearance at my graduation in May...oh, and it's on super sale right now, I'd wear a size 6. Love, Emily" This just means 1. I can't give into instant gratification for everything and 2. I've gotta remember to send those succulent emails through the interwebbs so I'm not pinned down by a late-November request for a list and 3. Learning to dispel concerns about making note of Christmas-related items in August ranks on my lengthy list of "reasons I have a therapist."

You can probably guess by now that I'm not here to cry my woes about the materialism of Christmas in my family...though I totally could. It's that question: what do you want? --replied to with that answer: Sweet Jesus, I DON'T KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome to my favorite sitting place with a recently found unfavorite stinking question. It's a freaking dandelion of a question, popping up exactly when and where you'd expect it to but you never have a solution, or not yet. The hilarious part about this is that I'm the one who lovvveeeesssss blowing the fluffy dead dandelions. (fun fact: I didn't realize these were dead dandelions until about two years ago when my dad pointed it out. I feel my IQ dropping rapidly) When I blow the dead ones, I'm letting the mutant dandelion seeds fly into the world to create further cesspools of dandelions. My father has yet to truly convince me that dandelions aren't flowers. They are my favorite color and, as a child, I would pick them in bunches from a hill down my street and decorate my bicycle spokes and my hair and still have enough to squeeze against the white (until yellowed by dandelion juices) handlebars of my super cool pink sparkly bike as I paraded through the neighborhood. Gosh, I love metaphor. 

I love and find purpose for dandelions even though my parents pulled me away saying "they're just weeds" as they gunned down the blooms with weed killer. I also love questions that I can't answer in 1.3 seconds, questions that melt in my mouth and get my to tip my head back with closed eyes. More often than not, I'm the one who picks these dandelion questions from the field of wildflowers.

What do you want...from this conversation...from this therapy session...from this internship...from this relationship...this blog? I still get the queazy, guilty, selfish feeling with these questions. There's something inside me saying "you should be happy with whatever you get"yet there's a conflicting yet comforting voice saying "you deserve to be fulfilled and people deserve to know how they can help." And that's where I get stuck. I have an idea of what I want but the words just don't come out. I'm afraid I want too much or not enough or that the person/situation won't be able to give it to me. I keep it simple saying "I'd like a box of crayons and a coloring book this year" instead of telling my grandma that I've been dreaming of learning to paint and would really love to take a painting class with my dad.

I don't have a take-away for you today--unless you are cool with taking "Emily lives not he struggle bus too" as today's dirty, honest truth. Super honestly: when I started blogging again last month, two friends asked me how I felt about it and I said I was struggling because I didn't feel like I had a purpose for it, there was no cohesive fiber (besides myself) tying it together and I didn't know what I wanted that fiber to be...still don't...

The Only 3 Things I'd Say Under Oath

I've written before about how you can find me on the floor in my living room, hands above my head admitting "I don't know anything!" Apparently, this feeling of uncertainty, incompetence, non-mastery is one of the blossoms of my introvertedness. Whowoulddathunk?! According to a book I read the first 50ish pages of three weeks ago (the pick up/put down method to my reading madness is a topic for another post), it is so boringly common for introverts to feel as though they know nothing until they have three Ph.D.'s in the subject area--perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration from what the author actually said, but you get the gist, right?

Well, there's a lot I don't know, that's for sure; volumes of knowledge I have yet to learn and even more that I will never learn. In these 23 short years of mine, I have learned some things, here's a list of 3 things I swear to be true and important:

1. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. I learned this as a theorem in geometry class as a sophomore in high school--it's likely the only thing I remember word-for-word from that class. My classmates say the teacher was talking about figures and numerical distance, but that's not what I heard. I heard her whispering truths about life, about pain, about friendship, about the going to the doctor. She said, the most efficient way to go is through rather than up and around and back three steps in order to cross the bridge which will take you to an elevator to take you back down to where you want to be. Efficient, not easy. If you get caught kissing your best friend's boyfriend, you can avoid him and her and lose them both, or you can go through the embarrassment and guilt and apologize and try to save at least one of the relationships. If you were hoping to get into that one program, and then you don't, you can go on being "fine" and just putter around because there's no joy left to be found or you can cry about it, remember what about it brought you joy, and find plan B. You can get your flu-shot at CVS and your birth control at planned parenthood and a cast for your broken wrist at the ER and just assume 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' works for healthcare, or you can deal with the obnoxious questions about your sex life during your yearly physical and know you've got somewhere to go if you need more than a physical.

2. A well stocked supply of chocolate, a pair of rain boots, and a best friend will get you through the hard stuff. Someone once told me, "there's no heartbreak that chocolate can't fix." Well, there are some heartbreaks that chocolate can't fix, but that's what the rain boots are for. When the rain comes down, it clears the streams and streets and washes away everything, if you let it. Put your rain boots on so you don't wash away, then let everything else go. And if you've got someone to hold your hand or sit on you or just be with you, you'll be able to remember there is a reason to keep going.

3. If you can dream it, you can do it. I once got into a heated argument with a professor about this statement because, at the time, my mind was bound by self-depreciation. This truth does not promise you dreams don't require you to work your patootie off and get disappointed and betrayed along your way to your first 12940724 failed attempts. It says your dreams are possible, they can become real. Dreams are not just sparkly wishes floating in and out of the puffy white clouds...some are, I suppose, if you just close your eyes and imagine and call it quits. When I said I wanted a pony for my birthday when I was little (I was joking, but if I was serious), it totally could've happened. I would have needed to have a legit chat with my parents and figure out how we could, together, make this dream of mine real. Dreams seem lofty for a reason--to get you to reach and become. A life of static existence is boring. Dream...and do.

Create a Life Worth Living

This summer, I took two classes: Narrative Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). It started off great. The summer semester is just classes, no internship--so I was able to focus on academic learning the way I love to. Not only did I read everything assigned on the syllabus, I took notes and really dove into the material. It was AAMAZINGGG!

Around week 6, I realized I wasn't especially gifted in the Narrative perspective. After about 7 minutes of being crushed, I stabilized...and gave up. I pretty much stopped reading and participating in class--both painfully obvious to everyone.

However, around week 6, I fell in love with DBT. Around week 6, I felt incredible rapture as I read and understood and accepted and became whatever you become when you marry DBT. For those of you outside the therapy world, DBT is an intense, skill-based treatment for clients with the most risky and challenging behaviors--suicidality, self-mutilation, eating disorders, addictions, impulsivity--usually a combination of many of these behaviors. DBT therapists teach skills to these clients in order to help them create a life worth living.

I love it.
It makes sense.
I'm good at it!

In a world where I often feel like I'm not good at anything, DBT fills those spaces of inadequacy. I didn't know it was going to be that big. Before the class began, I knew some about DBT skills but didn't know the theory behind it all. I didn't know the reasons behind the procedures.

We plan our lives. We think we know what things are the big things, what days are the important days--or supposed to be that way. That's what we think. That's how we move through the world; how we have to move through the world. We have to think we know what is big and important or else it's all uncertain and scary. But that's really how it is. It's the normal days that often become important days...because we aren't expecting anything from the normal days.

So what's that mean?

It means that every day is an important day, that we have to wake up every day ready to create a life worth living. It also means that the creativity behind "a life worth living" may not be as overwhelming as it would be if we only did this on the important days. Not fireworks and birthday cakes and the 7 wonders of the world. Rather, Vitamin B12 and dew on the grass and turning water into ice and clean laundry. It means making good choices, even when they are the hard choices.

Ready? Go!

The move part 1: leaving the Lou

I moved westward in August 2009 at the beginning of my fresh woman year at SLU and, unlike many college students, I never once moved back home. That is to say, I have spent the last four years accumulating things in St. Louis as I bought them or brought them from Michigan. Look at it all!!!

 

The accumulation that occurred over the past four years has not just been of material goods but of knowledge and comfort and moments of joy and exultation and success and pain and exhaustion and failure and second and third and fourth chances. 

St. Louis and I have had a strange courtship. In the winter of 2009, as I was deciding which university's name would adorn my mother's car bumper, St. Louis was the forbidden city. My parents said it was too far away because they wanted to be able to get to me with relative ease if something major were to happen. There's a story in between that conversation and the moment I confidently walked up to my Mom in the student center hallway and said, "I think I found it" (referring to SLU as my college home) a few months later. St. Louis was a source of pride and anticipation that summer as I awaited the day I'd make a home for myself in the exotic, far-off land. Now, St. Louis is more home than Farmington Hills. I declare myself a member of and true devotee to Cardinal Nation. I know shortcuts and side streets here better than many who grew up here (thanks to many, many, many miles of running). Granted, we have had our rough times; I won't detail them here, but they have caused me to sink deep into my seat  hoping to disappear as tears stream down my cheeks each time the pilot alerts us "we are making our final descent into St. Louis." And there is a whole lot in between thinking St. Louis was an exotic, far-off land full of possibility and now...and that's why my head and heart are so congested with flutting emotions right now.

I've had this existential feeling all summer that it doesn't matter. I spent middle school and high school and much of college trying to get noticed and being noticed and then those people who noticed me just drifted away. I spent years worrying about being involved in the right activities for the right amount of time and the moment I graduated, it seemed like no one cared what you did anymore. I'm worried now that when I leave St. Louis, I'll realize that most of it didn't really matter. Maybe I'm right and I'm too vain too anxious too goal oriented to notice in the midst of it. Or maybe I'm wrong and there is lasting value in every word, every decision, every moment. If it doesn't matter, it is easier to forget. That's what I'm really concerned about. I don't want to forget the joy and exultation and success and pain and exhaustion and failure.  

Everything is as it should be

Everything is as it is.
Therefore everything is as it should be.
Because everything should be exactly as it is.
That is not to say, perfection.
But, rather, compassion.

Everything it as it is right now.
And nothing can be anything else right now.
That which was, is.
And that which is, is.

Change is possible in the future.
Your right now determines your later.
And everything that is then will be as it should be.
That is not to say, happy, joyful, or unhurt.
But, rather, a culmination of life.

Stop wishing right now was different.
Because everything is how it should be.
That is not to say everything happens for a reason
Or that you deserve the sad, lonely, painful, hurt.
But, rather, it is part of life, your life.
Accept it.
Grow with it.
Go forward with it.

If it could have been different, it would have been different.

Dreams and Fairytales

Tonight I realized, with a hint of a tear in my eye, that I am no longer a little girl. Sure I've been filing tax returns for years and buy the majority of my clothes from the women's department (yes, I'm still small enough to wear clothes form the little girls' department when I want to) but I also really enjoy swinging and coloring and cuddling with stuffed animals when I fall asleep.

I'm sure you can remember the bedtime stories your mom or dad or babysitter or nanny told you during your childhood. Cinderella's foot fits in the glass slipper. The frog turns into a prince. Sleeping Beauty is awakened with a gentle kiss. Once upon a time...and then they lived happily ever after. It's nice to think about. Fairytales, the stuff of dreams. The problem is, though, that these peaceful endings, the chance to live happily ever after is all a dream. It's not real. Fairytales don't come true.

It's the other stories, the ones that begin in the dark and end in the dark, the ones that are scary and hard to understand, that come true. It's the nightmares that always seem to become reality--dark, scary, confusing, painful reality.

I was watching the U.S. figure skating championships tonight and remembered being a little girl watching the same thing. I have always been enamored with the sport but it is one that I never really tried. My mom built a ice rink in our yard each winter as I grew up but I never took lessons so I didn't know how to do much more than skate in circles and do close body and sit-spins. Still, I loved, loved. loved watching figure skating on TV. There was something mesmerizing about these women. They seemed so much older than me and so much more beautiful and graceful and talented but they led my heart to dream. I would sit on the couch dreaming of someday being something great. I never thought I would be an olympic figure skater but I had dreams. Honestly, I can't tell you what they were but I know I had them. I know I had dreams, big dreams. These are the kinds of dreams that don't take reality into consideration, the kind that don't care if you don't have the money or the time, or the access, or the talent...that's what makes them dreams. These beautiful young women gracefully glide to and fro across the ice as if they were telling me I could go anywhere I wanted. They stretched their arms wide to show me the world was mine. And they smiled to let me know I, too, was beautiful and could do anything.

Sometime between age 11 and 21, the way I watch figure skating changed. Tonight. though still enamored, I was jealous and felt inferior. These young women were younger than me and people already knew their names, they were already important and on their way to being remembered...and I'm still nobody. Sure, I am important to the people who love me. And there are quite a few people on this planet who know my name, but it's different.

The freedom I associated with figure skating was nothing short of a fairytale. Perhaps it comes true for one girl somewhere, but not every girl like me with their eyes glues to the sequined skaters dancing across the television.

Sometime between 11 and 21, my dreams learned the limits of reality. People don't talk about it, but life is governed by fear...and this now includes dreams. I only dream what I think can actually happen...and I am careful in how far I push that actuality because a dream that doesn't come true at 21 still feels as crushing, if not more, than it did at 11.

We all want happily ever after but for most people, I'm guessing happily ever after means something much different than it does for the princesses in my fairytale stories.

The theory of ENOUGHness

First of all, "enoughness" is a word.
Freshman year, my theology professor told me that all good theologians make up words. Therefore:

By the power vested in me

by the paper in my file designating me, 

Emily Marie Clark,

as a theological studies major,

I hereby declare "enoughness" a word

to be given equal respect and consideration

as all other formerly declared words.

Now that that's cleared up,

not that anyone was questioning the legitimacy of my vocabulary,

let's get down to business.

I wrote the synthesis paper for my independent study this past weekend. Dr. Julie Rubio and I had been reading about and discussing various ethical problem areas of modern American society and asking ourselves how we, as Catholics, are called (or if we are called) to respond? I was not going to be satisfied with vague or flimsy answers. I wanted practical suggestions that were flexible enough to tailor to my life experience but firm enough to stand the test of time and the scrutiny of Catholic morality. 

For the paper, I was to hash all that out in 12-15 pages. 

We read over a dozen books.

We touched on at least five different problem areas (I call them 'isms').

And so my process looked like this:

I didn't have enough time or space to write anything close to what I wanted to write, but I wrote 20 pages anyway. And around page 5, I explained what I've come to recognize as the driving force, the common denominator that connects all these 'isms' (individualism, racism, consumerism, materialism, classism, environmentalism). I call it the theory of enoughness...if you hadn't already guessed that.

Here's what I wrote:

Through the books I have read and other personal experiences I have had as a member of American society, I have observed a struggle within the culture characterized by an inability to sense when enough is enough. I am not the first to acknowledge a societal focus on “having” enough rather than “being” enough but perhaps I may be one of the first to point to a problematic element in the existence of a focus on either form of “enoughness” The shift from “being” to “having” has likely occurred because “being” falls to qualitative rather than quantitative measure which seems subjective and, therefore, inadequate or, at least, unreliable. As a result, Americans tend to lose their sense of Self while yearning for conformity and ‘the next big thing.’ With no sense of Self ‘having” allows people to overly-rely on external gauges to guide their determination of what is enough. The difficulty in measure, however, does not come from the need to be or to have but rather the context of enough. The ‘isms’ represent a dysregulation of the American sense of “enoughness”. Becoming desensitized to and struggling with “enoughness” causes power issues with relationship, food, sex, money, and goods. We see this power issue expressed in the stereotypes, discrimination, and oppression of others and ourselves that results from a disconnected relationship with the sense of enough.

GOT IT?

Here's the skinny:

Americans are on this treadmill of "the more the merrier" and "bigger is better."

The treadmill makes you work hard but never gets you anywhere.

Meaning: you're in a race that doesn't really matter, racing for things you'll never get.

But culture forgets to tell you that.

And so your endorphin high keeps you from knowing when to stop.

So your sense of what is enough dies.

And you end up hurting yourself and others in the process.

So, step 1 to making things different:

Remember it.

Believe it.

Live it.

And tell everyone about it.

Until next time,

may you find peace.

Merry Christmas.

Sweet infatuation

I absolutely LOVE 

OCTOBER.

Without a doubt, October holds the position of my favorite month of the year. October has fought long and hard with the others but has come out superior yet again. 

As the year beings to draw to a close, October keeps the spirits light (if it's been a good year) or offers some pure joy and happiness (if the year has been not so great) in ways that are socially unacceptable at other times. 

Brown

...leather jacket

...leather boots

Mustard Yellow

...everything

Puffy vests

Sweaters

...giving use to my cardigan collection

...rocked in conjunction with the puffy vest

Running

...without getting dehydrated by mile 6

...in capris or leggings

...in half zips

Coffee

...warm in my hands

...just because I can

Pumpkin

...bread

...yogurt

...coffee

...muffins

...chocolate chip cookies

...bars

...ice cream

...buttery spread

...soup

...lattees

...seeds

...oatmeal

I LOVE PUMPKIN

My October plan: 

make something pumpkin-y every week. 

I'll let you know how it goes.

Dry but proud

As a swim coach, my swimmers know they have the opportunity to push me in the water (yes, with all my clothes on) when they win a meet. They've put in hours and hours of practice and walked around deck sopping wet for hours that night and they want to let me share in their joy in a very special way. Driving home soaking wet the way I did many times last summer was uncomfortable but I was beaming with pride the entire time because I knew exactly what went into winning that meet that resulted in pushing me in.

I've got a different team this summer--a total 180 from last years 5-year no-loss streak, this team hasn't won in quite some time. Granted, they've had some terrible coaching and less than stellar parental involvement. But things are looking up, we didn't win on Monday but we came darn close. In fact, we were winning for about 3/4 of the meet, then we just got super tired.

Although I drove home completely dry, I drove home happy and even more proud than any week last summer. I had dried tears. I had given dozens of high fives. I had screamed my face off and had shuffled up and down the deck supporting my swimmers. Mary swam 2 legs on a relay and then gotten back behind the block to swim the last leg on the following relay. Megan won 1st in the 100 back right after telling me she wasn't sure she was going to be able to do it and if she did, it would take her 5 minutes. Chase took over some spots for kids that didn't show up. Cindy (one of the moms) gave me a sippy cup of wine. Ashley promised me she'd swim up in two weeks if she could practice longer races at practice. Jackson swam some of the best butterfly I've ever seen from a 10 year-old and, more importantly, he was proud of how he did.

When I was younger, I never understood how people could say "it's not about winning" and really mean it. In my mind, that's all there was. You won or you lost. If you won you did well and if you lost, well, you didn't do enough. Now I see what it is though. I came into this summer season with the goal of transforming the team--morale, competency, responsibility, etc. That can and probably will still happen, but it is not my goal any longer. My goal is simple to say, hard to do: get kids to believe in themselves.

I want the answer to any question about their abilities to always be: YES I CAN.

States of blindness

My sophomore year of high school, I had some very strange heath problems going on. Part of that situation involved being completely blind in my left eye and about 75% blind in my right. You didn't know that, did you??! It's all better now, don't worry, but it lasted about a year and it made those 10 months absolutely miserable.

Until that year, I had perfect vision so I knew what it was like to see clearly. But  being legally blind meant that I couldn't see clearly at all. I could see light and basic shapes and if I tried really hard with a large font, I could manage to read what was absolutely necessary. I couldn't see what everyone else could see. And what I could see did not come easily. Each day as my eyes opened from sleep, they were immediately stressed into trying to see what they couldn't. I wanted so desperately to see clearly again.

Now that my physical eyesight has recovered, I'm afraid I still cannot see clearly.
I cannot see myself the way others see me.

You tell me you love me and 

my automatic thought is "why?"

I've been told repeatedly that I'm very likable and she enjoys spending time with me

but I don't understand what makes me likable or why she'd enjoy our time together.

When I was visiting my parents a few months ago, 

my mother called me pretty for the first time I can remember 

and it felt sooooooooooo weird. 

Yesterday afternoon, I was chatting it up with a former professor turned mentor/friend briefly mentioning something I am applying for and she asked me how I felt about it--I said I thought I wasn't worthy of the opportunity. She cast a downward gaze as she shook her head and chuckled. I've gotten that response from people many times before when I say similar things. The underlying message of the looking down, head shaking, chuckle is "Em, that's ridiculous. You've gotta see how much you have to offer." Yesterday I asked what the chuckle was about and she simply said "you are so wrong and I want you to see what I see in you."

Why can I know that's what others think

but not believe it myself?

What happened to keep me from believing, 

really believing?

Why can't I see myself as others see me?

The super rational part me me answers that saying that they just don't see me honestly--they see the positive things they want to see and ignore the not so great things that I cannot deny.

To an extent, that may be right, but there are people in this world who know all my crap--as much of it as I am aware of myself--and still think much better about me than I do.

What is keeping me from believing I'm loveable...or even just likable? 

What am I afraid of? 

I want SO DESPERATELY for my eyes to open.

I want to see in myself what others see in me.

I want to see myself clearly--to accept it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

This blindness is so much like the blindness I struggled with five years ago. 

I know I'm missing out. 

Synthesis: shalom

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all.  Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle.

The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours." -Ayn Rand  

I'm in a class on the Old Testament Psalms this semester, and in this class, we talk about Hebrew words more than we talk about English it seems. On the first day of class some 6 weeks ago, Dr. Asen spoke about "shalom." It's a word we've all likely heard before and most of us translate it to mean "peace"...but, as Dr. Asen described, it means far more than peace.


Hebrew words go beyond their spoken pronunciation. Each Hebrew word conveys feeling, intent and emotion. Shalom is more then just simply peace; it is a complete peace. It is a feeling of contentment, completeness, wholeness, well being, and harmony.


"The best way I've heard 'shalom' explained to me," Dr. Asen shared, "came from a Jewish Rabbi who explained it as meaning 'I hope all the pieces of your life fit together'."

I hope all the pieces of your life fit together.

I've been working to fit the pieces of my life together recently--the past memories with the present situation with the hope of the future. It's complicated but important. 

I feel like it may be one of those unattainable ideals that we continue striving for despite knowing we will never actually get there. That sucks. The 'unattainable ideal' has been a common theme in my life recently--things I want but know can never be reality. In another one of my classes [spiritual exercises], we are contemplating this issue and learning how to live with these sorts of things. We are becoming intentional about observing the difference between the things we can control and those we can't. 

I may not necessarily be able to fit the pieces of my life together all myself but I can be open to the changes necessary for this to happen--letting people know which pieces don't fit, letting people love me, loving myself, acknowledging that it's okay that all the pieces do not fit together right now, and so on. It's a mindful contemplation focused on believing that the ideal I cherish is something I can work towards.

Friends, shalom, I hope the pieces of your life fit together. I hope, someday, you will look upon the entirety of your life and smile--not out of happiness for the pain, not denying the suffering, but seeing the completeness of the puzzle with all the pieces fit together.

Text from last night...

Obsession.

Join the club.

Confession time:

I'm Emily and I've always wanted to be a Disney Princess.

I'm Emily and I've always been trying to be someone other than myself.

I'm Emily and I've always been concerned about what others wanted from me.

          I'm Emily and I'm just Emily.

          I can't be a Disney Princess. 

          I can only be me.

          I can only control pleasing myself.

I love water--lakes but not oceans.

I love walking on sand but hate the feeling of dry sand on my feet (or anywhere else).

I'm really good with words but I find it hard to talk about my problems.

So what if I'm a little quirky...you are too.

You do you and I'll do me. 

Shit happens.

Yeah, I said it. 

and I swore on the interwebbs.

And when shit hits the fan, you've gotta cover your own head and run your little legs to safety. Sometimes you just have to do what's best for you and not be overly concerned about what that means for everyone else. It's not selfishness. It's not arrogance. It's survival and self-care and identity.

Shit has hit the fan.

It's not that we're in a fight 

but this is bigger than a disagreement or just an "issue."

Because it matters.

to me.

I cannot engage my parents in relationship right now. I just can't. It hurts too much and I'm too keenly aware of their ability to hurt me even more. For now, I don't need to. In fact, I think it would be silly and even unhealthy to try--certainly inauthentic. 

I've gotta figure out where I stand and to feel precisely how I feel--and know that it's totally legitimate. Trying to "fix" this--the big "this" isn't going to work right now. I'll do me.

No matter how much I feel compelled to take care of the entire mess, we all know that would be ineffective and unhealthy. Eventually, maybe I will have cleaned up the mess by doing it piece by piece, but first I need to take care of me. I need to be me. I need to simply do me. I need to stop worrying about what other people want me to do and if I'm disappointing them. And so do you.

You do you and I'll do me.

I'm sick and tired of doing things to satisfy people when those things do not simultaneously fulfill me. 

“The one who sets about making others better 

is wasting his time, unless he begins with himself.” 

– Ignatius of Loyola

Belly of the Whale

Welcome, my friends, to my brain when I'm not really thinking.

That's been the story of the day today--no overthinking, just lots of doing and talking. Doing and Talking without thinking can be messy but it's also vulnerable and real and unedited.

Inside of me there and thoughts. And a lot of fears.
     thoughts about my fears and even some fears about my thoughts.
...to fear your thoughts sounds a little strange, in my opinion, but as I sat in silence last night, I understood that that's a lot of where I'm at right now...I fear my thoughts and I fear my emotions. When I let myself think and feel freely, without reservation, the reality expressed is not controlled. In our society "to lose control" has awful connotations--carelessness, mania, powerlessness, etc. Though these may characterize some situations in which a person has lost control, they do not encompass the whole.

Still, the fear instilled by the negativity is what remains in the forefront of my mind and so I keep control.

I am afraid of what a loss of control would actually look like.
I am afraid no one would know what to do in that situation. And so I'm afraid I'd end up alone in my uncontrolled mess. Somehow that seems worse than choosing to be alone in the contained, neat and tidy version of the mess.

That choice is subconscious.

If someone were to literally ask me, I would choose companionship in my mess--because I know I have people in my life who would not be scared of my mess, maybe a little hesitant at first, but not in such a way that keeps them from helping me through it however they can.

Dumb.

Dumb.

Dumb.

I may have an IQ about 50 points higher than that of the average human being 

but my brain is still dumb.

Example.

It has been almost a year and there's this one person I still struggle to trust. She hasn't really given me any reason not to trust her and, from wha tI can see, she's done everything she knows how to get me to feel confortable to trust her. Still, my brain is being stupid and is afraid of judgement and rejection and of not being good enough or of being too much.

That's what's inside of me.

Processing Encounter: I have something to offer?!!

Lord, make me your bread, your body.

Take me. Bless me. Break me.

And share me with everyone you know.

Amen.

This is my prayer. This was our prayer on ENCOUNTER last weekend. At first they were just words (more often than not, that is how I feel about “premade” prayers) but as I reflected on the meaning of those words, they came to life. In fact, they came to have intense meaning for my life.

I feel this deep satisfaction from the idea of being taken, blessed, and broken for the greater glory of God. But that's pretty vague--what does it really mean for my life?

It means I'm doing something right. It validates my vision of what my life is developing into. As a social work student, I'm becoming increasingly aware that my heart will be broken over and over again as I pursue others. People are my passion, they always have been. People who have experienced things unfathomable to many ooze strength by the simple act of getting up each morning and continuing with this thing we call life. These are the people I want to serve. I want my heart to break as they share their brokenness. I want to be present with them in their pain. God blessed me with a desire for brokenness. 

He doesn't break you without building you back up. It may take time but His love never fails. 

This all made much more sense in my head but I find trouble to articulate it clearly. 

Basically, in the last week I've been affirmed in my life journey multiple times by multiple people and experiences. Things I once saw as personal flaws are becoming sources of blessing. My impulsiveness gets me to ask the questions everyone is thinking but won't ask. My bluntness offers me a bit of ease when it comes to asking the tough questions. My silence in tough situations allows me to  assess the person's needs and  meet them better. My stubbornness breeds intentionality. I was made as me, imperfections and all, for a purpose. I am the only me this world will ever experience and so I better make the best of that--leave this world a little different than it was before me. 

Step 1: be. experience. live.

I'm so physically and emotionally exhausted. School has been kicking my butt and I've been letting that happen. During my work shift on Friday I made the conscious decision to not allow school (junior seminar, in particular) stress me out and control my happiness and worth anymore. These things are here for me to learn from not to slave over. School is forming me into the person I want to be--I most certainly do not want to be the woman I've been recently stressed out beyond belief and not completely functional due to sleep deprivation. I only have one life to live. I only get one chance at each day. I do not want to keep regretting and dreading these days. 

Processing Encounter: Anger to Acceptence

With the retrieval of the authenticity of my heart this past weekend, I wish to reinstate the regular functioning of this blog. You've missed me, I know.

ENCOUNTER. 

what does that word mean to you?

To me, ENCOUNTER means being blessed in my brokenness. It means listening and really hearing what has been drone out for so long. ENCOUNTER means together. 

This past weekend, I went on Saint Louis University's 41st Encounter retreat. Campus Ministry advertises it as being similar to Kairos, TEC, and Search, if you are at all familiar with those. It was similar but my experience was much different. 

I went on Kairos as a junior in high school. I was chomping at the bit to go on the senior retreat as a junior so I could lead my senior class the following year. This plan flopped on its face because not only did I not end up leading in the fall, I didn't have that great a time. I was too busy trying to impress the seniors that I was neither focused on myself or God. Fail. Now, I'm a junior in college. 4 years later. I had the opportunity to go on Encounter beginning with my first semester here in the fall of 2009 but I didn't. I was a retreat junkie but I knew there was something special about Encounter and I wanted to make the retreat at the right time--whenever that would be. The right time was now. My friends ask me how the retreat was and I cannot come up with a more fitting answer than "perfect."

God and I experienced a definite shift in our relationship beginning last March when He began challenging me in ways I did not appreciate. Anger is the easiest emotion for me to experience and so, naturally, I thought I was mad at God. False. It's a lot more complicated than that.

On Encounter (just like on Kairos and the other retreats, I'm assuming) we talk about a relationship with God as a friendship and I was hesitant to relate to this when we began on Friday. I mean, when I pray, I call God "Daddy" and when I think of our relationship, I wasn't feeling too buddy-buddy. Upon reflection, however, I realized that friendship is exactly what it is. Because we're involved in a friendship. I feel free to have these emotions toward God and treat Him the way I have been--though, I admit, it's not the way a good friend would treat someone. 

I'm not mad. I'm disappointed. I feel let down. I feel like He wasn't there when I needed Him most. And if He was there [because people say He never leaves us] He stood there and watched as evil occurred. What kind of friend does that??? You see? It's complicated. 

We were engaged in something called 'Ignatian Contemplation' yesterday morning. SLU is a Catholic school of the Jesuit tradition and as such, we pray with Ignatian spirituality often. It basically involved allowing your imagination to propel you through a scripture passage as a character in the story. We were using the post-resurrection story of the road to Emmaus. Not a story I've found a whole lot of meaning in in the past. I LOVE Ignatian spirituality. God speaks to me in a very present way through this type of prayer because I have such an active, vivid imagination. The prayer took probably 30-40 minutes and God and I hit it off in the last 10. We were chilling and whateves for the beginning but then it hit me. Sean the Jesuit scholastic leading the meditation led us to conversation with Christ. 

Look at Him. What does He say?

Crazy, but it's what I heard: "My daughter...(long pause)...I'm sorry" Yeah, you got it right, He apologized. In that moment, I felt absolute peace. It's as if that is precisely what I had been waiting for for the past 8 months. 

Walk up to God and ask "where are we going now?"

My vivid imagination: small pools of tears formed in Jesus' eyes when I asked Him this. His response besides the tears was so true to our current relationship--"really? you want to go with me?" God had realized I had distanced myself from Him, it was like we were in a fight and I was giving Him the silent treatment and now that I was engaging our relationship, He met me with surprise. 

Yes, I want to go with you. I'm scared and I don't totally trust you, but I want us to go together again. I'm tired of ignoring you and I'm tired of pretending to everyone like our relationship is just fine. Let's go. Slowly. Together. Hand in hand encountering all of this.

Listening and Redefining

I'm in a social work class this semester entitles Practice 1: Communication. Going into the classroom three weeks ago, I didn't have much of any expectation since I didn't know the professor or what the course would cover, though I had reviewed the syllabus.  


In the past three weeks, Shannon, our professor, has said a few things in passing that nailed themselves to my heart and have yet to be pried off.

In talking about a client's right to self determination she said there will be times when we want to ask: "why don't you want what's good for you?"

Being that I've done an excellent job making decisions against my ultimate best interest, I heard Shannon asking me this question. Later that day, when I came home, I wrote the question on a post-it and stuck it on my mirror to glance at occasionally--have I answered it yet? nope, but I'm mulling it over.

Today we were talking about God only knows what--it was a manic sort of day in the classroom--but Nancy mentioned that, as people in a helping profession, we're going to measure our success by our clients' success. This sparked a discussion of the meaning of success. 

Shannon mentioned we, as a culture, tend to see success in monumental terms, but in the social work profession it is vital to accept any tiny step forward as a success. Giving a personal example, Shannon is currently working with a woman in therapy who is chronically late among other things. So right now they are working on getting her to her appointments on time. They are not focusing on the rest of her life falling apart. One step at a time. One small step at a time. 

Though Shannon mentioned this need to redefine our vision of success for our field of practice, I think I need to bring this idea of success being a a small thing not necessarily a huge one into my everyday life and especially into my view of my personal successes and failures.

p.s. that picture is what came up when i googled success. presh, i know. 

1.4

There were 43 teenagers entrusted to my general care and 12 that were specifically mine last week at SpringHill. I worked all last summer with middle schoolers so this was definitely different.

We always tell campers that we don't want camp to be a 1-week thing. We don't want to be known for creating a SpringHill high that eventually wears off.

No.

We want much more.

We want +1 experiences.

We motivate change.

As I was driving back to St. Louis last Sunday afternoon, I was talking on the phone with a friend and she asked how I was planning to use what I learned at camp. (What a strange question. Was I supposed to have learned something??? Uhhhh...) I told her I was still processing the week (and that was true, don't worry) so I wasn't exactly sure yet. 

I learned about community.

I know I've posted about this a few times but I say it once again, I learned that I need people. I'm a slow learner when it comes to these things, so God has to be super patient.

There was no one experience from the week that brought about this thought but rather the experience of the week. 

I came up to SpringHill without telling my friend Hayley who was working there this summer and feeling a really homesick (something I learned of after I agreed to come up, so the homesickness had nothing to do with my decision if you were wondering) and without telling Susie, a really good friend I worked with last summer who had returned for another summer of SpringHill Lovin'. I wanted to surprise them. I knew they'd have no idea and be caught totally off guard. 

I had campers who appreciated me for me and relaly respected me. I went to bed early on my night off and left a note taped to the cabin door that read "Dear Temple Dwellers: I'm sleeping. I love you but please be quiet. Love, Emily" Not only were these 12 teenage girls almost silent, they didn't even turn the lights on!

My small group wanted to know what I thought and how I came to think that and how they could share in the faith. My small group got really vulnerable early in the week and bonded in a way I hadn't expected. 

These were all experiences I had with people. Without others, none of these things could've happened. 

I'm learning I don't need to rely so much on being self-sufficient. It's okay to need help. It's okay to not be 114% totally on top of things all the time. 

God gave us people.

the girls of "The Temple" (I couldn't pronounce the name of our cabin, so we renamed it. It makes sense to us, I promise)

Man made the clock

I don't know if you've ever thought about it but time is a human social construct. Time doesn't actually exist. We just say it does. Yes, the earth rotates on its axis which makes the sun appear to rise and set (the process which we refer to as a "day") but it was a man--some human person--who decided that this would serve as a way to count ourselves to our deaths.

Time stinks.

Whether you want to speed up time or slow it down, it's likely you're not content to leave time as it is. Well, that's precisely what I'm going to try to do this week. I was journaling for 40 minutes before mass tonight and realized that I want to just be this week.

JUST BE.

be happy where I am.

be content with what I'm doing.

be focused on what I'm doing.

Psalm 46:10--be still and know I am God...

It's not a meditation but a lifestyle choice. About six weeks ago my mom told me that I've always been trying to rush life and I need to "just let life happen" <--those may be some of the wisest words she's ever shared with me. 

I'll let you know how it goes.

AMDG

Love: is it worth it?

Eros.

Philia.

Agape.

Storge.

Love.

No matter how you say it, love exists as a reaction to another person/object with pleasure.

The feeling we call love stems from a release of various hormones in the brian. I don't mean to get annoyingly scientific, but it's true--love is the result of copious amounts of hormones being dumped into the bloodstream. Therefore, the feeling could (if we wanted to do it) be manufactured.

So is it all that special?

 I don't know.

And I'm not equipped to answer that.

But, I have another question:

is it worth it?

Is letting your personal happiness fall contingent upon another person logical or worth the inevitable pain?

We love our dogs.

Then cry when we have to put them down.

We love our spouses.

Then are wracked with jealousy when they look at another person

or we suffer heart-break when they pass on.

We love our friends.

Then feel abandoned when they leave.

We love our skinny jeans.

Then curse the world when they rip.

We love,

but then we hurt.

Pain is love's sidekick. 

Like tan lines and summertime.

No matter how hard you try to avoid it, you can never fully escape.

So, is it worth it?

I'm a control freak and so the idea of letting my happiness be contingent on another person seems totally out of character. But at the same time, I know humans have a need for connection. If we were meant to be alone, we would be so. If humans were designed to live in seclusion, there would be only one person on the earth, there would be no communication, there would be no love. Love exists because of the human desire for interpersonal connection. So...love is natural. And, therefore, pain is also natural. 

It sucks but that's how it's supposed to be. And who am I to mess with natural order?

I still don't know if it's worth it. 

But now I'm really thinking...

God is Love (1 Jn. 4:8).

God so loved the world...(Jn 3:16)

...Love covers all wrongs (Pvb. 10:12)

Above all, love each other deeply...(1 Pet. 4:8)

As a Catholic, I believe that God is good. Apparently, if God is good and God is Love then by the commutative property, Love must also be good. I suppose this still doesn't answer the question of love being worth the pain or not, but I'd say that if God is omnibenevolent and totally perfect then if He chose to love, it's probably in our best interest to as well. Through love, we can grow more like God. This is, most certainly, a good thing.