But I Couldn't Stay Away

I know it's time to blog when I'm sitting here, staring at a wall and trying to decide what to do, but knowing on a deeper level I'm staring at my life trying to decide what to do.

So, umm, here's a smudging of my life right now, completely random and superb.

There is this one part of me that is happier than I have been in a very long time. There is someone in this world who loves me, really and truly, even though he doesn't have to. I can drink coffee again. I feel like, more than ever, I am moving into a place with God that is beginning to look like what it should look like in the end. I am looking to the future and not seeing darkness or endless sand.

There is this one part of me that is more confused than I have been in a very long time. What to do next year is high on the list of question marks, as are the questions of if I should go to Grenada, where I am going to get a steady income from once all my money pays off student loans (hooray, though, for graduating debt-free!), and the ever-nagging "is what I'm doing now leading to where I want to go?"

I like lists. It's because this one part of me likes to be super organized, while the rest of me likes to let things lie in ruin under the guise of organized chaos. So here are a few lists that came to mind and make me feel like my life is in slightly better order than when I started:

10 Things I Love About Myself (it's always best to start there):

1. My sense of adventure and ridiculous spontaneity. It has led me on some of the most amazing adventures and I never want to stop being that way, no matter how old I get.
2. My love of cooking and baking. Not only will it always come in handy for the rest of my life, I'm so glad it's not something that's a chore.
3. The colour of my eyes.
4. My ability to memorize. If I could have 5 books of the Bible memorized by the time I die (which I think is completely attainable, btw), that would be amazing.
5. The way I act like a complete child. Sometimes, yes, it's definitely more on the tantrum side than the cute, but I love that I still like swings and sunsets and looking out airplane windows and wearing costumes and making inanimate objects talk.
6. My love of knowledge and truth and justice. To me, those are God-given qualities and I hate when people put them down.
7. My passion for life. I also hate when people put that down. It equates to putting down the essence of my being, and that I cannot stand for.
8. My 10 second attention span for things that ultimately don't matter, and my decades-and-counting attention span for things that matter ultimately.
9. That I have a past. It's not pretty; actually, it's pretty damn disgusting. But it has turned into a beautiful reminder of how good my God is.
10. That I look pretty when I cry (except when it gets to sobbing, then I'm done for). It sounds silly, but my lips get all red and I look in the mirror and say to myself: "well, at least I look pretty when my world falls apart." Then I wipe my tears and it doesn't look like I was crying at all, except for some leftover, natural lipstick.

10 Things I Dislike About Myself:

1. The way I hold onto the things in my life that are dead and buried. Someone or something has moved on beyond me, and yet I can't help but to humiliatingly hold on until I feel satisfactorily debased and finally let go with a silly and heavy heart.
2. My insensitivity. It's been getting better in the last year or two, as I've actually been developing a feel for empathy, yet I still tear people down. I hate it.
3. That I am so critical. Lately, I've realized that, especially when it comes to church issues, my ego blows up and I believe I am the smartest in the world about everything ever. Wrong.
4. How many people I have let slip out of my life over the last few years. Consciously. I knew it was happening and I let them go. Part of it was that I didn't have any fight left in me, but part of it was just laziness. I'm sorry.
5. My inability to follow through on all my promises to God. I hate it. I need to face them and to do them. It's so much easier to ignore them, but I know that some day He will look me in the eye and ask why I didn't do what I promised of my own volition. Silly, stupid me.
6. My propensity to sin in ways that hurt others. Unfortunately, I do not tend towards inward sins that don't do much damage except to me; I tend towards those that hurt others deeply and take a good deal of time and energy and humility to mend, if they're fixable at all.
7. My propensity to sin craftily. I don't usually sin in ways that are directly laid out in the Bible. I like to do things, instead, that I know I am not supposed to do. Or I sin by omission. Or I do things that ride the line so I can pretend I'm on the good side when, the truth is, my heart is usually on the bad side of the line.
8. My lack of style sense. Every once in awhile I have a glimmer of something, and then it's gone. I'm one of those people who wears red with pink and brown with black and socks with flats and the wrong kind of jewelry and shirts with big holes.
9. That I have a severely negative heart-attitude towards my body. 1000 compliments are always cancelled out by one bad comment, even if it's only my own. I regularly only see the bad, and that bothers me.
10. I tend to not appreciate what I have. I am definitely actively trying to change that, but it's a struggle. I could use a good douse of the third world, I think.

Things I Don't Do Anymore that I Used to Love:

• Draw.
• Paint.
• Write.
• Read books for fun.
• Lay in the grass.
• Drive somewhere special just to watch a sunset.
• Listen to music simply because the moment demands a soundtrack.
• Go barefoot.
• Create things.
• Put on fun make-up.
• Eat gross things that make me feel gross but taste so darn good.
• Drive just to drive.

Things I Want to Accomplish in the Next 5 Years:

• I want my Master's. I want to be educated by people I trust surrounded by people who really care about what they're learning. That's not to say that my current situation is the opposite, not by any means. All I'm saying is that I'm thirsting for more knowledge, and I want to do it right.
• I want to have Romans completely memorized. Right now I'm at 4:16, and if I stay on course I'll be to the end of 5 by the end of the semester.
• I want to be married. It's not really something to accomplish, per se, and if it doesn't happen by then I will really be okay. Really. But to say that I want to get married between 23 and 28 doesn't sound like a huge request.
• I think I'd like to go on a fairly long-term missions trip. That's never been on the list before, but now it is. There's been a burning in my heart lately and I think this is where the flame is leading me.
• I want to be depression-free. Wow, I think this is the first time I've actually come out and said the "d" word on here. But there it is. I want it good and gone, never to return. I am not putting a time limit on it, but it is definitely a huge desire of my heart. Sitting around in a pile of my own mess and tears is not for me anymore.

I am at a crossroads. Again. I am starting to get the feeling that these are going to come up often in my life. I look around and like too many options, it seems. Thankfully, though, God has spent so much time refining my desires and priorities over the years that it is becoming easier to see which way the street sign is pointing. I feel confident about the future. That is such a good feeling.

And by the way, I love someone in this world too, and not because I need to. This gives me deep joy.