Computer screen

I don't know if I can do this anymore. Journaling online is great sometimes because it allows me to get my thoughts out and get feedback from someone not inside my own head. But then at other times, it sucks because I can't be mad about anything. I love writing, but I think it's time to invest in one of two things; either a personal journal that I will never use or a mentor that I will never talk to. Thoughts? 


A little sarcastic, yes. But I can't help myself. How am I supposed to be real when the things that really bother me are a taboo subject all of the sudden simply because I'm me? I think my problem is that I've pushed myself out of my comfort zone. In an attempt to receive guidance and instruction, I've opened myself up to too many people. For those of you who don't know me very well... I'm not an open person. This blog was an attempt to 'fix' that about myself. And now I'm second guessing it. 


Being more 'outgoing' was only one of many reasons for starting to write again. I also thought I might be able to help girls my age who are struggling with the same issues I am. The ones that are too afraid to speak up themselves. I also thought maybe it would prepare me for this phantom book that I've always dreamed of writing one day. I love writing. But I might just stick to fiction. Reality is too real for me to share... for real. 


I don't know what my issue is right now, I just feel super exposed without being able to really share things because it might upset someone else. It's like I've locked myself in a glass cage that I don't want to be in anymore, except now there's only one way out. I think maybe I'll disappear for a while. Talk to a real person instead of my computer screen. 

Just a book

I'm reading a book right now. Technically you could always say that about me, because I'm constantly reading a book. I like to read. And generally, I like books. Even the ones I don't particularly care for, I finish just in case they hook me at the end or something. I like to give every book a fighting chance. 


Except for this one. 


And what sucks about this one is that I'm reading it in a group and I can't quit reading it. Literally. Jeff is reading it too. And about six other couples. I honestly can say that this is one of a handful of books that I want to burn up and then go out and destroy every other copy because it's THAT bad. 


Okay, okay, I'm not completely being serious but yeah there's that part of me that wants to throw it away. I don't even want it long enough to try and sell it. I also don't think anyone else should read it. Ever. So there's no way I'd give it or lend it to someone else either. It's just one of those books that gets under my skin. It's terribly written, and for someone who has read over a thousand books (probably...), I think I'm allowed to have an opinion. 


Example: Nicholas Sparks. Mostly pretty good plots themed throughout his collection; terrible writer. I made it half way through 'The Notebook' and had to quit because it was like reading a kindergarten book. 


This book is like a Nicholas Sparks book. Except it's also very thick and heavy with personal opinions on how people should live their lives. That's another thing I have a hard time with. Pushy opinions. I get that some people have it figured out more so than others, but there's a way to share that. And there's a way not to share it. This guy has the latter down to a 't'. 


And then there's the 'I'm better than you' attitude. The 'you would do well to try and be me, I'm just that awesome' attitude. It's the 'holier than thou' approach that just gets my teeth grinding. And that's just the first 10% of why I'm going to throw a burning party for this book when I'm finished. 


Men. They are not better than women. Different, yes, but not better. Or more put together. Or smarter. Or more deserving. Or easier pleased. Or more selfless. Than a woman. Now, men, please don't get me wrong. I am in NO WAY saying that the opposite of women is true. Those statements aren't true on either side to any degree as a whole. Individually though, that's a whole other story. However, it's not my story. My story is that as messed up as our society is, we don't need a prominent leader coaching married men in the art of short-cuts. 


P.S. For those of you who know which book I'm talking about, yes I understand that he does have a lot of good things to say about marriage as well. I am shedding light on the fact that this man is skilled at shifting blame and sneaking insecurities and doubt into a woman's mind like a slippery serpent. 


The whole point of this book is to help married couples keep their marriage strong. Yet this whole book, I have felt guilty for being a woman and having feelings and being afraid of anything. You know those books that bash men? The ones that say there's a checklist you need to accomplish before your wife will have sex with you because she's an emotional being? Yeah those aren't right either, but to go the complete opposite direction doesn't do anything much different. 


What I think may have been the basis for this book, that marriages require honesty and forgiveness and 50/50 service to one another, has been thwarted and skewed by this one man's personal baggage. 


He's clearly open about his wife's shortcomings and failures and how he's a better man now because he's now mastered forgiving her sins, as is she, but neither of them talk about how his past affected their marriage. No where does it say he has any of the blame for the problems they've faced. Yes he has issues but he's working on them and that should be good enough. Because his wife has the major issues and that's what they need to focus on. That right there should be an indicator that they're not ready to write a book and counsel others to be just like them. 


This book went from being a source of light on the subjects that christians have a hard time talking about, to a messy personal biography. And that is why I want to chuck it across the room when I'm trying to get through even a single chapter. 


Look at it this way. Would you have a sex addict counsel teenagers to abstain? Would you have a non sober alcoholic hold AA meetings? Would you have a first year med student run a hospital? No. Because there aren't enough credentials. Not enough experience. 


Sure, I'll take bits and pieces from this book and apply them to my life because in some areas, they are very knowledgeable and I really do learn good habits and insights to how my husband works. But those are things like how we need to pray out loud together more often. And that fighting isn't always a bad thing as long as you don't let bitterness seep into it. And that yes, women are more emotional when it comes to sex than men are. I feel like most of all those little things are general knowledge though. Everything else they have to say is an opinion. And from learning their opinion, I don't think I want the same ones. 


So from now on I'll take my marriage advice from my grandparents. On mine and Jeff's sides because they've lived twice the life these authors have, and they're still together. They made it work. Grandparents are people to look up to. Not some couple who still doesn't have all the answers to marriage but decided to get rich and write a book on it anyway. 


No one will ever have all the answers. And as mad as most of this book makes me, I can't blame them for trying. So if you're going to read 'Real Marriage' by Mark and Grace Driscoll, please keep that in mind. As popular as they are, it still doesn't make them right. You still have to figure it out as you go. I have to figure it out as I go. Opinions are opinions. They're not rules. They're not even guidelines. But that's not how this book was written. It's written as a 'how-to', which is completely wrong. So if you must, read it with your 'that's crap' filters on and your mind guarded. And then make your own opinions! Because a book is just a book. 

I'm allowed

It's been a while since I've written and there are a few reasons for that. 1. Jeff and I are trying to buy a house and for those of you who have already done that, you know how stressful it is. 2. My Brother came back home from California and moved to Japan a month later. He and Anna are there for three years. 3. I'm currently looking for another job. One that's closer to home (which, keep in mind will change in a few months), and preferably in the line of work that I want to do for the rest of my life. Which brings us to number 4. I REALLY need to go back to school. But to do that, I need to make enough money to pay for it... and to get a job that will pay for it, I need to have a degree from school. Vicious cycle. 5. My last post? Well if you haven't read it yet, you should. And then you should NEVER try it because it didn't work. It made everything worse. So now I need to talk everything through and piece by piece get it out of my system. I apologize in advance for the following rant.

I always thought buying a house would be fun. It's not. I hate living in these apartments and we need to get out NOW but the house buying process is a lot s l o w e r than that. It took weeks to get pre-approved, and the market is being swallowed up by people who have more money and less time than we do. So there aren't any houses left that we're interested in. Our lease is up in August, but now it looks like we're gonna have to stay here longer than we planned. Sucks big time.

I kind of got used to my brother being gone since he's lived in California for the last few years. First acting and then the Marines. So when he told us he was moving to Japan, it didn't really register as anything different. Until he left. I cried for three days straight. It's different because I can't fly down to see graduation anymore. I can't call him because it would cost a bajillion dollars. MY FAMILY IS DISINTEGRATING! Dad in ND, brother and sister-in-law in Japan, and what's next? Hillary will get famous and go on tour? My mom and Dean will move to Arizona for warmer weather and cheaper housing? I only have Kara left to depend on and THAT's because she's still in high school.

And I'm gonna skip number three.

Anyone want to give me a full scholarship to Bastyr? Even Everett Community college will do. I just have this craving for knowledge and getting it all over the internet is proving to be a bad idea day after day. And yeah, I'm a little embarrassed to not have my degree at this point in my life. People I used to lead in high school are now graduating with four year degrees. That means I'm old. And I have no degree. And I'm old.

But for the most important part, don't ever try to pretend like you're not mad. I seriously tried really hard not to let any of the above annoy me. Or anything else. And you know what happened? I became a bitch (sorry mom. I'm leaving it). I snap. I bite. I act out. I literally shake with rage. So now instead of getting mad at the guy who cut me off twice two mornings ago, I'm pissed off at the lady walking through the grocery store. Because she put pre-sliced packaged cheese in her cart. DO YOU KNOW HOW BAD THAT STUFF IS FOR YOU???? Buy a BLOCK and CUT IT YOURSELF! So in an effort to keep myself from being irrational with my anger, I became more and more irrational. So I'm really sorry but I'm going to continue to be a hot head and a fire cracker and whatever else it's called. Because that's how I work. I'm sorry if any of this has affected anyone in any way, I'm certainly work on being more nice now that I'm going to allow myself to get upset with REAL problems. And as soon as I get a house and move the piano in, I will once again have my preferred outlet and get rid of my frustrations by beating the ivories. No tickling. Beating. And until then, I'm going to be okay just being stressed and anxious and frustrated. Because I'm going through major changes in my life. And I'm allowed.

Call me out

Okay peoples. My mommy says I can't write anything negative about others from this point on because I make my friends uncomfortable. Sorry.

That being said, I'm turning a new leaf. I decided after last weeks freak out that it's not worth the jumbled up feeling inside to internalize my anger since I detest dealing with it... so I've decided not to get angry anymore. (Yes, I'm being serious.) I honestly believe that I can control it.. Or at least that I WILL be able to control it once I've practiced a bit. Which I've never actually attempted before. This should be interesting.

I've always been a bit of a hot head. Jeff would say a lot bit of a hot head (ha) and for the most part, he's probably more accurate than I would like him to be. I have extreme road rage, I'm impatient while waiting in any line what so ever, and I'm not always the most forgiving with people when they do or say something stupid (in my opinion anyway). Why? I have no idea. I'm a jerk. SO. I need to learn about a little foreign concept called peace. Peace. Sounds funny when you say it slow.

You know how you start to get mad about something but then you take a deep breath and close your eyes and count to ten and it kinda sorta goes away? Yeah well I did that for the first time today and it was really fun!! And no, I will not tell you what I was mad about because then I'd be breaking a promise to my mother and I love her too much for that. In all honesty though, that moment was my first taste of freedom because I actually really hate that I allow myself to get so worked up about the tiniest things. It's unattractive to my husband, detrimental to my self-worth, and wholly destructive to the relationships and people in my life.

SO WHY AM I SO ANGRY???

I'm immature. I said it. I'm still growing up. Good thing though is that I'm ready to move on. I feel like people who have anger issues are always waiting for the next thing to come along and make them mad because they don't know what else to do with their time!! Nix that.. I'm talking about me. Not other people with anger issues. Just my anger issues. I need to learn to let things go. I remember a time where I prided myself on being able to let anything slide. Where is that girl and WHY did I let her get away? Because it was true, there was a time in my life when I didn't care enough to hold a grudge against anyone. Sure things made me mad, but I let it go. I didn't always bottle things up like I do now, I let them go and if the problem repeated itself and made me mad multiple times, I removed the negativity from my life and moved on.

That's part of the reason that 250+ people can no longer read this. If you got this link off of facebook, congratulations!! You made the cut. I'm not necessarily saying that every person I deleted makes me mad all the time, but negativity doesn't help the case either. I don't want to read about all the guys girls have slept with in the past week or how much you drank last night and all the crazy swear word that you did. I don't want to see nakie pictures of your girlfriend and honestly, if you're going to post nudies... we probably weren't very good friends in the first place. Oh AND I don't want to hear you complain about your 'terrible awful' life with every post that you make. (You have it better than you think you do.)

Now don't get me wrong, 9 out of 10 times I will ask my friends or closer acquaintances if there's anything I can do to help them with whatever predicament they're in... (9 out of 10? I guess I'm leaving room for error.) But these were people I haven't talked to in YEARS. It's not my place to judge or reprimand, so I de-junkified my facebook. This is my first step towards inner peace. If I'm not constantly looking at or reading negativity, maybe it will help me to be more positive about my own life. Then I'll be able to calm down about the small stuff, because all the big stuff is already harmonized.

Till then, if I'm irrationally angry at anything period, I give each and every one of you permission to call me out.

Being them

I'm in need of some serious grace.

I can't seem to let anything go with this one specific person, and I already know the only person I'm hurting is myself. They probably have no idea I even feel this way. And I'm not confrontational enough to let them know.. So I'm at an impasse. Worst part though? I don't want to forgive them. It's like I like having this person to be mad at. All the time. Like a stress release. I need a new hobby.

By the way, people who read WAY too much into things.. I am NOT talking about Jeff.

I don't know what to do. I don't want to give away specifics because even though a lot of people know who I'm talking about, I don't want this getting back to them either. I just hate the spot I'm in right now. Why is it so easy to dislike a person so much?? Why is it that even a normal thing that this person does now is so infuriating that I can't even look at them without getting upset? How does it get this bad? And under any other circumstances, I probably wouldn't mind them so much. But then I wouldn't be me, and they wouldn't be them. And those are two definite's that can't be altered. No matter how I wish I could change them, maybe I should focus on changing myself first. Once I master that feat, I'm sure I'll be a lot easier on this person. Because right now, nothing they do is right. Nothing they say is intelligent. Nothing they are is beautiful. And that is NOT the right way to view someone. I need to be more accepting, but I feel personally attacked every time this person talks to me.

I need some help people. How do I forgive them for.. being them?

A woman

I somewhat reluctantly joined Women's Small Groups tonight after a somewhat spur-of-the-moment decision pushed somewhat by my husband... And I'm actually really glad I went. I'm a little too tired to write a bunch about my thoughts, especially since I haven't over-analyzed them yet, but I have a topic in mind and I wanted to get it started before I lost track of.. the track I'm on.

Question of the week:

Where is that line you cross from being a 'girl' to being a 'woman'? And no I'm not talking about hormones. I mean, when I think 'girl' I think my age and younger. But when do I get to join that illusive 'woman' league and start linking myself to the mothers, sisters, mentors, and leaders that I so long to be a part of? Is it an age? Is it a state of mind? Is it after I look the part? Is it when I'm a mother, myself?

What makes a woman... a woman?

After seriously contemplating an answer for my own question for over two weeks now, I've decided that there isn't one. You become a woman long before you realize it. Here's the catch though. You can't really decide it for yourself. Or anyone else for that matter, it just happens. Kind of a lame conclusion, I know. But it's the best I've got. Plus, this is such a wide topic and I could go on for hours discussing all the little details that either make you a woman or make you not a woman.. But that would just be my opinion. So officially, I say it remains illusive. No one knows when it will happen for them. One day, it will just switch. And you won't realize it till years later.

I can tell you this though... It hasn't happened for me yet. I still feel like a little girl. There are lots of areas I need to mature in. Lots of areas that need serious work. Not that I'll ever stop needing work, there's always room to grow. But I'm not yet at the place I want to be when I finally look at myself as a 'woman'.

Talk about it

So here's the thing. Talking privately with a few girl friends, I've discovered that we're all in the same boat. We're all lonely. We all get sad sometimes without an explanation. We all crave something bigger than us to be successful at. But no one will say it, because we all get afraid. So I'm going to say it for us.

Confession number 1. I'm embarrassed to call up my girlfriends when I'm alone.

Why? I'm not exactly sure, because it doesn't make sense. Right? Miss your friends = hang out with them. So I decided to look a little deeper. In my personal situation I found out that I get the most insecure about 'begging' my friends to hang out with me when Jeff makes plans with his buddies. As I said in my previous post, I understand that he needs guy time. And comparably, I need girl time. It's just more healthy that way. So why am I ashamed to call someone up and see if they're busy?

My theory is that because I've never been away from my family, I've always just had people around me. My sisters were always home. I always had my mom. And Dean. People were just... there. I never really had to try. But now that Jeff is my primary family, when he's gone I don't know what to do with myself. I assembled an Ikea DRESSER today for goodness sake! And for anyone that knows Jeff, who knows me, you'll know that he's extremely social and I am NOT.

So, yes. Jeff does hang out with his friends a lot, we both hang out with them. And if you guys are reading this, I really enjoy the time I get spend with you! But for him to have a social life where he's always busy between me, work, family, friends, gym time, church stuff and me to have my unsocial life between work and Jeff... (No, that's not a joke. Okay kind of.) I feel really weird having to fill it up with other things. Hence, the 'begging'. It's just not my personality. So for me to be asking friends to hang out several times a week - it feels needy to me. When really, it's completely normal.

And recently, I've really been craving girl time but restraining myself to save face. This is going to change. And no, I'm not sorry if I call you nine times next week.

Confession number 2. Yes, I get sad, but no I'm not depressed.

I feel like this is a favorite question of Jeff's lately. "You look depressed. Are you depressed?!?" No, dear. I'm still in that mid-college state of figuring out exactly who I am and I get discouraged sometimes. I'm not depressed, I've been there once in my life and I will never go back. That's another story though. I'm actually really happy most of the time! I just want to find my niche. I have to!

Again, like I said before, I tried a lot of different things to 'find' myself. Technically, you could say this blog is just another attempt. But seriously. Painting, photography, the furniture rearranging was a joke... but also guitar, sewing, exercising (SO not me, sorry Jeff), cooking, searching for new bands, and so many more. I even tried to change the type of clothing I wore. Each time I tried something new but then decided it wasn't what I was looking for, I got sad. Like I had lost a part of me because I hadn't found it yet. I didn't know what I was looking for, so it was such a heartache when I didn't get it right. Does that make sense? I might be re-writing that later.

So yeah, I get sad. But everyone does. So why are we afraid to admit it? I'm so sick of pretending I have everything figured out. I'M A MESS PEOPLE. And those are my good days!! But I like it. I love this search, and I swear I'll never give up. Even when I do find that one thing that I've been looking for, whatever it is. Why? Because it's fun to try new things! We shouldn't be so humiliated by the fact that we're trying to improve ourselves.

We should actually be helping each other. So who wants to take pottery classes with me? Who wants to go ice-skating before the winter is over? Who wants to go frickin' summit Mt. Rainier with me in 2013? And who is brave enough to admit you're lost, too, and suggest something??

Confession number 3. I have this craving to be important.

This is the most serious secret we keep. I want to make a difference in the world, I want to really matter. I don't want this to get confused with being famous though, I don't care about being famous. My need is much deeper than that. I want to know in my heart that I've filled my purpose on this earth. I want to know that I did all I could to save lives, to comfort souls, and bandage the broken.

This drove me to take a step backwards. Weird, I know but just bear with me for a minute. I went to Everett CC for almost two years. I took English classes and government classes. Literature classes and early childhood education classes. And I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I really wanted to teach at first, but that wasn't good enough. It just didn't hit that spot. So I stopped going.

I don't have a degree yet, and yeah sometimes that bothers me, but I couldn't be happier with the decision I made. Because I really got to think about it. If I would have just finished school and gotten a generic degree in something that I wouldn't be happy doing, not only would I have wasted a lot of my own money, but my time as well.

There's a passion in me to educate people on the natural herbs and foods God gave us. Free of the pesticides, free of the artificial sugars, free and clean. Not only will I be able to aid to conditions of ADD and Down Syndrome and Cancer, but I'll be able to witness to all sorts of people who have been beat down by the medical world. I want to be the person to help them when they have no one else to go to.

That will (I hope) complete the desire to be needed. To be really needed. I truly believe that all women feel this way. For some of us, we crave to be a mother. A wife. A journalist. A teacher. A pastor. A President? The point is, we all want to be important. We all want to be bigger than just us. So go for it lady! Don't be afraid to chase your dreams!

I realize that most of you already know all of these things, or maybe you disagree. That's okay. Most of this is about me anyway. I just want to let some of my friends know that they're not alone. The more I expose myself, I hope the more you will too. We're not alone, and we really shouldn't be afraid to talk about it.