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.

Something to say

I finally decided to start writing again. I forgot how happy it can make me. Especially when I don't know who to talk to. Talking to no one but everyone seems to do the job well enough, and I don't really think I need any advice anyway. I just need to get things off my chest.

Where to start.....?

The last post I made, I was 21, living at home, working at an online based wedding boutique and barely starting to date my now husband. I don't even remember who it was that I was so irritated at. For me to be so mad at one person that I stopped writing seems a little bit severe. I'm assuming I was mad at a few people - probably myself included. And I can tell you this much right now: Not a whole lot has changed. It's a little comical that the very reason I stopped writing is the same reason I started again, but there it is.

I'm tired of being forgotten.

I tried starting a tumblr account thinking that if I could somehow become 'tumblr famous' (11,000 + followers), it would somehow answer that big 'who is Laurel, really' question since my last rant in 2010. I've had it for... 4 weeks now? I have 31 followers.

Don't get me wrong, I know these things take time. I know patience is key. But then I see these terrible accounts with naked people and drugs and 'hip' fashion and all they post about is "OMG I have NO IDEA how I got over 8,000 followers in just 10 days! You guys are the BESTEST!!!" I very quickly figured out that I'm older than 90% of these bloggers, more modest, and therefor uncool. I got caught up in the popularity contest of HIGH SCHOOLERS for the second time in my life now, but this time I didn't even know it was happening until it was too late!! Needless to say, this wonderful idea of mine failed. Horribly. I might delete it. I'm not sure.

I've also tried to find a new hobby hoping that somehow, I'll find this special hidden talent and let it consume my identity. Painting, guitar playing, furniture rearranging.... On and on. And then I decided.

I wanted to be the photo girl. You know, that girl that takes amazing pictures and everyone wants prints and she makes cards and sells them in gas stations and eventually gets to quit her job because all she can think about it her camera and where the next great shot is going to be?? Yeah, so I bought a camera. An EXPENSIVE one. And now I hate taking pictures with it because they don't look good at all. And it's TOTALLY the camera's fault. They just don't turn out. And Then it hit me, I wanted to be in the pictures more than I wanted to take them.

There's only one problem with that; No one cares about taking my picture. I don't have friends like that. I have a sister like that, but she takes pictures of her friends instead. I guess I'm not her friend. Sniff.

What's weird is that the biggest let down though is also the happiest part of my life right now. I'm not really sure how to word this so I'm going to start with a disclaimer. I love my husband. I love being married. In no way am I complaining about our decision to spend the rest of our lives together. Okay.

So I always expected life to be different after I got married. You know, like when you're a little kid and you can't imagine what it will be like when you're (OMG) NINETEEN?? To a 12 year old, that's a long way off. At least for me it was. I remember fantasizing about all the cool things I'd be able to do. Drive myself places, be done with school, kiss boys... Wow. I would have it made at 19. But when I got to 19, I was still me. Awkward, lost, insecure... I guess I kind of had the same expectation about getting married. Except I didn't learn from the experience of my 19-year-old let down. I kept dreaming.

Again, I love being married. I'm not saying it isn't wonderful in every way... I just expected to be transformed. Me. I'd know who I was, I'd be perfectly content, and the rest of my life would just fly by and I'd have everything figured out. But I don't. I still worry about the same things. I still burn dinner. I still get insecure when Jeff doesn't invite me to hang out with him and his friends like I used to when I was convinced none of then liked me and that's why I was quarantined. (Yes, I know. Guy time.) Getting married was supposed to turn me into superwoman. But I'm still Laurel. And I discovered that I'm not very good at that either.

Luckily, I have this amazing husband who has been there to talk, support and encourage me. Poor guy didn't know what he signed up for! I don't know what I would have accomplished this far without him... It was practically 90% his idea for me to restart my blogging. And I sure am glad he understands all of this.

All those scenarios and a few conversations with Jeff and my best friend and my sisters accumulated, finally, to me taking my own advice. I need to start over. I need a hug, and then I need to reset. I am the heroine in this novel. Because I'm writing the book. I come first. In a sense anyway. It's more like I come third really (God, marriage, me), but that's the point. I've been filling that third spot with other people. Trying to find happiness in their success instead of my own. I don't need to be famous, I don't need to be adored. Especially not be other people - and strangers at that. I just need to accept myself, focus on what makes me happy, and RUN with it.

I was on the right track with the tumblr account.. until I realized that it's not really a writing type of blog. Which is really what I needed. Carly Sebastian, I have you to thank for this quote. It made me realize I was in it for all the wrong reasons.

"You don't write because you want to say something. You write because you have something to say." - F. Scott Fitzgerald.

And man do I have something to say.