missing everything

i'm a really, really bad blogger.
my newest adventure in life these days is substitute teaching, at the very school i got my little high school diploma from. the bathrooms smell the same, but the students all look so little. i think, "was i that little back then?" i almost feel compelled to pinch their cheeks like some ridiculous great aunty.
i miss city right now. i miss people (real people who have conversation and want to know about my life). that probably has a lot to do with the fact that i'm housesitting out in the sticks this week and have abundant conversations with a beagle but not much beyond.
i think i forgot to eat lunch today. there was no one around to remind me of my hunger.
i miss the assumptions i held so strongly to (not more than a few years back) that dinner time meant conversation and studying meant subtly hanging out with friends.
and, if you're reading this, i probably miss you too.

how i currently see my God

This is not real, this is simply how i feel:
God feels gone. He feels like some really good father who has built up the anticipation of a thrilling Christmas day. He has asked me what I wanted, I have listed my list. I even have thanked him in advance. We've talked. Now I have been waiting for Christmas day. And it came. And He didn't show up. So I went through the day with this knowledge that this father I have known to be good must still be good. Friends even have called and told me all about how wonderful their Christmases are turning out to be, how many good gifts they are getting. I have tried to be happy, really really tried. And I have waited and its like I feel as if God just forgot to come to my Christmas and deliver what he had told me he'd be giving me. And now, it's about January 14th, I have gotten a phone call here and there from him telling me that Christmas just isn't coming when (and how) I thought it would. But it's like I have been stung by God' confusing style of giving and provision and promise. I am still trusting him; his is, after all, my father. But am really scared because my entire existance has been as one thrown into full trust of him; one big giant bear hug of a life of trust and, now I am just a little bit doubting, a little bit distrusting, a little eery of what he says.
But here's the kicker:
I never even considered that God is so unique in his style that for him "Christmas" could come late, or as a completely unexpected event. Consequently, it is his way that has thrown me off, not his attributes or his being. I don't know if I know how to expect from him, but I continue to see him as my good father, I still still continue to know him as my wise God with his wise explanations for why he does things the way he does things.
I think I sometimes just wish God weren't so perfect. Perfect people bother me, sometimes God bothers me because he is perfect when that ought to be what impressed me so immensely.

dreamer

The curse of a dreamer is her dream. For I've dreamed my way through grade school, through high school, through Bible School out onto the other side and those who have heard my dream have exclaimed, "Great Dream! keep dreaming, Dreamer!" And I dream along, wonder at my dreams, try to contain my dreams, question my dreams, wait for my dreams. Life permits one to live in a dream only so long, though I fear not my dreams, I do fear me without dreams. I fear me becoming no dream, me doing another's dreams. I would dream on, and I probably will, but my dreams seem so dreamy and everyone knows a dreamy dream can only get me far. I suppose I'll reach my dreams some day, but I live now at arms length of my dream, hoping to not be known as the dreamer who once dreamt.

deadline

I gave myself an unrealistic deadline to finish my book by today. It is nowhere near completed. Perhaps we give ourselves deadlines sometimes to make us feel bad. Regardless, I'm still writing. And somehow i feel like my life is waiting (in this perpetual funk) until i finish the book about being in this perpetual funk while I feel like I can't find the motivation to write sometimes because I am in this perpetual funk.

new house

shocking. i am moving again. this time, into the mini city of Lancaster, the city that grew up a short drive from. the city that, by the way, is the best little city I have ever seen. my sis and are essentially housesitting/renting from a guy that is in the renovating an old poorly decorated house (think 2 layers of floral print wallpaper). so, (logically?) my sis and i have been helping this guy finish this house because we are moving in for a year while he's away and we want to live in a house that is livable.
so, today i spent 6 hours ripping old carpet off the floor to expose undamaged hardwood. but the best part was that i was sweating. i working hard on something with an attainable aim and saw my results. and that, was such a relief from the (occasionally) mudane tasks of writing resumes, writing a book and making lattes.
so, yes, today was good.

it's been too long

so here's my funny story. my great intentions of being one of those cool blogging types has been distracted by my lack of motivation. so now it's been, what, 2 months since my last blog. i now live in a different state, back to my hometown and just about equally excited about this place as i was 6 years ago when i left it.
they do have a little coffee company here, where i'm making lattes for a living until i can put my Masters-in-something-intangible to use. but nobody around here seems to want me.
my dog died last month. that really sucked.
i'm still working at writing a book. perhaps i will blame the book on why i never write blogs, or anything else for that matter. every bit of my precious writing energy is excerted for that book.
i'm hanging my photos to sell in a cool cafe in the nearby city this month. that's pretty exciting. since i spent an obnoxious about of money on photo stuff and never have opportunity to earn anything from it.
but, this is my current life. a bit dry. a bit mundane. a bit confusing and irratatingly uneventful.

june

for a few months i have known that, come June, i'd be changing...i'd be moving, i'd be moving on to a new place, a new job, a new state...and it's June and it's happening, but it (like it always does) came so fast. yes. like everyone else i'm not a huge change fan. i don't hate it, but there is always saddness with it, discomfort with it, and carrying all my material possessions with it. but i am moving. it's happening. i'm saying goodbye to people. that "i have no idea when i'll see you again, it's been good". yes. that's what June is for me.

comparison

i just got off the phone with a friend from my Bible College days. a friend who is living out the confusion of having such a passion to DO SOMETHING profound for God, but who is stuck in the financial binds and the geographical binds and the singlehood binds that come so unwarned to the mid-twenty somethings who actually don't go straight from high school to college to marriage to perfection. She said a bit about comparison. The thing is, it is not always the assumed who are 25 and married with children. Sometimes it seems to be the unlikely. She is approaching her 10 year high school graduation and the thing is, in high school i thought i'd be married by 22. We all did. And it is not fair (to ourselves, to the others, to God) to compare our lives with the lives of unparalleled others. We are not the same. But, it is hard not to. It is hard not to see the unlikely people from our past lives who are doing exactly what i thought I wanted to be doing right now. And, to see people like me stuck in limbo between lives and dreams and confusion. But, as my friend pointed out, it is not as uncommon as we often think to be single and living with your parents and still feel a slight bit confused. In fact, bring it on. Bring it on if it is going to teach the lessons and clarify the confusion and even bring fullness to these lives of ours that are currently so far from the perfection of anything.

real grown up

the weather is mean right now. may is not supposed to have mean weather. i worked all morning; making lattes for people wet from the rain. and now i'm home. i'm in my apartment with nothing real to do. i just finished grad school and have the actually graduation ceremony in 48 hours. currently i'm dealing with the psychological implications of loosing my identity as a "grad student". i have to grow up and get a real job and pay real bills and yet i have no idea what real job to get and have no desire to face those real bills...and i hated being in grad school until now: now that I am done. Real done. to grow up...

intimidation

I have aspired to be the blogging type for some time now. All the cool kids do it. All the truly post-modern people who have embraced the culture in its technological advancements. And so, today I've done it. I've succumbed to the intimidation. The intimidation of attempting to become the blogging type.