I never thought that I could be excited, or even remotely interested, in politics.  Coming from a red state/blue state family (geographically and politically), I have been fed up with politics even before I could vote.  I grew up listening to attacks on both parties and became as callous and apathetic to both ends of the political spectrum as one could be.  And as a young American who voted for the first time, I really wanted to form my own opinions, and not just rehash the words of my parents (which would be totally contradictory anyway).  I feel that I formed my own beliefs as much as possible, but the votes are in, so it’s now irrelevant.

Regardless of who you voted for and why, I really think Americans as a whole should be proud of this election.  Aside from the issues at stake, it is more than time that our country began to heal its political wounds, and I really feel that Obama can help do this.

Over the past 24 hours, I’ve had this surprisingly excited, emotional reaction to the election that I wasn’t expecting at all.  I guess the hope and optimism gained from the results has reinvigorated part of me that I wasn’t even aware of.  Maybe it’s the feeling of watching history being made, or watching the incredible reactions of African-Americans around the country, but I am truly interested in continuing to follow Obama’s leadership in the coming years.

It didn’t even hit me until today how epic this election has been for African-Americans, and I thought about my parents’, and especially my grandparents’ generations, and how far we’ve come as a country.

One of my grandfathers was an incredible, wonderful man whom I love and miss very much.  One of his few flaws, however, was his racism.  I never knew him well enough to understand why he held certain beliefs, and I wish I could go back and talk to him about it.  But I’m fairly certain, if he were alive today, that he would not support the election of an African-American president.  This greatly upsets me.

My other grandfather, on the other hand, is an ardent Obama supporter. He stood in line yesterday to vote for an African-American for president, and after his 86 years of life, I know that he never thought he would see the day when an African-American became president. Today is a joyous day for his generation, both black and white alike, and I feel so fortunate to be able to celebrate this day with him.

I’m really excited to see where Obama can lead this country; but even more, I’m just excited to be excited!

Boy: Sam, Harry, Jonah, Aiden

Girl: Lily, Rory, Lucy, Isabelle (“Izzy”), Reverie

…to be continued/added to…

And I’ve done all I can
To stand on her steps with my heart in my hand
Now I’m starting to see
Maybe it’s got nothing to do with me

Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

Ooh, you see that skin?
It’s the same she’s been standing in
Since the day she saw him walking away
Now she’s left
cleaning up the mess he made

So fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

Boys, you can break
You find out how much they can take
Boys will be strong
And boys soldier on
But boys would be gone without warmth from
A woman’s good, good heart

On behalf of every man
looking out for every girl
You are the god and the weight of her world

So fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers be good to your daughters, too
So mothers be good to your daughters, too
So mothers be good to your daughters, too.

That skin’s been pretty comfortable, but it’s time to take it off…

And the questions without answers/
Come and paralyze the dancer/
So I stand here on the stage afraid to move/
Afraid to fall, oh, but fall I must/
On this truth that my life has been formed from the dust/

I saw my roommate’s phone cover tonight. Again. On the side of the road. The same corner where it happened. Where I lost my footing. My blissful naivete.

But it’s not about me; I’m fine. I’m walking. I’m breathing. My loved ones came so close to losing such abilities.

I can’t even describe how thankful I am, despite everything. Despite the pieces of glass in her chest, the tears, the stumbling, the unimaginable confusion, the door impossibly halfway into her seat, the neck brace, the corrosive guilt, the wheelchair, the pain. So much pain. Yet I sit here, unmarked. Without a scratch.

I am so tired of seeing it, though. The pain. I don’t feel it myself, in a physical sense. But it seems like almost anyone near and dear to my heart gets hurt, while I stand there, behind this glass wall, and just watch it happen, unable to stop it or do anything of real use. I’m so sick of it. I want so badly to just rewind and fix that one little thing…that one stinging word…that one glance…that one red light…

I know there’s a reason for it, a silver lining I might see later, but it’s just so incomprehensible sometimes. It hurts when you expect it, when you walk into the hospital room and see someone so young and so full of life in such an old, lifeless setting. When your wiping the tears from her face because it hurts her too much to move. But it hurts even more when you don’t expect it, when she’s lying on her bed, crying not because of what happened to her that night but because her father is coming to see her. When the driver’s first reaction is not questioning her well-being but her sobriety. When you read a word in your textbook (see line 6, word 3 above), weeks later, and can’t go back to it for a full hour.

Prayer is definitely needed right now. I had the oddest feeling last year, when everything seemed to be going so amazingly well, that my cloud nine would have to dissipate eventually. I was juggling so much, holding onto everything, somehow, dreading the moment when it would all come crashing down. When I wouldn’t have control. And now that that moment has come, I’m futilely picking up the pieces and beginning such a foolish juggling act all over again. I know I can’t do it, but it’s all I know how to do. How to deal with this.

He wants to take it off of me. I need to let Him do that.

As I head into my sophomore year of college, I’ve been doubting my future plans a lot (as far as major, post-undergrad life, etc.), so I think I’ll just state some aspirations and dreams that, hopefully, I will have fulfilled in the next decade of my life.

First and foremost, I hope I am still a faithful follower of Christ. Regardless of whether my life’s going swimmingly or terribly, I hope I still confide in Him. It used to scare me as a child when my mother told me to talk to God about my worries and problems because there would be times in my life when I would have no one else to go to. Now I realize God should be my first confidant, and quite possibly my sole confidant in some cases, unless someone else were to come along…

I hope, if God so plans, to share my life with someone. Someone with whom I can laugh, cry, talk about nearly anything, create new life, and spend the rest of my life… I hope to have that fairy-tale ending, that crying-out-of-happiness finale, and I truly believe it is attainable. How could dreams of such romance exist if they cannot be actualized? I certainly know the whole “happily ever after” will be qualified by furniture disagreements, in-laws, and spilled juice, but maybe the cliche phrase is more of a summary than a day-to-day mantra. And while almost any human being has this desire, I hope that if I were to enter into the bond of marriage, that my spouse and I both grew closer to God as a result of our love, and not despite it. For “Love doesn’t require two people to look at each other, but to look in the same direction.”

Along with this, I hope that I am able to overcome the obstacles of my outward coldness and fear of commitment. I believe my biggest flaw is my inability to verbally express my emotions even towards friends, especially male friends. I feel like my outward impression is rather unlike my preferable inward impression, and this shyness, even coldness, is not how I would like to be known. Of course, my almost complete avoidance of relationships with the opposite sex feeds into my coldness as well. I can’t help but observe the near 100% failure of marriages in my immediate and extended family and wonder how I’ll ever have a chance. I see many examples of the types of relationships I most certainly do not want to get into, but few examples of those that I would. And I know, for now, a single-minded heart is what’s best for me, that the layer of ice around my heart is protecting it for now, but I don’t want it to freeze over completely. Hopefully I’ll be able to let the right person slowly melt it away.

As far as a career goes, I hope to be doing something that is totally and completely “below” my level of education… i.e., being a mother, a grade school teacher in a remote country, a social worker, etc. When people ask me what I do, and then ask where I attended school, I want them to be thoroughly confused: “Why is she doing that when she could be [enter prestigious-sounding career].” I feel that if I were to go into the world of academia as a professor, or the realm of research as a curer-of-the-common-cold, I most likely would be doing so to boost my pride as well as my checkbook, neither of which need any boosting. If anything, my resume (and ego) could use a diet. I feel like God has pampered me so much in my short-lived life that it’s about time for me to allow others to at least experience some of the intellectually/spiritually/literally rich life with which I have been so blessed.

I hope to be living somewhere new, exciting, even scary. I believe the times in my life when I’ve moved out of my physical comfort zone have been the periods of greatest growth for me. New cultures and languages would certainly be a challenge, but I’d take that sort of challenge any day to the numbing, claustrophobic suburbs of America. Besides, I appreciate my hometown so much more after leaving it.

I hope to be closer to my sister. Even though we share much of our lives, there are certain chapters we have never read or slammed shut, and I hope to fix that. I hope I remain close to my mom, attempt to pry open the locked safe that is my father, and at least still be friendly towards my step-parents. I hope I play an active role in lessening the tension between my parents because, by now, it involves me as much as the two of them. I also hope that the relatives and friends dear to me have, if not found God, at least still question what that smile on my face, that glimmer in my eye is for.

I hope you agree.

Help me Lord cause I don’t understand your ways/
The reason why I wonder if I’ll ever know/
But, even if you showed me, the hurt would be the same/
Cause I’m still here so far away from home/

I close my eyes and I see your face/
If home’s where my heart is then I’m out of place/
Lord, won’t you give me strength to make it through somehow/
I’ve never been more homesick than now/

In Christ, there are no goodbyes/
And in Christ, there is no end/
So I’ll hold onto Jesus with all that I have/
To see you again/

I heard this song “Homesick,” by Mercy Me, on the radio today and I think it sums up me pretty well right now. I’m getting ready to leave my mom and fly a thousand miles to see my dad for the rest of the summer, and I’ve been a complete emotional wreck. I was a complete wreck leaving college, and here I am again, packing my bags and dreading that word “goodbye” more than anything…

I know all of this constant upheaval and change is good for me in the long run. I have a tendency to become really attached to certain places and I really feel that God is trying to say to me, “Look, this house/dorm room/backyard is temporary– don’t put all your happiness in such worldy locations.” I don’t want to become like my father and many of my family members who never moved out of their hometown and stepped out of their comfort zone. But the downside to spreading my wings is that I’m leaving my feathers behind in so many more places…

I’m homesick for so many places, and yet no exact earthly place, all at the same time.

It’s also so hard for me to leave one parent for another. My mom was so excited for me to come home after college, and I can tell my dad is really excited for me to be coming home to see him too. But whenever I’m making one parent happy, I’m breaking the other’s heart; at the same time, I’m happy and yet breaking my own heart as well. I don’t know how I’ll be able to do this for every summer and Christmas. I only have so many feathers.

“Lord, won’t you give me the strength to make it though somehow”– This is all I can do. All I can ask for. On my flight last month, leaving college and heading to my mom’s, I sat there in my plane seat, sunglasses on my face to cover up the puffy, wet eyes underneath, praying that I could just get through this flight without a flood of tears. A girl, about my age, sat next to me, and we both immediately noticed the same college name on our shirts. As it turns out, I spent that entire flight talking with a fellow classmate- the only tears came from laughter at trying to explain the crazy traditions and antics of our college to another passenger.

So as painful as that word “goodbye” is going to be tomorrow, I will sit there on the tarmac (most likely donning sunglasses again) and ask Him once again. Last time I asked, He answered perfectly.

The best part: I don’t have to say goodbye to Him.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my father’s house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.” John 14:1-2

My favorite things:
Christmas lights covered in snow
trampolines
driving in the mountains at night
peanut butter and banana sandwiches
watching the sun rise on the beach
gelato
little black dresses
fountains at night
praising God
snorkeling among “Dorys”
twirling
spontaneous activities at spontaneous times
quiet piano music
quiet
the word “reverie”
running in the rain

Things that make me laugh:
life with my wonderfully fun roommates
corgis
two words: French police
chatting on aim with my Grandpa
simply observing the antics at college
cacti
seeing eHarmony commercials in the airport
making faces at inappropriate times
my cousins
clever pranks

Things that make me cry:
strangers living in my old house
the movie “My Girl”
nursing homes
brokenness of my family
continually leaving one parent to see another
seeing someone in a less idealistic way
beautiful clarinet playing
my sister’s scars

Things that make me think:
my parents’ previous lives
the Bible
living with people from different cultures and beliefs
my purpose
people’s stories/hardships/testimonies
seeing where I am now; how I wouldn’t have believed it a year ago
the future roles of people in my life

Maybe we’re at the first large chunk of the iceberg now… more to come…

I actually began the year on a very odd foot, to say the least. A friend, who I unfortunately only got to know for a few weeks, died suddenly the second week of classes. It was… incomprehensible, I guess. I just couldn’t believe that someone so vibrant and full of life was suddenly gone completely; I don’t think anything in life has ever shaken me so much. And I remember thinking that I needed to enjoy life more, live life to the fullest, not worry about the little things. A good outlook, I guess, but frankly, not good enough. Some students were trying to understand how such a horrific event could occur, some were mad at God, some were blaming themselves. How can you answer their questions, soothe their anger, end their guilt with a “well, just enjoy life, relax, take it easy…”? It would be like putting a band-aid on a deep wound- might work momentarily, but in the long run, you’re going to have to find something better. Stronger.

Faith. For as long as I can remember, I’ve gone to church, said grace before dinner, all that good stuff. I went through the motions and never really thought about it much. My mom was very influential in the basis of my faith, but seeing her crying in church (quite often) and praying all the time about everything, I just didn’t understand. I knew she went through a lot in her past, dealing with a divorce and losing both parents and being barraged with anything unfortunate that came her way, but I never linked her pain with her faith. Until that one evening, the second weekend after classes had begun. For the first time, I realized this was something (really the only thing) that could heal my pain, bandage my wound.

As the semester went on, I began to realize that this “God” that I had heard about many times before was more than just a source of my mom’s emotional moments in church; He was truly interested in me. There were many events leading up to my fall semester, mostly good, that I brushed off as “coincidence,” “good luck.” For the first time, I thought, what if such occurrences were more than mere happenstance? While I did believe in God previously, I never considered that He had anything to do with the mere trifles of my life. Didn’t He have more important things to deal with? Why would He care so much about me?

I guess that’s the beauty of it all- He did! He did care about every little detail of my life and He still does. The loss of a friend lead me to see how much of a blessing his death was. I felt like a veil had been lifted in front of my eyes, and I was suddenly seeing so much more clearly. No amount of Bible-studying, Sunday school-teaching could have changed my heart like that; I guess I had to experience it firsthand. A rather painful experience, of course, but maybe it had to take something like that to catch my attention. It was as if God had been throwing me little hints here and there: a childhood friend is suicidal… Need me? No, guess not… your dad is hurting your mom so much… Need me? Not yet…

Eventually, He threw me more than “a little hint,” (more like a massive brick wall) and, thank God, I finally caught it. The bruises from that brick wall led me to true friendships that I probably would have never made previously, in attending Bible studies and such. Thanks to my bruises, I also began a discipleship with someone I barely even knew, yet through our weekly dinners and meetings, I realized she and I had more in common than almost any of my friends.

These bruises, this “lifting of the veil,” whatever you want to call it, made my year not only more enjoyable, but truly blessed. Honestly, I can’t even describe it in words. When I tell old friends how amazing my first year at college was, and they say, “that’s great, so what happened exactly?” and I begin, “well, first, a friend died…” they naturally don’t really understand. But then again, a year ago, I wouldn’t have understood either.

This is just the tip of the iceberg… more to come…

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6