Feet On the Ground

I’m here. I’m in my new place, in a new town, and I have my new student ID for the University of Kentucky. I’m going to law school orientation tomorrow. It feels surreal. If you’d told me two years ago that this was my path, I’d have been completely stumped.

I’m exhausted from all of the running around I’ve been doing, but I’m satisfied, too. I’m still finding my way around, but it was so fun last night to realize that even though the mall closed in 25 minutes I still had time to go to Macy’s to get a Lush bath bomb and try one for the first time. Best bath ever. It’s great to be the only person needing the bathroom, have it completely quiet when I want and no one telling me that I should be cleaning when I really need a nap.

I met my 2L mentor this morning and we went to get my student ID. She treated me to Starbucks not even knowing that it was the way to my heart. She’s bubbly and gladly answered my questions and gave me tips and I had a great time. Then I met a girl that I’ve been messaging with on Facebook and we went to lunch. She showed me some roads that I didn’t know about and we went driving around for a while. It’s so great to know someone that will be going through exactly what I’ll experience.

I’m surprised by how normal all of the unfamiliarity is. When I was in my undergrad writing classes, it took me a while to create smooth transitions. Professors always said that I jumped too abruptly from one idea to the next and it upset the flow of my work. At first I honestly had no idea what a transition really was.

Such an ironic parallel for my life. I spent so much time jumping from one emotion to another when I hit some sort of obstacle or major change. I couldn’t function if hit with a surprise and any sort of shift made me panic.

I learned how to write a transition. I even learned how to connect several ideas into one theme in larger works. It was my own literary triumph. This transition from living at home to moving somewhere unfamiliar is a transition of personal triumph. I’m so relieved that I’ve survived to this point and I’m building up courage for the rest of it. I’ve had so many overwhelming feelings of rightness about all of this. It feels like a normal part of life.

I’ll try to hold onto this feeling as I start my classes

Tags: change, law school, peace, risk

I’m moving to Lexington in 2 days. I have orientation on Friday and classes start next Tuesday.

Nearing freak out mode here.

And…we’ve arrived.

Tags: change, discomfort, law school, risk, uncertainty

There are a few things that, as a rule, I can’t stand. Church people and girls are at the top of the list. So girls from church are my personal hell on earth.

I realize that I’m generalizing and stereotyping. But in my experience, most of the girls I’ve had the displeasure of associating with in churchlike settings are vapid, shallow, concerned with appearances and unable to stand on their own. They’re daddies girls who are constantly seeking approval from everyone around them and their main goal is to marry someone who is important or the son of someone important in the church.

I used to want to be one of them. Oh, so badly.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make myself fit in. So I eventually quit. For a while, I quit everything related to church and even stopped playing in the band. When I returned, I didn’t hang out with anyone. I literally had NO friends close by. I went to school, work, and came home. My grades were great and I watched a lot of TV. It was a very quiet time in my life, and my only face-to-face conversations of any importance were with my mom. I spend a lot of time texting and calling my far away friends. And although I’d still see on Facebook all of the comments and pictures of church people hanging out, I had absolutely no desire to join in. I no longer cared.

I worked through a lot of hurt in that time, and after a while got to the point where I could see people that had ostracized me without feeling that old stab of pain. I even struck up conversations with people now and then, but this time I had no expectations.

Then I shocked myself by meeting someone I really liked. She started dating one of my friends and was the sister of someone I had gone to school with for years. We hit it off from our first conversation. She was hard to get ahold of when we weren’t at church, but every time I saw her we chattered away and had a blast. We hung out a few times with our friends and I looked forward to seeing her. I felt as if I didn’t have to be strategic around her- I could just show her who I was. We giggled, a lot, and whispered about things that would earn us shocked faces and frowns from most people around us. I liked her because she had a pretty real view of things that most people in church try to pretend don’t exist.

She was one of those people that, if you could PICK someone to be friends with, it would be her. We both got new jobs around the same time, and then the holidays were crazy, and so many times we said, “When things calm down, we’re going to hang out. Just us.”

Finally, I decided to try to make it happen. But she wasn’t responding to texts or facebook messages for days, or the next time I’d see her she’d apologize. Finally, I got fed up with it and asked her boyfriend if he could see if she was getting my texts. I’d heard stuff about her phone not getting messages before, and was still trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. She texted me later that day and started going on about how she was a loner and didn’t have much time to hang out and well, basically told me to quit trying.

Salt, meet wound.

I was hurt and extremely angry. I ranted and stewed and seasoned my bitterness like a witch’s brew. I wrote her off in my head and made every effort to avoid her. Fortunately, I didn’t see her at church for like, a month. Then, I saw her unexpectedly. She tried talking to me as I was walking outside to get my jacket from my car. I smiled stiffly and responded with as few words as possible and kept going. When I came back inside, I went into the bathroom. She was there. She tried to strike up a conversation. I kept trying to brush her off, but she persisted. Finally, I said, “I’ll come out and sit with you in a minute.” She grinned and said okay and walked out the door.

So, as I’m peeing as angrily as possible and berating myself for telling her I’d come sit with her, because there was no way out now- I heard God speak to my spirit.

“Forgive her.”

Of course, I wasn’t giving in that easily. A dialogue ensued.

“No.”
“Yes.”
“She hurt me!”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to!”
“I don’t care.”

I’m certain that I had a big scowl on my face. I’m also certain that God was lounging on His throne with his arms folded and staring at me with a calm, yet pointed expression. I was having a standoff with someone who knew He was going to win. Soooooooo infuriating.

And, well, let’s just be real. There, in the church’s bathroom, I said, “Damnit!”

At that moment, I TOTALLY felt God smirking at me. My candor and whining didn’t bother Him. My stubbornness amused Him. I felt no censure, and I think it’s because He knew that I was deeply hurt, that I had deeply cared about her, and that I truly wanted to do the right thing.

I washed my hands and stomped over to the door. I took a deep breath and sighed it out forcefully and then, with a small bit of resignation mixed into a whole lot of determination, I said, “Okay.”

I went out there. Forgave. Talked. Hugged. Expressed my hurt. Cleared the air. Made a few jokes. Giggled. Hugged again.

That was a few weeks ago. And since then, I’ve only seen her once and said hi in passing. We haven’t had any other contact.

It still kind of hurts.

I still love her.

And I think God is proud of me.

Tags: awkward, grace, learning, pain, peace, risk

*blows dust off blog* *coughs*

Sorry, blog, I haven’t forgotten about you. I’ve just been uninspired.

I feel so much pressure to write something awesome every time I make an entry. I want something funny and witty, yet meaningful, that will speak of my faith yet speak to people who have no faith. It’s an impossible task but I always feel like I should deliver a perfect blog post…and then I psych myself out.

I psych myself out of a lot of things.

When you’re the “smart” girl who always makes the “good” decisions, sometimes all you want is to be the princess for a while. You look at the ditzy daddy’s girls who always have someone taking care of them and doing things for them and you realize how stupid they are and how helpless they’d be if everyone left them alone, but you envy that. They’re pretty. They get handed things simply because they’re pretty and charming and people want to be around them. They don’t really have much to offer, but people flock to them anyway.

I always wanted to be the princess. Instead, I was awkward and shy. Didn’t know how to hold a decent conversation, couldn’t work the room and loved sparkly dresses and shiny shoes but felt completely alien in them.

Once in a while, I get the chance to dress up in a costume and be a princess for a while. Part of me thrives…and another part of me runs away in fear.

I’m supposed to attend a wedding this weekend. I’m excited for the couple- yet terrified of the dinner and dancing afterward. I can’t dance because I’ve never really tried or been shown how. I still get freaked out in groups of people and most of the time, I’m ignored or overlooked when I try to enter a conversation. The worst feeling is to be in a large group of people and completely alone. It’s awkward. I feel exposed and vulnerable, and it’s as if one sideways glance from someone standing nearby could make me bust into tears. I know people think I’m a loser.

So I usually just run away.

It’s kind of cruel- this desire to be the one that is known and loved and gets to enjoy the pretty things and attention and flit around from group to group and know that everyone is excited to see you…yet the complete inability to make it happen.

I’ll get dressed up. I’ll put on some completely fabulous shoes and get compliments on them and hear, “I could NEVER walk in those!” as I trek around expertly. I’ll curl my hair and apply the eyeliner with a steady touch. I’ll take deep breaths and pray in between them and clench my fists tightly when I feel waves of fear. And I’ll try, once again, to be something I desperately desire to embody…yet feel totally inadequate of accomplishing.

Tags: fear, princess, risk, shoes

So…this whole “love” thing isn’t working out so well. And I was getting really hard on myself, until I realized that I was trying to do the hardest thing of all- love people and situations and circumstances that I didn’t like. So I decided to take baby steps and start with good things. Then, suddenly, two good- no, great! things happened.

My best friend asked me to be a bridesmaid.

It was so sweet- she asked me and another friend to come to Starbucks as usual. I didn’t think anything of it because it’s such a tradition now. After we got tea and got settled, she handed us little envelopes and asked us to open them up at the same time. She had printed our names on cards with a cute design, and when we opened them we saw simply, “Be my bridesmaid?” in large letters on the inside.

I’m sure you can imagine the following scene. Squealing, excitement, OMG!, giggles, etc. She pointed out to us a couple minutes later that we hadn’t officially answered.

I felt loved. Although some girls my age are old hats at this sort of thing, I’ve never been a bridesmaid. I would have understood if she had a small ceremony and only had her sister as maid of honor. I would have been by her through everything. But to have her pick me was wonderful. To be invited into the inner circle to enjoy this time with her and to have everyone know that our years of building a friendship has culminated in me being right there on her special day to make it as amazing as possible was such an honor. I feel like she’s a sister and I love her and it still makes me a bit teary to think that she loves me too.

Then…

I received my first law school acceptance.

I can’t describe my relief. You can pray and say that you believe all you want, but there’s just something about that finality of knowing that it’s going the way you want. Of course, this is just one step in the line of things that has to go my way before, well, I die, but at least this door wasn’t shut. Just the opposite. I can move forward and push through the next level, down the next passageway and fight the next dragon.

In some ways, both of these instances will make life harder. My best friend will have less time for me. Law school will be tough and involve a million different situations working out just right to even get me there. The next year will be so full of trusting and patience and determination.

Here is where I can try something new or choose my usual option.

I’d usually try to find some way to dampen my joy. Think of something negative that’s completely unrelated, find out something that could throw the whole process into turmoil, or just generally be afraid of the future.

Or…I could just be happy and celebrate and rejoice because, it’s easier to do so when you have a specific reason. If I learn now, it will be even easier to continue the rejoicing even when I can’t remember why I’m doing it. I’m going to try to translate this into love, too. I can’t force myself to love people or circumstances that are making me miserable right off the bat. I’m going to focus on how much I love the ones who make it easy and remember why it’s good to have people around me.

We’ll work on the rest later.

Tags: excitement, law school, love, risk

Most people hate February. And in many respects it’s a sucky month. The general populace is frustrated with weather and taxes. Single people are cranky about Valentine’s Day. Motivation for New Years resolutions is ebbing and it’s far easier to just sit on the couch, eat cookies and watch 24 than…well, do anything at all.

And I have some great trips planned in March and April. My best friend will move back here sometime around then as well. Then it will be summer and we can get ice cream and go to the park and drink sweet tea and go to Kings Island.

It’s going to be fabulous.

In the meantime, though, it’s February.

I’ve decided to take a different approach. I’m going to get in shape physically. I’m going to curb my spending and save as much as possible. I’ll get through work with as much happiness intact as I can muster and as soon as I leave, get to the business of living. I’ve moped around too much after work because I’ve been so miserable and frustrated, but that’s completely counterproductive. So that’s over.

Hopefully.

We’ll see.

Ultimately, though, I need to get my spirit into fighting shape. I’ve been so remiss in that lately. But with the things I have coming up in my future, I have a feeling that the challenges and possible triumphs will take everything I have. Mostly, though, I just miss God.

The best part is that I don’t have to.

Hold me to this, will you?

Tags: anticipation, determination, risk

She sat at the table and recounted a story that is the closer to hell than anything I’ve ever experienced. Her straight posture and matter-of-fact manner didn’t welcome pity for her pain that she hid well behind a mask of cynicism and wit and bluntness. Yet as we sat there, my heart broke for her. It was too late for me to do anything about her pain, but I knew it was tangible and wondered if I could have done anything beforehand to help her through it. I even realized that such thoughts were useless, but it all felt so real in that moment that I could barely hold myself together.

And then when we were alone, she had the audacity to apologize for possibly offending me with her tale.

It was an issue that countless people have underwent, even in the church, and it’s something that usually results in immediate condemnation. Yet condemnation was the farthest thing from my mind. I haven’t known her for very long, but I can honestly say that I love her. And in that love there was no judgment. Only deep regret that I hadn’t been there to support her.  That she had to endure it alone.

The thought that she could have kept her story to herself out of fear of offending me made me feel a whole host of negative emotions toward myself and the religious community in general. Yet it felt so powerful because she chose to tell me and my first response was grace.

This isn’t a post to talk about how fabulous I am. The desire to extend grace was the most humbling thing I have ever felt in my life. I realized that grace means you’re aligning yourself with someone. It’s not showing that you’re condoning their actions but rather that you see them as they were made to be and are willing to help them close the gap from there to where they currently are. Extending grace means that you might receive condemnation simply from associating with them. It doesn’t mean that you’ll receive grace in return and almost certainly guarantees that enemies will rise up immediately to punish you for daring to give them a free pass.

I would never presume that I’ve made any impact on her life at all. If you could write a life story that was exactly the opposite of mine, hers would be it. But I’ve learned so much from her. Even if we never spoke again, I will forever remember her as striking. Her appearance, her wit, her ability to cut through all of the crap in a situation or a person and call them out on it. Her tenacity is unparalleled and the way she can rebound from a bad situation and push through everything life throws at her is remarkable. She warns and even apologizes for her brashness but refuses to curb herself to fit a mold. She’s the type of person that everyone wants to tame but she’s exactly what we need to make us realize that molds are completely useless.

She’s changed my life.

We’d be offended by her story, and that’s exactly why we need it.

Tags: appreciation, discomfort, grace, learning, nightmare, pain, risk

When you apply to law school, you have to write a personal statement. It’s the one part of the application where I have the most control. It will allow the committee to have a peek inside of my life and see what’s motivating me to go to school. You’d think this would be the thing I’d nail, considering that all of my blogs are about my favorite topic- me.

Instead, I’m finding it incredibly challenging. When I write here, I try to include more than a hint of self-deprecation because I know how ridiculous I am most of the time, even in my earnestness. Yet when I’m writing this statement, my earnestness is completely sincere. It’s kind of terrifying. I haven’t cared about something this much since…well, we all know how that turned out.

These feelings are so weird. I don’t know how to process them seriously right now. I don’t know when I began downplaying my passions but now it’s like I’ve become the person I scorned. Someone who didn’t care enough about anything to really pursue it.

I miss writing, I miss God, I miss reading, I miss spending time by myself just being in complete silence and completely content with that. I could be doing any of those things seriously right now, but I’m laying here with a headache, a slightly sore throat, tense muscles knotted in my neck and not enough energy to think about anything beyond, “Ow.”

And, of course, this intense desire for something more that I can’t seem to put into words…but I have to.

Tags: change, discomfort, law school, learning, risk

Facebook has become almost as annoying as Myspace was before I stopped logging into Myspace. There are ads and apps and bogus friend requests and emo song lyric statuses. But what annoys me the most are the hyper-religious statuses talking about Jesus and God and Christianity and how great their lives are because of God. I will be hugely judged for this statement, and I am totally beyond caring.

The thing is, I love Jesus with all of my heart and I am in no way ashamed to admit that. I become very territorial when He is reduced to a simple line on Facebook that someone writes in passing. I know that they’re probably well-meaning, but in my opinion they come across the same way as someone does in church when I ask how they’re doing and they smile fakely and say something ridiculous like, “Blessed and highly favored, praise the Lord!”

I DON’T CARE.

If God has performed a huge miracle in your life, like healing you from cancer, I will hallelujah dance right with you because that totally takes faith, prayer, and perseverance and you probably have something that I need to learn. But if you are just saying something about how great Jesus is just to say it, to show how good you are or perhaps just to gain some favor with God, you are doing it for the wrong reasons.

I expect my pastors to put stuff like this in their tweets and statuses, but I’m more pleased when they update about things that are really going on in their lives. If something good happens and they actually say what it is, I’ll smile. If they’re open and honest about something bad that happened, I’ll pray for them and grieve with them. It’s the same for anyone else. But if you’re just throwing random Pollyanna Jesus statements up there, it makes me roll my eyes.

“Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.” – Matthew 6:16

The reward is only that people think they’re a little more holy than the next person. God isn’t pleased with it, and this so-called sacrifice will glean no reward from Him. One of the most eye-opening comments I’ve ever heard from someone that I respect but doesn’t believe in God was when he mentioned that he thinks I’m wise because I understand so much about something he understands nothing about. I just kind of sat there with my mouth hanging open because it was so honest, and so humble, and it made me realize that if I only ramble on about my relationship with God, people who don’t know Him really won’t understand me. It’s something so basic, that God even tells us in the Bible- that people who don’t know Him will not see Him and will not understand His Word. The only way that people will come to God is if they feel a longing for something more, something greater in their life…and they won’t get it if you just walk around saying how wonderful Jesus is. You have to live it, and show why He is so wonderful.

It’s a literary technique- showing vs. telling. If you tell everything that happens, every detail about a person or situation, the story is dull. Some things have to be told because they’re either too complex or too unimportant to show. But the power of most scenes lies in the showing of how the character is the way she is, or how he figures out that he loves her, or how the single mother breaks out of poverty.

I know that Jesus is great. I don’t need to be reminded on my news feed that you know it too. Neither does anyone else, because if all I know about you is that you love Jesus you’re really just like half of the other people on my friends list but one of the more annoying ones. I have absolutely no proof that your faith is real and substantiated, or that you’re anything more than a church-going robot.

Your Facebook statuses won’t get you through the pearly gates.

Tags: change, discomfort, fail, risk

So I’ve mainly used this blog to write about what I’m thinking about. But as part of the challenge that God has given me lately, to do more and live my story, I’ll also include what I’m doing. I started thinking about why I love Kristin Billerbeck’s blog, and it’s not because she just updates with what she thinks about things. I mean, don’t get her started on Jon Gosselin again, but the reason that I keep going back is because I LOVE her personality. She cracks me up, but allows her heartbreak to show when something bad happens in her life. Then she picks herself up again, wrangles her circus of kids into a new house, and plugs through writing three books and makes a video to show her lack of office space and how she has to write in the kitchen and get hit by the fridge door or in the living room with the laundry basket of socks.

Why should anyone care about what I think if they don’t know what I’m going through? I want to know other people’s stories and I want to live my story, but I don’t want to tell anyone because I’m too afraid of being judged or looking foolish.

So I figured I’d take the power away from my fears and just tell you what I’m going through.

I decided that I’m going to try to go to law school.

~pause for dramatic effect~

*takes a sip of tea*

I’m not 100% sold on the idea yet. I keep doing research and looking around for that one detail or event that will make me absolutely not want to go. Slam the door shut in my face, if you will. It hasn’t happened yet, so I’m going forward. I don’t know if this is God’s plan for me yet. This may be my latest harebrained scheme. But I feel like this is something attainable. I can actually do this. Okay, so I think I can. Sort of.

I wasted my time in college because I didn’t have fun. I didn’t have many friends and I just waited for one semester to be over so I could sigh with relief and then dive into the next semester. Upon graduation, I was like, “Now what?” because I never really considered the future. Now that I’ve had time to clear my head, I realized that I want a second chance to have new experiences. I want to move somewhere else and meet new people who haven’t known me previously and who will only judge me on what they see now. I can’t seem to get away from the person I was in the past, even though I’m really different now. People that I went to school with and people at church treat me like I’m nothing because that’s what I thought of myself before.

Not anymore.

So I’m trying. I have to take the LSAT, get a good score, apply for schools and then get accepted. There’s only one law school in my state and I am not going there. I’m not even applying. Then I have to find a way to pay for it, which will be the biggest obstacle. Yet God provided a way for me to get two BAs without paying a cent or taking out any loans, and I’m pretty sure that His pockets are deep enough for law school too. I mean, someone with pearly gates and streets of gold should be able to spare a bit for me.

So there’s where my faith is right now. I believe that if God wants me to go, then He will make all of the steps go smoothly. I’ll get a good score, get into the right school, find financial aid, move into a good place, love the town and make great friends. And ultimately, do really well in school and get a great job.

I’m not settling for less. If I do this thing, I’m doing it right. I’m determined.

And if none of those things happen? I’ll do something even more awesome.

Tags: excitement, learning, risk, uncertainty