why i stopped writing in the first place

i'm good at putting my foot in my mouth. no sooner do i write something about some exciting new guy or big event in my life than i'm suddenly regretting having ever thought about it in the first place.

part of me wants to share everything immediately, or at least feel ok about writing about it, but another part of me just knows that days, weeks, months, years later, i'm going to regret writing it and feel like a silly little girl. i think i want to stop feeling like that silly little girl.

i wish it didn't matter to me that someday my thoughts will be different. i read journals i've kept throughout my life and wish some events didn't even happen, and more importantly, that i had never kept a record of them. is this normal to feel this way? why should i be ashamed of my own growing up? i keep building toward some responsible (hopefully) adult person that seems to be inside of me, but looking back over past life events seems to make me feel ashamed of the person i once was.

everyone goes through this, i think. at least the metamorphosis part. everyone starts as someone and finds who they truly are over time. some people want to remember every minute, some people barely take time to see what's happening as it's happening. in theory, i love writing. i love the click-clack of the keys underneath my fingers, and i love how fast i can type. i love thinking that i say things in interesting ways. i love being a grammar nerd even though i'm lazy with capitalization. i love the way my fingers move when they type and seeing my own words fill a previously blank space on the screen. but it's the afterwards that makes me question if i even want to write a post. it's not like i have much to worry about -- i know only one person whom i know who even has the web-address for this blog -- but something about being able to look back on the exact way i was thinking at some precise moment in time is daunting. i get embarrassed even though no one is paying attention to this.

maybe someday it won't be so scary to see what's been.

in retrospect...

this is incredible. another year is about to come to a screeching halt just for another one to seamlessly pick up in its place. i feel like a completely different person from who i was in january. last year at this time, i was looking forward to a new year's eve with a man i didn't ever love, holding onto something that wasn't healthy and should have ended a long time before it finally did. this year i am spending new year's eve with my very best friends, and i am looking forward to it. i thought that it would be more fun to go to a "real party," but i am truly looking forward to spending the evening with my favorite girls. let's take a little look-see at my own version of "best year ever" :-P

january - finally ended things with "stupidface" after letting it get way too drawn-out and retarded. spent lots of time with some new friends, with whom i played lots of euchre and stayed out late. started new classes--a much easier semester than the previous.
february - abundant life winter extravaganza. that was certainly a fun night; more staying out late with my euchre-playing friends. underneath being ok this weird anger against previous relationship mounted as i realized how retarded the whole thing was.
march - wrote some angry posts...should probably delete those. don't remember anything specifically except that i started to hang out with people during musical stage.
april - chorale tour to florida. i have the greatest friends. tour was awesome.
may - another school year over. major frustrations moving myself out and barely fitting everything in my huge-tastic car! started at coldstone again.
june - andrea and jesse got married. met a guy at their wedding--knew it wouldn't work out and that i wasn't extremely attracted to him, but i love new things and pursued it. also went on vacation with the family to the british virgin islands, which, looking back, was lots of fun. it was very beautiful, but i will never go without a friend ever again.
july - working. i can't remember anything else.
august - finally exited my teenage years! spent some time with dad. led music at camp for the first time. it was amazingly fun. went to chicago with dad, doug, and james, which was also a lot of fun. moved back into school.
september/october - i am horrible at working a lot and getting all my schoolwork done. thankfully my hours got knocked down after the first few weeks. voice lessons start being more and more fun. realized i have grown up a bit over the summer and started to get annoyed with the roomie. began to freak out about my recital coming up. also started eating lunch with all my new friends. i love them! fall break - went to cincinnati and on the way stopped for an osu game with steinke! hooked for life. also, it's nice to have the wife to talk about all kinds of life lessons with. i love her.
november - started hanging out more with all of my new friends! movie nights, dinners, lunches, oh i love them. i finally feel like i have a group who likes me and i really like them, and i like spending time with them, and they're great. hurrah. seriously. seriously. :-)
december - an eventful month. had a fantastic girls' night with some amazing ladies and went to formal with the crew. decided to move out of the dorm into an apartment on campus. which was the best decision ever. ended up with a B- in theory (a miracle!!!) and various types of A's in other classes. this was my best fall semester ever. i ended up with about a 3.75ish gpa. my favorite.
my recital was also in this month, and it went really well. it was a lot of fun, and i can't wait to start preparing for my next one. i moved this month too, into my apartment. it's going to be awesome. i love my new roommate and we are right next door to some of my dearest friends. moving over there was frustrating, as my old roommate didn't feel like she should help me at all and instead just bossed around her poor fiance.
had a christmas caroling gig with some friends (got paid $50 and a nice dinner!) and then went to penn state, to hang out with betsy for a few days. her roommates are really nice, and we had a lot of fun together. got home, went on a "date" with a childhood friend of mine and uh...got thoroughly kissed! then i got strep. haha. but not because i kissed him. felt better just in time for christmas, although i didn't end up being able to sing "o holy night" at church like i got asked to do. next year. now my brother and i are out at my dad and doug's house, and we've just been hanging out, shopping, going out for dinner, etc. i made pierogies while i was here, and dad had some of his friends over for a big pierogie dinner. fun times.


right now, life is good, and i'm hoping for all the best in this new year.

growing up

i am growing up. i was trying to get around it, but it is happening and i can't stop it. soon i will have grad schools to apply to and apartments to find and jobs to keep.

next week i attend the first wedding of one of my friends, and i'm almost dreading it in a way. i know that i'm on a very different path than most, especially most at my school, but does it mean i've failed somehow if i haven't settled down by my junior year? the plan was always to go to college, get married, and have a family, and the more i live, the more i don't want that plan. of course i want to fall in love, but does it mean that i have missed some cosmic benchmark if i've not already found "the one"?

apart from my very best friend (who is out of the country at the moment), i am the only one of my close friends who remains single. although i sometimes trick myself into believing this is caused by some flaw of mine, this can surely not be the case. i, like most other normal 19 year olds, can not reasonably "settle down" this early! i have a life to live. i must believe that this is God's path for me. i must.

people move on and grow up, and i have to let them and i will have to join them. i hold on to too much. i can keep my angelina ballerina books, but it was time for the stuffed animals to go. essentially, i'm growing up. there's nothing i can do to slow it down, but i wouldn't want to even if i could. i'm halfway through college, and that's scary, but it's life. it's life, and it barrels on and we don't get a say in how fast the time flies.

i just thank God for His infininite blessings, and pray that someday this all makes sense.

newness

time to write about something happy and hopeful. i am who i'm meant to be, and it's time to move on from sadness.

news of the hour: i love to sing. no really, i love it. i just performed in an opera scene, my very first, the third act of puccini's boheme, and even though i was on stage a grand total of 4 minutes, i am hooked. for life.

ever since i started college, i've been wishy-washy about being a performance major. i knew i didn't want to teach music, and i knew i didn't want to just get a BA, so i settled for performance. i was also pretty sure this was what God wanted. but here's the thing--i never really thought about pursuing performance as a serious career. it was going to be too hard and too scary and too not-normal.

but after this amazing experience working with super-talented singers with sets and make-up and costumes and diction coachings and singing with my whole self...i can do nothing else. it's not just something i want to do, but opera has finally become something i must do.

i've been feeling this way more and more this week, getting ready for tonight, but this evening, as i was standing in constance's studio after warming up, i told her my newfound determination and drive, and i burst into tears. i completely lost it. i just stood there, weeping like a baby, because i know deep inside of me that it is meant to be.

and i have such a peace.

i am a new creation

i have never felt so new. in recent weeks, my life has changed in an almost non-noticeable way, but i feel like a completely different person. my twisted "romance" with j has at last come to a very final conclusion, and thus i am freed from the hiding from God that i have been doing the past year. knowing He disapproved of my actions, i could barely bring myself to speak to Him and i certainly couldn't ask Him for His blessing or anything, and thus, my walk with the Lord suffered greatly. now i feel like i can freely praise Him, bring to Him my deepest cares, and be happy in His love. even my cynicism is slowly melting, and i know that God is God, and that is that.

it is the greatest feeling in the world.

this doesn't by any means mean that i am perfect. but i am perfect in His love. i am perfectly content with my life the way it is right this second. i am perfectly willing to take the path He wants for me in this life. i am happy in my singleness, having that tiny bit of extra time to hang out with my Jesus. not that i do a terribly wonderful job of making time for Him still, but we are constantly chatting throughout the day, and i know that He loves me more than ever.

someday sometime somewhere i will be perfect for someone and he will be perfect for me too. but not yet. and not soon.

i just love Jesus so much.