pictures stolen from michelle

thursday night woes

sometimes, i really hate that my love languages are words of affirmation and physical touch
..especially when my biggest Comforter can't directly (and audibly) talk to me or touch me



sigh-

a hug would be nice right about now.

late night vulnerability

i'm completely scattered.
like i'm thinking about a million different things at once. except i'm not. i'm just flip flopping. with everything.
my life.
family. love. wants. needs. dreams. the world. God. where i stand. where i want to be. friends. relationships. books. boys. tv. pictures. strengths. weaknesses. fights. change. loss. the future. the past. now. failure. success. the unknown. who i am.


i'm found and lost at the very same time.
if that makes sense.
which it doesn't.
i'm even typing complicated.

...i don't know.


i'm tired of being scared. i'm tired of putting things off. i want to go school. i want to learn. i want to work. i want to drive. i want to read books. i want to fall back in love with God. then, i want to be open to falling in love. and i want to try new things. take risks. lose my breath. and then catch it. and i want to fail. and i want to succeed. i'm tired of holding back. i want to move forward.

i just want to live something beautiful and disastrous and fun and serious and complicated and simple and realistic and yet a dream.
i like the idea of that.




ps,
on a personal note- i miss my dad
i think that's the first time i've admitted that since they got divorced. so 5 years its been? it's hard when you want to be strong for everyone else's sake. and because of that you end up building up a wall that blocks every emotion and memory. not to mention, i hate what he did to us. i hate it so much it still hurts. i hate that he has a new daughter. i hate that he cares about her more than us. and we're his. and i forgive him, i really do and i love him, but that doesn't take the pain away. i hated seeing my mom do nothing but lay in bed crying. for days. i hated waking up to my house half empty because he took everything he liked. and i hate that he left the things he should've valued most behind. because my mom & us kids, we were the best part of that house. gosh, i miss that house. i miss my yellow room. and i miss having someone to go to when my mom was being unfair. i miss someone knocking on my door and sitting on my bed, patiently waiting til i stopped crying. i miss having a newspaper in the house. i miss being called danielle. i miss looking every year for the perfectly sappy card to make him cry on his birthday. i miss having coffee brewing in the morning. i miss his smell of cologne and cigars. i miss him always having a pack of skittles in his car for me to snack on. and i miss not having to worry about where to live.

but, thanks God for my mom. we got in a big fight yesterday, and i'm hurt. but, when it comes down to it, i love that woman. i love her oh so much. and i love that she didn't leave me and that i'm worth something to her. i love that she changed her whole life around because i was her priority. i love who she always was and who she's turned into along the way. i love her independence and her strength. i love her warmth and when she's proud of me. i'm so lucky and so grateful.
and i hope to be half the woman and mom she is to me. i'd be satisfied with that.


okay, i'm finished being vulnerable. sorry!
i don't know where it came from. but it feels good.

i'm excited to live.

lovesick

all you need to know about the last month of my life is that it was great! so great in fact, that it was the best of all the 11 months.

anyways, i read this poem a couple minutes ago. and it made me a little speechless. see, i've been on this bitter-about-love kick for a while now...
but man, i want to feel like that. to love someone like that.


"I want to be a lost poem in a stranger's coat pocket, that conveys the importance of you.
To assure you of my desire, to assure you of dreams. I want all the possibilities of you in writing.
I want to give you your reflection, I want your eyes on me, I want to travel to the lightness with you and stay there, and I want everything before you...
...everything before you to follow us like a trail behind me.
I want never to say goodbye to you, even on the street corner or the phone.
I want, I want so much... I'm breathless.
I want to put my power into a poem to burn a hole in your pocket so I can sew it.
I want my words to scream through you. I want the poem not to mean that much.
And I want to contradict myself by accident, and for you to know what I mean.
I want you to be distant and for me to feel you close, I want endless days when it's day and... nighttime never to end when it's night.
I want all the seasons in one day. I want the sun to set before us and come up in front of us.
I want water up to our waists and to be drenched by the rain, up to our ankles with holes in our shoes.
...with holes in our shoes. I want to think your thoughts because they're mine.
I want only what's urgent with you.
I want to get in the way of the barriers and I want you to be a tough guy when you're supposed to,
like you do already.
...when you're supposed to. And I want you to be tender, like you do already.
And I want us to have met for a reason and I want that reason to be important.
And I want it to be bigger than us, I want it to take over us.
I want to forget. I want to remember us.
And when you say you love me I don't want to think you really mean New York City, and all the fun
we have in it.
And I want your smile always, and your grimaces too.
I want your scar on my lips, and I want your disappointments in my heart.
I want your strength in my soul and I want your soul in my eyes.
I want to believe everything you say, and I do.
And I want you to tell me what's best when I don't know.
And when you're lost I want to find you.
And when you're weary I want to give you steeples and cathedral thoughts and coliseum dreams.
I want to drag you from the darkness and kneel with you exhausted with the blinding light blaring on us... and..."
-chelsea walls


going along with my lovey-dovey mood is
my beau wishlit:

#1, someone who keeps me on my toes


#2, i've said it before, and i'll say it again, i like my men like i like my coffee :D


#3, and someone who compromises

ps-
my last note

i can't wait to see this!!!

confession

my new guilty pleasure:

..tell me this song ain't catchy?! baha

oh yeah!! in case you were wondering, i had a marvelous week!! aaand i finally hung out with my long lost friend, the mall. how is it that when you don't have money you, you love everything, its all in your size and fits and looks as if it was made for you?
WANT:


anyone feeling generous??


ps- how is that celebrities are droppin like hot poptarts?! ed mcman, farrah fawcett, michael jackson, and now billy mays!
..whatta crazy week

american idol

all day i've just been totally buggin. i'm frustrated i think?


it all started a couple weeks ago when val and garland were on this podcast frenzy, and were makin us, the interns, listen to like 2 podcasts a day from a conference a few of our pastors went to the weekend prior. anyway, their most promising podcast for us was one that wrecked them entirely and the topic it centered on was idolatry, comparing the idolatry of the Bible to the idolatry of the world today.

it was a really good sermon, very informative, with really good points that hit the message home. the only thing was that this "wrecked" feeling that i had prepared myself for wasn't my idea of "wrecked" at all. when i think of wrecked the adjectives broken, hurt, sorry, lost come to mind, but instead after the sermon was over i felt like complete crap. it was conviction in the strongest, most potent form, but not the kind of conviction where i want to repent and change, but the kind of conviction where i'm completely screwed and even if i do repent i still have far too many idols. it made me feel as if becoming isolated from the world would be the only way to live correctly or something.

i mean, the message roundaboutly said, practically everything in our lives are idols, from celebrities, to family, to friends, to consumerism, to technology, to TV, to love, to a baby. it's insane! and i didn't like it. mainly because i don't know even know what the cut off is. how do you know when you love your family too much that they become an idol? aren't you supposed to love your family? aren't you supposed to hold them in a high regard?
see, i'm only human, and this message i know wasn't intended to make me feel like crap. and i probably took it out of context or something. but i can't help the way it made me feel, nor can i say after listening to it i didn't feel like i should just drop everything and become a nun.. because a small, very tiny, part of me felt like i should, only because i don't want to sin against my God and i don't want to have idols.

but, after listening to this message michelle and i did what any pair of convicted best friends do.. we got slurpees, sat in the car, and talked about it. we were both feeling equally crappy, and after sharing our thoughts we brushed the topic off, and i haven't really thought about it since until today.

see, our (ex?) worship pastor Joel has ventured off into a new, exciting chapter in his life where he is devoting himself entirely to touring nationwide for 3 months with his band mates/brothers as missionaries. he'll be worshipping at churches around the country, using his gift of music as the avenue to which he can share the love of Jesus. the only problem is Joel is a beloved member of our church. everyone loves him, and honestly, he is dang good at what he does, which makes Joel's new transition hard. people have become so accustomed to him as our worship leader that no one else is acceptable. it's become as if they can't worship unless Joel sings which is entirely outrageous. this morning there were even some people who didn't stand up to worship and that bugged me. worship isn't about who's leading and how good they sound but it's about our God and how good he is.

this whole scenario ultimately brought me back to the idolatry fiasco i had brushed off. for some people joel had become an idol. and rightfully so that happened. our entire culture is an idolically-based society. for goodness sakes we even have a show named America Idol! even yesterday i was reading in a magazine and it said that even in this recession though people are buying less microwaves, dryers, and vacations, the number of trips to mcdonald's, designer jeans sold, and iphones being bought haven't wavered at all. it's insane! people are losing jobs, 6 houses are for sale/rent in my neighborhood, not to mention so many houses are getting foreclosed on.. and yet, in the midst of this, we still have time to be completely materialistic? maybe we don't have a Temple of Artemis, but we're a consumer-based society that thrives on what's new, next, faster, and better.

so my point in all of that mumbo jumbo is, our society, we've got issues. we've got idols. we need to re-prioritize. we need to want God more than we want the new whatever. but we don't by any means need to become nuns, or burn all our expensive clothes, or never eat out again, or think everything in our lives are idols, because not everything is. and where the cut off line for love and idol is i have no clue.
..man!! i have no way to wrap up nicely everything i want to say..
so i won't.

36 days

what's the best ending to the longest week ever? oh yeah, longest weekend ever!


as if this week wasn't already long enough with adventure island, rachael's birthday!, movie nights at jason's, church, a field trip to the park, camp planning, and yard sale preparation.. this weekend includes: sleepover tonight at garland & christina's to get ready for the yard sale, then yard sale tomorrow, then sunday is packed with father's day, church, hope ministries, and joel's goodbye for 3 month show/cd release, oh and monday my normal day to relax, will instead be spent at a puppet show..
i guess i just need to get a better attitude..
but i'm not gonna lie, i'm burnt out and exhausted and miss having a summer or at least a break!

plus let's not forget in 36 days my world is going to flip. everything is going to change. everything is going to be different. and my best friend and i will break up. it's pretty overwhelming.


whelp, i need this-