My Very First Mother Goose (0763688916)
3 years ago
03 December 2011
"Moving" but not in the grand sense.
Whew. Noticed it's been awhile since I last posted. Okay, to update, I've been working for the past month. I got a job in sales--shoes and boots, specifically, haha--and have been pretty much hangin with that for awhile. It's, for most of the time, very enjoyable and I really like working with the coworkers and the customers and really just being a positive entity out there on the sales floor. Occasionally it gets overwhelming but overall it's not bad. I got into Teach for America, so there's that on the table, but it doesn't start for quite awhile. I'll just be living, chilling, working, and more for the time being. And it feels great! Life moves on and it moves ahead and I'm right there moving with it.
04 October 2011
valuing the past, relearning the present
I just read my past three posts and thought "gosh, what the heck was I going through?" Haha.
I am blessed to say that I have overcome some of what was going on and now am on the right path. I'm not to the end yet, but my feet are facing and moving in the right direction. That feels really good to say. It's so weird to me how the past like two months are a blur. It feels like they weren't even real, I think I lost myself somewhere along the way. But I'm relearning me, and life, and enjoying life. So there are literally no regrets.
My relationship to everything around me has shifted and reformed but I am grateful for what I have, and I do have a lot. I have a wonderful family who loves and supports me, and I have awesome friends who I am still grateful to have here in Michigan. I'd like to be working, but at the same time it's nice to have a bit of a breather, and I can also focus on really getting a job for the time to come. I'm back at college here and to know that after I just finish these last classes, I'm home free....that's a good feeling too. I'm just waiting it out and there are actually only two and a half months left. Crazy. I have more free time than I would like but I think it's also a matter of just becoming okay with everything that is going on.
I've realized that just because one thing doesn't work out doesn't mean other things can't work out. I think for a long time I had this idea that you had to find exactly the right formula to get to success, and now it's just like....well whatever works out is meant to be. I'm a strange bird and will not always feel like somewhere is exactly right...but will learn to live with it anyway. With this post I'm trying to straighten out a few things. It's such a relief to know that progress is being made and after two months of feeling totally out of it, I'm finally on the right track. I can't tell you how grateful I am, can't express it in words.
I am blessed to say that I have overcome some of what was going on and now am on the right path. I'm not to the end yet, but my feet are facing and moving in the right direction. That feels really good to say. It's so weird to me how the past like two months are a blur. It feels like they weren't even real, I think I lost myself somewhere along the way. But I'm relearning me, and life, and enjoying life. So there are literally no regrets.
My relationship to everything around me has shifted and reformed but I am grateful for what I have, and I do have a lot. I have a wonderful family who loves and supports me, and I have awesome friends who I am still grateful to have here in Michigan. I'd like to be working, but at the same time it's nice to have a bit of a breather, and I can also focus on really getting a job for the time to come. I'm back at college here and to know that after I just finish these last classes, I'm home free....that's a good feeling too. I'm just waiting it out and there are actually only two and a half months left. Crazy. I have more free time than I would like but I think it's also a matter of just becoming okay with everything that is going on.
I've realized that just because one thing doesn't work out doesn't mean other things can't work out. I think for a long time I had this idea that you had to find exactly the right formula to get to success, and now it's just like....well whatever works out is meant to be. I'm a strange bird and will not always feel like somewhere is exactly right...but will learn to live with it anyway. With this post I'm trying to straighten out a few things. It's such a relief to know that progress is being made and after two months of feeling totally out of it, I'm finally on the right track. I can't tell you how grateful I am, can't express it in words.
16 September 2011
semblance
Well, I can't sleep, so might as well stop trying. I have a gigantic swirl of emotions going in me right now and they show no sign of slowing down. Sometimes I do wonder if my host family thinks I'm crazy cause I'm in here typing away or I randomly go out or I sometimes talk walks by myself. Walks by myself are nice. They remind me of being in Sao Paulo by myself and how strange and eerie and crazy that felt. How alone I felt, in this gigantic place, with no one to tell me what to do or even worry if I came back home at night. They place me in this new realm of ideas and thoughts and ...and everything else. I have so many thoughts right now in my head its incredible. I know I need to do a lot more physical activity to get rid of it. I wish professors hadn't been so mean in their emails. They have no idea how I feel right now and no idea how that made me feel worse. I'm trying to scrap together a semblance of something that makes sense. Trying to build, something. At times like this you want to say you miss the simple days, but then you actually give that a bit of thought and you realize those never existed. I botched my grades my last year of school and I'm still not proud of it. I can't live with it like that so I'll have to do something.
If my mind wasn't going a million miles a minute I'd take advantage of this peace and quiet and get some really good sleep. But sometimes it just does that, you know? Sometimes you can't stop it. A lot of "something" and "sometime" in my speech tonight, help me cut that out maybe. Or it could be that I want to be vague and it's the best way to be at this given moment.
It's funny how love works. In high school I was convinced that it was what gave me meaning, happiness, and purpose. But I look back and I do understand that, but I also understand and rectify a lot more. Like the relationships I had with my friends and how strong those were, or the relationship I had with the land and the area. I loved that land, more than I loved most lands where I've lived. Loved to be out in it, exploring, and it felt wild. It's silly, and solitary, but its things like that that really make me miss Tennessee. The thing is, if you're really patient, love does come again. But that's not the purpose of this. There's something underneath, I just have to dig deeper to get at it. Michigan, the land itself, has always felt a little hollow to me, because it doesn't feel like something I can fully embrace. I can't love it for all that it is. Trust me, I love the people tons. I have met some of the best people of my life, there, and would never trade choosing it for a new home. But when it comes to the actual place, it lacks, for me. I long for the wild hills of Tennessee and how they would roll past my vision when I would drive or run. I long for how I felt out there in the middle of nowhere, sneaking onto farm land, or in tall grass, or dipping my feet in boat yards or rivers. I long for the sense I got when I was driving there. I feel none of that in Michigan. It all just seems flat and lackluster, and I can't fully embrace the forest or the land. It's really, really weird, and I've never fully understood it.
I'm vulnerable to things right now like professors being mean and thats why it stings so much and I can't get past it. In other circumstances I could blow it off, and just focus on the nice ones, but now, its stinging me. This transition period of my life is uncalled for. Don't think I'm not grateful for it, because I am. I'm always grateful for change that causes true growth. But it's still vulnerable. It's still soft-bellied, this time.
Sometimes I think Thoreau had the right idea. To true understand and give to society, we really need to separate from it. I'm not in a place right now where I can be at my best and give to a whole bunch of people. I can really only give to a few, and I really only have boundless energy for family or something close to it, because they give to me in the most generous of ways and don't necessarily expect anything in return. I need to be alone right now, in a whole sense of the word. Need to collapse, and sleep, to prepare for the next journey ahead. I'm just tired of giving and living in certain ways and need to rejuvenate. You can get so bogged down from your thoughts and your worries. You can think what you do is so important, but the truth is, if I drop out, if I leave? I'm just gone and the sand comes in to close up the gap. I'm just a tiny grain of sand in the sea of things, and there are so many things so much larger than me that I can't control. The only thing that is left in this world after we have burnt each other to pieces and burned our own societies down to the ground is faith. It's so ironic. We can build towers of ivory of gold or cement, we can create technologies that connect us in lifelike ways, we can create or engineer or more all of these things that make us believe we are fantastical. But we can't conquer anything. It's reminding me of CS Lewis, right now, this train of thought. And how the little girl...she's the only one who can see the lion. Everyone else is caught up in their own junk. But she sees him. And she cries because she believes him but no one else does.
Maybe half the battle is just the journey. It's just remembering why you are even on that path in the first place and reminding yourself to keep going. We lose hope in other people because human beings are broken creatures. It is our deepest desire to be wanted, needed, and loved, but there are just layers of other gunk that get in the way of us achieving that. If all else fails I want myself and I want my life. And I am just exhausted by the people around me.
If my mind wasn't going a million miles a minute I'd take advantage of this peace and quiet and get some really good sleep. But sometimes it just does that, you know? Sometimes you can't stop it. A lot of "something" and "sometime" in my speech tonight, help me cut that out maybe. Or it could be that I want to be vague and it's the best way to be at this given moment.
It's funny how love works. In high school I was convinced that it was what gave me meaning, happiness, and purpose. But I look back and I do understand that, but I also understand and rectify a lot more. Like the relationships I had with my friends and how strong those were, or the relationship I had with the land and the area. I loved that land, more than I loved most lands where I've lived. Loved to be out in it, exploring, and it felt wild. It's silly, and solitary, but its things like that that really make me miss Tennessee. The thing is, if you're really patient, love does come again. But that's not the purpose of this. There's something underneath, I just have to dig deeper to get at it. Michigan, the land itself, has always felt a little hollow to me, because it doesn't feel like something I can fully embrace. I can't love it for all that it is. Trust me, I love the people tons. I have met some of the best people of my life, there, and would never trade choosing it for a new home. But when it comes to the actual place, it lacks, for me. I long for the wild hills of Tennessee and how they would roll past my vision when I would drive or run. I long for how I felt out there in the middle of nowhere, sneaking onto farm land, or in tall grass, or dipping my feet in boat yards or rivers. I long for the sense I got when I was driving there. I feel none of that in Michigan. It all just seems flat and lackluster, and I can't fully embrace the forest or the land. It's really, really weird, and I've never fully understood it.
I'm vulnerable to things right now like professors being mean and thats why it stings so much and I can't get past it. In other circumstances I could blow it off, and just focus on the nice ones, but now, its stinging me. This transition period of my life is uncalled for. Don't think I'm not grateful for it, because I am. I'm always grateful for change that causes true growth. But it's still vulnerable. It's still soft-bellied, this time.
Sometimes I think Thoreau had the right idea. To true understand and give to society, we really need to separate from it. I'm not in a place right now where I can be at my best and give to a whole bunch of people. I can really only give to a few, and I really only have boundless energy for family or something close to it, because they give to me in the most generous of ways and don't necessarily expect anything in return. I need to be alone right now, in a whole sense of the word. Need to collapse, and sleep, to prepare for the next journey ahead. I'm just tired of giving and living in certain ways and need to rejuvenate. You can get so bogged down from your thoughts and your worries. You can think what you do is so important, but the truth is, if I drop out, if I leave? I'm just gone and the sand comes in to close up the gap. I'm just a tiny grain of sand in the sea of things, and there are so many things so much larger than me that I can't control. The only thing that is left in this world after we have burnt each other to pieces and burned our own societies down to the ground is faith. It's so ironic. We can build towers of ivory of gold or cement, we can create technologies that connect us in lifelike ways, we can create or engineer or more all of these things that make us believe we are fantastical. But we can't conquer anything. It's reminding me of CS Lewis, right now, this train of thought. And how the little girl...she's the only one who can see the lion. Everyone else is caught up in their own junk. But she sees him. And she cries because she believes him but no one else does.
Maybe half the battle is just the journey. It's just remembering why you are even on that path in the first place and reminding yourself to keep going. We lose hope in other people because human beings are broken creatures. It is our deepest desire to be wanted, needed, and loved, but there are just layers of other gunk that get in the way of us achieving that. If all else fails I want myself and I want my life. And I am just exhausted by the people around me.
04 September 2011
what about you has changed? and what about you has stayed the same?
you do learn about yourself when you travel. but sometimes it's not even about being shocked or about having epiphanies, it's about returning to the same routines you have always known existed. routine is not always bad. it shows you who you are, reminds you of where you're from, gives you your blessings in return. i'm trying to understand life but i think we can only get happiness from what we are able to give to other people. everyone's job, in some way, relates to doing something for others. even if we are unable to have direct contact with them, we care about them in some way.
i guess i didn't really think of the others
when i sent off that thought into the world
and i guess i've gotten selfish and in my own head
and defining everything by how i see it
i guess i lost myself for awhile
and saw specks of disheartenment in things that didn't even contain it
i guess i wanted to see the world the way i saw it
i guess saw it the way i wanted to see it
if you asked me today what i thought i was going to do in the future
would it really even matter?
doesn't it matter more how we treat the people in our lives
who have done nothing but love us
than any other worldly accomplishments we could "achieve"
if we are friends with our own selves, our mortality
we realize that this is fleeting and ultimately
love is what will heal the world
so if you are responding in anger
and if i am outbounding in rage
will it really make a difference?
the world is made up of love
if you were to ask me how i understand the world
i would say it just takes a little gluing to put together the pieces
for the ones i love are scattered and i gotta glue them together to see the whole picture
i dont love them any less
when i sent off that thought into the world
and i guess i've gotten selfish and in my own head
and defining everything by how i see it
i guess i lost myself for awhile
and saw specks of disheartenment in things that didn't even contain it
i guess i wanted to see the world the way i saw it
i guess saw it the way i wanted to see it
if you asked me today what i thought i was going to do in the future
would it really even matter?
doesn't it matter more how we treat the people in our lives
who have done nothing but love us
than any other worldly accomplishments we could "achieve"
if we are friends with our own selves, our mortality
we realize that this is fleeting and ultimately
love is what will heal the world
so if you are responding in anger
and if i am outbounding in rage
will it really make a difference?
the world is made up of love
if you were to ask me how i understand the world
i would say it just takes a little gluing to put together the pieces
for the ones i love are scattered and i gotta glue them together to see the whole picture
i dont love them any less
12 August 2011
off into the world
"All we can do is follow our strongest calling, and then trust that whatever the future holds, it will enrich our lives, one way or another." I got this from an article on Tiny Buddha. (http://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-to-make-a-difficult-decision-30-tips-to-help-you-choose/)
This is what I'm doing right now, following whatever is strongest. You never know if something will work, but you have to try. In three days....four, sorta, I leave for Ecuador. It is scary and exciting and overwhelming and comfortable, all at the same time.
I'll have a travel blog: http://kateexploresecuador.tumblr.com
12 July 2011
denver post 2
By now we only have a few days left in Denver and then it's back off to our respective home states. It's been an amazing trip. Truly. If you've ever had an interest in coming out to Colorado, I highly suggest it! It's always been a dream of mine to come out here and maybe even make it a regular vacation spot. I love everything about it! It's fresh, nature-y, environmental, and there are many, many places to explore. For another trip out west, I'd like to go to either Arizona or California. But Colorado is definitely more than enough, even if your tastes are different from mine.
Today, I got a facial here in the city. First facial evahhhh! It was nice. And it makes you feel really relaxed!! I don't have the money to make this a regular thing. But it was definitely cool to try out and especially on vacation. Tonight we head to the famous Red Rocks Amphitheater to see an outdoor movie. Kind of like a drive-in, but in the reddish canyons of a nearby park! Very exciting, yes? Well, we are certainly excited. We haven't quite decided what to do tomorrow, but my vote is for some kind of museum or something.
I feel this vacation has given me exactly what I needed. 1) clarity. vision to see inside what i really want and who i really am. 2) quality time with my best friend. much needed! two weeks is not even enough! it's really been great to be able to have so much quality time. and 3) pampering! everyone needs a little pampering every now and then.
We may also try to fit in one more hike before we go. We'll see!
Today, I got a facial here in the city. First facial evahhhh! It was nice. And it makes you feel really relaxed!! I don't have the money to make this a regular thing. But it was definitely cool to try out and especially on vacation. Tonight we head to the famous Red Rocks Amphitheater to see an outdoor movie. Kind of like a drive-in, but in the reddish canyons of a nearby park! Very exciting, yes? Well, we are certainly excited. We haven't quite decided what to do tomorrow, but my vote is for some kind of museum or something.
I feel this vacation has given me exactly what I needed. 1) clarity. vision to see inside what i really want and who i really am. 2) quality time with my best friend. much needed! two weeks is not even enough! it's really been great to be able to have so much quality time. and 3) pampering! everyone needs a little pampering every now and then.
We may also try to fit in one more hike before we go. We'll see!
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