Changes on the horizon.

Tomorrow is my last day at the job I've had for over two years...my second job since college.  I'm so excited, yet I have no motivation to finish up my last few tasks.  Then I've got the holidays--including Thanksgiving with Boyfriend's family.  I've met them separately before, but this is my first holiday with them and I'm a tad nervous.  It's also my last holiday for a while that I won't have to work, because at the beginning of the month I'll move on to employment with the state as a dispatcher.  I can't wait!  New job...good, fair pay...no more accounting...no more of the beaurocratic bullshit from this awful company I've been with.  Usually I hate change, but this is one I've been working on for a year now--my escape!  Boyfriend is worried that with me on nights he won't get to talk to me much, but I have faith that something this minor (in my opinion) won't tear us apart.  I love him so much...I think he's my soulmate.  He'll be starting grad-school soon anyway so he can teach special ed.  I'm so proud of him.  If we can both get our health together and get settled financially, we may have a wonderful future in the making!  I'm so happy.

Happy Friday

Life & Death.

I really struggle with death.
Not with my own death--with the passing of others.  My reactions tend to be stronger, more volatile than those of others.  My horror of encountering corpses borders on a full-on panic attack.  I don't know why I am this way.

I miss my grandmother.  She will have been dead 13 years this New Years Eve.  I remember the day she died: it was the first time I watched the ball drop.  I was 10 years old, and I had spent the entire day with a premonition...I knew someone would die, I just didn't know who.  I knew it like I knew my own name, and it was terrifying.  That night as I lay there in bed trying to sleep, I was afraid of what may be in the dark.  I don't know why...I just was.  And even though I was 10 when she died and I spent a lot of time with her, what I actually remember of her is fleeting moments.  But God I miss her.

I also miss Brittany, one of my hallmates in college.  She died on Valentines Day, in a wreck on the way to see her boyfriend in an unplanned trip.  They had planned to wait until the weekend.  I saw her before she left--she was working on a blanket in the hall when I went to class and when I returned, and I giggled at her diligence.  I wish I had offered to help, rather than going to take a nap.  Who knew it'd be the last time I'd see her alive?  I remember that even though we'd been busy that semester, I had gone to dinner with her and a few others from our hall in the cafeteria a couple days earlier...I remember walking & talking with her, playing with her hair, just being girls.  These memories are precious to me.  It's been 3 1/2 years now, and I still cry thinking about it.  I'll never understand why the kindest soul I've ever met was snuffed out so early.  She was going to be a missionary doctor...she was going to marry her sweet boyfriend who is a pilot...she was our "soccer mom."  Not now.  But at least she can finally hear in heaven--no more yelling when we're whispering, no more loud "huh?!", no more surgery.  I'm selfish in my grief.

Things That Warm My Heart

Kopecky Family Band.

Scarves.  Fuzzy neck scarves...silky head scarves...I love them all.

When I come home and my bunny does a dance because he missed me.

Cuddling with my boyfriend on a lazy afternoon.

Artsy-fartsy people who are chill and fun to have adventures with.

Good wine.

A beautiful Catholic church, lit only by candles and tinted light streaming through the stained glass windows. 

My grandma's macaroni.

Having girl-talk with my mom.  The day I discovered she was more than just a "mom" changed my life.

Sweet old couples who are still in love with each other.

Candles--no matter what the occasion.

Life's Complications & Joys

I want to attend Mass again, but I don't feel fully right doing that considering that I don't agree with the Church on a lot anymore.  Catholic is still where I feel most at home, but I know I can't take Communion by their standards.  I guess it would be okay to go back and just not receive...feels odd though.  Maybe I can just go pray sometime when they're open.  I think that would make me happy.

I'm not living up to Catholic standards, since I don't agree with some of them.  But I don't feel like I'm living badly.  I'm so happy lately, even though there's been a lot of stress lately. 

Being an adult is sooooo much harder than I thought it would be, which makes me giggle.  I can't quite afford life, but somehow I live.  I haven't lost my apartment yet, and I've been on my own for a year--that's progress.  The biggest loss if I did lose it would be my pet bunny; Billee is my number one fella! 

Speaking of fellas, I'm so in love.  I met this guy on a dating site (LOL!), and it actually worked out.  We're both epic nerds...we've got a ridiculous amount of stuff in common.  Before I met him, I didn't believe in soul mates.  I hope he keeps me.

Blog Revamped

I decided to redo my blog, rather than just let it rot in the recesses of Blogger somewhere.  Why let a good medium go to waste?  So much has changed over the past year...I could say that about the past 5 years really.  I find myself repeatedly seeking out labels that sort of apply to me and then killing myself to fit them more perfectly, which is pretty absurd.  I don't know why being label-less, class-less, and type-less makes me feel so naked, but it does.  So I flit and frollick, still struggling to define myself at 23.  Thing is, I'm nothing more or less than what God made me--and that is a seeker, pure and simple.  I wade through knowledge, spending hours researching different philosophies and lifestyles and facts.  I love learning, though I hate being a formal student.  I am a student of life. 

And I am tired of feeling I simply must capture the essence of God--isn't that what makes Him God in the first place?  There are things I am not meant to know and understand now.  God is beyond the argument of Catholicism-vs-Protestantism or Calvinism-vs-Armenianism...God is possibly even beyond Christianity.  I've discovered that many of the major world religions have similar stories and principles.  Many of them promote love, which I think is God's base. 

Speaking of love--my biggest problem with the world is the lack of love.  People often judge at first sight, picking up on differences rather than similarities which leads to the all too common us-vs-them mentality.  I spend so much time researching people, cultures, and lifestyles because I want to know how I can love people better. 

I'm so interested in gender issues and types of love. 
I'm so interested in cultures and religions and how they affect the people who are in them.
I'm so interested in different types of disabilities and how people deal with the world.
And I love how learning about others changes me and makes me a better person.

Politics

Pope Benedict XVI makes me happy.

"Precious" by Depeche Mode

Precious and fragile things
Need special handling
My God what have we done to You?

We always try to share
The tenderest of care
Now look what we have put You through...

Things get damaged
Things get broken
I thought we managed
But words left unspoken
Left us so brittle
There was so little left to give

Angels with silver wings
Shouldn't know suffering
I wish I could take the pain for you

If God has a master plan
That only He understands
I hope it's your eyes He's seeing through

Things get damaged
Things get broken
I thought we managed
But words left unspoken
Left us so brittle
There was so little left to give

I pray you learn to trust
Have faith in both of us
And keep room in your hearts for two

Things get damaged
Things get broken
I thought we managed
But words left unspoken
Left us so brittle
There was so little left to give

Femininity

These days our definition of what makes a woman a woman is a hot spot for debate. Some maintain that women can do anything a man can do--that there is no difference between us. Some argue that we are created differently for different purposes but that we are equal in dignity. Women have fought and protested and petitioned for equal rights with men, and in some areas of the world they have succeeded. In other areas, they are oppressed and abused (though to be fair the modern definitions of oppression and of abuse vary). For example, modern Americans believe a woman should have a college education, a high-paying job, and someone to take care of her children--this is the definition of success and freedom. Women who stay at home with their families and have many children are often mocked and pitied. You could just say "to each her own" and be done with it, but personally I can't just leave it at that.

When God created Eve, He had a purpose in mind. His purpose was for her to be a help-mate to Adam. He was big, strong, and suited for work. She was smaller, soft-bodied, and suited for nurturing. He was rough; she was gentle. They complimented each other, and God saw that it was good. But then sin destroyed the happiness in the garden, and we have struggled ever since. God cursed them, saying that man would rule woman and woman's desire would be to be over her husband. Men have dominated, and women have rebelled. The power struggle is epic, lasting even thousands of years later into modern times. No, you may say, woman is liberated! But I ask you, is corporate bondage where her freedom lies?

I yearn for the day that I can cast off my paying-job and stay home with children. I long to care for a husband and have him take care of me. Why does society scorn such good things? We are confused souls. Ambition is the one "admirable" task that I was born without...yet I would not choose it for all the world.

Holocaust Remembrance Day

I remember you.

May God have mercy on our souls, that our world allowed this to happen.