I've been trying so hard to figure out how this year is going to go down. It's not really settling into any particular pattern and I can't help but to wonder what it is going to make this year.

I stopped missing you. Which is weird. I thought things would be different with us, different then every other time. But they aren't. I'm not happy about it, but I'm getting more used to the idea that things aren't going to go back to the way they were. I missed you for weeks, but I'm through with it. That ship has sailed. I wish we'd done things differently, but we didn't and I guess I'm alright with it? It's not as if I have any other choice?

I'm so overwhelmed with the paper. Things just keep getting backed up and pushed around. I'm evidently really bad with sponaneity?

I'm not having a very good time with this whole church thing? It's been so dramatic and everchanging. As much as teens say they want change and fun stuff, we need somewhere with normalacy. I need that normalacy that youth used to give. I hope things start to chill out?

I've had Imogen Heap and Regina Spektor stuck in my head simultaneously for the last week or so. It's getting a little bothersome. Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs. Speak no feeling, no I dont believe you. You don't care a bit. It's a pain when things just swirl around my brain. Sometimes I'd prefer not to think, so I wouldn't, well, think? I never loved nobody fully, always one foot on the ground. And by protecting my heart truly I got lost in the sounds.

Hoemcoming is coming up. I have two dresses.

I wish I could make up my mind for once.

shake it up?

   I feel like lately everything has been a perpetual roadblock.

   I keep trying to find some sort of a path, some way to find myself.

   That's the real problem.

   I seem to have misplaced Jordan.

   I quit theatre. I'm being forced to give up some of my dance classes. I've been away from school friends. I've been away from my family. I've even been away from my church family for pieces of time.

   I don't feel like myself and I don't know why.

   I guess it was after NTC#3 that I realized I wasn't getting joy out of the same things I had been for the past 16 years of my life.

   I fell into this sort of perpetual funk.

   I'm using the Red Light Green Light analogy that Aaron HG came up with during Foil Impressions on Saturday night.

   Life goes through its ups and downs. The high points are like when God calls green light. The low points are when God calls red light. The lowest points are when God says, "Hey, put the car in reverse would you?"

   For me the most confusing moments are when I'm told, "You're going to just stay on yellow light for a while ok?"

   Yellow light has put me through some of the most hellish moments of my life. I feel like this year has been the biggest string of slow dissapointments and let downs.

   At the same time yellow light has given me the people I depend on most, some of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and the ability to look at myself a little closer. Yellow light has given me a LOT of time to think.

   Bill Miranda and I were talking on mission trip. He found out I had quit theatre and he told me, "Never ever give up on your dreams. It may be a rough patch, but never give up on something you love."

   I guess I'm cramming all of the wisdom I've gotten in the last few months in this. I'm trying to make some sense of what's going on in my world.

   I feel like everyday something new inspires me, but over time it just falls away. Few things seem constant anymore.

   I was counting on this weekend to help me pull through. However I wasn't expecting it. I've heard that if you expect the worst, you aren't generally dissapointed (HH is a constant source of support and wisdom). Dissapointment isn't something I take well. So why expect too much?

   This is the only time in life I've found this to be wrong. I went into the weekend upset to be leaving my family, especially my grandmother and my great uncle. I came out of this weekend with a newfound love for my other family. I've always said family doesnt always share your blood or your DNA. My church family and celebration family certainly fit the mold. Every single moment I heard some something that helped me to sort things out.

   Katie said, "Don't worry. It's not goodbye. It's just see you later."

   Chris made me cry and quoted my song, "I've heard it said people come into our lives for a reason."

   Ethan attempted to throw me into the lake and made me laugh every single moment.

   My family opened up and helped me to get a little perspective on my issues.

   Harry Hodge did Christ Nails. Which is all I want in every Celebration for the rest of my life.

   The party gave me time to dance like there was no tomorrow.

   I got about 17 hours of sleep total, and I wasn't a complete zombie.

   Tara Porr gave a talk, and in it said, "I had to give up the worrying. You can wonder. I wonder all the time. But you can't worry about things. You have to give it up."

   That hit me like a ton of bricks (sorry, again, I'm getting cliché). All my life I've been a worrier. I've worried over every little thing. I never thought it was a bad thing. I assumed that being the over prepared, most responsible, adult like kid on the playground was a good thing. I don't really remember being a kid. I don't really remember doing all those silly things other kids did. I can't ride a bike, partly due to my clumsiness, and partly due to the fact that I didn't want to take the time to learn. I wanted to watch CNN and read Shakespeare.

    I guess I'm going to be stuck on yellow light for a while. And for the first time, I'm ok with that. I feel like maybe I've gained a little more knowledge of myself. Maybe I'll be able to get things together. Maybe I'll end up on green light sometime soon. I wonder?

   I have honestly had a very hard time this week.

   Despite how much I truly love my church friends, we have turned into more then just one-day-a-week pals. We are family.

   And being a family means having a few fights. This week has opened my eyes to that phenomenon. I'm so so so so SO tired of all the drama that's been going on.

   It's hard for me to plaster on that smile in the mornings, especially the last couple of days.

   I don't know if it's all the togetherness or if things wold be this chaotic just at home. However I'm not enjoying it.

   I'm glad to be going home tomorrow. 

   The thing that gets me about choir tour versus mission trip is that we are together without being TOGETHER, during mission trip. It's easier to grow individually during mission trip then it is on this tour thing. I'm not sure whether or not I like one better then the other.

But this has been quite an experience.

   As it was misty almost raining this morning Erika said to me, "It's like God can't decide whether or not to cry."

   Why do we relate rain to tears?

   Personally I like rain, to me its like a clean slate. Rain washes away all the heat and all the mess of the day.

   In a way, it makes sense to call rain "God Tears". God tears sounds better to me than percipitation.  It's goes back to the metaphorically crying of God to make things fresh for us. I think I like that idea. Maybe they're sad tears, maybe sometimes they're even happy tears, but nevertheless they are tears.

   So when we curse the rain that ruins our plans and our cute hair, it's almost like cursing the fact that we're getting a clean slate for the day. And in the summer, when we go without rain, maybe that means that we're doing something right. That we don't need the rain because we have no real reason to need to start over. This rain that we all complain about isn't really something to complain about. It's something to embrace.

   I'll leave this here because the weather radar is giving me that idea that we may lose power here in a bit...

   I've found that life is a giant rollercoaster. It's ups and downs hit when you least expect them. You go up and up and you're on top of everything. You feel like no one can touch you. That you're absolutely invincable. That nothing in the world can go wrong.

   But then you start to fall and you go and go until you feel like you can't do anything to stop it. Everything comes crashing down around you. You try to put it back together but you've lost all control. Those are the hard days.

   The thing about roller coasters is that they always go back up. The just keep going up and down. And eventually they end and you have to get off. Just by the time you are starting to get used to the profound ups and downs, just when you're starting to relax and enjoy it, you have to get off.

   That's the way life is. It's a wild series of ups and downs. If you don't enjoy those ups and downs, evenutally you've missed it. It's too late to go back and enjoy those moments. You miss it.

   So when things get scary and tough and you feel like you can't stop the falling, you have to remember that the rollercoaster always goes back up. That's what I use to get through those crazy rollercoaster days.

   I've always felt that indifference is the worst feeling you can have. Anger, hatred, despair, any emotion at all towards anything is better then indifference. I especially feel this way towards feelings about people. Being indifferent about a person, is even worse then backstabbing, then hating them, then spreading gossip.

   Because when you're indifferent. You just don't care. You don't feel anything.

   To me, indiffence is like novacaine. You're numb to any sort of emotion.

   Indifference is like not having any opinion. And having no opinion is like asking someone to make up your mind for you. I hate that. I hate not making my own decisions.

   But when you're indifferent. You can't decide one way or another about anything.

   I've lost the point of this entry. And at this moment in time, I don't really care if I figure it out.

   I find Mondays absolutely migrane inducing. It's like every Monday is the beginning to some fabulous new chapter in my life, and every Monday I fall short of that expectation.

   I find it ridiclous that something as inane as a day of the week has become synonomous with hell. Mondays, oh, those are always hellishly bad days. Tomorrow is Monday? Oh, why even bother waking up? Monday, ugh, I detest Mondays.

   Lately every single day has felt like a Monday. It takes more and more strength to actually drag my sorry behind out of bed in the mornings. School has become that place I've only got to go for 5 more Mondays. Just five more (but who's counting?)

   I've never disliked life or school. Lately school is something I just want to finsih, like each day is another step closer to the finishline. Life, it has become one very large maze with so many dead ends that I think I may never get out.

   A change of pace would be nice. Maybe shaking things up a bit would help? Maybe I just need to get the rest of this year out of the way, and then I'll start over.

   Starting over sounds really good.

For as long as I can remember my mother has complained about how her mother turned into her mother and how one day she would trun into my grandmother, which could only mean that one day, I would be my mother.

What a scary thought.

So for as long as I can remember I've been saying,"The very last thing I want is to grow up and be my mother."

It just seemed natural for me to fear becoming my mother.

However, the more and more I watch her and the older I get, it seems like maybe it wouldn't be so bad. The typical everyday housewife. The unsung hero of the world. The unrecognized wonderwoman.

I've always wanted to be extrordinary. More then just another one of the mediocre suburban masses. That's all I see my life as right now, another part of the teenage suburban mass. I wanted to grow up, and get as far away from here to start over.

However, mediocrity seems like a good idea right now.

When you want to blend in, to disappear and start over mediocrity seems like the best way to do it.

Maybe I'll try that for a little while

Let's try to blend in and see how much I stick out.

I've been in a moody sort of mood lately

I can't pick or choose how I feel. I wake up one way, and if I don't like it, well the too damn bad because no matter how hard I try to change it, I can't.

I'm sort of adrift right now. I've been musing over what it is I'm going to do with my life and my time.

I haven't found an answer yet. 

I feel like I'm going a million directions and once, and at the same time, not going anywhere.

It's not a feeling I'm used to.

This lack of a plan is getting to me.