The Breakdown of an Otherwise Somewhat Healthy Brain.

So... I go through phases.

I can hear you all grumbling right now. You think I can't hear these things, but I can. I hear what you're saying. "My gosh, Carly," you're saying through awful clenched teeth. "WE KNOW!!! Okay?? We get it, we really do. You go through phases - great. Move on already."

Well, I'm sorry, but I can't, because everytime I try to do that, another phase pops up and I have to attend to it, and you can clearly see how that quickly becomes a vicious cycle.

Right now, for instance. All I want to do is cook. And hold a baby. But mainly cook. This soup, for example, looks very doable. Most things that Pioneer Woman talks about look very doable, actually, but I haven't tried most of them yet, and I even own her cookbook. Alas... what is a girl to do on a meager college budget? Practicality must dictate my life, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it is holding me back from my creative genius. Where do I turn in times of such emotional turmoil?? Woe is me.

On a slightly off topic note, but since we're already talking about my beloved Pioneer Woman, is it just me or is she seriously jonesing for another baby? Maybe it's because I was reading back on some of her posts that I have missed lately, but she seems to be in a baby craze...and reading about it has slowly transferred some of that weird, maternal instinct stuff into my own brain. I keep making faces at the babies that seem to continuously surround me everytime I go out in public. I mean, I'm not to the point where I would PAY a RANDOM STRANGER to let me hold their baby like Jackie wants to do... but I wouldn't mind playing with a kid right about now. I don't know why I go through nesting phases... it's not at all practical. Then again, didn't I just say that practicality was ruining my life? Oh no - it's a sign. And I wrote it. Five seconds ago. This cannot be good.

Anyway the point is, I'm dying to cook. And experiment. And try new recipes. And eat delicious food instead of ramen and/or rice and steamed veggies. There are approximately 37 windows open on my browser right now, and all but two of them are foodie websites. Consequently, I am convinced that my life will not be complete until I own decent pots and pans [AND A STOVE THAT DOESN'T SCORCH EVERYTHING IT TOUCHES], which only adds to the growing desire to be an adult with a certain amount of discretionary income so that I can buy the stainless steal sautee pans that will apparently change my life. I digress, once again.

I think this whole thing stems from a severe nutritional crisis on my end... you see, I've staunchly refused to buy groceries again until I absolutely have to [interpretation: funds are at an all-time low], which means that my fresh produce options in my apartment are nonexistent. Today I honestly tried to think of the last time I ate a piece of fresh fruit, and I think the complete lack of memories involving such healthy, delicious goodness answers my lingering questions about a.) my total lack of energy as of late and b.) my scurvy-like symptoms. Just kidding. I don't have scurvy. I did accidentally take a four hour nap yesterday, though... is that a problem? I asked my mom that question and she told me to work out. Helpful. [Mama, if you're reading this, please calm down about my serious nutrient deficiency. I'm aware of the issues at hand. If it makes you feel any better, there was orange filling in some of the Valentine's chocolate that you sent me... I felt the Vitamin C coursing through my veins as I ate it.] Perhaps this self-same lack of any healthy influences in my diet also effects my ability to stay on-topic while writing a blog? Interesting...

The way I see it, my options are this: I either tough it out and wait until I go home for Spring Break where I can use my parents' kitchen to play and run horribly a muck while trying new recipes OR I could find some hungry, quasi-lazy, adventurous individual around here who wants to supply the groceries and I'll supply the labor. My schedule is daunting and I am painfully shy, but I would be more than willing to pencil in an audience for the premiere of my imaginary cooking show. Just think about it... that's all I'm saying.

And if not for my sake, then maybe for my mother's... she might be in for a long week come Spring Break.

Tired. Thankful. Lists.

The Surface

I am tired of college.
I am tired of being physically exhausted.
I am tired of winter.
I am tired of Edgar Allan Poe.
I am tired of feeling materialistic.
I am tired of not being able to wear my contacts.
I am tired of being confined to other people’s schedules.
I am tired of fantasizing about being an adult.
I am tired of being irritable and short with the people I love.
I am tired of talking about myself.
I am tired of being two faced.
I am tired of never knowing what my next step is.
I am tired of wondering what I’m supposed to be doing this summer.
I am tired of feeling like I have to have things together.
I am tired of having absolutely nothing together.
I am tired of my pride.
I am tired of the temporary nature of college.
I am tired of biting my nails.
I am tired of being so pale.
I am tired of never eating the yogurt that I buy.
I am tired of deciding that I’m going to stop drinking pop and not being able to stand life without Diet Coke.
I am tired of missing my mom.
I am tired of feeling like I don’t pursue the people around me enough.
I am tired of where I am right now.

Perspective Shift

I am thankful that God is who He says He is.
I am thankful that I am who God says I am.
I am thankful that God has a plan for me.
I am thankful that He has brought me to a community where I can be myself.
I am thankful that I very, very rarely feel like I need to put on a show for anybody.
I am thankful that I am part of a small group of girls that loves God and wants to know Him more.
I am thankful for the opportunity to get an education.
I am thankful that I have heat and warm blankets and a space heater that looks like space ship.
I am thankful that I never have to question if my family is there for me.
I am thankful that I can express myself through writing.
I am thankful for stories and for friends who laugh at my stories and to have grown up in a family that loves to tell stories.
I am thankful for the scent of sandalwood vanilla and pine candles.
I am thankful for Iron&Wine.
I am thankful for twinkly lights.
I am thankful for the ability to look back over my writing and see growth.
I am thankful that I have these amazing, warm slippers.
I am thankful that my professors always let me get away with whatever I want.
I am thankful that God has something really exciting in store for me.
I am thankful that I will never have to settle or compromise.
I am thankful that my friends are beautiful and funny and that they love Jesus.
I am thankful that I found a gel pen in my backpack this week.
I am thankful that no one has ever tried to dissuade me from being a writer.
I am thankful that even in the hard, annoying, tiring times, I can still find so many things to be thankful for.
I am thankful that God is gracious and patient and that He loves me and pursues me, despite my occasionally rotten attitude.

Amen.

Choose.

Don't feel sorry for yourself.

What do you have to regret? You have been forgiven, you have been redeemed, you have been promised enormous, beautiful, great things. So live in those promises.

Choose to believe God.
Choose to believe Him when it doesn't feel like His promises are true.
Choose to live in joy, even when your heart hurts.
Choose to bask in that freedom and peace, because the God of the universe created you for this moment.

So choose this day who you will follow -- your own flawed heart, the same thing that beats in your chest and has misled you every day of your life, or the One who created it. Who created you. Who designed you with a purpose.

Your sacrifices are very small in the very large picture that is Christ's plan.
He has more for you.
More.
So much more.
He promises... so believe.

Felt.

It's not that I'm a pack rat or even particularly nostalgic most of the time. I just save some things. Special things. Things with sentimental value. Small things that people give me that impact me deeper than they know.

Things like a letter my dad slipped in my suitcase when I went to Chicago for the weekend in fifth grade. He told Shelby and I to practice the Fruits of the Spirit while we were with our mom and Mimi and Aunt Bambi and Bailey and then he put some "American money" in it for his "two favorite American Girls."

Or the bracelet that one of the Brazilian girls pressed into my hand when I was in Village and the letters written in Portuguese, which, even though I cannot read them, I understand completely.

Or the silly mantras that my sister and I wrote at three in the morning or lists that we compiled through years and years of angst and secret crushes or the notes that got us through our boring high school classes or a sketch of a bottle of saline that brings tears to my eyes for the memories surrounding it.

Or all of the letters that my mom has written me over the years, full of encouragement and admonishment and compassion and anger and love, a mother's heart toward her oldest daughter on paper.

Or the playlists written out in scrawling, boyish handwriting, the result of painstaking hours of meticulous choosing and narrowing and deleting songs, subsequently burning memories into my heart just as permanently as they were burned onto a CD.

Or the pictures of Shelby and Bailey and I that I have hidden away... the ones from childhood and high school and then last fall...the ones that are too hard to look at regularly, but that I need to have easily accessible at all times.

Or the silver dollar that Papa randomly mailed to me one day so that I would always remember him, as if he were in danger of being forgotten, the very idea of which is endearing and laughable and heart- warming and -breaking all at once.

Or pieces of my own writing, scribbles on scraps of paper that range in topic from sermon notes to recently invented metaphors to letters to myself, outlining goals and dreams and hopes and desires. The handwriting is familiar, but not mine; it belongs to someone else, a different version of me.

All of that and more lives in a small box on my desk, and what I realized tonight is that it can all be consolidated into one idea -- words. Thousands and thousands of words sit in that box, words from my family, my friends, my mentors, people who have affected my life profoundly without even knowing it. I live on words. I toy with them like playthings and if I don’t get them from others, a piece of me shrivels up inside, like a plant without water. I need them. I need them because they are tangible and permanent and easy to reread. I need them because they connect me to people that I am far from, physically or emotionally or both. I need them because they link the past and the present, because they tattoo memories onto my skin, because they remind me in the hard times that I am loved, I am supported, I am known. Words help me to understand where I end and where the rest of the world begins, but they also give me links and bridges to communicate. I need words.

It makes it even more difficult, though, when I suddenly cannot say what I need to say. I’m sitting here like a captive, joy and heaviness warring for territory in my heart. How do I define this? Who do I turn to? What am I supposed to say?

Times like these make me wholly dependent on the Word, the one Letter that I have that can keep me going. How I define something does not matter in light of the fact that I have the Truth at my fingertips. What I say does not matter when I’m talking to the One who can interpret all of my sighs and tears and laughs and gasps. I am so grateful to be able to turn Jesus whenever I need Him – constantly. How sweet it is to have a Book so precious and valuable and flowing with love and encouragement whenever I need it.

It’s not a quick fix, but it is the best preemptive strike possible. It’s all that I know. It’s all that I have. It’s all I can do. And lately, at the end of the day, it’s all that I want.

It is Good.

It is good to sink back into writing for the sake of writing. It is good to be sitting down to write for myself, to give voice to ideas and thoughts apart from literature assignments and emails. My entire being feels that contented feeling of finally finding the comfortable spot in bed after restless tossing and turning. This is it. This is where I am hunkering down for a while. This is good.

Things have been happening in my life lately. Big things, little things, things that change the way I think, the way I see, the way I live. I'm in a process of discovering Jesus in a new way, a process of learning obedience and love and faith with a deeper, more meaningful understanding. Ergo, I am also in a process of discovering myself in a new way. What does He want for my life? Where does He want me to go? How can I serve Him? He's been bringing amazing opportunities my way lately and things can't help but to change. My eyes have been opened to His face in a new way...even in my salvation, I was lost, but now I am found. I was blind, but now I see. My life will never be the same, simply for the fact that it can't be.

I hope that change is reflected in this blog. I hope you can see it in my face, in my writing, that you can hear it in my voice and my laughter. I hope that even in my failures and moments of weakness, God is glorified. I hope that this fire within me grows and grows and grows, steady and strong and ready to go where He calls.

So yes, it's been two months since I've written, but it's been a packed two months. Sorry about the hiatus. I could write a post about how I really want to practice discipline this year... I do. I want to lead a more structured life [I use the term "want" loosely - you know, I want-ish to lead a more structured life...] this year than I did last year. I've been reading a lot lately, and it seems to me that in order to improve my craft, I actually have to do it. Fancy that. I want to develop a more consistent writing time, a place in my day where I sit down to write even if I don't feel like it. That's what I want. I also want to pay rent and buy groceries and pass my classes and deepen my relationships, though, so it might be a toss up some weeks. The point is, I really have missed this. I've missed this a lot. I'm going to try to be better, and not because I have an inflated sense of importance, like anyone who might read this has some sort of deep need for it or something, but because it's important. It helps keep me sane. Again, I use the term "sane" quite loosely.

Besides, what happens in my life that people want to hear about? I got my tonsils out, I turned twenty-one with the most epic birthday week ever, I met one of my favorite authors on a whirlwind surprise trip to the city, I sold more panties over Christmas break, I went to the Passion conference in Atlanta and saw Jesus, I've made more new best friends and met more of the MOST INTERESTING PEOPLE EVER, I've had some great conversations, I figured out how to paint the nails on my right hand decently, and my journey towards cooking improved when I got two new cookbooks for Christmas. I mean, do you want to know something? Is there a story in there? I don't know. You tell me.

Anyway, the point is I am a writer, as clearly defined by myself at an obnoxiously high rate. Therefore, I must write. I would love to write for you as often as I can, if you're still around, that is. So...can we be friends again? Pretty please?