The Two Decade Roommate.

Now a month ago, I got rid of my acrylic paints and brushes that I had bought the same day I had taken out my first car loan. It was on a whim and I was 17 years old. I had high hopes of becoming an artist but lacked the talent, so alas! After almost 4 years of being cooped up in a box with my “stamp” collection (another failed attempt of me being “crafty”), I decided to say goodbye and blessed my Mom with a present of old textbooks, paints and brushes.

I’ve been feeling slightly sentimental of late, which is probably what has been stopping me from getting rid of more stuff that I have stowed away in boxes. All my old class notes, writings of mine (and Hope’s that I found on the wayside, meant for the trash can), and other sentimentalities, like a piece of a cracker jacks box and a rusty old penny, I keep hidden away. Sometimes I hate my memories and try desperately to forget something or some person existed, but I hold on for dear life to the insignificant and happy.

But then comes goodbye.

My roommate of 20 years is moving out. I caught myself looking forlornly across the room at her socks scattered on the floor and her messed up bed and chided myself.

She’s only moving how many minutes away.

I’m both happy and sad. Sad for me, happy for her. Happy for more space but scared to be alone. She’s my big sister, my best friend despite all that we have been through. I love her to pieces, and now goodbye is coming.

At times it felt like we would be stuck together forever. Now, no more fighting over who has to clean the bathroom. No more hounding you to clean up your side of the room and for heaven’s sake, throw your dirty socks in the laundry. No more spitefully dusting my half of the dresser and leaving your side untouched. No more inconsiderate moaning as I come in late from work or from a long night of studying. No more late night talks about life before we fall asleep. I remember when we were little and all the ridiculous bedtimes stories you would tell me. We would laugh and laugh….but somewhere down the road we stopped being so silly. Even though we still have our good times. Somewhere between graduation and college, we found different interests, jobs and friends. We wanted to stop living in each others shadows, I guess. Which is understandable, but still hard nonetheless. I remember how many times I thought I had been replaced as we grew up. It seemed at times that you were always too far gone for me to reach, that you never wanted to hang out with me because I was just your little sister. You would then go find other “sisters” who were the same age as me, yet somehow more mature in your eyes. I have to admit, at times I would be jealous…and cared way too much about what you were doing. But then one point came when I stopped living in comparison and stopped being jealous. I decided to be me, and let you be you.

But that just grew a wider gap between us.

But we always shared a room.

I could always count on you being there at the end of the day. We didn’t even have to talk or say one word to each other. There was just comfort in knowing that we couldn’t be entirely apart because our beds were only a few feet from each other.

But now there is nothing to keep us from growing apart. Now there will be more space for us both to stretch…but somehow I can’t quite picture room without you in it. How will it feel to come home and you not being there? I probably won’t notice at first. After all, we have gone a couple weeks apart. But after a month, and then the next…it will probably dawn on me that you really aren’t going to be my forever roommate, but that we will really did have a time limit and now I’m all alone with more space to put my things, but my heart will be overcrowded with lonesomeness.

Ah, look at me getting all sappy. It’s not like your moving a million miles away. Geez. Pull yourself together Trudi.

I’ll miss you Hope. I hope we grow closer and our sisterly love will only grow stronger. I just want you to know, contrary to your opinion, that I am impressed by you. I am so blessed to have you as my older sister. You may not like the first born status, but you’ve made my life easier by being so. You’ve showed me the ropes of college. You went through all the firsts and paved a path that I sometimes chose to follow. Heehee. Even a few week you helped me find dress pants for my internship (what can I say, the only pants I have are in scrub form). I love it that you’re my older sister and my friend. You don’t know how highly I think of you, and often you think of me as judging you, but that’s only because I have these unrealistic high expectations of you that I shouldn’t have I guess. But I’m always going to expect the best of you, because you are the best.

Hope…just know that I’m always here. I’m always praying for you. I’m always loving you. I’m always wishing the best for you. I’m always happy for you in all your accomplishments.

So now your side of the closet is getting empty. Your books are packed away. I’ll act all tough, but you may get a wailing phone call a couple nights later.

Remember your first roommate and how awesome she was. Because she sure is going to miss you.

Love you Hopie.

Your little sister (and best friend forever…literally, forever. FOR.EV.ER.)

A Single White Girl

I hate reading blogs about how to be single. I don’t like it when girls will post “Jesus is My Valentine” on Valentines Day or clog Pinterest with “How To Be Single 101”, “10 Fun Thing To Do While Your Single”, “Solo Date Ideas” and “Being Single Isn’t a Status, It Means Your Strong & Independent”.

It’s like, thanks for giving me a list. I’m glad to know there are 10 whole things a single person can do for fun. It just seems that single people, woman to be more specific, find a way to either embrace singleness with a sort of defiance like “SCREW MEN!” type of attitudes and then others are like kidding themselves by saying “Oh, prince charming will come for me eventually”.

He’s not coming on a white steed because 1) Princes don’t exist (they do, but come on, they usually come in the form of party boy Prince Harry) and 2) Your not a princess. Stop kidding yourself.

Also being single isn’t some kind of “choice”, it’s just a circumstance we women find ourselves in that we either can accept with grace and poise or we can eye every eligible man we encounter with some kind of barbaric insanity because we have been labeled “single and alone”.

I’m not saying I have never said those two lines above…I have. A lot actually because there is some kind of humorous sarcasm behind it that means “I’m saying this because it could or could not be true…HAHA. Just kidding…or am I?”

Let’s have a moment of silence and a few tears because this dude doesn’t exist in real life.

You know what annoys me? Is when all of your friends are single, but then that one friend gets a boyfriend and you never see them again, and all of their posts on social media are based on the sole fact that so-so is in a relationship and look at those ADORABLE pictures and quoting song lyrics that just fit their relationship PERFECTLY.

I guess this post isn’t helping to prove my point, because I am the average single white girl who wants a boyfriend but doesn’t have one.

I’m embracing my singleness, but I’m not going to say I don’t want a boyfriend. I’m not going to say that if I wait long enough then he will just magically appear. Because like everything, you must give effort and to be honest, I’m not giving any effort right now. Why? Because there is sort of big thing called “time”. I’m a list person, and I’m not saying I can put “oh at so and so time I will get a boyfriend” because I know it doesn’t work like that.

I find saying “get a boyfriend” sounds shallow, it’s like “yep, going pick me one of those up at the store”. You know what? I’m just going to settle for a Tom-like attitude from Parks and Rec.

I’m single, but I am not alone.

YOU ARE AWESOME. Single, taken, waiting, being overly optimistic while waiting, or way to pessimistic. This Valentines Day eat those chocolates from yo Mom because she loves you and everyone else does and someday someone special will love you more then all those people combined.

Jesus isn’t your valentine, but He loves you way more then your Mom or future spouse. Don’t ever forget that.

Also, since it’s just another Valentines Day aka Singles Awareness Day.

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A New Year

Happy New Year!

I was sitting at my desk on New Year’s Eve thinking about what to write…but all that came out was an emotional spilling that just made me feel sorry and discontent.

Now that we have crossed the threshold into 2016 and my mind isn’t bubbling with nostalgia, I’m going to just sit here for a little bit and try to figure out what I can say that hasn’t already been said on this dear little corner of mine.

To be honest, because I usually am…2016 looks pretty much the same as 2015. There are still things to accomplish and fears to face, but maybe I can have a stronger, more sure step this year then in 2015.

By all means, I’m 20 years old now. Maybe I will give you some wise insight from this unwise mind of mine and tell you what I have learned over the past year.

The first thing is that I have grown. Not in height sadly, but in maturity…although even that doesn’t look like much sometimes. I’ve learned to let go of things and people that at the time I thought I could never let go of. I’ve learned to say no but also yes…I can’t tell you which is the scariest to say. I’ve also learned to ask for help when needed…and that is probably the hardest thing for me to do. I’ve made friends that will last a lifetime, met new people; gone new places & revisited the familiar.

And even with all the bad…I can say that it was a good year and I really do have a wonderful life.

But you see, my year of change really didn’t happen. I found that this “threshold” I talked about in my last New Year post wasn’t really a threshold, but a barrier. A barrier that still needs to be overcome, that sometimes I can break through, but inevitably comes back up again.

That barrier is me and circumstance. It’s a constant battle. I talk all big about opportunity and change, but when the moment arrives for this said change and opportunity to happen, I get scared. My social anxiety gets the better of me. I make up every excuse in the book. I run and hide because that is my instinct. And I realize this. But it doesn’t make it easier to breakdown my barrier. Not even the changing of the year will make a difference because it’s what inside me…not in the year.

Tomorrow I will still be the same. The difference is what 365 days will bring until we are back here again, reminiscing about the bulk of it all, compacted into 2016.

But I don’t want to do that anymore.

I don’t want to measure by the length of days, but by how deep the day is. I want my accomplishments and activities to have more meaning then how many. If you understand what I am saying. The thing is, as much as I have grown in 2015, one never stops growing. My maturity level probably went up a few centimeters, but it still has a long ways to go. These barriers, probably will be my struggle for the rest of my life. Whether that be my anxiety or stress…or whatever emotional or physical state I go up against. But I can rest easy for I have the ultimate force on my side that will never leave me. My faith. My Jesus. My Savior. It all comes down to Him. No matter what this life has in store, when the act of trying doesn’t seem good enough; when my heart feels worn and heavy, can I not give it all to Him? My prayers, my praise, everything that I do. I know it’s easier to say, that when it comes down to it, how many moments of the day do I forget Him in the middle of call lights, bubble sheets, early mornings and frost bitten cheeks? My grumbling heart never ceases to be discontent, but His love is steadfast…and how underserving I am of it!

This morning I heard something on the radio that caused me to think, and pardon my paraphrasing (it might not be correct). The radio announcer said something along the lines that life is full of good opportunities but that doesn’t mean those opportunities are guaranteed good outcomes. So maybe that is my lesson to go forth into this new year that is already four days old. Life isn’t fair, it holds lots of opportunities to go out and chase, but there is no guarantee that the outcomes will go in my favor. The only guarantee in this life is Jesus and what’s in store of us in Heaven.

~ Trudi

A Bit of Musings From Me to You

Hello! Did you miss me? Should I dare ask that question? Partly because I feel like my little corner has been forgotten about because it’s been left vacant for too long. I’ve tried to sit down and write something deep and thoughtful, but honestly? I feel like every thought that I try to spill out onto this blank white sheet of computer space doesn’t sound right. I feel like everything I write is just a bunch of empty, scattered words.

Summer break has come to a sad goodbye because school has finally begun. Funny how three months feels like a long stretch of time but once it’s over with you wonder where summer went and why didn’t you enjoy it more? I spent my last couple weeks of break in Colorado. My entire summer I felt had been centered around going to Summit, a Christian worldview conference in Manitou Springs. When the day finally arrived to go…I honestly didn’t want to. Maybe my nerves were getting to me. I mean, seriously, I’m the type of person who needs motivation just to get out of her PJs in the morning or anything that has socializing involved.

I arrived at Summit and knew absolutely no one. I looked at the heavy schedule they placed in front of us and felt like two weeks was going to be an eternity before I could go back home. Because home is familiar. I know what to do and where to go and who my people are. Mealtime was especially stressful since you had to pick a table to sit at and you didn’t know the people sitting there. My introverted side was getting the best of me, but then I got to know my roommates. Suddenly the people in the cafeteria became my classmates. We were all here for one thing and that was to grow in Christ. I never before have been surrounded by such brilliant minded students, speakers and staff. By graduation, I didn’t want to leave the old hotel in Manitou. Even now, it seems like an entirely different world, a small corner where you can just feel Jesus in every corner and crevice of it’s old structure.

I know it sounds a little cheesy to say this…but I felt like I lost myself over the course of two years. I graduated high school and started college; I went from one major to the next; tried all sorts of different classes; landed new jobs…I forgot who I was in Christ.

It’s such a terrible thing to be lost…but it’s so-so sweet to be found.

It’s not about the majors, the jobs…goodness, it’s not even about yourself. Life is such a generalized series of events. We grow up, we graduate high school, we choose a major, we graduate college, we get a job that we kind of sorta like, have a family, retire…then die.

At least that was the conversation I overheard by two students today while waiting for class to start. “Who cares how long your in college, heck, people go and get there masters and then change their minds. You might as well stay in college as long as you can because then after that you have to start real life, get a job and then die.”

Ah, how wrong is this person behind me? I thought. How pointless. How dumb. Why on earth are we here if we are just meant to die and turn to dust?

The sad fact is, I fell into this lie. It’s a strange thing, we pay all this money to go to college and get a bachelors, then a masters, and keep extending our time in college to avoid “real life”, as if college is a safety net that we cling to before we are forced to fall into reality. I fell into the lie that life is about these series of events where death is the ultimate outcome. I look back on my life and it isn’t so simple, it never was intended to be, nor will it ever be.

Death is the ultimate outcome.

But it’s not our eternity.

My eternity is in Heaven. What I do on this earth should be a reflection of Christ; my entire mindset should be only to glorify Him in all that I do. Sadly though, I get blinded by my own desires and personal gain. I kept choosing majors that I hoped would give me security and stability. Why do I seek comfort from this world when it only greets me with empty words and promises? Here is the finer things in life, where all of your troubles will be solved. But I find that the higher I step on the ladder, it gives me more burdens then the previous steps.

But then I went to Summit. I realized that I don’t want stability and comfort that the world has to offer, but that I want the stability and comfort that can only be found in Christ.

I want truth.

I want Jesus.

I have this unsatisfied curiosity now that I don’t know how, nor do I want, to quench, thanks to Summit.

Someone once told me that there is no point in trying to change the world because people don’t change.

But then, what is the point in anything? What is the point in healing the sick when we are just going to die? What is the point in fixing anything when it’s inevitably going to break again?

What I’m saying is this…

Death is not our eternity (which I stated earlier).

That is why we should care…we should care about the souls inside the bodies. The sick, the poor, the world and all of the souls it contains. We should fight for the lives of the innocent. We should stand up against controversial issues and laws made that go against our Christian morals and beliefs.

As Christians we are called to be the light in the dark, and to lead others to Christ. In the end, it does matter.

Ah, to my fellow student, who will sit behind me in class for this entire semester, who thinks that death is nothing but an end.

Let me tell you, it’s only the beginning.

Crumbs.

Sometimes I feel like I’m a crumb still sticking to the cake pan, or the leftover soup that couldn’t quite make it into the ladle. I’m always on my own. I’m in the “average and that is all I can be” crowd of people…which is desperately lonely sometimes. I’m nothing special other then the fact that there is only one of me in this big world and yet that means…everyone is special then…so I guess I’m still average.

I realize that maybe everyone feels like they are left out or whatever. But why is that when we are left out we feel sad…but uncomfortable when pulled in?

Why is it that everyone wants to live the word of greatness but only a selected few actually get to do this?

Is it born into circumstances or is it some sort of messed up fate?

Because when I think about my life so far…it’s nothing great. It’s just average. Even my life goals fall into the average because I’m lazy.

I’m just trying to figure this whole thing out…why is it that sometimes life just works out for certain people in the best possible way and then there is us?

We have to work through school and pay off our college debt as we work and work and work. We don’t ever get to go anywhere. We are cemented to the ground…

But it’s not like the cement was always there…somehow it poured on our feet, which were once standing on green grass soaked in possibilities.

I begin to wonder if maybe the reason we are the crumbs still sticking to the cake pane isn’t because our fate made it impossible for us to form onto the lovely cake with all the special people….but because we simply can’t let go and fall off when the cake forms.

If you understand what I’m saying…

Maybe the reason we are held back is because we are ones holding ourselves back.

You want something? Go out and get it. I’m not saying that it’s a meant to be. Only God knows that. If you are meant to live out greatness (which I’m sure all of us are), then you will. I don’t think any life has no purpose. But sometimes greatness can only be seen by small numbers, and oh my, when will we realize that affirmation from others is pointless?

And when will we realize that greatness is not the point?

The point is Love. Loving Jesus and others and doing works that will give God the glory, not ourselves.

I feel like I harp on this subject way too often, and maybe that is because I haven’t been able to get it into my thick skull yet that it doesn’t matter if I aspire to be all that I can be, because what I need to become is a servant.

A servant you say? My goodness, you must think I’m crazy.

You thought we were reaching for greatness?

No, we aren’t reaching for greatness. We are reaching for humbleness, servitude, grace, mercy, and forgiveness.

And yes, I know that this post has become a jumble of words and incomplete thoughts…

But maybe I can save it somehow, huh? Maybe I can get a well rounded thought out of this head of mine.

If we are all so lonely, aren’t we together in our loneliness? If you get what I’m saying. If we all feel the same, then we really aren’t so alone in our feelings.

I’m pretty sure all of us feel like crumbs once in a while…

We are always last. We are always waiting to be pulled in.

But we shouldn’t have to wait to be pulled in, because we are already pulled in close to a loving Savior, who knows all our dreams and hopes for the future. Who forgives us and consistently humbles us when we let the so called worldly greatness and popularity get to our heads, where we take all the glory and keep it to ourselves.

You can look down the road of has beens. The ones with all the awards. The ones with all the magazine covers. The ones that large and loud crowds boast of their greatness.

And then there is you. The precious gem that wakes up day to day and goes to school full time and works, who is known by name by a very small island of people.

Maybe you won’t make a gigantic leap in the world of sparkling photographers who wanted to know what you ate for lunch…

It’s not about being special. It’s not about being born into a certain circumstance where you are automatically “great” or whatever.

It’s about the ones that don’t have much and yet still don’t think of themselves. It’s about the ones that can wake up day to day and crack the cement around their feet and go out and chase the “average” and sometimes reach above it.

We aren’t reaching for greatness.

We are reaching for Jesus and with that we achieve the greatest of all greatness.

~ Tru

My Anne of Green Gables Obsession

The books on the shelf are worn and thumbed through. I can’t say how many times I’ve read them or how many times I’ve watched the movies. It’s not an obsession, but more like an old friend that I have to see every once in a great while. I don’t even remember enjoying the books half as much as I do now back when I first read them. Something about growing up made me understand them more.

Anne of Green Gables has been a dear old friend.

Don’t you love finding books that grow with you? Instead of leaving them in the past with your childhood.

I don’t know who hasn’t read Anne of Green Gables and not liked it, but I tend to take things to extremes and dwell in them for a time before dropping them and never thinking about them again. To say the least, my obsessions don’t really go away, but rather resurface once in a while. I get all sentimental about them to be honest. Especially this one.

But I won’t cry! I think I’ve gotten sentimental enough on this dear old WordPress. It’s time to lighten the mood a little!

So why should everyone love Anne of Green Gables?

Anne of course! Her odd little ways, her big words, and oh so many quotable quotes. But really, all credit must go to the writer L.M. Montgomery. I find it amazing that one can create an entire world of characters and places and events all in their imagination and put it down onto paper. I have a good imagination, but words…oh my! I have lost count of how many times I decided to become a novelist and write a book and then give up after a couple pages because it no longer made sense anymore…or it does make sense, but not to anyone else.

It’s hard writing a story, especially when you want to get to all the exciting parts. Like when the boy says he loves the girl, or the hero of the story finally becomes the hero. So is life I suppose…you have to get through all the boring parts before you get to the exciting parts because the exciting parts wont be exciting if you don’t to go through some sort of trial in order to get to them.

Hmm…where was I?

Oh yes, Anne with an E.

And then there is Gilbert.

Forget Darcy.

“Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one’s life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one’s side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps. . . perhaps. . .love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath.” – Anne of Avonlea

So poetic *sigh*

I could quote these books to death…but I won’t. Maybe I’ve made you want to pick them up again and thumb through them like I do on occasion. Maybe you haven’t read them…and I have to say, I envy you. Being able to read a book for the first time is something you can’t do again.

So here is a fanvid that I’m in love with on the two movies that I’ve watched oh so many times (and yes, fanvids are another obsession of mine, but more on that later…or never).

For Blue Skies

I realize that most of my deep revelations come while I’m driving in my car. I don’t know why, but my thoughts run rampant at stop lights.

I was driving in my car on my way home from school, there was a lot of traffic, which is kind of annoying, but nevertheless, you see people walking along the streets and sitting in a car beside you and ahead of you and it just hits you like this…

Complete strangers, each with a soul and stories that you will never know about. Each with lives that keep on continuing as they make that turn onto the interstate, driving off to who knows where.

People we don’t know, tend to be thought of as the props in our own personal plays.

We walk among strangers and don’t even glimpse their faces.

And that is sad.

Every week I sit in classes and listen to my teachers talk a mile a minute about our bodies and what they are made of and how they work. Never does it come up that we are more then just skin and bones; made up of multiple systems (each far too complex to not be made by a creator by the way). Don’t even get me started with my Psych class.

Never does anyone say anything about our souls and how they desperately need saving.

Maybe I have come to realize that our hearts beat for many things in this life and how insignificant everything is when our hearts beat for only those things…

Money. Title. Lovers. Worldly belongings. Fame. Approval from our so-called peers. Academic success.

In the end it matters only for who these worn and heavy hearts beat for.

For who do these souls belong too?

When I start thinking about all these souls and hearts…it causes me to search my own and ask myself what my heart is beating for?

Because lately, I have felt lost, worn, tired…and just empty. I feel as if I’m in this ring boxing at air. I’m not sure what I’m fighting against, I just have to keep swinging my arms.

The fact is, I know what my heart is beating for. It’s beating for selfish things. It’s only beating for myself.

It shouldn’t be.

I think about my academic success and career choices and finds myself thinking “which one will give me glory.”

And the fact is, that the more I think about my own personal gain and how I can obtain these things that I want in life…the harder it becomes to achieve them.

I’ve been trying so hard this semester between work and school…and to be honest, bitterness started to set in.

And maybe it all came to a head when the snow started falling and I skidded into the ditch on my way to town one dark Saturday evening and I sat there in the car feasting on all my bitterness; stressing out, and wanting to burst into a flood of angry tears.

Then some guys in a tractor pulled up, hitched my car up with a chain and pulled me out of the ditch then drove away.

I didn’t even have a chance to say thank you.

All these souls…all these hearts beating…

For who do they belong to you?

Jesus.

We can only be saved by a constant, always loving Savior.

Constant. That word has such warmth and safety.

Because no matter what, He will always be there.

Oh, how little it all matters when you strip away all life’s fineries and worldly accomplishments and day to day hardships and you find Jesus in the crowd of regrets, sadness, mistakes and expectations never met.

He’s a light, you know. Shining on all the messes that we make in this life and loving us despite everything.

It’s just crazy.

How much Jesus can love despite all flaws, beyond what you deserve. Loving you endlessly.

And He loves not just one person, but every single soul and heart beating in this world, as if they were the only one person He died for.

Choices

We all have choices to make; everyday. Some choices may be easy, insignificant, and small. Those are the best kind. They don’t change your course in life, one way or another; the choice doesn’t really matter. Your still you, and your still safe from the word change.

The big choices, the important, hard, life changing ones. Now those are difficult. Like what college major you should choose, or deciding to love someone, or deciding if you should move out and be an adult.

These big decisions are painful, and you can’t make them with the most certainty, because there is too much unknown.

I came across this quote a while ago. I thought it was slightly strange at first, but it gave me a new idea. Loving is a choice we make, even accepting love is a choice. We seem to think love is just an overwhelming feeling inside of us. But what happens when that overwhelming feeling ceases?

“He loved her, of course. But better then that, he chose her. Day after day. Choice: that was the thing.” – Sherman Alex

Some choices need to be made everyday. Some choices aren’t just once. It seems like this world keeps making choices less permanent. Like when we love someone, and we marry that person, and then one day you wake up and you think “I just don’t have that feeling anymore, the love is gone between us, we’ve changed.”

Choice…that was the thing.

Everyday we have to keep deciding if we want to keep loving someone when that overwhelming feeling is gone.

Everyday we can make the choice to stay asleep with our dreams or go out and chase them.

Everyday we have so many choices.

I sometimes feel like I’m drowning in an overwhelming ocean of options and I don’t know which to choose. I’m frantically trying to take hold of this ship I’m in and steer myself in the right direction, when I end up on a deserted island most of the time.

But when I give up all my cares to Jesus, I find that it’s really not so hard to figure out what choices I should make in this life.

So, I choose Him above everything else. To be honest, if I only choose Jesus, then every other choice I make will be with confidence. Because I choose Him, everyday. I choose to keep loving Him, even when the road seems long and my shoulders ache with every weight full of choices and too many options.

I choose Him because He loved me when I was unloveable. I choose Him because when I was unreachable, He reached for me.

I choose You today Jesus, because no other choice makes sense, if my choice isn’t You first.

My Pride & Prejudice Obsession

I’m going to admit to one of my flaws. Get ready…it’s coming…

I have never actually read Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen.

I know…*sigh*…I’ve read Sense & Sensibility, Emma, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, skipped Persuasions (because nobody wants to read that one), but never got around to reading Pride & Prejudice. Why you ask? BECAUSE I WATCHED THE MOVIE.

No, not the 2 hour long movie, no offense to all you Keira Knightley fans, but the 6 episode BBC Pride & Prejudice with Colin Firth. Every time I still get over joyed when Darcy and Elizabeth stare at each from the across the room and the sparks of complete admiration and love fly everywhere.

So, what did I do last night when I should have been working on a persuasive speech about cheese? I went on the glorious Youtube and skimmed through six 1 hour long episodes of Pride & Prejudice to find my favorite parts with Darcy and Lizzie…and yes, it did take three hours.

Halfway through my escapade, I looked at Hope, who was sitting across the room, and noted how nice it would be if we went to a dance party and she ended up with a Bingley (because she automatically is Jane, even if she wasn’t the eldest, she would always be Jane) and I would be Lizzie, seething over how “Intolerably rude Mr. Darcy is and blinded by his prejudice for poor people because HE WOULDN’T DANCE WITH ME.”

But alas! My family’s last name isn’t Bennet and my name isn’t Lizzie. But trust me, Hope will end up with a modern day version of Bingley if I have anything to say about it.

Hey, maybe I’ll find a Mr. Darcy and we will get this dream come true of a wedding…

I can’t help but think it would be nice to marry a rich single man who lived in such a place as Pemberley…but that only happens in books, and by the way, Jane Austen was single till her death at 41…so that’s what happens when you write romance novels and make too high of expectations for men.

But my time wasn’t just spent on Pride & Prejudice last night. I was up til 1:30 AM watching The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

Yes, it is a modern day version of Pride & Prejudice, so yeah, I did spend my entire night watching P&P.

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is about Lizzie Bennet running a video blog of her rather messed up and comical life. Yeah, that’s basically it, and it’s all based on the book.

But it’s funny and I’m obsessed with it, so go and watch all 100 episodes! 🙂 YAY!

Goodbye Seventeen.

Whenever my birthday was about to roll around the corner when I was young, I would start planning months ahead of time and my birthday list would be a mile long.
Not anymore. Its kind of sad really. Birthdays just aren’t as exciting as they used to be…and I know the reason is all because of me. Yes, I’m the culprit. I woke up this morning and it just felt like another day. I went to school, I came home, I did my homework. We did the usual rituals of blowing out the candles, singing happy birthday, opening presents and then it was over. Done.

But, as I was sitting down to blow out my eighteen candles and my family was singing really off key, I began to realize something. I don’t know if I was just too giddy about opening presents all these years and not paying attention, but I’m loved so-so-so much. Yes, I already knew that, but every year my family has taken the time to make my birthday special. They spoil me and treat me like a princess every single year, and as we were all sitting down together eating supper, I felt content, happy, and safe. God gave me the family I needed…and they are the only family I’ll ever want.

Tomorrow it will probably hit me. I’ll probably think about how old I am getting and how I’ll never be seventeen again and that every minute that goes by I’m only getting older. That’s just me. But right now, I’m happy.