Dawn

Today I started work at 5:30am, which meant I left the house at 5:00.  As much as I complain about having to work so early, there is something I really love about it. I walk to work, so I have half an hour of walking in the brisk early morning air, with no light other than what is emmitted from the streetlamps.  It always strikes me how the same darkness that I feared five hours earlier now brings me a sense of peace as I wander through it on my own.  Each time I make this walk I get this overwhelming feeling of satisfaction that I am getting to steal part of the day that most of the rest of the world is missing out on as they lie asleep in their beds.  It's like God's little gift to me.  Something about the early early morning is so comforting. Then, my second favourite part of the day is getting to the coffee shop.  I sometimes go a little early on purpose so I have 10 or 15 minutes to myself in there.  Just being in the store all by myself, brewing delightful smelling coffee and appreciating the day before it even starts is simply the most wonderful thing to me.

Capernwray

Capernwray. I can hardly say the name anymore because I feel like it's been so overused, both in my ever present thoughts as well as in conversation.  It's been almost a year and a half now, and still there is not a day that goes by where Capernwray doesn't cross my mind. I know people get frustrated with my constant missing it, I can hear it in their voice but... it was an experience I can't forget. I almost wish I could, because the withdrawl has been so bad. Coming home was probably the hardest thing I have ever gone through, and the worst part is is that it hasn't gotten easier. Yes, there is good in Edmonton with my life and friends here. But it's different. I have this heartache that never goes away. I used to be a pretty content person, I kind of just went with the flow and thought everything and everyone was pretty great.  But I think maybe Capernwray made me realize there's more.  Like before, I never knew what I was missing?? It's not the castle I miss, or the rain, or the lectures or even the sheep... it's the community. It's caring. Caring about people other than myself and having them care about you, and supporting eachother through everything.  Something I hate about myself is that I'm a friend-dropper. If a friendship doesn't seem worth it to me, if I am putting in more effort then I feel is reciprocated I will just let people go.  Friends have faded in and out of my life since I was a kid. We'll be close for a few years, and then I'll find some flaw in them that drives me crazy, or I'll just one day decide that I don't want to call them... that they can call me. And slowly but surely that person will fade. And I can't really think of a time where I've ever really ... missed a friend that I've grown apart from. I guess that sounds kind of insensitive and cold, but really.  But... Capernwray friends, it's different. I've cried myself to sleep missing those people.  I don't even know why. How well can you really get to know someone in 8 weeks? I just went to a very 'all-inclusive' Bible school for 8 MONTHS and, to be blunt, could probably pick up and move and never feel the heartwrenching suck that I feel almost daily for the people I met in England. I guess this all sounds pretty awful if someone that I'm close with from Edmonton was to read it.  I don't want it to come across as though no one else matters in my life, because that's not the case whatsoever. I care about so many people here, loads. There are lots of people that play extrememly significant roles in my life. I just wish people understood what it was like to go through life feeling like your in the wrong place all the time.  Sometimes I feel like I got on the wrong plane.  I left home, happy and loving everyone and wondering how on Earth I'd make it without them all eight long weeks, then when I came home it was like I was coming home to someone else's friends, and someone else's life. Feeling out of place and disengaged. I thought it would go away, and some days I feel like it has. But other days... like today as you may be able to notice.... it's like someone tore me out of that castle 5 minutes ago. 

In Good Time.

Today, I don't really have much to say.  But I guess that kind of goes along with the theme of the rest of my blog... saying a lot without really saying anything at all. Sometimes... I look at my life, perhaps like every other pre-college adolescent, and wonder if I'm going anywhere. I wonder if one day I'll wake up--suddently 25, and have missed the boat on university and a career and finding prince charming. I know in reality that that probably won't happen. Hopefully six years from now I won't be working at second cup with my university application still in leu. And, when I look at it that way, and consider where I was six years ago, and the progress I've made... I hope that I'll at least have taken a few steps foreward six years from now.  I guess something I've been struggling with lately is... timeing. I have this timeline for myself, that if I let myself, I get obssessed with. For example, I always wanted to be married by 21. Well, here I am at 19-- so if I don't meet the perfect guy this year, we won't be able to date for a year before getting engaged and getting married and so on and so forth blah blah blah. Or with univerity, I haven't even started yet. So how am I supposed to get a 5 year degree and still graduate before I am "old"... and then somewhere in there I have to get married and have a family and settle into the average suberban lifestyle. And I guess something that I am realizing... or being taught, or being forced to realize is that my timeline doesn't matter. At all. That, as much as I hate the clicheness of it... things will happen in God's time whether I like it or not.  I am single for a reason. Because God wants me to be. And even though, let's face it... it blows. God is teaching me things through this.  And this year of lull... has purpose, even though I don't see it. Now, that's not to say that I think we should all just sit around and let life happen to us in 'God's timing', but I think there is value in having patience when you just want to get on with things already but sometimes, in hindsight, it was those inbetween periods... the transition of eras, where important things happened.   

Give Thanks.

I suppose it is natural at this time of year, with all the emphasis on Thanksgiving, to look at our own lives and appreciate what we have.  In doing this I have realized that I have so much to be thankful for.  I'm pretty sure that's the realization everyone comes to on this mid-October weekend each year. We look back and think about all the things we have and completely don't deserve, we toss a quick "thanks" up there and then carry on expecting more and more each day that follows.  I wish I could say I was the exception, but that's pretty much what I do each thanksgiving. Sometimes, when forced, I end up in some sort of circle going around and saying what I'm thankful for, at which time I say "family", or "a job" or something else that takes approximatly 2 seconds of thought. Which, don't get me wrong- I am thankful for, very thankful. But it goes beyond that. I am thankful for a family that wants the best for me, and encourages me to live as the best human being I can be.  I am thankful that Jesus Christ died on the cross for me and I can have HOPE. I am thankful that I can live every day with purpose because I know death is not it.  I am thankful that I don't worry where my next meal will come from. I realize that this blog post is kind of going around in circles, but I think it's helping my thought process-really. [...And if you are entirely confused, well, welcome to my life.] Anyways, as I type... " I am thankful, I am thankful..." I have to stop and give a thought to what the word really means. Full of thanks. Am I? Maybe right now I am. Because Hallmark told me to be.  But do I live every day THANKING God for the ridiculous amounts of gifts that I've been given.  How often do I sit around wishing I had a better job, or a car, or a clearer answer about my future. So maybe that should be a goal we all set for ourselves this thanksgiving... remember to say your thank-yous.

Nineteen in the East.

I was starting to feel like a Rob Bell Nooma video series with all my one-word titles alluding to a deeper message, so I had to stop with that for now. So last week, as a brand new 19-year-old I decided to head East. -- or as some would argue, central. But who really cares about the maritimes... I think it's East. Either way-- to Hamilton and then later Quebec. I got to see Niagra falls (cross that one off the bucket list!) and then I spent some time at Redeemer University. I knew I was going to have a good time but my time in Ontario definatly blew my expectations! So much so that today I went to the bank and opened up an account so that I can start saving to go to Redeemer in September. So far the responses I've had when presenting my wonderful new plan to people have been: "What's wrong with Edmonton?", "Oh, ... really?", or "But... that'd be starting a whole new life." Or along those lines for the most part. I guess it doesn't really make a lot of sense if you're not in my shoes. There's nothing wrong with life here, or what I have now. In fact, there is a lot of good things that I am thankful for. But at the same time I have this inner unrest that I feel like won't be solved by continuing to do what makes the most "sense." So I suppose I am doing just the opposite. I am fully intending to spend too much money in order to get a Christian education (which may hinder my future resume) and put valuable friendships on hold (or on... long distance) and miss my family because well... because I think I will be happy. I think if I heard someone else say that I would think they were an idiot. But I loved Redeemer. I haven't felt that at home since... well, since Capernwray. I made friends in A WEEK (a flipping week) that I miss tons already. It seems worth it to me. Ten years from now, when all my student debt is payed off, I probably won't care about the extra few thousand dollars that I would have wasted anyways, but I will look back and see a rich college experience. I don't want the next four years to be full of stress, with no friends at school and taking the ETS (yes, I hate Edmonton Transit) everyday for an hour in the -40 winter. So I might talk and talk and talk about this whole Redeemer thing and then get a smack upside the head from God telling me he has bigger plans, but for now I think this is what he's showing me.  Believe me, I have never been drawn to Hamilton, Ontario before but I woke up one day and thought... maybe I should go to Redeemer. I'm going to talk to the counsellor when I'm there. So I did. And I talked to Hannah. And she got me even more stoked. So the next few months might bring a lot of change. But I can't wait.

Culling

Lately I've been thinking. A lot. Now, if you know much about me you know that this isn't normal.  I do things, I don't think about them. I am a person of action, not a person of thought.  I have all these thoughts and all these ideas lately that have been taking over my mind and driving me crazy.  Perhaps all this thinking has been prevoked by the changes that have been happening my my life lately.  For starters, I got my own room this week.  My sister and I were sharing for the last year and we've recently switched to each having our own.  Going through every paper, every bobby pin, every... old assignment in my room has really shown me how much crazy stuff has happened in just one year.  It's also shown me what I value.  The first thing I went through was my box labelled "Capernwray Happiness."  And that's what it is to me.  It's a place I go (be it "healthy" or not) when I need a pick me up, when I need to be reminded that there is joy in the world and everything's not so bad.  I looked through this box with no intention of throwing anything out, and I didn't.  I simply wanted to reminise and relive what are now merely memories.  Then, I found letters. Letters from boys.  Which I had resentfully shoved in an envelope labelled "BOYS-PAST TENSE."  These letters were like stepping into someone else's life. The thoughts and the feelings were so distant and foreign that it was almost as though i'd never felt them at all. But I had. And that's the crazy part to me.  In some senses, I am a completely different person then I was last summer, even last Christmas. But in some ways, so much the same.  I put the letters back in the envelope, because you never know when you'll need to shed a good tear.  I also found my highschool year book, letters and pictures from friends in high school.  Letters from people that said "we'll be friends forever." I haven't talked to most of those people in two years.  There's nothing wrong with that, they had good intentions at the time. But now, I look at the people in my life.  I think about us all being pregnant at the same time, or getting together for dinners with our families, and then I wonder if this is just another season.  If the people in my life now will go their own directions like everyone prior to them did.  It's not that I like the thought.  The people in my life now are wonderful people.  But why wouldn't we go our separate ways when things become more important then our friendship?  Culling through my room has been a lot more than sorting through papers. It's been culling through my life.  It's forced me to consider what I value, what I don't want to be throwing out a year from now. Who I care about, what I care about, where I want to be.  It's been an experience.  

My misery's so addictive.

Lately I've been in a weird... funk. Sometimes I just stop caring about everyone and everything and can't seem to see any goodness in the world. It kind of blows.  I've been working through some issues with a friend, and trying to see some people in a different light. I've realized that I've gotten to used to seeing the worst in certain people that I've come to like viewing them that way.  It's not even that I actually dislike the person that much, it's just that I've come to a point where negativety is all that comes to mind.  Then today, I was listening to some Tegan and Sara, and one of the lines in one of my favorite songs is "my misery's so addictive."  I thought about that for a while, and realized that it's so true sometimes.  Sometimes I get addicted to that sucky feeling of constant misery and begin to like it, and it's not until I make the conscience choice to see things positvely that I can. And it's hard. It's SO much easier to just continue feeding that negativety and like dislike for people brew inside you and come out (through sarcasm as I do best...) and become a sour person in general.  So I guess it's pretty important to catch stuff like that before it becomes you.