Love

More Thoughts on Hope

Yesterday I was thinking about hope again. I have been pondering the meaning and the value of hope for a few weeks now. Yesterday I was realizing that hope is a word that implies there is something better. Someone without hope is someone who believes things will never get better. A person with hope believes in the possibility for better.

I have been faced with some loved ones from my past lately and found that sometimes the state of people’s lives seem to represent the law of entropy. Their lives are in a constant state of decay. It has been hard for me to see. When I look around and see people (whom I love) that are more and more unhappy all the time, it breaks my heart. So, where does hope play in all this? Is it fair or wise to believe that life will get better for me when others are suffering so much? Right now, hope to me is this, that God works all things out for the good of those who love him. It is believing that while I am a master at messing my life up and making irreversible mistakes, God can change me. Hope to me is that the quiet voice inside me reminds me to stop worrying about my petty problems and love the person crying out. In summary, I can be changed, and I can make a change in the lives of others. That is what hope means to me today.

Just Thoughts

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

So I long to be seen by those eyes

that see beauty when they see me.

Sadness won't last forever.

So I feel it all now in hopes that

I will feel the beauty as overwhleming as I felt the darkness.

Forever is a really long time.

I am so afraid of forever

but forever is a really long time to be afraid.

Who I once was, I am no longer

Did you love the one I was?

Can you love who I've become?

Will you love the one I'll be?

I rarely pretend to be somthing I am not for fear that you will be disappointed in the truth of me. But if you can see past the worst of me, you might find that there is good in me. If you can find that, please remind me that it's there. No matter how strong a woman is, leaving her will always break her heart. But if to leave you must, then just go. Do not betray her by trying to pick up the pieces for her as you are walking away.

To be alone is not scary to me, but to be without you makes me sad. I can live without you, I would just rather live with you.

Living My Life Weekend #1

So you may be wondering how I chose to "live" my life after my post on Friday. Well I started my weekend with a cup of coffee and a stroll through Pier 1 (a favorite weekend pass time), and dreamed. Then I went to my parents' and convinced my little sister to go longboarding with me. It was really nice. Longboarding is relaxing, we do a lot of talking and laughing when we go. However, there was a point we reached that has a pretty real dip under the road. I knew that as a 28 year old woman I had no business taking hills or trying tricks but I never have been good at being shown up by my little sister. As a result of my inability to act my age, this is pretty much how things turned out for me:

except my feet stayed down. So I spent the rest of my weekend icing my face and my left arm. It seems I am suffering the consequences of all the bad choices I have ever made right now, seriously. And I just don't seem to learn.

Trapped!!!!!!!!

So one great thing about working with Larry Linville is that I never know when I wake up in the morning how my day will turn out. Today, Larry decided that he was going to take Stephanie and I out to lunch and then buy me hiking boots at REI. Of all the things to spend my money on, hiking boots is certainly at the bottom of my list, but now that I have them and I am SO EXCITED. After buying me boots, Larry took Stephanie and I to lunch. The sun was shining and it was a little bit warm and I started thinking about hiking as we sat down to our favorite crepe shop in Pike Place Market. As I was talking to Larry and Stephanie about my new years resolution (which was that I was going to rest and save money all winter long and then have the best summer of my life) I started thinking about all the fun things Katrina and I have talked about doing this summer. Then I started thinking about how I have worked a minimum of 40 hours a week since I was 16 years old (maybe 17?). And I have been busting my @$$ to get through school for the last 10 years. Last summer, I pretty much worked about 45 hours a week and slept all the rest. This summer is going to be "epic" (am I too old to use that word? Thought I'd try it). But this realization was so overwhelming that I felt like I needed to start immediately. I didn't want to go back to work. I wanted to hike or take little sister long boarding or put on a dress and go dance to live music in the sunshine. Now I feel trapped in this office. Anyone who knows me knows I HATE FEELING TRAPPED. I need to be free!

Attitude Adjustment

My boss goes to Maui twice a year for 6-8 weeks at a time. The first time he went it was, in a way, more stressful than having him here because communication is difficult and I was constantly re-sending him things I had done. It was frustrating to say the least. This time, we settled in to a pretty nice little routine, I have still been working lots of hours and working hard but it has been a little more peaceful. Tonight he comes back. Don't get me wrong, I really like my crazy, autistic boss. But dealing with him requires thick skin and tons of patience. So I have been telling myself that I have 24 hours to have a major attitude adjustment. You see, my personal life has been really draining the last 6 weeks that he has been gone so it has been the grace of God he hasn't been here, it may have been too much to handle. I have experiencing what the doctors have called a "flare up" of the chronic Epstein barr I have never been able to shake from my system. I have been enduring some financial hardships and I have been attempting to have a relationship (which never works out well for me). So there it is. So in order to survive (literally) I have to lay all of my anxieties down and just hope for the best in all those situations. Because despite regular lectures of how I should be more responsible or I should sleep more and take better care of myself , etc. There is absolutely nothing more I can do. I do EVERYTHING I can to make my life better and I just can't do anything else. So here's hopin'!

Hope

Hope has been a common topic in my conversations lately and I have been feeling like maybe I should spend some time grasping at what it means. Here are a few definitions I found on Dictionary.com: "the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best" "a person or thing in which expectations are centered" "to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence" " to believe, desire, or trust" Then I read Wikipedia on Hope, which while interesting, made me think more about the "wiki" in wikipedia. Truth is, hope seems a bit dangerous and if nothing else, it has become unfamiliar territory to most. Even Obama changed his campaign slogan because Hope didn't seem to win him many votes. What is hope and why is it so important? And why does it keep coming up in my life lately? These are a few of the images that came up when I google seearched hope (which I would not suggest as apparently there are a lot of naughty girls named Hope out there.) The pictures spoke to me a little more than the words. The first picture tells me that hope is believing that life lost can be regained. It expresses the reality that the hard times of fruitlessness do not always mean you are a bad tree, sometimes it just means you are a tree. The fruit will come when it is suppoed to. The second image is wordplay, but encouraging wordplay. : ) I have no answers really just some ideas. I am just jotting down some encouraging thoughts that at least helped me get through this day. Maybe there is something new to learn tomorrow.