frustration nostalgia

i sit in the stupe, wheaton's on-campus grill-below-the-dining-hall (does every campus have this?), listening to sweet boys with beards and guitars play heady songs, and i am swept by nostalgia. i am on campus tonight to play improv, to listen to the talk-back on the theater's play, to watch the campus get slowly swallowed by the fallen rain that would seem familiar to the flood two and a half years ago, but only a fraction of that quantity is present.

in these moments, frequent these days, i find myself replaying the past in my mind. remembering who i was one, two, three years ago, and who i am not now. i suppose this is the natural state of growing up and older. bittersweetly.

days are frustrating. i leave for work in the morning, come back at noon, and usually spend the day doing nothing of consequence. as wonderful as naps are (very), i feel frustrated about where i am and how daunting everything seems. how far i have to go in my walk with Christ, how much i desire to feel direction and peace about my future (instead of waves of anxiety and apathy), how much i want to know more about relationships and how to be a good friend, how much i wonder if my past is descriptive of my future, how much how much how much, how how how.

lent started yesterday, and i'm still not sure what i'm giving up. i should pick up a positive behavior in place of a negative one, but even that choice seems daunting.

i'm fine, i am. these moments just catch me. i'm just going to be honest here about them, instead of every post singing the packaged phrases. much love to all, happy rainy-purple-belated-ash wednesday-lenten season too.

oh my february

(wreckage out the malony front door, photo credit mom)


(various spots around town the day of: photo credit the amorphous internet)

i first must send my condolences to residents of the mid-south who were hit by the ice storm a few weeks ago. my hometown of fayetteville was among those affected, and reports from my parents say that the town looks noticeably different, that they'll be no lack of firewood in the coming years, and we will be feeling the loss of the trees (and the effects of their falling) for years to come. thankfully, even though the power shut down at home for a few days, my parents were able to seek refuge with friends in tulsa and the house was undamaged.

secondly, i need to say a belated birthday to my mom and my grandmother suzanna (grandma suzie!)! happy birthday and much love to you both!
thirdly, happy valentine's day, lovers! i spent the day kicking around campus with girlfriends and making cupcakes. (thanks mom!)
fourthly, forgive me if i've forgotten anything. moving on!

work is just fine: the people in charge of me are kind, gracious, and honestly appreciative of the work i do. now, i'm not solving world hunger or ending poverty here, i'm just filing papers, entering data, running office supply errands, answering phones, and occasionally being another body in a classroom--no big deal. but, i'm slowly learning about charlotte mason and classical education, which i perceive as an interesting and good cause for the kids who attend. i'm finding i don't mind doing grunt work if i perceive the greater outcome to be good (this is a truth that i think i have known my whole life. it's also part of what i'm working through at the moment, but more on that later).

i'm spending most of my evenings at home or on campus, and i vastly prefer being on campus with people to being alone in my house. it is strange to be on campus. it IS odd:
-to not have homework (and therefore out from underneath the constant pressure of work)
-to not eat in the dining hall
-to not have a CPO box to check (or any of the other daily routines that went with campus life)
it gets progressively odder too:
-realize that, although the rest of my class isn't graduated yet, they WILL and regularly talk about leaving/life after. i had just adjusted to myself graduating––now everyone else is applying for things and making real plans and weirding me out.
-realize that, even though i've graduated, i still have to answer a lot of the questions about the future, my life, what i want out of it and what God could have up His sleeves for me. the hullaballoo of graduation eventually settles into "what next," regardless of when you graduate.

i'm really thankful that i have this semester as time to think things through, to talk to people who i respect and can help me, and do a test-run of post-collegiate living. i talked to a gal who's in wheaton in chicago this semester, and she mentioned how thankful she was to get away from wheaton's non-stop paced culture for some time to actually think about what she's learning (that's my paraphrase, anyways). wheaton is definitely not for the faint of heart or stamina, and it can be hard to think about the next stages of life when the nearer future is so mind-bogglingly full of pressure.

i'm thinking about starting a list in the sidebar. a list of things i think it would be cool to do before more solidly settling down, places i'd like to live, professions to have or pursue. making them so public is a scary idea because all of a sudden i'm accountable for my ideas. it might take me awhile to actually get them up, if at all.



thanks for reading, everyone. as weird as it is when someone tells me in real life that they read this, it means a lot to me and makes me want to write more. feedback=product=feedback, i suppose.