Monday, May 30, 2011

Growing Pains

Dear God,

This must be what it feels like to grow up, huh. You spend your weeks working nine to five days, get home, eat, sleep, and do it all again. On weekends, you spend one day in total relaxation—if you can call making lists of everything you need to do in the next week “total relaxation.” The other day, you go to church, get taught some moral lesson that you’d forgotten (again), and spend the rest of the day forgetting about it.

Then you start over.

It’s right about now that you realize that life’s probably never going to be as cracked up as the movies make it seem, unless it’s the ones that you call “bad” because it’s just too close to reality for comfort—that there’s probably not going to be a fairy-tale love story waiting in the wings of your future—that maybe there’s a lot of your dreams that will never be fulfilled, or worse, that your dreams weren’t really what you wanted.

And it’s right about now that you start to feel utterly lost. It’s terrifying, growing up. It’s all you ever wanted when you were younger, but now that it’s approaching, you’re turning tail and trying to run in the other direction. Some actually manage to flee—they’re the ones you look at and wonder, “when are they ever going to grow up?” They won’t. That’s the point. Others pretend to have a handle on the situation, when really, they’re hiding the same childlike fear you are

There aren’t a lot of choices in this situation. Either you run, or you face it—either way, you pray to God that He has a plan, because you sure don’t.

It’s so tremendously overwhelming, growing up. All of the sudden you’re worrying about everything. Everything. And sometimes you go to your mom’s house and you’re sitting in your bedroom thinking about the idea of growing up, and the thought is so big and so frightening that there’s a lump in your throat and you feel like you’re about to cry and you haven’t the slightest reason for it.

Well, it’s because you’re afraid.


Because I am afraid.


Love.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Awing

I followed a raindrop

From a thousand feet high

hurtling toward the

solid gray pavement

with a velocity

and speed

that frightened me.

Closer,

closer,

the pavement

drew closer;

I could see the small shapes

in small rocks,

pebbles,

barely even

rocks.

I could see

the glittering mica,

glistening with the shattering raindrop wetness.

My raindrop shattered, too,

and with its demise,

I opened my wings

like parachutes,

fwooosh,

and felt even more shattering raindrops of my feathers, dancing lightly

on the fibres of my wings,

and I reached for the ground,

alighting softly upon the pavement,

my hair drenched,

my wings spread,

and my heart racing.

I opened my eyes

to the darkness,

listening to the rainfall,

and my heart

longed

for wings.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Traveling the World


Idea #1:
-Print off an uncolored world map like the previous. Make sure you have big paper.
-Start coloring in the places you've been. Feel free to color code it somehow, like by year, or you can just follow the color code of whatever world maps have so none of the colors touch. It's up to you.
-Every time you visit another country, color it in.
-My goal is to have at least one country per continent...excluding Antarctica. I'm not big on frozen wastelands.

As soon as I find the right piece of paper, I'm going to begin my traveling record.
Enjoy!