Breaking Point

Yep, I think I've reached it. I know God will never give me more than I can handle, but come on, can I catch a break? My worries compared to the worries of others is probably nothing. This is just me being selfish and a complainer. But you know, it ends now. I am going to try my best to say what I feel instead of keeping it all in because that is the reason for all this mess. So the next time you ask "Why?", I will have an answer. I will just let it all out. Take it or leave it, the truth will come out. I'm sorry for not opening up to you, there is so much I have to say now.

My eyes are stinging from all the tears. It is refreshing in a way, a good cry. I think it truly makes you realize what is important to you, because you don't cry as much as this over just anything. And this, this was a long crying episode.

On a happy note, I've been listening to a lot of Death Cab, Iron and Wine, Snow Patrol, and Coldplay. They're magical. "You could be happy, I hope you are. You made me happier than I've been by far." And that's just the thing, maybe it is time to let go. I pray it's not, but maybe the time has come.

Thank you for such a beautiful life, God. Sorry for making it about me sometimes.

I had a dream I stood beneath an orange sky..

A very close friend introduced me to the song "Orange Sky" by Alexi Murdoch. Ever since my first listen, I have dug and dug for the meaning of this song. I could listen to this song for hours on end.

The great thing about music is that songs can have different meanings for different people. I don't know what Mr. Murdoch was feeling when he wrote this but I think of two things when I listen to this song. The first being the importance of my family. When I feel like I can't carry on, I lean on my family. This song just gets me. And makes me realize the beauty of them. And second, when I hear this song, I always think of God and Heaven. One night, I was laying out in the grass and looking up at the stars, this song was playing, and it just hit me. While gazing at the stars, I just had a deep yearning for Him.

Well I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
Yes I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
With my brother standing by
With my brother standing by
I said brother, you know you know
It's a long road we've been walking on
Brother you know it is, you know it is
Such a long road we've been walking on

And I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
With my sister standing by
With my sister standing by
I said sister, here is what I know now
Here is what I know now
Goes like this
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, in your love, in your love

But sister you know I'm so weary
And you know sister
My hearts been broken
Sometimes, sometimes
My mind is too strong to carry on
Too strong to carry on

When I am alone
When I've thrown off the weight of this crazy stone
When I've lost all care for the things I own
That's when I miss you, that's when I miss you, that's when I miss you
You who are my home
You who are my home
And here is what I know now
Here is what I know now
Goes like this
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, in your love, in your love

Well I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
Yes I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
With my brother and my sister standing by
With my brother and my sister standing by
With my brother and my sister standing by

-Orange Sky, Alexi Murdoch

I'm not who I was

I wish you could see me now

I wish I could show you how
I'm not who I was
I used to be mad at you
A little on the hurt side too
But I'm not who I was

I found my way around
To forgiving you
Some time ago
But I never got to tell you so

I found us in a photograph
I saw me and I had to laugh
You know, I'm not who I was
You were there, you were right above me
And I wonder if you ever loved me
Just for who I was

When the pain came back again
Like a bitter friend
It was all that I could do
To keep myself from blaming you

I reckon it's a funny thing
I figured out I can sing
Now I'm not who I was
I write about love and such
Maybe 'cause I want it so much
I'm not who I was

I was thinking maybe I
I should let you know
I am not the same
But I never did forget your name
Hello

Well the thing I find most amazing
In amazing grace
Is the chance to give it out
Maybe that's what love is all about

I wish you could see me now
I wish I could show you how
I'm not who I was

"I'm Not Who I Was" -Brandon Heath

I can't get enough of this song.

God is rocking my world today.

Let's say something lovely..

He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself.
-F. Scott Fitzgerald

How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.

-Annie

I love that you get cold when it is 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle in your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

-When Harry Met Sally

What's meant to be will always find a way.

-Trisha Yearwood

Over and over and over again, I say that we're just friends. Forget the implications, infatuations end. If love's so easy, why is it hard; I can't imagine ever being apart. I'll come back to you, it'd be brand new. But I promise, we're just friends. Over and over and over again, I try to make amends for everything that I've done wrong. My whole world just spins, make some coffee, hold me up, try to talk me out of giving up. I'll come back to you, it'll be brand new..but I promise, we're just friends.

-Wilco, "We're Just Friends"

“I think everyone has a certain part of their lives where they truly wish they could freeze time. Whether it was three years ago, today, or still to come, whether it was just a moment, a whole day, or a whole summer. Everyone has a time in their life where they wish everything would just stop. The world would stop turning and people would stop changing because to them, at that time, everything was perfect.”

"God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages."

You never quit on your music...no matter what happens... cause anytime something bad happens to you, it's the one place you can escape to and just, pshh, let it go.
-August Rush

A few times in my life I've had moments of absolute clarity, when for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp and the world seems so fresh. I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be.

-The Single Man

You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.

-Inception

Whatever happened to chivalry? Does it only exist in 80's movies? I want John Cusack holding a boombox outside my window. I wanna ride off on a lawnmower with Patrick Dempsey. I want Jake from Sixteen Candles waiting outside the church for me. I want Judd Nelson thrusting his fist into the air because he knows he got me. Just once I want my life to be like an 80's movie, preferably one with a really awesome musical number for no apparent reason.

-Easy A

Happy.

I feel like I know what it means to be completely and genuinely happy. Do you ever have days where it feels like you don't have a care in the world and you are just simply living? Welcome to the past week of my life. I have accepted the fact that I do not write my days and that God is in control and will NEVER give me more than I can handle. And I find peace in that. Lots and lots of peace. Every obstacle I encounter, He knows. Every temptation I face, He knows. And He is with me. Every day, every hour, every minute, every second. He never leaves.

Spring is my favorite season. You can see so much beauty during this time. The trees are blossoming, the birds are chirping again, the temperature is just right, and you can drive with your windows down again. When I think of spring, new beginnings come to mind. I am ready for a new beginning.

I will love you..

I will love you with no regard to the outrage of certain parents or the boredom of certain friends. I will love you no matter what is served in the world’s cafeterias or what game is played at each and every recess. I will love you no matter how many fire drills we are all forced to endure, and no matter what is drawn upon the blackboard in blurry, boring chalk. I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table. I will love you no matter what your locker combination was, or how you decided to spend your time during study hall. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Monday.

I will love you if you cut your hair and I will love you if you cut the hair of others. I will love you if you drop your raincoat on the floor instead of hanging it up. I will love you as a starfish loves a coral reef and as a kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them. I will love you as the pesto loves the fettuccini and as the pepperoni loves the pizza.

I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer. I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness in the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged print of the document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eye as it misreads what is written. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. I will love you as a child loves to overhear the conversations of its parents, and the parents love the sound of their own arguing voices, and as the pen loves to write down the words these voices utter in a notebook for safekeeping. I will love you as a shingle loves falling off a house on a windy day and striking a grumpy person across the chin, and as an oven loves malfunctioning in the middle of roasting a turkey.

I will love you as an airplane loves to fall from a clear blue sky and as an escalator loves to entangle expensive scarves in its mechanisms. I will love you as a wet paper towel loves to be crumpled into a ball and thrown at a bathroom ceiling and as an eraser loves to leave dust in the hairdos of people who talk too much. I will love you as a cufflink loves to drop from its shirt and explore the party for itself and as a pair of white gloves loves to slip delicately into the punchbowl.

I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong. i will love you as a battlefield loves young men and as peppermints love your allergies, and I will love you as the banana peel loves the shoe of a man who was just struck by a shingle falling off a house. I will love you as a volunteer fire department loves rushing into burning buildings and as burning buildings love to chase them back out, and as a parachute loves to leave a blimp and as a blimp operator loves to chase after it.

I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled.

I will love you until every fire is extinguished and until every home is rebuilt from the handsomest woods, and until every criminal is handcuffed by the laziest of policemen. I will love you until the bird hates a nest and the worm hates an apple, and until the apple hates a tree and the tree hates a nest, and until a bird hates a tree and an apple hates a nest, although honestly I cannot imagine that last occurrence no matter how hard I try.

I will love you as we grow older, which has just happened, and has happened again, and happened several days ago, continuously, and then several years before that, and will continue to happen as the spinning hands of every clock and the flipping pages of every calendar mark the passage of time, except for the clocks that people have forgotten to wind and the calendars that people have forgotten to place in a highly visible area.

I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where we once we were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively.
I will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from slim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this, and no matter how I am discovered after what happens to me as I am discovering this. I will love you until the taxi loves the muddy splash of a puddle and as a library loves the patient tick of a clock.

I will love you if you don’t marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else. I will love you if you have a child, and I will love you if you have two children, or three children, or even more, although I personally think three is plenty, and I will love you if you never marry at all, and never have children, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all, and I must say that on late, cold nights I prefer this scenario out of all the scenarios I have mentioned. That, is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.

-Lemony Snicket

I went on a mission trip in 2008 to Peru.

I would return in a heartbeat.

I went there thinking I was going to make a difference in the lives of the people there, when actually they made an extraordinary impact on my life.

This little girl in the picture with me is Nadia. She was 4 years old when this picture was taken. We formed a great attachment and leaving her was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I often wonder how she is doing now.