be(love)d

shocked me still and speechless

oathkeeper24 — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 05:29:47 +0000

So today while watching the boys, I took them to the park. All four of us went up to the park and played in the sand and the sun and on the playground and on the pavement. It was wonderful — downright frabjous, really.

After a long time spent, with no nourishment and very thirsty boys, I decided to get them Italian Ice (I know, coolest babysitter ever – they hadn’t even had lunch yet). As we were sitting down in the shade to enjoy the yummy treat, out of what seemed like nowhere, Matthew (7 years), asks me,

“Miss Aimee, do babies ever die in their mommy’s tummy?”

A question about babies in mommy’s tummies didn’t shock me — we had talked about babies in mommy’s tummies at some earlier point while I watched them. But the actual content of the question shocked me.

I sheepishly stuttered and tried to find the right words. I ended up telling him that yes, sometimes babies do die in their mommy’s tummies — and then proceeded to tell the story of how my baby brother almost strangled himself with the umbilical cord while in my momma’s tummy. He then said to me,

“I’m glad I didn’t die as a baby in my mommy’s tummy. But if I did I guess I would go to Heaven and grow up there! And then I would be watching you having Italian Ice here at the park…”

and the whole time i could only think of one thing — “you are giving voice to all of those voiceless who never get to live because they die in their mommy’s tummies… because their lives are taken out of selfishness…”

amazing, the wisdom we receive from the mouths of babes.

all i could think was “thank you, God.”

I felt like i was being spoken to… straight up, from those li’l chilluns who rest safely now in the arms of God.

home is where the heart is…

oathkeeper24 — Sun, 16 May 2010 04:06:01 +0000

so i am dreadfully bored. sitting at home, in my lovely pasty-white room with lovely birch-toned wood furniture. It’s cute — really lovely furniture that speaks to the lover of indie in me. But i’m used to it, have had it for years and years and it has become just the typical. so i am bored with it. at least for right now, while I have papers to do and i am attempting incessantly to put them off.

I have three papers to do — all of which I hope to be finished by next Friday evening.

I have been back at my home in California for 4 days now. Amazing how quickly that time just flew by already.

But is this home?

I call Pittsburgh “home” now, and though I do sometimes call this place “home”, more often than not I just call it “California”. I don’t love this place. It’s nice, don’t get me wrong, and I love my family here. But I don’t love here. My heart is not here — my heart is with my family. And just as much now, my heart is in Arizona with Kyle (or wherever the heck he is right now) as it is here, at 2107 Bates Circle. I don’t love California. I love Yosemite. I love the beach. I love the Mendocino Coast. But more than all of those, I love Pittsburgh. Why? Because there are countless people there whom I love. And I’m not just talking sentimental touchy-feely love. Yes, I can get sentimental about certain people but thats not all of it. I am only here at home because of my family. I could have gotten a nanny position in Pittsburgh, but I chose to come home to see my lovely family.

(My brother is going off to college in August. Scary. Man. He’s really a lot of the reason why I came home…)

But my heart is not all here. My heart is in pieces all over the nation right now — my love is scattered across miles and rivers and maybe even oceans.

So where is home?

What is home?

From Garden State:

Andrew Largeman: You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn’t really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone.
Sam: I still feel at home in my house.
Andrew Largeman: You’ll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it’s gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It’s like you feel homesick for a place that doesn’t even exist. Maybe it’s like this rite of passage, you know. You won’t ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it’s like a cycle or something. I don’t know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that’s all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.

And I guess that’s what I’m trying to find for myself right now. I love my family here, but I don’t miss the same imaginary place that they do anymore. I miss a different place, with different surroundings and different faces.

And maybe i’ve found that place in someone else…
I can’t say for sure yet. But I do indeed think that it’s worth finding out.

*sigh* to my home out there, I miss you.

“to love at all is to be vulnerable”

oathkeeper24 — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:18:58 +0000

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God’s will than a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness…We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as a way in which they should break, so be it.
~ C.S. Lewis

God has taught me so graciously this year about my ability to trust. It has taken years and years of hesitation — and prayer — to finally get to the point where I am now. For years… and through many many relationships… I was so brokenhearted and so tender that I would let no one get near my wounds. Not my closest “friends,” not my past boyfriends, or even my parents or… myself.

I was too proud to admit that I had problems trusting. I locked away my heart and did not let myself get hurt in the ways that were still hurting. I promised myself that I wouldn’t open up that part of me. It was a tacit promise — but it was lived through each encounter and relationship that I had. I didn’t trust people to be kind to me, to love me, to want to be around me, to be sincere. I didn’t trust myself to not get hurt again. I would feign trust, feign true love and giving when I wouldn’t give the most important parts of me. And I grew cold and I grew absolutely skeptical of the ability of people to really love me — and of my ability to trust that they love me.

And after one of the worst heartbreaks experienced this past year, I learned a lot about myself. I consciously realized what I was doing and I made a firm resolution that I was going to change it. Unfortunately — I didn’t know how. I didn’t know one bit how I was going to trust people deeper than the surface. So I prayed and prayed for the ability to trust.

To trust God. To trust myself. To trust others.

I am learning to trust and feeling that ability stronger than ever before — but I guess I just didn’t know if it would ever happen. I believed in the power of my prayer so much more than I believed in myself to change. I believed in God to do what is best for me. And I guess that was the first step of trusting — being able to offer to God all of my fears and hesitations and letting Him do with them what He will.

I’m not scared.

I know that to love at all is to be vulnerable.
But love is sacrifice.

And there’s something about trusting God with your heart that truly opens you up to whatever may come down the difficult road that love leads you down.

“if you want it,
come and get it.
crying out loud,
‘the love that i was
giving you was
never in doubt’
let go of your heart
let go of your head
and feel it now”

Protected: i don’t really ask for signs…

oathkeeper24 — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 23:33:29 +0000

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it’s too loud

oathkeeper24 — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 18:08:57 +0000

T_T

It’s too loud in the study room. I’m going to go nuts because I can’t write with all of the noise. But I can’t go back to my room.

Such a deep subject, this Utilitarianism. And I can’t get it straight with all of the extraneous noise. DX

Just thought I would mention that. Yeah.

well hopefully this all works out…

oathkeeper24 — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 07:04:56 +0000

Really…. really I hope it all works out. As my professor told me today –

"Existential crises are serious business, and not something to laugh at...
They do feel very strange (and overly self-indulgent and
even selfish when they are happening), but they pass as long as you take
the time to work out whatever issues/questions are bothering you.
I'm honestly not at all surprised that you're having one right now.  I
imagine that your faith and your secular commitments are not always in
alignment, and I assume this creates a general challenge in your daily
life.  But this seems to a problem for all people who believe in higher
powers of one sort or another, so you're going to have to come to some
comfortable conclusion about them."

So — I’m in the midst of this massive “existential crisis.” And it sounds so STUPID. It sounds so pointless and roundabout and just not at all what I was hoping to hear. But i guess its SRS BZNS. I’m just glad my advisor understands (I omitted the part of the email where he told me a cute little anecdote about his experience with this kind of issue).

ANYWAY – because my advisor is SO AWESOME, I am really hoping that I can come back next year — because I would get to have him for an awesome class called “Law, Ethics, and the Life Sciences.” Sweet, huh?

So here’s a peek at my schedule for next year. Take a look! FRIDAYS OFF!!! YEAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

peace, love, and cupcakes~

eating habits, work ethic, and finally having the humility to say “i need help.”

oathkeeper24 — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:11:13 +0000

so i think i’ve already mentioned my abhorrent metabolic difficulties due to carbohydrates — So i’ve come up with a new policy. No carbs. Well — not NO carbs, but nothing that is primarily carbohydrates. I can have a sandwich or other food that may have bread or some carby bun, but it must be the minority of the foodstuff. No pasta, no pb&j, no toast, no bagels, no chips, no donuts, no crackers or cookies or rolls with only one piece of meat on them. My diet has GOT to change if I wish to have the energy needed to LIVE. Carbs just kill my energy level because my metabolism can’t take it. So right now I’m eating veggies and beef, with a side of rice. Yes, I know rice is a carb, but its not alone, nor the major part of the meal. I’m hoping that this change in diet for me will give me more energy, and prevent me from falling asleep after eating…

my work ethic. if you’ve been following me in the LEAST you know that I would practically kill to be done with school already. I have the best work ethic when it comes to the things I love. I don’t love school. In case that’s not apparent, see my prior postings on it. SRSLY. But after discovering that I’m going through an existential crisis (says my therapist), I realized that I am having a tough time, but that I can and NEED TO pull through. I want to stay in Pittsburgh. My only option when it comes to staying in Pittsburgh is I NEED TO STAY AT CMU. At least until I graduate. So. I need to get my butt in motion and I need to get my act together.

And I’ve been working at it — for the last week I have passed up opportunities to go out with friends, to see movies, to do fun stuff — all for my schoolwork. I have given up Stalkbook and have become a practical recluse all for the sake of academia.

So I’m gonna get ‘er done. And i’m gonna get two papers done TONIGHT. TONIGHT — you hear!?

But really…. finally — after realizing that what I’m going through is not unfamiliar — and is ACTUALLY a problem, I was able to pick myself up and realize that it’s okay to ask for help because what I’m going through is real and it is hard. I have such pride issues when it comes to asking for help that finally being able to ask is such a feat of humiliation that I am so happy to have it. And I’m so happy to have professors and an amazing advisor who have been there for me and are doing all they can to help me to (at least partially) succeed.

So I guess I should thank God for the humiliation. And I do. I praise God for the chance to grow in humility and for the opportunity to rely on others for help. After so many years of not wanting to rely on others or trust others for anything, I’ve finally come to a point where I need to. And honestly, it’s one of the best experiences I will probably ever endure.

her morning elegance (oren lavie)

oathkeeper24 — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 23:43:41 +0000

beautiful video — watch and be amazed.

ever since i was a little girl…

oathkeeper24 — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 22:58:02 +0000

you always have that one thing that you wanted dreadfully — for years and years but which you never quite got your hands on. Everyone has it — whether it be that awesome toy boat to float around in the pond, the doll that had beautiful long hair and looked just like you, or perhaps a set of nice crayons or paintbrushes. Well — I had the one coveted item as well. And for as long as I can remember, I wanted saddle shoes. I wanted the cute laces and the two-tone patterns with the lacy type edges. I wanted the class of a private school girl while having the freedom to run around and dance in them (because of course I was in public school). And I wanted these shoes more than almost anything. And for years and years I would search at shoe stores to find the coveted black and white beauties — and for years and years I was let down time & again.

Well have no fear, all of you out there with a dissatisfied inner child — I have attained my goal of saddle shoes once and for all!

…turns out they have them at Payless in ALL the sizes you could possibly imagine!!

aren't they wonderful!?

So I’ll have my saddle shoes hopefully for contra dancing next week — and i’ll break out those beauties like its 1999 (yes, I was only 10 at the time — at the peak of my love for them, actually).

high school burnout – motivations & quandaries thereof

oathkeeper24 — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 17:17:57 +0000

So i’m sitting in my dorm’s study room. quiet. silence. finally.

and i’ve been lamenting my lack of motivation — my lack of desire to do anything of import with my education here — or to do anything to really further that education and succeed. A self-disdain grows out of my apathy, and it only compounds and makes things worse over time.

Time — I don’t feel like i have much left before the end of the semester. I only have 11 hours til I need to have my next paper in. And I still don’t comprehend what’s going on. Time — all the time i spent studying for the last econ exam to no avail — I failed horribly. Time — all these fleeting moments that I honestly feel I could be spending so much more effectively if only I loved my work and was doing something worthwhile.

I don’t feel like I was meant for college. I wasn’t meant for the university setting and just… continual classes. By the time I finished high school I was a burn-out. I was waiting for the relief — for the time off so I could just—- breathe. And I can’t. I’m so suffocated in this environment where success is always measured in the number of answers right — instead of how I’m spending my life. My happiest times are never when I’m reading Kant or Mill or studying on the money system or macroeconomics or on globalization. I don’t find these things fascinating at all. The only class that I’m enjoying right now is my Historical Evidence and Interpretation class… because I’m writing a paper on Chanel… and even in that class I’m floundering a bit. The happiest times are when I am studying fashion history or discussing morality from a Catholic perspective or doing pro-life work. My happiest times all involve sufficient input, work, time invested… but it’s not school. It’s not spending hours poring over books that I honestly couldn’t care much less about. *sigh* And though sometimes I wish I could have a re-do for maybe just this semester — to try again and do things right with what I know now, all the same I can’t go back and change time… history.

There is this overwhelming pressure to get good grades. I need to do semi-well to keep my scholarship. But like the last exam for econ — I studied for HOURS upon hours… and I failed it miserably. So I put in time and effort and I was left with a grade that shows nothing for it. So what am I supposed to think? The pressure gets to me because I need to keep the scholarship to stay here. And I love Pittsburgh and the friends I have made and the people here — I love it. But I just feel like I would be so much happier if only I could just work and live here in the city. Have a job and just get by that way. I dunno…

I’m just so sick of school. So sick of not really “learning” anything and being pushed constantly to the point of little ashes on the floor. If i was a burnout in my first semester here… what does that make me now? You can only burn a candle’s old wax for so long before it just peters out. I feel like I’m at that point.

But I don’t feel like I have a choice.

…so I guess that means I should get back to work now.