Discipline

I have none.

I stayed home from school today and I am so bored out of my skull!

I want to do something because my legs hurt from sitting, so real fast, so I can get up and walk, this is what I have decided.

Seems to be a hot topic amongst everyone right now...

taking care of your body.

I eat terribly, I am lazy, and I am often sore because I don't MOVE.  I'm a lazy bum, and I'm admitting that.  The only "exercise" I get is when I clean for Juli on Friday's but that's not really exercise.  I mean I'm moving and all that, but not vigorously.  

With this semester I am going to be busy, however after 2:00 every day I will have a window with which I can MOVE, EXERCISE.  I will have the house to myself so I can just pop in a work out video (as lame as they are it's a little too cold to go outside anyways) or run up and down the stairs or jumprope, and if it's nice I can just go to the park after school and walk around.  Bry and I are going to try... no wait. .. Bry and I ARE going to work out on Saturdays.  We will have to work around my schedule at TJMaxx but we will make it work.  Both of us would like to be in shape for Nicaragua.  Nicaragua is not an easy trip, that country is seriously ALL hills.  If we go to the same loacation we did last year... oh man there are 3 hills to climb several times a day.  Of course with the new orphanage we probably won't have to climb so many hills, but nevertheless it would still be nice to be in shape.  

My body is just so dang sore all the time because I just chill out on the sofa after school.  I'm a LAZY bum.  My legs are stiff and my back hurts.  I need to change that and I have many reasons to motivate me so I'm excited.  !!!  I pray for my mom and dad, that they can draw motivation from somewhere.  It seems like all my mom does is sleep and I'm starting to worry about her.

The Tragedy of Youth

I'm in denial.  Maybe, it's not all so much denial.  It could just be hope.  However, it is painfully hard to distinguish the difference between the two.  They are awfully similar, depending on the situation of course.

My best friend is moving and with everything that's in me I want to believe God will perform a most miraculous miracle and let her stay.

My life as of late has been a stream of movie moments.  You know what I mean?  Those moments that seem epically (epicly... whatever I don't even know if that is in fact a word so just humor me here) tragic, epically profound.  Those moments to me are awesome, however sad they may be.

So Bry, Andy, Aubrey, and myself are all sitting on and around the stage discussing this that and the other thing.  It's really uncomfortable, at least for me.  I don't do good in situations like that... I tense up and crawl inside myself.  

"We're going to have to move."

I started crying so hard.  I didn't want to, especially in front of Andy and Aubrey.  Bry's seen my cry before but not them.  I find nothing shameful in crying, it just felt so awkward.  So weird.  I couldn't keep it inside though, it came, it blew out, I was sobbing.  

I drove home that night on the highway.  I turned my radio off and just listened to the sound of the tires on the pavement, the sound of all the other cars and the wind.  I cried some more.  

My parents got home and I told my mom that Bry was going to have to move.  She cried with me.  We cried together until my head hurt so bad I thought I was going to throw up, so I went to bed.

Today driving to school I blasted this schwank song by Modest Mouse and took the long way around.  I don't know what the song is called cause it's on a CD mix, but I wish I could remember because it is like this awesome song that belongs on every soundtrack ever.

All of those moments, to me, seemed like they belonged in a movie.  I love movie moments.  I've had few in my life, but when they come around I'm just like... this moment belongs in some artsy weird indie film.  Speaking of weird artsy indie films, if you haven't seen the movie Kabluey, go rent it or get a pirated copy.  Ha, just kidding about the pirated copy.  It's such and awesome movie it deserves the 3 bucks it costs to rent it.  It's like... a really funny movie that starts developing into a really awesome heart felt story.  Lisa Kudrow... or however you spell it you know Phoebe from friends, is in it and she does and awesome job.  Watch it! and let me know what you think.

It's Been A Long Time Coming

Today at church I nearly lost it.

I composed myself because I hate trying to pull myself back together after a long cry.  Especially around people because they always want to know what's wrong, which is sweet, probably not sincere, but sweet.  Besides of which I'm one of those breathy cryers so if I tried to explain myself it wouldn't have made any sense.

Lately, now more than ever before, I've been resting in the FACT that there is, in fact, a God up above us.  I feel it in my bones, and my soul.  He exists.  I KNOW it.  He's an amazing God.  A loving God, and most of all a forgiving God.

I've always been weary to put my "testimony" out there for others to hear.  I am far from where I want to be in life.  It seems to me as if a testimony is a "I'm satisfied" story.  A, "I've been through hell and now I'm going to chill out cause I'm happy, and at peace" story.  I'm far from satisfied, far from peace.  However, I've been going over and over in my head this testimony to my faith.  It's something I've been wanting to share for an incredibly long time, and however impersonal a blog seems to me, most of those who are reading this are far far away from me anyways.  

So it begins in Junior High.  Do you believe it?

Cause it actually begins when I was born, but the it just gets more interesting when I turn 13.

There I was, entering junior high.  I was chubby, sweaty, and awkward.  Looking back, I don't know how I made it through.  I don't know how anyone made it through.  Well, OK that's a lie, I do know how I made it through.  With the everlasting love of my God.

So back to the CHUBBY, SWEATY, AWKWARD part.  I was, just that.  I hated it.  I went through seventh grade barely noticed, hardly visible.  I had friends, good ones, bad ones.  I wasn't much of a "popular kid" no matter how much I may have tried to be though.  My parents began to think I was depressed and should see a counselor.  That was probably just their way of not having to deal with angst later on.  They thought, "oh let's get her taken care of now."  Ha!  Just kidding.  They cared, that's why.  Anyways, I hated that idea.  I'M NOT DEPRESSED.  I made it through my seventh grade year alive.  My mother one day says to me, "Trisha, are you down on yourself because of how you look."  I meakly replied yes, or something.  I don't know, it's vauge.  Basically what came of it is my mother and I agreed to go on weight watchers together.  I lost a lot of weight that summer and felt so much better about myself going into 8th grade.  Skip ahead..... somewhere in the middle of first semester I guess.  I was on a quest to be the most unique self I could be.  I began wearing a skirt over my pantelones every day.  All the time.  Every day...  I turned into this oddly "goth" creature, still keeping all my good values and morals however, which made me very unpopular amongst the "goth" crowd at school.  Image is huge in junior high.  The attitude that follows the image, even more so.  Anyways, that wasn't too important.  I had my group of friends.  I remember it well.  We were a quaint posse.  My BFF at the time, yes BFF, well forget the last F, that didn't turn out too well.  So, back to the story, my BFF at the time was the skinniest lanky little girl you could ever know.  She was just as confused as I was, and together we made a very insecure duo.  Mostly what I remember about our friendship is that I envied her skinny lanky self, and she envied my status.  My "coolness" if you will.  Amongst our little posse I was pretty awesome.  Moving on, into 9th grade.  I toned down the look a bit.  I was still "goth" you might say.  Pretty much all black, always.  Dark eyeliner.  It was legit.  Over the past year I had gained some weight and I was very unhappy with it.  It started soon, I wasted no time.  I began to ... starve myself.  All week long I would make sure that I wasn't eating.  Dinner was my only meal as to avoid suspicion amongst my parents.  My mother at some point questioned me on why the breakfast bars weren't dissappearing.  With that, I made a stach in the bottom drawer of my dresser.  I soon came to find that it wasn't all that easy to starve myself.  As much as I wanted to, I couldn't really do it.  The weekends would arrive and I'd sit at home like a bum, or go spend the night at my BF's house.  I would stuff my face all weekend to compensate for how starving I had been all week.  It grew very frustrating gaining back all that weight.  I would drop nearly 5 pounds during the week and gain back at leas 6 or 7 every weekend.  I was determined to do something about this.  It was then I learned to purge myself.  Now, this was a "skill" that took some time.  It's not an easy thing to do.  You may think it is, but if you've ever tried to make yourself vomet when there's but 1 ounce of food in your stomach it's not easy.  Although it was frustrating I dared not give up, and one evening, after Halloween, much candy had been consumed, I got it.  It came up.  I rejoiced.  

Thus, the purging spiraled out of control.  I was sticking my finger down my throat, at the most, seven times a day.  I was weighing myself probably 10 times or more a day.  OH NO I ate something did I gain weight?  I did 30 jumping jacks did I lose weight?  "I'm going to go to the bathroom, I'll be right back."  I went from a weight of 130 to a weight of 107 in 3 months.

The methods in which I used to hide this were successful for sometime.  I'd do it in the shower, turn the fan on, grab a sack and head out to the barn.  Inevitably, however I was found out.  My mother was distraught.  I was distraught.  We sat, crying.  "Why?"  Dad came home, we talked, not much, but the decision was made for me to talk to a therapist.  I went but 5 times until I finally figured it out.  I needed God.  I had God, the whole time.  I believed in Him.  I went to church, youth group, the whole shebang.  I just hadn't really really been involved.  I was going through the motions, living a seperate life.  Being someone else on the side.  The vometting continued for a while, but soon all was forgotten and I knew I was slowly destroying myself.  I had already begun to feel the effects.  I was having difficulties digesting food, keeping it down.  I knew, I must stop.  

Sometimes I fear, I may be going through the motions again.  There is always something new to struggle with.  You get rid of one challenge, and along comes another one, nearly right behind it.  This morning at church I just felt God.  I knew He would take care of me.  I'm handing my load over to Him.  I'm FREE.  God has given me this AWESOME sense of freedom in my own body.  Something I never felt before.  I may not have some sculpted body of a model, but it's the body God gave me and I love it.  I'm free in it.  I pray that this isn't just a zealous, in the moment sort of thing.  I really really believe God is going to take care of me.  He has wonderful things ahead in the future for me and I'm ready for it.  I may not be, but He will help me through.  He is always helping me through.  He's made me FREE.  I pray He sets you free too.  It's the most incredible feeling to have those chains broken, to break down that bondage.  To be victorious over your temptations, your struggles, your fear.  

Prayer

Bry introduced me to her friend Mike a few weeks ago.  He's a very nice fellow and came to our youth group so we agreed to go to his.  When we got there it seemed like your average youth group.  Everyone was chillin, playing games eating food.  The leader, Jason came and welcomed us.  It was all very youth group ie if you will.  We soon were upstairs for the more structured part of the evening.  To start we prayed.  However it wasn't just like your God bless this night prayer it was let's walk around in a circle with the lights dimmed.  This all made me very uncomfortable to begin.  I kept hearing "Trisha, this isn't wrong."  In the deep part of me that wanted to just slap the cult title on it all.  The experience was nevertheless interesting.  It didn't end there though.  We proceeded to pray for our city schools and families.  We stood in that circle proclaiming the things we felt were in need of prayer.  This was all very typical, nothing too unordinary.  Then we all started praying ALL AT ONCE all together in this circle, we're all praying for the same thing, different words, different reasons.  

The entire time I was basically praying that I would stop judging these people.  All this was good, it wasn't a bad thing.  It wasn't something that should be condemned.  It was quaint.  ... I suppose really what it comes down to is how different it was from anything I've ever experienced.  It seems to me that a youth group has the goal of numbers.  For the reason of reaching the youth and yada yada.  With that prayer time you aren't going to pull in a lot of new people.  If I was one of those kids who went to youth group simply because my parents made me, I would find that whole time to be, in fact, "cultish" if you will.  

That prayer time I suppose is just something I think should be done with an intimate group.  I could see the worship team on Sundays doing that.  If me Bry Aubrey and Andy sat down to do that it would be cool.  It would be an intimate time with God.  The big group prayer I hardly know most these people just makes it all seem very shallow to me.  ...

Anyways it was a good experience.  I'm glad I went.  I just don't imagine I'll be back.  I dig Element youth even if I don't always feel like I belong.  So there I will remain.

I'm Just A Little Impulsive Sometimes

I'm still not too sure.

But I might just go through with clinicals.

I think I may have been experiencing an intense fear.

Fear that it would be HARD.  It will be hard.  I know that.

Fear that I would make a fool of myself.

I will.  I always do.

I was being a little rash too because the kids I sit next to drive me up the wall.

They talk about really personal things.  Like... really personal things.  Things I really don't want to hear about.  I just sit there... working, sort of.  It's just so annoying.  They don't even know me and the girl is like "oh my gosh I think I might be pregnant."  The guy is like  "don't tell your boyfriend we used the electric bed together."  (like you know the electric beds they have in hospitals, we had to practice with those and they were partners and he is always teasing her about how she shouldn't tell her boyfriend how he gets to touch her and stuff.)  It's so ridiculous.  The boy is OLDER than me and I could just slap him silly.  I don't even know how they became friends, none of us said anything for like the first month of school then out of nowhere they were like hanging out with the same people...

Seriously though, why would you come out and say I think I might be pregnant in front of a girl you don't even talk to.  I mean maybe she doesn't think I'm paying any attention but when I sit right next to you, I'm going to hear things dearie.  

Anyways, I think I'll go through with clinicals.  I may end up really enjoying it and deciding that nursing is the very thing I want to do.  

Tasha is in HCC's also so we could do clinicals on the same night, then I wouldn't feel so awkward and alone.

I always hate how the kids are like "what night are you going to do it?"  It's like beef up and do something by yourself for once.

But then I hate being all awkward and alone.  Ha.  Whatever.

So I guess I shall be finding out what it takes to be a nurse.  Maybe I'll love it, maybe it will be a waste of my time.  This will just be a good way to find out.

Super.

Hello Trisha. This is God Speaking.

I'm listening.

I'm not getting it.

You keep teasing me.  Throwing life right in my face.  HERE IT IS TRISHA!  THIS IS LIFE!  I'm sure I've probably misunderstood the meaning of life then, cause you keep taking it right out of my reach.

A few weeks ago there was a real possibility that Bry might have to move.  It made me so sad I had no moivation to do anything.  All I wanted to do was sulk and fall deeper into the loneliness I was preparing to feel.  Bry is an amazing friend and God has really blessed me with her.  

I feel like He is telling me, Oh... Haha just kidding Trish.  

I know God isn't doing that to me.  There's a lesson somewhere deep inside this... somewhere DEEP insided this.  I can't find it.

I'm sure if you're reading this you probably know that Bry is my dearest, closest friend.  We spend a LOT of time together, and I'm happy to report I really don't get sick of her.  She has an incredible spirit, an unbelievable maturity, and a really really awe-some love for God.   

Bry told me she wasn't going to have to move!

I got my butt of the couch and I had a zest for life again.

I realize there shouldn't be this much riding on one single person.

Maybe the lesson here is God should be all I need.

Bry might have to move again.

HERE TRISHA!  HERE'S AN AMAZING FRIEND FOR YOU!

HAHAHAHAHA JUST KIDDING YOU DON'T GET TO KEEP HER!

Yea OK so God's not like that he doesn't say stuff like that.  

I'm just so frustrated.  It seems as if ever since I was in kindergarten all the good friends I made moved away.  

I'm not friends with any of them anymore.

I don't want that to be Bry and I.

Of course, that was elementary school, so that was an incredibly long time ago and I probably wouldn't have anything in common with any of them anymore.

I just want to be Bry's friend.

I just don't want her to have to move.

Everytime I think about it I just feel lonely already.

My silent prayer is for Bry to get to stay here.

I know she might HAVE to move, I know it might be what's best for her mom and her dad.  

My reasons are selfish, I know.

I just seem to spend so much time praying for a friend.

God gave me one.

An awesome one.

My best friend.

Now He's just going to rip her away?

Hello Trisha.

What do you want out of life?

I want my life to be extraoridnary.

But WHAT do you want?

I suppose I haven't the slightest clue.

I thought I knew EXACTLY what I wanted.

Apparently not.

It was set.  I was going to do clinicals next semester, get my CNA.  Move onto nursing school.  Work as a medical missionary.

...

I don't want to be a nurse anymore.

...

Maybe it's just me being lazy.

Maybe I just don't want to do clinicals.

I haven't figured that out yet.

Maybe I'm afraid because it's going to be hard.

Here's what it boils down to:

I'm not particularly a people person.

...

That doesn't fly so well if you're working as a nurse.

It's not just that I'm shy and quiet either.

I sometimes get a little snippy with people at TJMaxx.

...

I love the health care field.

I find it all incredibly fascinating.

I suppose maybe I want to land somewhere in health care, or something related.

These are the thoughts I've been rolling through my mind all day.

_Social worker

_Orthopedic Dr. 

_Forensic Scientist

_Archeologist

_Missionary straight up, nothing medical about it.

My favorite idea is social worker.  It would be incredibly draining, but oh so rewarding.

Orthopedic doctor... that would be cool.  Bones are fascinating.

Forensic scientist...  I don't know how I feel about digging up dead people.  We're the only culture in the world who finds that to be a respectable career.  If you really think about it... yea it's pretty raunchy.  I wouldn't care to do that. 

Archeologist?

That would be awesome!

However schools for archeology are few and far between.  They're also incredibly expensive.  

Archeology kind of goes back to forensic science too.

I don't know how I feel about digging up dead people, and ancient remains.

Missionary.

Awesome.

What happens when I'm too old for it?

...

I don't know.  It's so frustrating.  I want to just go with the flow.

It's so difficult.

My parents were so excited when I told them I wanted to be a nurse.  Everyone was so excited.

Maybe it's the kids I sit next to.

I really get annoyed with them...

ha I don't know.

I think the bottom line is I don't want to be a nurse.

So I'm hopefully going to get out of HCCII next sememster and choose a different class to take.

Maybe I'll be a paramedic.  I love Basic Emergency Care.