Young Bride

Sometimes I see my friends who are younger than me getting married, and I'm jealous. Or I see my friends my age who've been married years and have kids. I'm sad. It bothers me. I start wishing I'd had that. The chance to begin that stage of my life that early. I'll wish that I'd met my boyfriend sooner and that we'd gotten married two and a half years ago, and I think how great things would be now. I plan it all out in my head, something that never can happen because that opportunity is already gone. And it makes me sad.

Then I think of all the times my life has gone exactly as I planned for it to. Which is to say, I realize that it never has. I can't know what will happen in the future, and I can't know what would have happened in the past had things been different, or even how things would be now.

I realize that I feel as though we've wasted time, as though the years we didn't spend together have somehow been wasted because we never can live them together.
But those years have made us who we are. Those years have given us the ability to be happy together, something I don't know we would have had if we'd been together sooner. The experiences we each lived in the time before we met are why we love each other the way we do now, and it would be difficult for me to say I wish I could change that. There are certainly things I regret and things that bother me from both of our pasts, but I can't say I wish that to avoid it we'd been together the whole time, that we'd married when I was eighteen or nineteen and that we had three kids by now. I want a family, but I want that when we're ready for one.

I want to marry soon, in the year I'm twenty two, which isn't as old of an age as I sometimes think it is. I don't want to wait for another five years, or anything of the sort. But I'm glad we're in the position we are today. Because if we weren't in this position, we may not have ever gotten married at all. I'm glad that I don't marry at eighteen because I wasn't the person I am today, and I'm glad that it is the person I am today who will be marrying the person my boyfriend is today.

Responsibilities

I keep seeing stuff about that blog post by Veronica Partridge and now that follow-up article by Ashley Dickens. So many Christians have been outraged by Dickens' article.

I agree that modesty is important, but I also agree with the Dickens that there are other, larger issues at play that Christians do avoid. I think the author may have been too harsh on the woman who wrote the original article, however, as she never intended it to be widely read or discussed. However, I do find it ridiculous that the post was as popular as it was when articles about some of the topics mentioned in the Dickens article barely even get noticed in most Christian communities, let alone get discussed and argued about with such great intensity. And that's not to mention how few people read about a serious issue and actually do something about it.

While I do wear yoga pants, I don't have a problem with the original post. Yet I do agree with this writer's point that there are far more important unresolved issues in this world that far too many Christians would prefer to ignore while they focus on issues they think they are responsible for, such as whether or not to wear yoga pants. But as Christians, we are responsible, whether it involves us or not whether we caused it or not, we are responsible for the pain and suffering and the damage in this world.

I think the main thing we should take away from all of this is that arguing on the internet isn't doing anyone any good, and it never will. If we mean what we say in all of our angry posts and comments, then why don't we get out there and do something in the world?

A Farewell

Here is my farewell to 2014 in the form of a few of my written thoughts from throughout the year.

Sometimes I wish I had pen and paper with me at all times.

Sometimes I almost cry just because I have to eat my ice cream alone.

Sometimes I need a change of scenery to help me think, to help me not go insane.

Sometimes the weather's nice and I'm still not entirely happy.

It amazes me at times that I can still smile.

Sometimes I enjoy the delicious taste of the expression of rage. Other times I am repulsed by my own abrasiveness.

Sometimes I wish my college life could just go back to reading textbooks and taking exams.

I'm only emotionally stable when it's absolutely necessary.

I wish I was as awesome as I imagine I am.

There are some mistakes that no one can prevent you from. And there are some mistakes that if prevented you would never become the person you are today or the person you will be in the future.

Changes and God and Stuff

My life has changed a lot over the last several years. Looking back on previous posts I see a girl who was all for outwardly expressing my love for God. I don’t see that in myself now. Sometimes I wish I did. But when I think about it, I’m not even sure I knew who God was then. I’m not sure I know who God is now. But I do know that I would like to find out.

Caring Again

I could never stop caring. Even when I want to, my heart burns inside of me with the pain of those around me. Even when I want to believe that I could focus on my own pain, my own problems, I still feel what they feel. I know I’m not literally feeling it. But I cannot help but imagine what they are feeling, to want to do something about it, even in situations when I can’t.

I remember the time I killed a spider. I do it all the time and I never think twice. But there was this one time. I let it live in my window for a month and a half until it got cold. At first it would run away when I would open or close the window, but gradually it got used to me. I had never hurt it, so it just stayed still. I became afraid that it would come all the way inside as it grew colder, I guess. But what could it really have done? But out of my concern for myself, I killed it. And it sat there and let me. It knew all that time I wouldn’t hurt it because I never had. And then I did. Worse than that, I killed it. And it didn’t even move an inch when I came in with a tissue to end its life.

That may seem petty to you. Ridiculous that I would even care about something that stupid and small. But I can’t help but feel as though I betrayed something. I let my concern for myself override my compassion for others, and that one instance has bothered me for the last three years. It doesn’t mean I never kill spiders. It just means I don’t let them trust me and then kill them, and if I can avoid killing them, I do.

You might think I’m one of those crazy people who is all for not killing anything at all under any circumstance. But stay with me for a minute.

As I drove home today from school, I had a lot weighing on my mind. But I tried not to let it undermine my happiness about my graduation. And then I saw this deer. It had been hit by a car and was still in the road. But as I passed, I saw it move. Its breath steamed in the cold air. It was still alive. Just lying there, waiting to be hit again at the bottom of a hill. I did everything I could think to do, and the man who had hit it came back to end its life. I was just glad it wouldn’t have to suffer anymore.

I could have kept driving. I could have thought, I’m not equipped to do anything in this situation, so I don’t need to try. I could have said that it wasn’t worth it or I could have ignored it in order to continue focusing on my attempt to remain happy. But I couldn’t do that. How could I put my own happiness before something like that? It didn’t even enter my mind.

I am moved by compassion regularly. People tell me it makes me a good person. But does that really define a good person? Shouldn’t people just feel that way anyway? But I get caught up on things just as much as other people. It isn’t till it’s staring me in the face, just like tonight, that I am moved enough to act.

It bothers me that I let things pass so often that I could have prevented or at the very least helped with. And it bothers me that it can be so easy to just ignore the suffering in the world. It bothers me most during the times that I find myself unable to ignore it. When I feel so strongly about something that I can’t let it pass. Because I don’t know why I can at other times. And I don’t know how people can every day. How can we pass something or someone suffering and do nothing or think that we can’t or shouldn’t help? I can’t understand the feeling. And yet I feel it in myself. Sometimes I want that. Sometimes I don’t want to have to deal with the death and suffering this world throws at us, as though if I ignore it, it’s not really there because I am not thinking about it. But I simply don’t have that option.

Death is a part of this world. Suffering is a part of this world. Pain is a part of this world. That’s the reality of it. And if that’s reality, then isn’t there anything we can do about it, that we should do about it? Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like as people who say we follow God, we should be willing to put ourselves aside a little more often for the sake of those around us to alleviate the suffering we see in the world. Or at the very least to not add to it.

Remembering What was Never Forgotten

Sometimes I feel as though I have forgotten what it was like. I wish things would go back. I ask, “Do you remember when…?” and I ask, “Do you remember the first time we went…?” You fill in the blank. I’ve said the words a thousand times, because I feel so different now than I did then. I feel like I lost something over time. I feel like everything is different. I feel like it will never be the same. And I’m right. Nothing ever will be the same, and everything really is different. I am different. But I haven’t lost anything.

There are moments in time when I feel like I have remembered. I feel the same. I feel that this is love. But what I have failed to realize is that love changes. I cannot feel the same as I felt then because it is not the same. And it never will be. In two years, I will not feel the same as I do now because things will be different. But in that moment when I felt I remembered, I was not remembering what I thought I was remembering. I was remembering a feeling. I was not remembering love because I couldn’t remember love. I cannot remember what I have never forgotten in the first place.

Forgetting What was Never Remembered

I hate when I can't remember things. Like when I got the strawberry Chapstick, or where the apple-flavored sucker on my bed came from. They trigger a memory and I know I've seen them before, I know they are mine, but I don't know when I have seen them and I don't know why they are mine. The memories are less like memories and more like pieces, flashes of something never quite remembered. The candy is in some way connected to my boyfriend and the Chapstick came from Walmart. Perhaps such meaningless trifles aren't worth the worry. Maybe it shouldn't matter that I don't remember something as useless as where an apple sucker came from. Yet it seems to spread.

It does not spread like an infectious disease, spreading from memory to memory until I have none left. I remember a story of what happened at work, but I don't know what day it happened. It is not that I forgot. There was never anything to be forgotten. It is not that I am losing my memories. I am losing the ability to remember. I cannot forget what I never remembered in the first place.