A Trip to the Zoo

I visited the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska today and I left feeling discouraged. I expected to go and have this great experience. I was excited to see the animals and to revisit a zoo I have only been to one other time in my life. Not to mention, this was going to be my first solo road trip. The trip itself went fine, no trouble, but while at the zoo I can't say that I had the best time. Maybe it was because I was by myself, I'm not sure. I can't shake the feeling though that I am disappointed in my experience today.

The thing that bugged me first and foremost was the lack of space that the big cats had. They each had a small indoor and outdoor enclosure, but it wasn't even remotely enough room to run around in. At least the Blank Park Zoo seems to accomplish that. Several of the cats were pacing and panting, signs of distress, and that didn't do much to boost my spirits. If it's one animal that I love to watch, it's the big cats, but seeing them upset is not how I want to observe them.

Another thing that got to me was the fact that I saw several keepers today, but not a single one looked happy to be doing their job. From my standpoint, I feel like I would be excited to work at a zoo, if I'm shoveling snow for the penguins or poop for the armadillos. I guess it was disheartening to see people in the position that I wanted to hold not enjoying themselves. And sure, I know not every day is going to be a good day, but of the 8 or so keepers I saw, not a single one looked to be in a good mood.

So now I'm home and I'm contemplating my choices again. I expected the zoo trip to set in stone one way or another- Yes, I absolutely want to do that for the rest of my life, or No way, that's definitely not for me and instead I've found myself stuck in the middle. I'm getting fed up with not having found a passion for something. Isn't that what college is for? "To find what you love to do and do it so well that someone pays you to do it." I don't know what I love to do! I thought I loved to work with children, I thought I loved to work with families, I thought I loved to work with animals. None of it seems to fit right. The science track is so hard for me that I wonder if I've even chosen the right path to take.

I sit here and I want to work with animals. I don't want to observe them or just be in their presence, I want to work with them. I want to train, feed, breed, and care for them. I've considered the vet career before, but not only is that at least 6 more years of school from this point, I think it's an unattainable goal for me. Like I said before, the science track is already so hard for me, and it would only be even more of that. On top of doing well in my classes, I would need recommendations and a good score on the GRE exam. These are things that I just don't feel are within my grasp. Maybe I'm not believing in myself enough, I don't know.

I do know that I need to make a decision pretty soon. I'm in the final weeks of my spring semester of my second year. Major changes after this point are going to add years to my schooling, if they haven't already. Just an example- if I chose to pursue the vet career, I have to receive a C or higher in the required classes for them to count towards my application. I can probably pull a C in the bio class I'm taking now, but if it's even a C-, I would have to retake the entire course and lab for it to count. That could set me back an entire semester or even a year if I struggle with enough classes. It's discouraging.

I'm not saying that I want to be a vet. I mean, I do. I have wanted to since I was a young girl, but I'm worried to make another snap decision. I'm nervous to even consider a career path that would involve even more hard work, time, and expenses.

"Well if you want something bad enough, you're going to have to just buckle down and push through." Yeah, I get that. Problem is, I don't know what I'm so passionate about that I will find the determination to push through for.

That Albatross Around My Neck

"Free to struggle, but not struggling to be free"- Tenth Avenue North; The Struggle

I had coffee with Sara today, and after my session with my counselor yesterday, I was worried about the conversation we would have. Yesterday, I think I discovered the core of my struggles: I've been doubting whether or not any of what I have believed or lived for the last 4 years has been true at all. I had not admitted out loud that doubt until yesterday, but it was there. From that initial doubt was the question of if I had ever been truly saved by God. If nothing about God was true, then that question was irrelevant, but if God was real, had I never truly been His child? Had I just been riding waves of everyone else's salvation?

I was hesitant to share with Sara these doubts. I knew that she had been there for me through this rough semester and I didn't want her to know that I had come so far from Jesus. I didn't want anyone to really know that I have actually been doubting my faith. I can only imagine the disappointment when people that have known me for years find out that I have fallen so far. One of my biggest fears related to my doubts has been that I am alone in this struggle. I have known others to struggle here and there, but I don't personally know anyone who has gone through months of no desire or motivation to seek God. I have felt literally as if I am the only one to struggle in this way. I have had no one to tell me that they came out the other side just fine. I have had no one to understand me. At least not that I was aware of or realizing.

Sara shared with me the depression she has experienced and she shared with me that she had doubted her own salvation as well as the existence of God. I wasn't alone. She told me that despite my lack of motivation, my desire to want to desire God showed her that I had truly tasted the goodness of Jesus at least once in my life. It's hard for me to see this from the inside, because all I see are my emotions and the way they don't match up to my actions. All I can see is the heavy psychological weight I have around my shoulders of all the guilt, anger, and sadness I have accumulated over the past 6 months. As someone from the outside looking in however, Sara says that she has never doubted my salvation.

She quoted the Tenth Avenue North song to me and she told me that no matter what, God will always chase after my heart. She encouraged me to pray no matter how silly I feel or no matter how insincere it may seem. To scream it, yell it, or cry it out. To tell God what I think and ask for what I need. She encouraged me to read my Bible, to read anything. To just put myself in a situation where I am around God. She told me that instead of sitting around and waiting for an emotion or waiting for that dark cloud to part, that I should seek God. That even if it didn't feel real and even if it was the last thing I wanted to do, to do it anyway. To ask God to help my unbelief. This advice reminded me of what my counselor asked me to consider last week: what actions can I take to change the outcomes that I have come to expect? If I am sitting around expecting God to appear, but also believing that He won't, I'm setting myself up for failure. So why not take action? Even if I don't want to seek Him, maybe taking action is the way to change my outcomes.

So I think I'm going to try it. I am truly scared that I will find nothing, but while I am struggling with my belief, the voice that says there is hope, there is truth is a little louder than the other. I want to find Jesus again. I want to find eternal joy in Him, and maybe this conversation with Sara today was Heaven-sent. Maybe I needed to hear her words that would spur me in the right direction.

"So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light."- Mumford & Sons; Ghosts That We Knew

The Weight of Living

"There's an albatross around your neck.

All the things you've said,

All the things you've done.

Can you carry it with no regrets?

Can you stand the person you've become?"

 

 

Albatross: a seemingly inescapable moral or emotional burden, as of guilt or responsibility.

I think we got to the core of it today. There's a lot of doubt in my life since I have rebelled against what I knew. Along with that is the doubt that it's ever been real. That it is real at all. I'm not sure if these doubts came from the rebellion or if they were deep inside the whole time, but I'm hoping to get to the bottom of it and to decide what I really believe.



What You Are

I heard a friend make a comment the other day that really made me sad for her and myself and all of the women who are constantly bombarded by images of what we "should" be.

Talking to my counselor the other day, she mentioned to me that the word "should" introduced the idea that there is blame. To say "I should have..." puts blame on yourself for things that may have been out of your control.

So with that thought in the back of my mind, I think I reacted a little differently when I heard my friend say "I'm looking at these clothes and realizing they are not the size they should be." To say this implied that she was somehow to blame for her size.

So here's what I want you to know, weather you're a woman or just someone who feels pressured by the "ideal" image:

WHAT YOU ARE IS BEAUTIFUL.
Period. That's it.
You have been perfectly made, perfectly shaped into who you are and you are not at fault.

The magazines and the TV shows, they don't portray women as they are. They will show you 100 bad sides of yourself before they show you one positive thing. They will tell you you're too fat, too skinny, too tan, too pale, too tall, short, or any number of other things.
The truth is that YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL.

I'm not saying that I don't struggle with negative thoughts about myself. On the contrary, I've struggled with myself quite a lot. I will admit that some mornings I wake up an I hate what I see in the mirror and I think some of you can relate. But why? Why have I decided that what I see is not good enough to be loved? I have bean fearfully and wonderfully made.

What I want you to know is that you shouldn't be anything but yourself. If you want to work out, awesome! If you want to eat healthier, great! But make those changes because you have decided that you want to. Don't jump on the next fad diet or almost kill yourself exercising because you feel like you should look some certain way.

Please, please don't let your self worth come from what others tell you to be.
And learn to know that you are beautiful, you are exactly how you are supposed to be.
If you have to write it on a sticky note to read daily, or if you have to remind yourself every hour with an inspirational quote, do that, because ultimately, you deserve to love yourself and to make it through each day with your head held high.

Friend of mine, this is for you. I love you and I want you to know that I am here for you always. You inspire me with your kindness and your sweet heart and I want you to be proud and joyful in yourself.

Going Big

I'm going to push through this semester and I'm going to take control of my choices. Things aren't just going to happen to me anymore. I'm going to change my actions to change the outcomes.

No more negative self-fulfilling prophecies.

I know I'll mess up and make mistakes, but I need to escape this tunnel. I need to get away from the self-pity and the darkness.

So here we go. Action plan. I'm having my best friend change passwords to Facebook, Twitter, Imgur, and Tumblr. I'm deactivating my Netflix. I'm deleting the apps from my phone. The only things I'll keep are Instagram for my 100 Happy Days challenge and this blog. The social media has been a huge distraction and a refuge, but no more. I'm going to use what I leave myself with for good, positive interactions.

Go big or go home.

Moving

I would like to move far far away some day. Across the country or maybe to another continent completely. Just so that I can be completely alone. No one will know me or my story, and I can start from scratch. I can make new friends, make new memories, have new adventures and then *I* can decide when I leave. The people I've met and come to care about won't up and disappear. For once I'll be the one who chooses when it's over and when I move on. I'd like to be far away from the places that constantly remind me of what I've lost and what I've been through. I really need a break from this constant cycle. I need to break out of this endless circle of the same tasks over and over again. I'd just like to move, and keep moving, and travel and explore and have the chance to do my own thing. Rely completely on myself to get by. I want to learn the hard way and have stories to tell when I get back. I want to be rejuvenated and I want to feel alive, because really, I only feel empty.

Someone Tell Me

Someone should tell me where an entire year has gone. 12 months ago today, I broke up with my boyfriend of 3 years and I'm not sure exactly how a whole year got away from me.

One minute, I knew who I was, and the next I'm here. I'm lost, confused, and worried I'll never find my way back.
"I don't even know myself at all..."

I've been doubting my salvation lately, wondering if the feelings I have experienced over the last 4 years have only been buoyed along by what's been going on around me. I've fallen so far off the path that I don't know anyone who has struggled for this long anymore.

It's just me. Out here alone on open water with no shore behind me and no foreseeable land ahead.
"Sometimes I feel just like a sailboat. Don't know where I'm headed..."

It's scary to think that 12 months, 365 days have passed me by. That each one was filled with activities and memories, up and downs. It's even scarier to think that at least 5 of those months have been spent in rebellion and under the cover of depression.

Talking with my counselor today was helpful I think. Each time I leave, it feels like I have a little less weight on my shoulders as I did when I walked in. We talked about the old home today and the flood. We talked about the idea that I want to go back to that time when I was at the house because I felt safe and protected there, and I want to feel that way again. We also tied in the idea that losing my faith has left a large hole in who I am and who I have identified with. I'm lost without it and I no longer feel protected and safe where I am. I feel open and exposed; as if I'll lose everything at any moment. With God, I knew that I was under His care. Now I don't know if I still do or if I'm on my own.

I want to believe that this is just one long rocky road. That at the end, I'll be able to look back and say "Yeah, that was crazy. It was hard and lonesome and scary. But I made it through and I'm better for it." I want to believe that God has known from the start that I would go through this and that He knows the beginning and the end of it. I want to go back to when I was content in the Lord.

But sitting here, I don't know if that was ever the Truth for me. Was I just parroting what I heard? If it was real for me, why was reading and praying consistently such a battle for four years? Wouldn't I learn to strive after God by that time? Why would I go through baptism or on those missions trips if I didn't really believe? And what about that certain feeling in my gut when I knew that I needed to end my 3 year relationship? Wasn't that God working in my heart?

Here's my conclusion, one that I'm sure I've said over and over in the past few months: I want to be free and joyful in God, but I don't know how anymore.

Another thing I learned about myself today is that I have achieved several self-fulfilling prophecies by the way that I act. Building on that, I'm wondering if my depressed behavior has become such a habit, that it would be as simple as acting in a different way. If I stop thinking that tomorrow will be just another difficult day, and instead I determine to set my mind to positive things and positive outcomes, perhaps I can see a positive change. It's hard for me to see if the depression is caused by the lack of my faith or vice-versa, but I have a feeling it's all connected, and to work on one aspect will make the other a little better as well.

So that's how I'm going through today, thinking about how I might change my actions to create different outcomes. How I might act differently so as to not make those negative self-fulfilling prophecies come true.

Short Story Time!

So I posted a little story earlier, but I have made some pretty significant changes. I've decided to start a new blog just for my little writings, and you can find the link here! I hope that you'll follow up on the story, because I am pretty proud of it! Enjoy lovelies!

On a New Note

I have a few updates, that among the weight of all the darkness can maybe provide some light.

First, I have started seeing a counselor through Iowa State. It's a free service that they offer here and I'm hoping that it might help a little bit. So far, I've only been to two sessions- the initial one and then my first official one with one of the real counselors. Well, actually, she's just a practicum student, but I like her so far and I'm comfortable with her. I have 7 more sessions with her, so we'll see how it goes.

Second, I have started the 100 Happy Days challenge. Basically, for the next 100 days, I post a picture to social media of something that made me happy during the day. It can be anything at all, just as long as I post at least one a day. I'm excited about it. I think I need a little happy in my life, and this will be a bright spot I believe. It will take me through the beginning of June and the end of the school year, so I'm hoping to see some serious change of heart.

Finally, I have been having lots of ideas for writing prompts lately. I'm not sure what that's about, but little short story ideas have been cropping up all over the place. Hopefully one of these days I'll have the time to develop some of them, and no worries- I'll share them here!

Expressing Myself

This inability to express what’s going on in my head is really starting to become upsetting. Not only do I feel lately like there’s no way for me to express myself, but the self-hatred is starting to really build and it’s toxic. When I say self-hatred I mean that I don’t like who I am; who I’ve become. I hate my body. I’m not happy with my looks. I dyed my hair recently, and I really liked it for the first few days, and now it’s just another part of me. It’s not really a solution. I didn’t change anything. I’ve been eating horribly this semester and I know that has an effect on how I feel and even how I look. I’ve gained weight, I’m almost sure of it. I feel heavier and I think I can see it in my face too. What is wrong with me that I never have the motivation to do anything? I don’t have the motivation to continue to work out and change my body for the better. I don’t have the motivation to be healthy and live well. I don’t have the motivation to read my Bible or pray daily. I don’t have the motivation to do my school work or go to classes. I don’t have the motivation to be the best version of myself that I can be. What is wrong with me?

I miss my home on Holcomb so much lately. Every time I think of that place, its summer and its warm and I’m young and carefree. I can see the garden, smell the flowers, almost feel the grass beneath my feet. I can walk through that house and see the soft yellow walls glow in the sun, feel the cool linoleum on the soles of my feet, see the little dust motes floating in the sunshine in the kitchen. I can see my room, almost touch the things that I used to own. I can feel the cool, damp relief that the basement brought on a hot summer day. All I have to do is close my eyes and I’m back home. I’m back in that place. All I want to do is be there. Is to have one more chance to appreciate that home. I feel like I was just on the verge of being able to appreciate so much in my life when I lost it. My childhood home. My grandparents. My innocence. What I wouldn’t give for one more day with my grandparents, one more day to tell them thank you and ask them all the questions left unanswered now. How much would I love one more chance to walk through that house and touch my belongings, maybe save a few more of them. To look around and know that no matter how crappy it may have seemed, that place raised me and made me who I am today. If I could just take a moment to tell myself that none of the drama matters, and that boys can wait. Maybe if I could save myself a little bit of heartache maybe I wouldn’t be here.

I have been on my own this semester, even this year. I have completely detached myself from what I know to be my faith and my life. I haven’t sought God, I haven’t grown. I’ve become stagnant, luke-warm water. It’s not a life that I want. It’s not a life that I can live. I cannot live the rest of my life floating through each day without the hand of God. I can’t do it. It’s too draining. But I don’t know how to get back. I don’t have that motivation. It’s just plain not there. I feel like Iowa State is draining me. I feel like maybe I’m not in the right place. But I can’t just up and leave. Where would I go? And who’s to say these feelings are not just being driven by the overwhelming self-doubt that has taken root in my life? I just want to be done. I sit here in this lecture hall and all I want to do it be sitting in an apartment somewhere that is not in Iowa. I want to have my own space with my own things. I want to be enjoying a great job and maybe a great relationship. I don’t understand why this part of my life is going to be so essential, because no matter what, I think I still believe that this period of time has been in the big picture plan all along.

Despite all of this, I just want to be happy again. Genuinely happy. What scares me is that I don’t know if I’ll ever get there again. I cannot see the light at the end of this long tunnel.