Life is going to suck.

Life is a string of piñatas. Sometimes there’s candy, sometimes there’s mice, and sometimes there’s cow dung.

This past semester was one of the hardest semesters of my life, both mentally (class load) and emotionally. Past issues that I thought were healed were only scabbed over, and all of it bled into my eyes, my anger, and my self-esteem. I was crying about something at least every other week. I took on two writing classes with two literature classes, all of which involved their own amounts of reading and writing, while tacking on two other classes and an assistant editor position on my school’s literary journal. I felt like I was half-assing not only my homework, but my relationships with my friends. I pulled three all-nighters in a row because I wanted to be there for them.

But the truth is I can’t be there for everyone. I can’t make it to every party, every concert, every bonfire because I really like sleep. I fall more than I catch myself, I don’t give myself enough “me” time, and when my time of the month comes, I’m going to be a bitch because being a woman can be a pain in the ass.

There will never be enough time in a day. I may spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how to better prioritize the things I want to do with the things I need to do and still not find a good balance.

But this is not a pity party. I want to remind you that if you feel like the semester is never going to end, if you hate your job, if you are sick of putting on a smile to people you don’t even like, hang in there.

You will probably meet a lot of fake people in your life. You may find the people who know exactly what to say to get you to do something, you may drown in the bills that pack like dirt in your mailbox, you may find yourself crying at night because your day was just plain crappy. Don’t be fooled thinking the person you pass by in the hallway, the cashier taking your order, or the person surrounded by friends at the coffee shop are all flying high. Cute clothes and a smile are only a show sometimes. There are a lot of good liars in this world.

But if there is a down, there’s an up. I passed my classes, I had a memorable Christmas break, and I worked out my financial problems just in time to take on another round of classes. I can’t go shopping for a while, but I can pay for groceries. Sometimes you just need to pick yourself up enough to get through one more day.

But that’s life. No one skirts their way around all their problems. You can dodge some, but you can’t dodge everything. So if you need to cry, find the Kleenex box and fill the trash can. If you need to vent, grab someone you trust and spew away. Make a pot of coffee and finish that stupid project, take a walk so you don’t destroy public property, and find something that makes you laugh so that, for just a moment, you can remember what it’s like to be stress-free.

It’s going to suck sometimes. You’re going to want to go home when you can’t, but hang tight. You’re going to want to give up, but hold on. “There may be pain in the night, but joy comes in the morning.” 

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Memory is a gift.

Across the room from me, there are 36 pink, heart-shaped post-its pressed against the wall, though some curl at the edges like crippling flowers. These little notes are my room’s version of a photo album. For some people, pictures are some of the most important memories because they are able freeze a moment onto a sheet so they can relive it in their minds later.

Scribbled onto these post-its on the wall are quotes my roommates and I have said to each other that we’ve found humorous. This kind of memory is able to capture a personality. Whether it’s an opinion about something or someone, a whitty remark, a miscommunication or ignorance about something that makes us laugh is a way for us to remember each other and smile.

Memory can sometimes feel like a curse, but to remember things like your adventures into new places, your failures that became lessons, your loved ones whose bodies now shrink in boxes underneath marble nametags is a gift.

Memories become pillows and chocolate on the days you wish life wasn’t such a pain in the ass. Those moments in those pictures will never be lived again, or at least not in the same way; just as those moments on our post-its will never be relived except in our minds.

So when opportunities arise, take the chance to make some memories that you’ll want to remember. I’m almost 22, and already I have done and seen so much that it excites me to no end to think that this is only the beginning. Fear and worry are your enemies. They will do nothing for you, so don’t welcome them. Try new things, go to new places before you tire out and don’t have the energy to go anymore. Already I feel more tired than I felt even a year ago.

As addicting as Facebook is, it’s not going to do much for you. Of all the things you post on Pinterest, how many are you actually going to do/make/look at again? Trust me, I have these problems too. But remember how precious time is. Take your lazy day when you need it, follow the rules so you don’t get fired, but there is so much life in the trees just outside your door, and we have a tendency to use that time to sprawl on the couch and watch a second movie we’ve already seen. Even in your priorities, there’s life and excitement that you haven’t noticed. Never lose your sense of adventure, of wonder, of a love for life, for people, and for God. Let your mind be as free as that of a child.

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Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

I’m terrible with goodbyes. And they are everywhere. Each day has an end. Each book. Each adventure. Each person.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my trip to Ireland and my 3 months spent in Italy. It is a deep sorrow that needs to be learned to live with and accept. But before the goodbyes, there’s life. There’s love. There’s hope.

Desires can be traps. To crave something you can’t have is a sorrow deeper than a grave. Part of me craves to go back to Italy. The other part of me craves to go back to Italy with the people I had been there with, but that would mean going back in time. I can now only relive those memories in my mind. I can hit replay on the laughs, but I won’t hear them there again. I can imagine laying out on a soccer field, but we won’t again. I can see the vineyards, the buildings, the mountains in my mind, but it’s unlikely I’ll ever get to see them again except in pictures. I can tell stories, but they will only be stories. The others will never really know, no matter how good of a story teller I am.

To experience is to live. But to live is to lose. For everything we’ve experienced will eventually come to an end.

Living in the past is like being dead in the present. I look back on my study abroad in Italy, my spring break in Ireland, and can smile at the amazing chance that I was given. But then the other half of me misses it to the point of tears.

Parting is such sweet sorrow. It has been almost 5 months since I’ve been back, but I have yet to find the strength to accept the goodbye. 

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Leave a Legacy

I was flipping through facebook pictures of a classmate we lost 2 and a half years ago and couldn’t help thinking back to the last time I had seen her before she died, her funeral.

I remember the line of people at her wake that stretched out the church doors and down the gravel road. The sobs that grew like a coming car as new people stepped in front of her casket, needing to look away, yet not wanting to. 

Fresh notes tack onto her Facebook wall every now and then when a memory is sparked in the mind of a friend. Words of fun and laughter, always ending with an “I miss you.”

I didn’t know her well, and even I am trying to hold back tears. She was so loved by everyone. And that was because she loved everyone. She was only 20, but she affected more people around her than many ever do in a lifetime.

It made me think—when I die, what message am I leaving? Who would I be remembered as? Am I pointing people in the direction of love as much as I am in the direction of God? Will I be remembered as the optimistic one who was there for others, or the pessimistic one who complained?

As this world gets worse, I want to strive to be someone who gives people hope, makes people laugh, reminds them how much I care. I want to leave a legacy. Strive in your own life to leave behind the memory of someone who cared. 

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Make Me Laugh

This has been the busiest summer of my life. I wish the days had been longer, and that winter ended before April, but I have also been extra happy at times this summer.

I think it’s basically because of the people I am blessed to spend my days with.

If you can make me laugh, I basically already consider you a friend even if it would be our first time meeting. I love being with and around people that have a good sense of humor, and can make me laugh because laughter can brighten your mood, someone else’s mood, or even your whole day if it was being fed to the pigs. When you surround yourself with people that make you feel good or can make you smile just by being the dorks they are and saying the obnoxious, stupid, or wise things they say, you find less and less bad days.

Now don’t hear me wrong, there will always be bad moments, but then when you talk to or hang out with the right person, s/he can turn it around maybe without even knowing it. And soon, the things that seem to keep going wrong, or the problems that crush like and ever-rolling rock don’t seem as big of a deal, because you know who you can go to.

I’m a waitress, and some of my customers make me want to sharpen the steak knives, but then I get to go into the kitchen and work with some pretty amazing people who can make me forget almost instantly. I am also blessed to be so close with my family that I consider my cousins to be some of my best friends. If it weren’t for them, I would have gone to college in Tennessee.

All of them have their dramatic moments, but we’re only human. Doesn’t mean we all don’t also need space from each other every once and a while.

I guess what it all buckles down to is this: surround yourself with people that make you grin, make you laugh till your eyes sprinkle, make you look to the sky and think, “You know, life is pretty good.” Trust me, your good days will outnumber the bad. And wouldn’t it be nice to have a little break from stress? 

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I think you’re beautiful

I legitly love people. I moved back to college for my junior year 2 days ago and as I sit looking out my window, a bunch of the new freshman are just outside by the sand volleyball court and pond, grilling hot dogs, playing volleyball, playing bean bags, chinese ladders, and sitting in circles on the grass talking and hanging out.

The Bible says that above anything else, we are here to love people. If you can bring someone to Christ, bring them out of the pit of poverty and help them back to their feet, or just put a smile on their face for the first time in a week, awesome…but we need to love, and looking outside, I only know five out of probably seventy-five people that I see, but I love them. I don’t know them, but I don’t need to. I see what God must see when He looks down on us–the life in our eyes, the smiles on our faces, even the limp in our legs. I don’t know if that guy is wearing a vikings Tshirt cause he actually likes the Vikings, or because he got it for free ; I don’t know if that girl likes volleyball, or if she’s just playing because her friends are; I don’t know if that guy is playing beanbags cause he wanted to, or if one of the guys dared him into playing. I don’t know anything about any of these people, I can only make guesses.

I’m not a creeper, I promise, but there is something soothing about watching people. As a writer, it is basically my job to watch life, watch love, watch the sun rise and set so I can describe them in my writing. I need to see deeper than what the eye glances over, see the piece of gum squished by a thousand high heels and dirt-stained tennis shoes because someone was too lazy to walk an extra six steps to a trashcan. The eye misses so much. They don’t know I’m watching them from my dorm room window. If they looked up here, they might be able to see me, even though there is enough daylight to make glares, but they are too busy talking to friends, flirting with guys, and living what they know as their lives.

Most will go back to their dorms, maybe a few to rooms with quiet roommates that make things awkward, maybe a few to the student center to flirt with whoever else they can meet. If I knew them personally, a couple would probably annoy me, a couple may make me blush, a couple may even turn into good friends, but for right now, I love them if they were my own kids.

Learn to love everyone, and when you look out your window, maybe you will see the beauty that I see, the casualness as they fling a frisbee, the way they lay on the grass and read a book. So normal, yet beautiful. Beautiful people.

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You are the driver. So drive.

I was looking through some past journals today, and got to thinking about old times. I love memories. I love being able to picture the cabin by the lake when we went fishing in a speed boat; or when we go to my grandma’s house to go offroading in the summer, hundreds of deep green trees spanning the hills, covering everything like umbrellas. Memories keep me going, especially on days I work long hours and just want to go home, or when I’m crammed studying for 3 tests I have the next day. Memories keep you strong, keep you pushing, keep your hopes up, and become the cushions of old age, the stories you tell your grandkids like the ones my grandma tells me.

But I think sometimes we think too much about them. We look back on fun times and think it will never get any better than that…but it can. Don’t let memories hold you down and become an excuse of why you can’t do something. If you have a bad past, don’t let it ruin your future. Anyone can start over, anyone can make their lives better as they get older, you just have to have a positive attitude  If you’re usually a pessimist, shut up for a second and try saying something optimistic, even if you don’t believe it at the present time. If YOU think there isn’t a chance in hell, then there wont be, because YOU are the only one holding you back. Life has mountains for a reason–to see how far you are willing to go, to see how much you are willing to push yourself to do something.

Give optimism a shot, and don’t let memories cloud your judgement. You are the driver. So drive.

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It’s where the heart is…

Home is where my heart lays in barn dances on saturday nights, home-grown beef for supper, and a family who drinks the grocery store’s supply of coffee. I had the best childhood ever, and I think it’s because of my parents that I chose a college only an hour from home. I like getting out there to start my own life, but through that life, I don’t want to be far from my family so I can still see them from time to time, otherwise I’d probably move to Texas. I went there on a vacation with my sister August 2010, and I fell in love with the place. I almost didn’t want to come home because I felt like I fit in down there, but then I come home and realize that no matter where I go, Minnesota will always be home, and I will always find my way back here no matter where I go for periods of time.

I saw a post on Facebook that said this:

“My curfew was the street lights, and my mom didn’t call my cell, she yelled “time to come in.” I played outside with friends, not online. If I didn’t eat what my mom made me, then I didn’t eat. Hand sanitizer didn’t exist, but you COULD get your mouth washed out with soap. I rode my bike without a helmet. And getting dirty was okay. Click “Like” if you drank water from the garden hose and survived.”

That was my childhood. Heck, I still drink from the hose. Nothing is better than well water. I also realized how much I miss home cooked food after months of college food. I watched the movie “Sweet Home Alabama” today and realized that is kinda how my life is. I speed to get off the highway, but then slow down once I get back on those curvy country roads where I find my peace. Small town life is awesome.

Even if your past might not have been all that great, it got you to where you are today (which is hopefully a good place. If not, maybe you should look at the direction you are headed). Refresh yourself of past memories that taught you something, made you happy, or made you laugh, because you are going to need stories to tell your grandkids 🙂

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Laugh when a Child Laughs

Writers are the ultimate stalkers. I am allowed to sit and watch people with the excuse that I’m writing about them. There is not much that I don’t notice. I see the piece of blue gum squished flat into the sidewalk from a thousand shoes, and the callouses on your fingertips. I notice empty straw wrapper thrown on the ground and the freckle by the hairline on your forhead.

There is nothing in this world that doesn’t deserve my undivided attention. I can sit in a coffee shop for four hours, bringing nothing to do, and just watch people live their daily lives without feeling the need to talk or do something. I would rather listen than talk; I’d rather watch than do.

I went to Target a couple weeks ago, brought my notebook, walked to the food aisles, and sat down at the end of an aisle where the busiest street was in the store. I may have noticed the little old lady searching through betty crocker cake mixes by herself, and the mother singing songs to hush the little girl in a yellow sundress standing in the cart while she gently bounced the baby strapped to her chest, but what I noticed most, was that it was only the kids who watched me.

We’d have staring contests and they would always win, for I couldn’t help but turn away with a smile. Kids don’t see any harm in staring, whereas the rest of us become embarrased and look away if we meet eyes with the person we’ve been looking at. A couple of kids asked really loudly “Momma, what is she doing?” and would point to me. The mothers would say “I don’t know,” and hurry thier kids away, giving me apologetic looks, though I saw curiosity in their eyes as well. It made me laugh, but at the same time, it makes me wonder what they all see. God tells us to be more like children. Kids see everything and aren’t afraid to ask questions. What if we all paused in our pursuit of buying things we don’t need, and take a look around…what would we notice?

They say babies laugh 400 times a day and that if you spend the whole day with the kid, and laugh whenever they laugh, that you’ll be a happier person.  What if we were as worry-free as they are? Pay more attention to kids. We can learn a lot from them.

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