And the truth shall set you free

I feel like life is fake. It doesn't have to be but I feel like it is. I feel like I am not sure who I am. I am trying to figure this out. In the meantime I seem to be ruining relationships with people I love. I don't mean to be doing this. The things I know for sure; I love Jesus, my family and my true friends. What I don't know for sure; everything else. Including who my true friends are. This is not some outreach freakout. I am not going to assume everyone who doesn't read this isn't my friend. You have better things to do. Thats fine. I do too....I think. But anyway. I'm going to try to blog again, because it seemed to help last time. I'm going to be honest to the best of my ability because I'm tired of lies. I'm tired of sugarcoated crap. I'm tired of not knowing what is for me and what is for someone else. I'm tired. I'm done. I'm done lying to you to let you keep your image of me intact. I'm done lying to myself for the same reason. I'm done. Call it a mental breakdown, call it self-discovery, call it growing up. Whatever you call it, I'm in it. If you don't like me anymore, thats fine. I'm sorry to lose you, but I can't pretend I'm something I'm not just to keep you when you will probably leave me someday anyway. Truth shouldn't hurt. I don't know why it does. I'm going to figure myself out now. I invite you to be a part of it. I would like that. Honestly.

Thinking of .....

I have food, clean water, a loving family and a magnificent God. All in all I am very blessed. My two brothers and my nephew are the greatest gifts I can imagine receiving from the Lord. I am eternally grateful for them, and for my wonderful loving parents. I am grateful that my life has been so blessed. I truly am. But what do I do about it? Do I deserve it? The truth is that no, I do not deserve it and I have done comparatively nothing to show God my thanks for it. That is not ok. God in His grace has given me more than I could have asked for. He has saved me both spiritually and physically. But I have done nothing for Him. Why is this? Why when we have everything do we give nothing back? In the Bible Jesus says “freely you have received, freely you shall give”. We of America, of basically anyone not in poverty, have essentially everything we need. In spite of the economic recession or depression or plummet, most of us still have food on the table, a roof over our heads, family around us and love in our hearts. Why then can we not look to our neighbor who has none of these things and share? When we have been blessed so greatly, why must we horde our blessings to ourselves when others go without? How is that fair? How is that right? How is that Christian? How is that humane? The answer is simple. It’s not. It is not right to sit there enjoying your warm house, your snug clothes, your hot meal, your safe beverages and not think of those who are sleeping on the ground naked, starving and dehydrated. It is not right, but it is what we do. I am guilty of it too. I don’t believe we do it out of hate or even indifference, we just don’t connect to it because it is not happening to us. It is a careless oversight, not hate, but that doesn’t make it ok. I don’t want to ignore the crying souls of our world and even our own country as I indulge in my super size fast food in front of my laptop or TV. I don’t want to walk past the homeless on the street like I don’t see them. I don’t want to have to explain to my children someday that millions of children just like them have died and are dying in my lifetime and I have done nothing to help them. If it were my child, my brother, my nephew, my parents or cousin in these conditions would I not do everything in my power to help them? What about you? If your family were suddenly in unimaginable conditions, and you were where you are right now, would you not do something, anything to help them? I know you would. I know I would. But since the problem is far from home we don’t see it. We don’t like to think about it. We want to walk away from it. It’s not us, and it is not here. It is not our everyday lives so we don’t have to deal with it. We don’t have to, but we should. I should. I need to. I cannot continue living a life in which every day passes by and I have everything and give nothing. I cannot do it. As a Christian, a sister, an aunt, a daughter, as a human, I cannot do it. I don’t know what I can do to help. My yearning to help may yield nothing. I may spend my entire life searching for a way to help, to reach out and never actually accomplish anything. But I have to try. If I can help one child live for one more day, let one person know that someone does care, save one person in anyway, then my life will have been well lived. Otherwise what is the point? I have made a lot of Christian references in this letter, and that may have scared some of you away. It shouldn’t. I would feel sympathy for others pain with or without my God or religion telling me to do so. My belief in God or your disbelief in God, or your belief in something besides my God does not change the reality of the situation. People are starving and dying. If we can help in any way, shouldn’t we? I am not perfect, and I don’t expect you to be. I am not trying to preach at you or make you feel bad. But I feel bad, and I want to do something about it. Maybe you do too. Maybe together, you and I can change the world. Maybe we can save someone. Isn’t it worth trying?

This diva needs her stage

So it is 6:30 in the morning and I have been up all night looking for a show I could audition for. I need to act. It hurts. It is a tangible physical pain. I miss it. I need it. I need to either act or stage manage. Hell I would settle for being the lowest techy on the totem pole. I just need theatre. It has been too long. It’s like fire in my chest and its making me nervous and twitchy. I can’t find a single freaking show though. Effing auditions for the theatre department here took place last quarter, aka the quarter of doom. Needless to say I missed them. Auditions for the summer show in Springfield are tomorrow and Saturday, not freaking likely. Plus I am apparently at an age where stage acting is null. I am too old to play a child and too young to play an adult. Where are the shows for those of us between puberty and midlife crisis? What I really want is to be in a legitimate show. I want so bad to be in “Phantom” or “Wicked” or “Rent” or “Into the Woods” those are all musicals…sue me. No where seems to have any friggin auditions coming up. I’ve either missed them already or they don’t exist. I literally typed in Ohio theatre into Google and looked at every single listing that came up. Every. Single. One. Can you even imagine? Yeah, the closest thing I found was “Assassins”, but my age is my enemy as far as that goes cuz the female roles call for 30’s. Yeah, I doubt I can pull of 30. Anyway, it hurts and I need it to stop. I may see if I can work for Dan and Geoff at the Pac this summer just to get near it. I can run spot or something. It may not be Stage Manager and it may not be Leading Lady, but at least its stage. It’s like a drug and I’m going through withdrawal. *Takes a deep breath.* I need my stage fix. I need a script to follow. I need a director to listen to. I need to be surrounded by divas. It’s sick but it’s true. Ahhhhh! I would do “Fuente” again at this point. That’s how bad it is. Seriously. If I had ANY free time in my schedule I would take an acting class, just to get the rust off myself. I’m this close to creating gorilla theatre just to keep myself from going insane. Ahhhh! I keep wishing I could have the Christine Daae moment when the leading lady loses her mind and someone kindly suggest that Christine could play the role and then she timidly steps forward and blows everyone away and is now the diva of the theatre and the envy of every woman on that stage. Ok mine doesn’t need to be quite that dramatic but you get the general idea. I want a lead. I want a romantic lead. In fact if I could play Christine Daae I would be ecstatic beyond my imagination. Anyway…..that is my current obsession. The need for my stage fix. I am in theatre withdrawal.

Slam the door shut, burn the bridge and see whats left in the morning.

Well this is it. The last day of this terrible quarter. For me at least. I am so sick and tired of this quarter. It has by far been my worst academic experience since ….well I’m sure you all remember. So now it is over. *takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, sighs* I am so glad it’s over. Let us leave it far behind us and never return to it. Ever. That is the only good thing about the past, it is over. We cannot go back. Of course sometimes this is the reason the past is bad, but in this case I am happy to leave the past far behind me. (I’ll just hope it doesn’t do what the past has such a tendency to do and creep up on me later when I am least expecting it…) I’ll leave the mathematics and mechanics of suffering in a major I no longer enjoy to fade into nothing but memories. What a nice thought. I thank you for taking the journey with me, those of you who have. Here’s to a better future and a happier life.

Happy St. Patrick’s day as well.

Spring Break ....or so it would seem.....

What is a break? A break is meant to be a time to relax. A time to forget about your worries and responsibilities. A time to sit back and evaluate where you are and where you would like to be. A time to decide if the work is worth the prize, if the pleasure’s worth the pain. Sometimes a break feels like it has been a long time coming. Sometimes a break feels like it’s exactly what you need. But sometimes not. Sometimes the idea of a break is scary. What if the break ruins the direction of the work? What if the break makes you not want to work anymore? What if the break makes you realize that you like the break better than what you have been doing, so you don’t do anything anymore? What if a break makes you give up everything? Still, if treated properly a break can be a well deserved nap, a small vacation away from the day to day stress that is life. Hopefully this break will be a positive reinforcement of what I have believed in. Hopefully this break will strengthen my passions, not make me abandon them. Hopefully I can learn from this break how to better live my life. Hopefully this break yields happy, positive results. Hopefully this break will end.