GOSH IT HAS BEEN SO LONG.


It's really interesting, because I have my thoughts spread all over the place, ha. I have some on here, some in a few different journals and then I have some in InDesign, which of course makes sense, because I am a designer and I can actually format the type and make it look pretty there, ha.


Ah. Why did I decide to write in here, tonight? I suppose it's just something different. I'm trying to distract myself and trying to catch up with things and trying to resurrect this and packing and moving and feeling overwhelmed. Here's something about me and being overwhelmed: when I feel like this .. I absolutely feel like part of me shuts down. Perhaps this is a normal reaction.


So, to catch you up: I've been living in an apartment that is truly wonderful for about 9 months. Buuut my roommate is not a great fit for me. She's a unique personality with nuances that I can't quite appreciate. Unfortunate for those close to me, they've heard much about this ( :/ working on it.. promises) but fortunately, for YOU, I will say that I can only blame myself for staying so long and this is my penchant: to try to work through things, to see things from another's view (or try to .. for long as I can ..from the point of view, I THINK they're coming from) .. to justify things, to see what it is that I'm possibly doing wrong on my end that creates a certain visceral response from me that maybe DOESN'T have to do with the other. I try to understand whether or not I'm projecting things onto people and I KNOW I do this, despite my efforts to ..not do this. I also feel like I'm pretty self-aware though. Now, depending on who you are, you may or may not agree. Sometimes it takes me a little while to be objective about it, but I try really hard to understand why I do the things I do.


ANYWAY. I am moving this Memorial Day weekend. I AM FEELING OVERWHELMED. I am rearing to be away from this place but I'm just not stoked about it, either. and I think it's because, ultimately, I'm just not happy here. 


I've been thinking and weighing and analyzing and praying about my feelings. They are this: I am not happy here in NYC and this has been something swirling through my thoughts and coursing through my veins and causing palpitations within my heart for sometime, now. I still will never forget a significant moment I had, that absolutely would have meant nothing for anyone else, where I was on the F train and it was overcrowded and I was looking across the platform at this man with a beanie and I can't recall whether or not he was running to make the train or briskly walking away from it, but while we pulled out of the station I remember thinking to myself, "Why am I here? Why am I here in NYC? I don't want to be an old lady in this city."


I'm dating a really great guy who lives in San Francisco and I always like visiting him more over there when we get together. We have such fun in NYC together, but there's something about that place that I find comforting and I don't know if it's him or California or the mere thought of being closer to home or the notion of a new city that I've not explored before, but it feels good to me. It feels better to me than this place does. and it's hard for me, because I've been praying for the last year .. before I met him, that I wanted to go but .. I've been biding my time, because I want to make sure it's right.


Today after church –which was amazing, by the way–  I came home and looked at all the things to pack, and decided to call my friends and family because I didn't want to do it. I talked to my bestie for awhile and then my mom, multiple times, and finally hung up. I'd recorded some of the worship music on my phone and was playing it back to listen to it and out of nowhere, I just ached. My heart ached. I began weeping. Over a song. I immediately dropped to my knees. I hadn't prayed that much this week, because I didn't have a lot of alone time. Though I DO want to maximize my time with my handsome, I also realize that both he and I need moments of space during visits. He needs space for music and I need space for prayer. So, when I dropped to my knees, weeping, I just told God that I loved Him. and I kid you not, in the 20 mins I just sat there, talking to God and crying somewhat uncontrollably, I felt like time ceased to matter. I laughed while I cried because God is outside time and space, as we well know, and even though I had a ton of shit to do and be anxious about .. dealing with timing (oh, the irony), nothing felt more important in those moments but to actually step outside time constraints and realize that often they're self-imposed. and that .. just so many things aren't worth the anxiety. So many things will end up being fine, we just need to STOP. Ahh, I can't quite explain it well enough here, but.


The other thing I thought about while praying was that .. a long time ago, when I moved to NYC, I moved here simply because I wanted to say I made it. also because I didn't know what else to do .. I didn't know where to go and I was incredibly unhappy in Chico. Time has passed and I am now incredibly unhappy in this place. Am I fleeing from something? Am I not settling for some deeper-seated reason? Or is time to move on? Could it be so simple? I'm glad I live here. I'm glad TO HAVE lived here, but it is not home. Maybe God is telling me it IS time to move on .. because I am so unhappy in my heart. 


You know, we look for signs. We look for these "sure signs" from God that will indicate where and what we should do, and while I DO believe in these sometimes .. I think God tells us things in subtle ways, too. I think following our hearts is part of pursuing God. He gives us thoughts and dreams and emotions about certain topics and theories and passions in life. We should follow them. He may be calling us somewhere?


And maybe it's that simple.

Packing.

Anxiety

From Wiki:

Anxiety is related to situations perceived as uncontrollable or unavoidable... a future-oriented mood state in which one is ready or prepared to attempt to cope with upcoming negative events.

Living in a prolonged state of anxiety is absolutely miserable. I will say that I've been fortunate as my anxiety (which I never experienced –to this degree– before about two years ago) has gotten better over time (and has ebbed and flowed over the last couple years). It's almost analogous to when your throat (or other body part of your choosing) hurts SOOO bad and all you can do is focus on the pain .. and then when the pain is gone, it feels great .. but when you really THINK about the way NO PAIN feels, you realize, there's no actual FEELING at all. It just .. doesn't hurt anymore. That's sort of the way I feel about NOT feeling the effects of anxiety. 

I told my wonderful boyfriend a week or so ago that I have never considered myself an anxious, worried person. I'm pretty calm (I thiiiink) about things, and rational and reasonable. The anxiety is caused by my fears of the future and the absolutely inevitable. When and whhhy did this begin?

Today, I read an article by a friend that wasn't on anxiety at all, but mentioned clarity from God. Something reached out to me in those words. ..I think to myself a lot that the worry would cease if ONLY I could know what's next. I could prepare myself and gear up for unavoidable. But that's just the thing! Is some anxiety unfounded? Yes.

I sort of realized after reading the article, that I need to live in a heart-place where I really am casting fear upward. It doesn't mean I won't experience it, but in not knowing the future, it does expose my weakness as a human being and I HAVE to turn to God for the rest. I also feel some of my anxiety exists because I don't trust God, and that makes me really sad.

Does it or does it not help that I'm studying Ecclesiastes right now? You know, the book that talks about how everything is meaningless? This is one of my favorite books in the Bible and I actually am really enjoying going through these verses. I really DO find certain parts uplifting, as strange (or not) as it may sound. 

The last point I'd like to make (to myself, as no one else will probably lay eyes on this), is that, I think God allows seasons of these types of things in life. What is it showing me, about myself, my outlook, my faith, my views, how much stock I put into myself and what I can do, independently of others? How is this leading me to God, how's it leading me to community, to family, to friends, to my relationship with my wonderful boyfriend?

I'm an over-analyzer. I'm a deep-thinker. My prayer is that God will reveal himself in this, to me, to edify my character and help others! Lord, willing?

amen. 

Annnnd. I'm back. ?

I haven't posted in here in so long! Lots of reason and, simultaneously, not any really good reasons. It's true that I've been busy, but  I've neglected to write on here because I'm not sure anyone really reads it. It's nice to have things in digital format, but I have my own thoughts (more personal thoughts) penned on paper, with real ink, in tangible book-format as well. In this digital age, where technology keeps pushing us more and more toward everything-mobile, I find an actual journal, or diary, more preferable. I feel like .. maybe someday I will be able to hand a collection of thoughts to someone and share with them who I am that way. On the other hand, it would be easy to lose such a collection of theories, thoughts and dreams, so in this sense, a digital backup is good to have on hand.


I went to church for Lent and though we have already begun this season, I have yet to decide what it is that I will be giving up. I am excited though to figure this out soon, so I can partake in this faith-journey. I'm anticipating something really wonderful happening in the season of sacrifice (not that it's a reeeeeeeeeal sacrifice, you know?).


I've fasted a couple times in life. One time it was real and I knew not what I was doing, and my heart was in the right place, albeit completely naive, and God met me there and it was amazing. The second time I fasted, I was desperate for something, I liked to think it was for God, but my heart was in this space where .. I tried to recreate what I had done before, to produce the same results, and to no avail. I was so caught up in the fasting part of it .. in the doing .. that I sort of left the heart of God OUT of it. I guess I thought at the time that I just needed to do a few certain things for God to respond to me, the way He had before. God, of course, is not like that. God is not a genie .. He's not something that can be conjured up with a few tricks or a few tears. He's relational. and the first time I fasted it was about my heart, and really moving toward God and it felt like a sacrifice physically, emotionally, and mentally. The second time was just about results of the physical sacrifice .. I wasn't in it for the journey (though I wanted to be .. I just wasn't). I sort of knew this going in .. but I just didn't know how to connect to my faith again, so I attempted to do what I did before and formulas do not work .. God isn't a formula. Along that note, if you haven't read Donald Miller's, Searching for God Knows What, you should, because he talks about that very notion. 


This really isn't a well-formatted blog entry. I'm quickly writing now, but I would like to get back to documenting on here. Not sure if anyone benefits from me, aside from myself, as it helps me to clear my head. I can't give this up though! I've contemplated deleting all entries and starting over or just erasing them altogether, and I can't bring myself to do it. Not yet, at least.


It's 1:24a on Sunday morning. I really need to rest. Hopefully next entry will flow a little bit more readily.


Until next time,


Christi

The San Francisco Cutie

Met an awesome guy online and then met him in person this last week! He's amazing and I hope he sticks around for a while :) :) We hung out in SF and here are some photos from that trip. *4th photo down, courtesy (unbeknownst) of said Gentleman

Gavin Rossdale Said Hello TO ME!

 

I saw BUSH live in concert! It was fantastic! I got to be inside for the soundcheck, too! It was the most amazing thing: the only woman in the room, standing in the vast expanse of space that was the theatre, with about 20 audio, video and misc. crew behind me. Gavin even said hi to me after the show, during the meet and greet. I was eating a Nature Sweet granola bar at the time, and slobbering all over myself right about when it happened. Still so great. :)

Apple Picking!

Does anyone even read this anymore? ha, gosh. I haven't updated it in SO long. Here's the brief: today I went apple-picking with church and it was absolutely fantastic. It was definitely what I needed: to escape the City, even if only for a couple hours. It makes me realize how much NYC is removed from every other place, in that, you can be soo caught up living there; it really is a world unto its own. Sometimes I forget that there are others places OUTSIDE of this Place. The longer I stay, the easier to forget, it becomes.


Other than that –and this is a very short synopsis of what is going on with me lately– things are going well for me. I started going to this Foundations class at church, basically relearning foundational things about Christianity and faith, in general. This is proving to be very important and refreshing for me, at the moment; sometimes I feel like my faith and this Story that we're living, becomes trite to me. It's sort of like .. I have all this head knowledge (well, what I've retained) of God, but such a disconnect to any sort of personal relation to the Gospel. So, going back to the essentials and fundamental reasons why Christ being crucified is important and meaningful to me, personally, has been eye and heart-opening. This also comes at a good time for me, because I feel like I'm finally ready to go there, again, and this has taken a number of years, even though I've never stopped wanting it.


Okay, so if I have to explain the case for the Gospel, I would tell someone that: people are created for God and to be in constant, direct relation with Him. A long time ago, at some point, we "sinned." (Sin distorts out desires. We deeply long to be recognized and affirmed by other people. This is supposed to be fulfilled by God.) Sinning is the act of being out-of-joint with God; finding ways to meet our deepest desires without God; to break with the Source of life; to go against God's word. Before sin, humans weren't created to die. After sin entered, we experienced two types of death; bodily death and spiritual death. ..God ended up choosing a people that He would reconcile Himself through and those were the Israelites. Back in the day, the way to atone for sin was with blood: animals were utilized for this purpose, but an animal's blood is only good for so much .. it was temporary atonement. Along those same lines, when priests wanted to enter holy temples, they needed to be cleansed in order to approach God, so there were sacrifices and rituals that needed to be followed in order for this to be done. Move along forward in time and Jesus steps into the picture as Messiah. He tells the the world Caesar isn't God. He tells the Jews that He is the final atonement because He is perfectly good and free from sin. Essentially, Jesus takes a spiritual death unto Himself, for those who would believe Him to be Messiah, so that they will only experience a physical death (a spiritual death would mean separation from God, hell?) –and be reunited with God one day. He reconciles us to Himself; He's our bridge, if you will. Because He's God incarnate, and He paid the ultimate price, there's no more need for sacrifices and priests no longer have to cleanse themselves to approach God. It's through Jesus that we can approach God, directly, and it's through Jesus' death that God now dwells within us .. because our temples are now not buildings but our living bodies (that's why we're called to treat our bodies as holy).


I'm possibly not extremely great at detailing and explaining this all, here, now, but I'm sure I'll become better and better at this. I'm just excited to relearn things and to be able to put what I've learned together, in an understandable way, even just for me.


So, that's that. Aside from churchy things, work is going well. I'm really coming to a point where I've begun my countdown, I think. I want to put a time limit on this, soon and then move out and up, somewhere else. 


AND FINALLY. I'm going home in December to visit for a couple weeks and I'm stoked! I'll get to see friends and family and also: I have a very hot date with a musician, that I'm already nervous for. What to wear! What if I sound like an ass! I fear I'm jinxing myself. I'm so excited though; I hope I'll get to see an observatory, some museums, eat some food, visit some vistas, have a cocktail or two, hand-hold and have good conversation. Not necessarily in that order. This will be the first date all YEAR that I'll have actually wanted to go on. It's not often I meet someone I'm interested in, who's on the same page as I am, that's attractive and intelligent and actually nice. So, we'll see how it goes. If nothing else, I'll enjoy getting the chance to meet someone new and share a moment in time with another individual, my time uncompromised by other obligations. Should be kind of awesome. :)

Today.

This morning, outside my window. :)