Daily Dreaming

In my attempt to write something a little more sunny, I tried to play some feel good, fluffy, make-me-wanna-smile music, but that just felt wrong.  Fabricated happiness doesn’t translate on paper…the cursor just blinks at me like it’s saying “You can play all the happy, peppy music you want.  Until you put on your sad, sappy music you love so well, and really start writing about how you really feel, I’m just gonna blink on this blank page in protest of anything you think you’d want to write to come off as anything but how you really feel.”

However, I’m not really into share time right now so I’ll just leave you with this…

Have you ever wished you could step outside yourself for a moment?  See the world’s view of you…see if what you try to put off is what actually comes across…? 

Or…if you really think about it, the question becomes: Are you really that good at hiding how you feel? 

This is a battle
And its your final last call
It was a trial, you made a mistake, we know
But why aren’t you sorry, why aren’t you sorry, why
This can be better, you used to be happy, try
-Colbie Caillat

What I do know is that change must come soon…maybe it will come in the form of a new president, maybe I’m being a little too optimistic about changes that are being proimised by the people with the mics and their names on posters.   I won’t get into my feelings on current politics, another time, another place.  I want my friend to come home.  I want everyone to be reunited with their loved ones fighting for someone else.  I’m proud of him and the fact that he’s stepping up and trying to help clean up someone else’s mess.  Good for him.  Call me selfish but I just want them all home and safe.

I’m fine, but I’m not ok.  I’m looking forward to looking back on these days…

Your fingertips across my skin
The palm trees swaying in the wind
Images
You sang me Spanish lullabies
The sweetest sadness in your eyes
Clever trick

Well, I never want to see you unhappy
I thought you’d want the same for me

Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I’m trying not to think about you
Can’t you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should’ve known you’d bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do

We walked along a crowded street
You took my hand and danced with me
Images
And when you left, you kissed my lips
You told me you would never, ever forget
These images

Well, I’d never want to see you unhappy
I thought you’d want the same for me

Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I’m trying not to think about you
Can’t you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should’ve known you’d bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do

I cannot go to the ocean
I cannot drive the streets at night
I cannot wake up in the morning
Without you on my mind
So you’re gone and I’m haunted
And I bet you are just fine
Did I make it that
Easy to walk right in and out
Of my life?

Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I’m trying not to think about you
Can’t you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should’ve known you’d bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do

 -Fine Frenzy

I know God has a plan for everyone.  I wonder if God has a predetermined breaking point for everyone as well.  I wonder what mine is.  Everytime I feel like it’s been pushed beyond that point, something else happens to push it even further…hurt even more.  I know God is with me, I know he is helping through this, but I wonder how much that point will be pushed before I can finally breathe again…

I don’t know how much harder I can pray for some sort of release, but after all, it is only day three…

I have no words right now, but this song is on repeat…

Rain by Patty Griffin

It’s hard to listen to a hard hard heart
Beating close to mine
Pounding up against the stone and steel
Walls that I won’t climb
Sometimes a hurt is so deep deep deep
You think that you’re gonna drown
Sometimes all I can do is weep weep weep
With all this rain falling down

Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
When I’m holding on underneath this shroud
Rain

As a Christian I’m still growing. I’m constantly reminded of how much growing I still have left to do, but I also see how much growing I’ve done in the past few years. Not a day goes by where I don’t see God’s power in even the most average situations. In my life alone I feel like God has done a complete transformation of my heart. As great as this change is, it makes it even more apparent that I’m not even close to where I need to be. In the past few weeks I have felt God pulling extra hard at my heart. It’s like He’s pulling me back, like I’ve drifted a bit. My love and faith in him has not drifted, but my faith in myself has.

I’m having a hard time of fully allowing God to take care of me lately. I have been questioning lots of things in my life…paths I’m taking, paths I haven’t taken yet. It’s the paths not taken that are pulling at me. I need to know that whatever God has planned for me and my future are going to be ok. I need to stop questioning what I have no way of knowing and just trust that God knows what’s right. I need the patience to wait for God to show me what he has planned for me.

Proverbs 3:5 says ” Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding…” I know that’s what I need to do.

I’m up for suggestions on how exactly it is I’m supposed to do that…

Some days I look down
Afraid I will fall
And though the sun shines
I see nothing at all
Then I hear your sweet voice
Come and then go
Telling me softly
You love me so…

So I realize that it’s been quite some time since my last blog.  It’s a good thing I’m not a professional blogger, I’d never make any money.  As I sit in my apartment on a Friday night listening to The Weepies “The World Spins Madly On” on repeat, I realized that there are many thoughts rolling around in my head right now.

Summer is here and so far I’ve done nothing worth writing about.  Yes, technically we’re still a few weeks away from the official start of the season, but it’s hot as crap outside…close enough.  

It’s been just over a year since my grandfather passed away and not a day goes by that I don’t miss hearing his laugh or seeing his smile.  Marcus left for Iraq three days ago.  It is taking all that I have in me not to think that dream about his homecoming in a body bag.  What a horrible thought…I know.  But seeing all that I’ve seen in the news and my work in the news doesn’t bode well for my outlook on the brave soldiers risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.  And for what?  I’m still in the dark about that.  

I feel like sometimes I take my life totally forgranted.  I have everything in the world at my fingertips right now, and yet, I can’t help but be contemplative and emo in my thought process tonight.  Maybe it’s because it’s Friday night and I’m sitting alone in my apartment blogging.  Maybe it’s because I miss Paul, even though I just saw him last week.  Maybe it’s the song on repeat.  Lots of factors are contributing to this random compilation of words and thoughts that make no sense.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to move back home to North Carolina.  I know somewhere Heather is reading this and thinking about all the wonderful things we could do once I move back.  Trust me, I think about it too.  But then I think about everything going on in this city right now.  True, I might not be taking full advantage of Washington DC, and the friends I have here, but it’s here for me to enjoy.  Maybe one day I will move back to NC…maybe not.  I’m not closing that out, I’m not closing anything out as possibility for my life.  

See, I said this was random.  At least now you know what I’m thinking.  Instead of concluding, cause there’s really nothing to tie these thoughts together right now, I’ll just end with a period. 

As a result of my apparent lack of blogging, I decided my newest edition to “Shannon’s Deepest Thoughts” should be that of a doozie.  I will not write on changes since my last real post, though they have been good and a definite step in the right direciton concerning my career.  Instead I will write my mind in hopes that it will somehow act as some sort of solace and release from the thoughts that just won’t go the hell away.

Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to be completely jaded?  No…well of course not, it’s not a normal thought one should have.  Who in their right mind would wish for a feeling of welcomed apathy and a sense of intense cynicism with anything that comes your way?  Me, yeah, it’s a thought I tend to entertain from time to time.  I sometimes wonder what it would feel like simply not to feel. 

TV portrays jaded characters as the most witty, with the best lives, and even better lines.  They have the whole world going for them, yet they can’t seem to get over being over it to see who’s reaching out for them.  So what does that get them?  A hit TV show in which they are the principle character.  Unfortunately for me, my life is not scripted by the sharpest minds in the biz.

I have no reason to want to enter the empty part of life, void of emotions or feelings,but i can’t help but to think that sometimes that might be better than dealing with my thoughts. 

In the past ten months, I’ve lost someone very dear to my heart, witnessed love in it’s strongest form (congrats Anjie and Trent, Denise and Chris, Jessica and Greg, and Heather and Rick), and managed to watch some true forms of eveil rip out the hearts of the people closest to me.  And while I don’t so much cherish the pain of some of my experiences, I’d love to just stop and stay in the presence of that strong love.  But I can’t because after the euphoric feeling of being so happy for others, I can’t help but think about myself.  Tre self-serving I realize.  I want that euphoria tossed in my direction.  I know it will come, but color me impatient.

No, I’m not necessarily asking for it to come tomorrow, but I can’t help but sometimes feel like it’s just not going to happen.  We are waiting on God’s timing to see what will happen and what direction this wonderful relationship is going in.  But that doesn’t feel comforting when I become rational and my faith gets tossed out the window when logistics come into view and I just can’t seem to see how it could work. 

“Time is on my side,” my personal montra in the making, so as not to totally lose sight of the good that is waiting for me, so as not to become jaded.  So many people in this world have become jaded, how can they not if you stop to think of all the bad in this world.  I should be so lucky that I’m not in that place.  Funny thing is…I’m very lucky, and one day I might even believe that statement.

Time is on my side…
Time is on my side…

Song of the day:

How to Save a Life by The Fray (www.thefray.net)

Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it’s just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
And you begin to wonder why you came

How to save a life