Ten Reasons Why I Became an English Major/Writer

1. Wishbone

2. My mom taught a dyslexic girl (me) how to read…and it took YEARS

3. A Beka Grammar

4. L. M. Montgomery, who showed me how to paint words with the colors of my mind

5. Charles Dickens, who taught me how to weave a plot

6. Brian Jacques. Not only was I inspired by his books, but he told me (TOLD ME!!!!) to never stop writing

7. My synesthesia

8. Linda Earls’ Creative Writing class

9. Dr. Gibson’s love of Gothic writing and Shakespeare that spilled over into me

10. God, who has given me the best ideas

The Two Things I Like Best

Today, a very good friend of mine commented on how adventurous I am. That was sort of funny to hear because I don’t really see myself as an adventurous person. I mean, I don’t go scaling mountains or jumping out of planes, but as my friend reminded me, I do take drives out to the middle of nowhere, with no planned destination, only to end up at the ocean or even in another state.

Later on, I was pondering this, and was thinking about my little “adventures.” You know, I don’t think that I’m adventurous as much as I am determined to fill my life with the things that I like best. I mean, we only get to go around once, so we might as well spend it doing things we enjoy. Every now and again I've stopped, looked at my life and evaluated what experiences or things that I liked best about my life. You know what the result was? Relationships and adventures.

So, I've spent my life thus far trying to make sure that I get my fill of those things. That’s why I seek out little excursions and exciting happenings. I figure if I put more positive, wonderful adventures into my days (whether with friends or alone), there will be less room for negative, ugly things.  And as far as I’m concerned, one can never have enough friends, or adventures. 

Teaser for: The Day Nations Cried --A Novel

 

It’s one thing to draw faces for other people. You don’t know them, and you don’t know the face on the page. As far as you know, it’s just a stranger staring back at you. Two eyes, charcoal grey, a nose, a mouth, two ears, possibly obscured by hair, but maybe not. You remember the first sketch, and possibly the second one. My first was of a tall, thin, dark-haired boy. He had a twinkle in his eye, and I thought he was handsome. My second sketch was of a girl. She was blonde and very plain. I didn’t think much of her. But my third sketch remains clouded. The face is obscure. The same with the fourth and the fifth until they all ran together in my mind.

After a while, the magic was gone. Here I am, the last-known Soul Bearer, and the magic is gone. I’ve been told all my life by Nations, by Marjory, that I am special, that my gift is the closest thing to a real-live superhero that this world is ever going to get. And yet, it seems mundane to me. Or at least, it did, until one day when it became very, very real.

Unless you too are a Soul Bearer, you’ll never understand this feeling, but imagine waking up one night and feeling compelled to draw. You get out your pencils and your sketch book, and you just draw. You let whatever spirit guide your hand in a feverish motion, painful and wonderful at the same time, until you give birth to a face on a page. And there he is, staring back at you, tragic, beautiful, but yet, still just a face on a page, until you realize that he’s more than that.

He is a name. He is a haunting presence who follows you throughout your day. He never leaves your thoughts. He never leaves your side. He is your soul mate.

When you are out, you feel as if he is around the next alley way. When you sleep, he is your uninvited bedfellow. Yet, you did invite him. You may not think that you did, but when you put your hand to that paper and touched your pencil down against the parchment, letting that first thin, grey line form, you invited him in.

And then there is that moment, where you are out on an errand, just going about your day, and it happens. He’s there, waiting in line at a counter. The face. It’s the face that you’ve seen a thousand times before. He’s been in your mind, in your dreams, in your very soul. And here he is, seemingly in flesh and blood before you, and all you can think to do is hide.

Do you have any idea how horrifying that is? Some people might say that they wish they could bring a face to life like that, but I caution them. There is nothing thrilling about it. It’s terrifying. It’s the stuff of nightmares and demons. It’s enough to make you question your whole existence and this life. Is it even real? Is any of this real?

Do you want to know the most horrifying thing about it?

It. Is. Real.

I Dug the Hole. He's Filling It In.

If you know me, you know that for months now, I've been talking about this great void within me. It’s an emptiness that I haven’t been able to fill no matter how hard I've tried. I thought that the gap was there because I missed my best friends and some of the stronger relationships in my life which are now gone.

But I don’t think that’s the case.

I think instead, that it’s been quite the opposite. After I lost my boyfriend earlier this year, I also lost his family. They had become my family here, and they were also my closest friends. Without them, I felt lost. Ever since then, I've tried to replace them in my heart with as many friends as I could find. But it didn't work.

 

You see, the problem was that I thought the void needed to be filled with people, when actually, it was the way I was trying to fill the void that was causing it to grow larger and larger. Ensuring that I had friendships, a network of people close to me, had become almost an obsessive goal in my life. Suddenly instead of just enjoying the company of those around me, and spending time with them when our schedules allowed, I was trying too hard. I was reaching out to people for more than they could give, and was expecting them to be things to me that they couldn't be.

I had subliminally told myself that I was nothing without friends, that I couldn't live my life without a string of close relationships. I’m a very relationship-centered person, so this made sense to me. But it was a lie. I realize that in trying so hard to surround myself with people, I had almost made it my god. It was what I cared about most in life, something that I was determined to obtain. God had once again been pushed to the side and replaced with a lesser, worldly god.

Earlier this week, God sort of spoke to my heart, and suddenly, I realized why I had this gaping hole inside of me. I had created it by not being satisfied in my life the way it was. I had created the gap when I took my life out of God’s hands and into my own, thus telling him, “You can’t take care of me as I can take care of me. Let me handle this.”

Needless to say, the stress of trying to make my own life “perfect,” was slowly killing me, and it took the form of that gaping emptiness. Since I've realized what I was doing, I’m going to try to keep surrendering my life to Him. Each time I do this, I realize that the emptiness inside of me kind of goes away. Now, I’m not saying that I’m eliminating my friendships or that I’m not going to work on them. Nothing has changed between me and the people in my life except for the fact that I’m done stressing over and trying to control all of my relationships. I’m going to leave that in God’s hands.

Will I try to take the reins back? Probably at some point. But, let me tell you, I feel much more like a whole person when He is in charge, instead of me.

Maybe They Got Something Right...

Yesterday I felt the incredible urge to take a long drive by myself and find an adventure. So I did. 

I didn't know where I was going, but I knew that I would know my destination when I arrived. Somehow, I knew it would either be the ocean, or someplace where I would find myself surrounded by nature.

But the goal was to get lost. And I did. Sort of.

I can’t lie. The place where I stopped was actually a somewhere I've been before—a little park on the North Carolina boarder. However, because I had never driven there myself before, and was always in a car full of friends, I had hardly ever paid attention to the drive, so I didn't think I would be able to find my way back.

But somehow, even when I felt like I was entirely lost, I ended up at that same park. It took me about an hour to get there, but it was worth it. I got out and walked through the marshy grass until I found the water. Two long strips of land jutted out into the water, and I walked up and down the edges of those strips, taking pictures of the trees and the birds and the flowers. What mystified me the most were the stone puzzle pieces that lined the edge of the shore, and could clearly be seen going all the way down into the water. It looked like God’s jigsaw puzzle.

At the end of one of the strips of land, I noticed that there were these miniature cliffs. The water had eroded the land so that one could step down from these tiny cliffs into the clay and rock bottom below. Lowing myself down, I walked below the cliffs until the clay became too slippery for me to keep walking. So I climbed back up and sat on a bench.

A boat passed and created a series of waves that forced themselves up over those rocks and into that slippery clay foundation upon which I had just been walking. The waves didn't quite reach where I was sitting, but if I had still been down below the cliffs, I would have been drenched and possibly taken out with the waves. I was amazed by the power of the water and the way that something that had been dry and quiet only a moment ago had been transformed into a bed for the rushing water.

But what I’ll remember most about my little adventure is the way I felt as I sat there. For months now, I've been battling with this feeling of emptiness. I often feel like I've got this big, jagged hole inside of me that can’t be filled no matter what I try to stuff into it.

Most recently I've been attempting to fill it with friendships, yet that simply hasn't worked. But as I sat there, in the quiet, knowing that I was alone with the wind and the waves and the clouded sky, I felt like I could almost feel that gaping hole closing up. Suddenly, for the first time in months, I felt whole again.

I still feel whole. I woke up this morning, not with a feeling of emptiness, but a feeling of being satisfied. I don’t know how long it will last, but maybe the solace of nature was what I needed. Maybe the hole inside of me was noise, the noise of a busy life in a noisy city. Maybe that hole could only be filled with the silence and solace of introspective thoughts and the sounds of God’s nature.

I always thought that those Transcendentalists had gotten something right, and maybe it was that they knew how to be quiet. They knew that one can only really focus on God and focus on one’s self when surrounded by the quiet that only nature can provide.

I think I need a little bit more of that serenity in my life.  

A Strange Message from a Former English Major

Don’t live your life in books.

Yep, I said it. *GASP!* Here I am, Queen of Commas, Princess of Punctuation, Duchess of Diagramming (okay…so I was reaching for that last one), and I am telling you to not let your life be lived out in books.

Now wait, hear me out on this one. The same thing goes for video games, movies, and television. We all have those friends who spend most of their times in front of a screen or behind a book. Don’t get me wrong, I find all of the aforementioned means of entertainment to be delightful (yes, even the video games); however, most recently I’ve come in contact with a lot of people who get pretty much all of their life experience from entertainment, whether it’s books or something else. The “readers” for example, are some of the coolest people I know, and I have much in common with them because we all have read so much. Yet, I’m finding more and more people who have never really stepped out past the books to actually do any of the things that they like to read about.

Now, I’m not saying that instead of reading about an affair that you should go out an actually have one.

 Yeahhh….NO.

The entrance to "my" secret garden

But, instead of reading about traveling to far-off places, go to them. It doesn't have to be Ireland or Australia, it can just be checking out the state next to yours, or doing all the touristy things around town that you've never done before.

Find a secret garden, rather than only reading about one. They exist. I found one once. Go to those hipster cafes and sip exotic lattes. Venture out into the woods and get lost. Drive until you don’t know where you are anymore. Who knows where you might end up.

Just, don’t let all of your adventures be confined to books. Books are for inspiring life, as a map of what life could be, what it has been for other people. Books should be a launching pad for your own adventures, not a replacement.

And then later, maybe you’ll have some stories of your own to write down. As for me, well, I’m on the look-out for my next adventure.

The Encouragement Challenge

God is a God of encouragement. Sometimes He encourages us directly, like through the Bible or even in other ways, like when He speaks to us, or in my case, leaves us little encouraging notes. And other times, I think He encourages us indirectly, through other people.

Well, this morning was one of “those days.” It’s raining and cold, and little things just weren't going right. Then, I opened my inbox on Facebook and read a wonderfully encouraging little message from a dear friend. It was just a few words, but it was kind and uplifting. Just the fact that I felt thought about was lovely.

So that was my first encouragement. Here is the second:

Last Friday I received a birthday package from one of my closest friends. In the package among the various awesomeness such as a birthday poem, a reindeer finger puppet, little pocket journals, earrings, and so much more, was a little shell box with something rattling around inside of it. I didn't open it, because her birthday poem had sad to save the box for a day when I really needed encouragement. So, I saved it. Granted, I didn't save it very long because curiosity was killing me, but I waited four days! That’s good, right?

So today, just unable to shake away a case of the “glums” and still absolutely dying to see what was in the little shell box, I finally opened it. Inside was a little silver token, about the size of a nickel. On the face of the token was a praying angel (no, all you Whovians, not a weeping angel). It felt smooth and cool in my hand as I brushed my finger over its surface.

Just like the little “Have Faith” note that I found in my purse the other day, I feel as if God is using this little present from a friend as a friendly reminder that He is still there, and that He wants me to put my attention on him, instead of all the little inconveniences and frustrations of life.

So here is your challenge for the day: write to someone, anyone, just one sentence of encouragement. Or if you're really feeling outgoing, send someone a little gift. It doesn't have to be anything big, just something to show you're thinking of them.

I’m going to do this too. I might do it more than once. I guarantee you that it’ll lift someone's spirits and it might even make you feel a little bit better too.

And besides, you never know how God might use you to help someone else.

An Unexpected Miracle

For the past few months, my mantra has been “have faith.” I've written it everywhere. It’s on my white board at work in big, cursive letters. It’s the background on my phone so that it’s something that I’ll see every day. If I was a tattoo kind of girl, I’d have it written on my wrist by now.

Faith has been something that I've really needed a daily dose of. I feel like I have so little faith that I need to be reminded constantly to just relax and let God take care of things.

However, this past week I almost erased my whiteboard and changed the background on my phone because I figured it might be time for a change…yet, for some reason, I didn't.

So yesterday I was standing in the lobby at church before the service started and I pulled my phone out from my purse. I didn't look at my phone, but as I held it in my hand, I could feel that there was something jammed into the charge-socket. Pulling it out, I saw that it was a tiny slip of paper about an inch long and about a quarter of an inch wide. Written on it in blue pen were the words, “Have Faith.”

I stopped and stared at it for a moment. Those are the same two words I've been writing everywhere and meditating on for the past few months. And here they were, written on this tiny slip of paper, in a handwriting that was unfamiliar to me. I didn't write it or put it in my purse, in fact, I had cleaned out my purse less than twenty-four hours before, and that slip of paper had not been there then.

So how did it get there? Who wrote it and why was it in my purse, stuck to my phone? Is it a sign?

I don’t know. All I know is that I'm amazed. This really is exactly what I needed to be reminded of. And it feels kind of like a little miracle. I mean, I know that there has to be some sort of logical reason for how this little inspirational piece of paper ended up in my purse, but it feels like it’s a little letter from God, telling me to not give up, to just trust in Him that He’s got this all figured out. I guess that He knew that I needed a little reminder so He decided to give me one.

So, thanks God.

You Just Can’t Win in Life: Girl Problems

When a girl posts too much about her emotions people say that she’s just looking for attention.

When a girl keeps things bottled up inside, people say that it’s unhealthy and that she should express herself.

You just can’t win.

When a girl’s skirts are a little short or her chest is so large that she has cleavage even in a T-shirt, people say that she is “loose” or “trying to get a man.”

When a girl dresses conservatively she’s called a “nun” and told that “she’ll never get a man that way.”

You just can’t win.

When it’s a girl’s desire to get married and have babies, people say that she’s “missing out on life” and needs to “have a career first.”

When a girl wants a career and has no immediate plans for a family, people wonder what’s wrong with her and ask her why she doesn't want babies.

You just can’t win.

“She’s too social. She’s simply trying to be the life of the party because that’s all she’s got.”

“She too quiet. Why doesn't she get out more?”

You just can’t win.

So who cares what people think. Be yourself. Rebel. Love. Cry when you feel like it and don’t be afraid to tell people when you’re hurt. Be quiet when you feel like being silent, but don’t be afraid to speak up for yourself when you need to. Lead the life that GOD wants you to lead, because at the end of the day, doing God’s will is really all that matters. All of those other voices are just voices in the din, trying to drown out what really matters.