complicated

I'm gonna put it out there; if you like it, you can take it, if you don't, send it right back.

Men are complicated.

done

3.5 years. 1 master's degree.

wow. I graduated today.

It hasn't hit me yet.

I've learned alot about what it means to obey. Even when it makes no sense. Even when I'm tired. Even when I've been told to quit.

I'm excited. Really excited.

God has big plans. He's shown me glimpses.

It's going to be awesome.

alone

Last week, Jeff emailed out a question, asking us to tell about a time in our life when we felt the most alone.

I purposefully didn't respond. I didn't want to think about it. And I certainly didn't want to hear my answer read in front of people. I almost didn't go this morning.

I feel alone most of the time.

I'm around tons of people who love me. All the time.

By worldly standards (and to be honest, most anyone's standard), I have it all: plenty of friends, an amazing job with people who also care about me, two degrees from good schools, the list keeps going...

God loves me. My friends love me. My parents love me.

Yet I can stand in a room and be completely alone.

Now let me say that I don't feel like God has left me. He's here. Right now. I've seen him do some pretty big things. And the Bible says so. I know God is still hanging out.

Let me also say that my friends are incredible. I get invited places. We do nothing together. I live with three other people and there are people here constantly. They threw me my first (and the best) surprise party ever.

So what's my problem? How can I say that I'm alone?

I don't know. But I cried this morning. Alot.

I couldn't move from my seat. I tried to pray and tears came. Jason said to stand and worship and there was no way I could.

There are days when I believe what the title of this blog is. That the Truth has set me free from the junk that's happened in my life. Set me free from myself.

But there are days when I feel like everything is happening around me and I'm just watching. LIke there's a barrier between me and them.

The worst part?

Nobody knows.

I feel badly. I feel like a fraud.

And I keep waiting to be found out. Or rescued.

The thing is, I feel selfish for even feeling this way. There are people with much bigger problems. Much worse problems. People are hungry, dying of awful diseases, being abused. And here I am in my yuppie existence whining about how alone I feel.

Which all makes me feel even more separated from the people around me. Like no one can relate to me because I'm so messed up.

I suppose the positive is that I get suffering. I want to fix it. And sometimes I'm convinced that God is with me on that.

But Satan is bound and determined to stop us. So he makes me feel alone. And convinces me that I am.

I want to put my fingers in my ears and scream at him: "I'm not listening! You're a liar!"

Because how could I possibly be alone?

Until then, I cry.

I cry for myself. I cry for those who hurt.

golfing

I need to learn to play golf. Or rather, I need to learn to hit a golf ball without totally embarrassing myself. And I should probably learn the rules too.

First of all, I don't play games with sticks and balls so well. Hitting a little tiny ball with a long stick just doesn't sound like a great idea to me. I hammer like lightning strikes: never in the same place twice.

Then there's the whole golfing culture. Do people actually golf because they like it? Or because it means you get to do business while being outside? This whole schmoozing thing is why I have to learn to play the silly game. I thought only lawyers and business people played, but I've learned that architects are all about some golf.

Golf requires special equipment. And apparently you can't just use a man's clubs. It's like using his toothbrush. So then how are you supposed to learn if you don't have clubs? There are so many sticks to pick from. Why are there so many? Why can't you just have one? And then there are those special shoes which I don't get at all. The only cool part would be getting to wear crazy plaid pants. I actually have a picture of my grandfather and his buddies in gosh-awful plaid golf gear. It could be a greeting card, really.

So, if anyone is brave enough to spend a few hours with me waving a stick at a tiny ball...

Freedom! (until mid-August anyway)

I'm free! At least until classes start back in August... One more semester and then I'll be done with my 7 1/2 years of higher education. Forever.

I like having free time after work. I can hang out, cook, send emails, read dumb chic lit, watch movies, work out... It's such a refreshing feeling to know that I don't have anything hanging over my head when I come home. I feel like I'm going to get to be myself this summer. And that the people I've known for a while now might actually get to know me. I'm much more interesting when I'm not dead exhausted. (Coherent is a magical thing.)

Maybe I'll even blog more...

New Orleans and optimism

so I"m back. thing is, I never know quite what to blog about... so I guess I'll tell you about my New Orleans class today.

Obviously, hurricane Katrina was really awful. From a design point of view though, it gives the city a chance to correct some of the major wrongdoings. and it gives the rest of us a chance to learn from all those mistakes. But how do we apply what we learned from NO? I think that architects, planners, etc need to practice what we preach. We talk all day long in classes about how sprawl is a bad thing (and very much was in NO... they sprawled out into the swamp, never a good place to build, and the place flooded) but no one is willing to give up what's needed to live in a more urban city. Change lies with my generation, but what I'm hearing from my classmates is that they're not willing to make even small changes in their own lives to become that difference. In my opinion, you lose the right to whine and complain when you refuse to become part of the solution. I fully believe that we all have the potential to change the world, if only we're willing. Perhaps my classmates are tainted by a world view of always looking out for themselves. But if we're the ones who are educated on the built environment, shouldn't we be the ones working to change all that?

I got pretty shot down in class today for my optimism and I'm okay with that. I'm not willing to let their negative opinions taint that. I really am convinced that if we educate the public on what it is that we deal with everyday, that we can start to reverse (or at least stop) the way we currently live.