confession: i am wearing someone else's old nose ring, and that is probably disgusting for a thousand reasons. and really, i just don't know if i am ready to take the leap and stick a real hole through my nose. maybe in a year. and also, tonight i am never going to be in love, because that is a waste of my time and heart.

the latest in a long line of thieves.

none of my thoughts are together enough to write about a single thing.


-i like ani difranco again today. it just happened 6 minutes ago, in correlation with the song manhole. she is such an angry dredlocked girl, but i bet she sits on the couch and eats salsa every now and then, too. she probably even takes off her shoes when she comes inside. and now, i am wondering why i have gone a good year without appreciating her music.

-last night everyone was glitter and high heels, and i was a little less than a barista. it was a nice thing though, because people didn't need pictures of me. anytime you dress important, people think they need to document it for everyone. it's like one of those unwritten laws that we used to make up. i took half of the pictures, so i guess i'm guilty too.

-it's that time of the year again where i really just want to lay in bed everyday. maybe that's why i gain weight in the winter. i just wish it wasn't 30 degrees all the time. that makes me really hard for me to live.

-when did i become the girl that people were nice to? sure, the white stripes were on, and the man DID have a foul mouth, but those were usually factors anyways. i think i'd rather just not talk. i don't believe in messing with hearts and minds and all of that stuff. i am quiet, on the whole.

if you want to act that part for me, i think you should grow up a little bit first. maybe i'll be waiting, but i'm not ready for that. are you, even?

anyways.

these feet have walked all over this town, and they're tired. these eyes have seen eight hours worth of jewelry, and they want to stare into black. these ears are doing pretty good though. dustin kensrue always gives me the chills. his voice is even better than coffee. i may not be able to taste it, but i can feel it tingling in my bones. that's good enough. finally these things are making sense. finally i realize that i am playing music for over one hundred people on friday. the terror of that hasn't sunken in yet, but i figure i'll just settle for nerves instead. finally i don't love boys, just not as much. finally, FINALLY, i am not a little girl anymore.

goodnight, life.

the cocaine, the pills, they weren't ever it. they were more of a means to an end, a habit that was a little more than inconvenient. what she really needed to be cured of was something that rehab didn't fix. you couldn't learn it in 12 steps, and heaven forbid with detox. she was obsessive. she wanted to be in someone elses skin. the picture in the magazine sufficed, because she had learned to take what she could get. hours on end, sitting in front of it. hours in front of the tv, memorizing the lines, hanging on every dripping word. she was drowning in it. this woman etched into her brain. she wanted to be her so bad. it hurt to think sometimes, because each thought should have been more like 'hers'. each look in the mirror was a stab in the heart. so it was completely natural when cocaine came along. at least that was something they could have in common: they screwed up sometimes. it was like they had a common secret, a common goal. getting high, buzzed, whatever, it did nothing for her. she put the powder up her nose just because that is what you do for a person(they'd never met, of course). she learned that the stars came to rehab in her city, in a spa up in the mountains. closer than ever, she became more desperate than ever. SHE WAS THERE. with every fiber of her being, the girl tried to get in trouble. it was such a lonely thing, with her drugs, alone in a park, hoping to be seen. one day, it happened. her family didn't have the money for the rehab, but connections were made, and she was going to the spa. ecstatic was an understatement. nevermind aching debt, she was going to meet her idol. within a few days she was there. her neck was constantly craned, she searched painstakingly, but she could never find who she was looking for. she heard whispers, she saw men in black suits. she would have killed to see her, but she was never around. her heart ached so bad. "I RUINED MYSELF FOR YOU..THIS IS FOR YOU". she woke up screaming so many nights, and everyone assumed it was withdrawals. she was let out finally, more miserable than ever. not one glance of her hero. broken, bleeding, she turned back to the drugs, this time as the end, not the means.

i am alive, quite fully this morning.
there is a boxer puppy laying on my foot, and i am wearing two pairs of socks.

sometimes i don't understand the way that God works. was i ever supposed to, though? for "His ways are higher than my ways, and His thoughts higher than my thoughts". i've seen so many people broken lately. the man that is the absolute EPITOME of joy has a bad seizure. the little girl that follows me around falls off her bunkbed and develops a brain bleed. it scares me sometimes, just as bad as it hurts. my example of joy, love, and peace, the world needs that man. they need the whole man, his speech, his clear thoughts, his ability to function. i need that little girl, to make me smile and laugh and see love. her mom needs her, and the six others, to bring joy in the hardest times. life is such a crazy thing. one minute someone is okay, the next you have that sick feeling in your stomach. sometimes i feel selfish because i need these people. i need them so bad. who am i to question God's will, though? and when they get better, i know that He just wants me to trust him in ALL circumstances. and that is a scary, world-changing concept.

like i was reading today: LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.
that is life, right there.
All of my heart: all of my affection, my joy, solely for Him. all of my love towards other people. committed, unselfish LOVE.
All of my soul: eternally. all of the depth of my being that i don't even understand, usually.
All of my mind: all of my thoughts about him and his glory. all of my thoughts towards others. all of my thoughts when i am just by myself.
All of my strength: what i do for him. my service, watching kids or playing guitar onstage. all of my time, as i lay down exhausted at night.

if there were a soundtrack to my life, bob dylan's highway 61 revisited would come in right as i was moving to provo, and would probably stay on a loop for a good ten years.

good God, can you still get us home?

today is december 1st, and i was able to walk around outside barefoot. i think that i really like this life.

my sleep isn't a consistent thing anymore. 2 am, 3 am, 5 am, and 6:05 make it hard to sleep. also, whose idea was it to start texting me when everyone else fell asleep? i woke up today with 8 new messages. seriously. my eyes hurt, and i'm pretty sure that i'll never get better, but life is pretty good. i'm not just counting the hours until the next day, or event.

anyways:
"The Christian's describe the Enemy as one 'without whom Nothing is strong'. And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off" -C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters.