Today

I dont want to be here anymore... and that ladies and gentlemen is how I am feeling, however sad and bad that is, today.

Should haves and What if's

So I have a problem, I struggle with the should haves and should have nots and what if's and what if nots. I should have done this or should not have done that. Or what if or what if not. This is especially a problem right now in my life as I struggle to settle where I am, New Orleans. I struggle daily with wondering what if I had stayed in Pittsburgh or Philly, should I had moved to DC of to St. Augustine, Fl. Would I have been happier, since I would have had friends and community? Would many of the issues I am having right now, not be an issue? Should I stay in New Orleans? What if I had not said this or said that, how would my life be different?

I find myself being jealous of my friends, when I speak with them and hear the fun evenings they are having with people and amazing conversations they are having in community. I find myself, saying I want that. And then all the should have and should have not and what and what if nots come back in full swing. They also come back into full swing when I am having a bad day and/or feeling really lonely.

I think that reflection is a good thing to a point, you are able to learn from things, but then it can also easily become a stonghold in life that the devil can easily grab onto and then add more questions and doubts. I know this is a cycle that has grabbed hold of my life and has been something I struggle with for a long time, but I think it has become worse over the past couple year, as I have had to make way too many big life decisions.

I also keep finding myself wondering if having community and friends, really would have allowed me to not have so many issues or just would have allowed me to be in a supportive place to work through them. What I mean is would I really be happier in the above places I have spoken about? Would I not feel lonely, or is the loneliness I am feeling more than a lack of friends and community or it is someting deeper inside of me.


On a lighter note...
As I Tuesday, January 17th I have officially admitted to myself that I am a coffee drinker. I did not think that day would ever come, but since working at Starbucks for a couple months in Pittsburgh, I have begun to drink coffee. But not until the past couple months has it become something that I crave and make special stops to get. Luckily, after experiencing caffeine headaches in Pittsburgh, I have trained myself on decaf. Hot tea is still my favorite but coffee drinkers out there here I am.

Questioning myself..

So there are times that I really get frustrated with myself and who I am. I know that is partly a struggle of self-esteem and being comfortable with who God has made me to be and the journey to becoming that. To be truthful I would not consider myself to be a person with really bad self-esteem until lately. I mean I am not the stereotypical person with low-selfesteem who is always fishing for compliments, I griping over themself, and so on. I overall thought that I just had normal self-esteem issues that most every person struggles with. But over the past year (and maybe more) I have really been struggling with wanting to be something that I am not sure I really am. I mean I sort of hope that I can become that person, through practice and or education, but is it really just not part of who I am.

For instance I would love to be graceful, whether that be in how I carry myself, dance, or so on. Is that something that I can truly learn, or do some woman have and others just do not? I also would love to be the type of person who can really have a deep theological discussion, challenging my peers with my remarks, being daily open about my beliefs whether that be in remarks or other things. Is that again something that I can become through reading and educating myself more, and making more of an attempt to talking about my beliefs. Then I struggle with the fact that maybe I am those things, but just in different degrees that I would like but I have allowed others to tell me what I am and am not. I mean I would love to be the type of person who is able to get the profound meaning out of movies, music, and so on. But to be honest, unless it is obvious, I just dont see it until someone points it out. Does that make me just not a deep thinking person?

I know that God has blessed me with many gifts and I am so thankful for those. But the main point I am trying to get across is... how do you know when a gift is a gift, and when it is something that can be accrued whether through practice or education? Will I ever be a graceful, deep thinking, theological discussion queen, or am I just not supposed to be those things in the scope of Gods plan for me at the level that I want so badly to be. Or could I take dance classes, read deep and theological books and become more of a deep thinker and graceful person.

I am hoping that this is making some sort of sense. It is just something that has been on my mind a lot lately as I try to get at the root of who I am and who God has me to be. I just sort of keep getting stuck at the curbs of wanting to be some other things and I dont know if I am not those out of laziness or that I am just not supposed to be there in Gods plan. If not I want to forget about it, move on, and be Katie, but if so I want to do what I need to do to be there.

Bad day...

So I am just having one of those days, where I just feel like the world is against me. I know that it is absurd and that I have so much to be thankful for and all the crap that has gone on in my life over the past year and a half is nothing compared to the destruction around me, but I am just having one of those "feel sorry for myself days" and the worst part is that I am not stopping it. I know that I am blessed with so much but today I am just frustrated with my life and how it has gone on for the past year and a half. I keep saying to myself and to God "can I just please get a break here?!!"

One might wonder what set me off. It is not a huge thing in the spectrum of the world but I have just found out how much it will cost me to switch over my car stuff to Louisisana, something I had planned not to do because of how expensive I hear it is, but I was lazy and never got a Florida license and the people out there who look at these thing caught that I dont have all my stuff in one state. But it is ridiculous how much is cost, I even have to pay sales tax on my car again at 9%. This so frustrates me because between higher rent at my new place (thank you Katrina) and now this, I do not think I will be able to take the grad school class that I had been hoping to take this spring, and I dont have the income to do many other things I had hoped to do nor to save money.

As I am writing this I know that it just sounds so pathetic and self-centered. I mean for one I live here and even though I have no plans to settle here, I still live here and the honest thing is to pay my dues here. Also I keep thinking how is the world do low income people afford car insurance and registration here, messed up. But I think this is just one of those things that just hit me really wrong on a very vulnerable day. I dont know why I feel so vulnerable today in particular, I think the crappy things that have happened in my life in the past year and a half just sort of hit me more on some days than others. I just want to have something so awesome happen in my life, I just want to be happy. I know that God is continally doing great things in my life and that I need to look to Him for joy in the hard times, but for some reason today I am just allowing myself to be pessimisitc and I know that is sad but I am. I know that I am so much better of than SOOO many people and that I am blessed with so many things, but today I am just frustrated.

I need to make sure that tomorrow is different......

I actually have pictures on my walls!!!

Oh it feels so great to have a room that is almost actually settled in. I spent this weekend putting my new bedding that I got for Christmas on, my other got all rained on in the hurricane, hanging pictures, getting a carpet, and just decorating. As I lay in bed last night I just sighed because it felt so good, because for the first time since September 2004 I am completely settled into a room. The boxes are unpacked, the pictures are on the walls, and I feel comfortable. It feels like my own little cocoon. The rest of the house in another story but I have my little space and it feels so great.

It is amazing how it is helping me change some bad habits I had begun as well. I developed the awful habit of coming home and just turning on the TV (evil cable) and being a zombie for hours until I go to bed. Since I dont really have too many people to hang out with yet, and no youth were back in town yet, I just zoned. I had a stack of books I wanted to read next to my bed but my room did not feel comfy to me so I just stayed out of it, until bed time. My unmade room sort of stressed me out to be in, so I sort of lost myself in TV land. I got so much in the zone that I would not feel like putting pics on the wall and decorating, a vicious cycle. I found that all of the above was also not helping my emotions, I was feeling more and more depressed.

But for the past few days I have come home and been so excited to just go into my room, open a few windows to let the nice breeze in, put on my music, and read. I even finished a book in 2 days this past weekend. Then before bed I light some candles and do my devos and journaling for the day, it is so nice. SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE WORTHLESS TV ZONE!!! Now I just have to be careful that I dont go so much into the reading and bedroom zone that I dont get out there and meet people and build relationships with my roomies.

Now if the rest of my house can just improve, anyone want to donate some really nice couches, dining room table, pictures, carpets, etc.?

Happy New Years!!

So I had an ok New Years. I was really bumbed to miss the annual New Years party that all my friends from college have. It is always such a blast, and last year in particular it was so wonderful for me.

I intitally just wanted to stay in, eat pizza, drink beer, and watch a good movie. But I kept saying to myself, as well as my mother and sister telling me, that I need to get out and meet people. "You can not meet people sitting in your house" is what my mom tells me. So my roomy invited me to go out with her and her friends. We ended up going to this really neat street near where I live that has all these really cool bars and restraunts. When we got there there was a Second Line (which is a New Orleans tradition where there is a brass band that marches around the neighborhood playing music and people follow). Pretty cool!! So we jumped in with that and walked all around the neighborhood, stopping at various bars. At a couple points I even saw some random people on their porches playing along on their brass instrument. It was really neat to be part of something so New Orleans!!

Then we headed over the my roomie's friend's house. It was an AMAZING, old New Orleans house!! I didnt know anybody and when I got there I sort of hit a wall. My stomach started to hurt and I did not feel like socializing, and no body really went out of their way to talk to me. Have you ever been to those parties where everyone knows each other so they are all in small groups and so you just sort of stand there feeling like a complete loner!! Yeah it stinks big time. So I am not sure if my stomach ache was actually physical or mental, I think it was a little mixture of both. My roomies were also getting super drunk and I was just not in the mood to deal with that. So instead of heading to the French Quarter as planned I ended up heading home.

It felt really good to put on my pjs, take some Pepto-bismol, and lay on the couch watching 2 balls drops (that sounds bad haha!!). What I mean is watching the east coast ball drop and then seeing it replayed for us who are an hour behind. So my New Years was not something super special but at least I was able to get out and have a little fun and then finish the night doing exactly what I felt like doing all along.

I am not a big New Years person, not big into all the resolutions and all. I mean why wait till New Years to make a new beginning? But for the first time I really feel like 2006 is sort of a new start for me. I think so much of has to do with my very hard 2005, full of transition. But it also really has a lot to do with the fact that January is sort of a new start for where I live, New Orleans. The city officially reopened this month and I actually have youth in town and can finally begin my ministry.

I sort of feel like New Orleans. She has been beaten and battered in 2005. She was and is full of transition and her future is unknown. But she is determined to rebuild and be even better than she was before she was hit so hard. She has the support of so many who want to see her rebuilt, and she is leaning of God for support and to show her what is next.