Crash

Well is has been awhile since I have posted, but I have also been out of town a lot this past month which has been really nice. Nice to get away, see friends, and be in a place that is "normal" for awhile. So many people around here say that you do not realize how abnormal things still are around here until you go out of town, and it is true. From the fact that you can walk into a place and there not be a line, or the fact that trash in picked up and there are not blocks and blocks of neighborhoods which are just black at night because not a single light is on proves to me how abnormal things still are around here and will be for awhile. It has been really nice to get away though and have some breathing time.

So I have been really excited over this past movie awards season that I have seen Crash receive nominations and awards. I saw this film when it was first in the theatres almost a year ago and was blown away. I remeber leaving the theatre thinking that I needed to see it a billions more time, in order to catch everything that was in it because it gave you so much to think about. I also remeber being pessimistic and thinking that as amazing as it was, and as amazing a performance each actor gave, Hollywood would not acknowlege it because it was not a "big grosser" or "a normal award winner". But boy was I proved wrong to my joy as it won best picture and numerous other awards. And now that it is back in theatres again, I can see it again on the big screen. So if you are reading this and have not seen it GO SEE IT!! It is one of those movies that everyone needs to see, it moves you and really makes you look at yourself and out culture. SO GO SEE IT!!

I am in love with the below.....

Thinking...

So I just finished watching a tv show where the last line was "If you knew that today was your last, how would you spend it?" It really hit me. I mean as Christian we are taught that we need to seize everyday, that it is a gift from God and that you never know of your tomorrow. But lately I have been thinking about death quite a bit, I am not really sure why. Maybe it is because a good friend of mine lost someone very dear to her. As she told me of his last moments, I just started crying because it was such an answer to prayer that she was there and because a friend was experiencing so much pain, but also because I just thought of the beauty yet fear of death. Maybe I have also thought about it during this low time in my life.

Yes, I am pretty low. It goes up and down but overall I am really struggling and through this struggle a lot of questions have gone off in my head and heart and one of them has been about death and my life. I think of the things I regret doing or not doing, the broken relationships that pain me, the traveling and adventures I want to experience, the people I want to tell how much I truly, deeply love them, and just overall how I want my life to be. I have realized how much I take advantage of life and love. But I also realize how caught I am in the boundaries that we put onto life.

As much as I struggle with this because I know where I am going, I can honestly say that I am not ready to die. I have too much life to live. That sounds selfish, I know, and I am trying to work on that struggle in my faith, but I just want to live. I want to love, travel, learn, and just experience life. But at the same time I do have to ask myself, "If I knew that today was my last day, how would I spend it?"

I struggle with the idea that we have to work daily for about 60 or more years of our lives, so that we are not poor when we are old. I struggle with that because when I think of what I want my life to be it is, spending time with people I love, traveling, and so on, not living for the vacation. I fear not finding the job that I desire and meets my life mission. I fear looking back at my life and thinking, man I wish I did more. I need to be better at seizing opportunities and planning my daily life so as I live it to the best I can. I get so caught in the laziness of life, stuck in the moment instead of living each to the fullest.

Wow this is a depressing post. Just wanted to write down some thoughts that I have been having lately. I think partly to remind myself of them.....

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......