Onward

Intentional Community was always a buzzword that I cringed at during my time at Taylor. I felt that it was overused and complete bullshit. Ironically, it was also the reason that I chose to go to Taylor because although it was overused and seemed fake there was still something about it. It wasn't until I hit the "real world" that I truly had a desire for this buzzword that I mocked so often before.

Through my time in Indy, I have had my deep friendships and deep communities, but most have moved around and shifted. Through life situations, we have all had our times where we are more intentional and times where we are less intentional. To be honest, it has left me feeling lonely at times. However, through the past few months, my desire to be connected and intentional has been stronger than it has been in a long time.

The Carrollton, the place I call home, became something so much more than just a place to host things and a place to sleep. It became a place of intentional community and a safe place for me. The humans that I have lived with for the past few months have retaught me what it looks like to challenge and be challenged. They have helped reminded me and helped me learn some pretty great things about what it means to love greatly. Here's just a few of the things that I have learned.

You're Not A Winner
Pretty much anyone who is close to me knows that I like to challenge others and there is a secret side to me that wants to always win. No one is a winner in relationships. As Marshall and Lily once said, "We need to stop keeping score." This is something that we do so often in relationships. We try to one up in the arguments, the jokes, and the relationship in general. Instead of winning we just end up hurt with a weakened relationship or none at all.

Receive Grace as well as Give Grace
Grace has always been a concept for me that isn't hard to grasp when it comes to giving it out. However, receiving grace isn't always the easiest for me. I don't like to let people down and I don't want to be the reason for people's pain. The Carrollton has taught me much about grace in the last few months. It has taught me that in order to truly grow in relationships we must have grace for ourselves as well as have grace for others. If we do not have grace for ourselves, we will be stunted and will not grow. We will not be able to give grace as freely when we cannot receive it for ourselves.

In This House We Talk About Our Feelings
Living with different communication styles isn't always the easiest thing to do. Communicating isn't always the most fun thing to do. Feelings just suck in general. Even in the midst of communication struggles, The Carrollton has helped me to relearn the importance of communication. It has helped me to understand that it is important to learn the communication styles of those you love in order to be able to have a better relationship with them. It has helped remind me that feelings and emotions can make communication messy, but that is the most important time to communicate. Without talking through emotions and feelings, we do not move forward but only backwards.

Slay Your Demons
This season of my life has only shown me that my demons are out to get me every minute of the day. The Carrollton has reminded me that those demons do not have power over me. This community has reminded me that the demons that I fight are not only mine to fight. I have been reminded of what it looks like to have humans who love me surround me with encouragement and the power to fight. Demons aren't that scary when you have people on your side to slay.

These aren't the few things that the Carrollton Community has taught me in the past few months, but they are definitely some of the key things that I have learned. To be honest, I was really bummed to put this chapter to rest at first but I am regularly reminded that this isn't the end. Living in a house with humans creates an automatic community, but leaving doesn't bring it to an end. The intentional community of The Carrollton will continue on even without the house itself and I am excited to see where it takes us. Here's to Christian buzzwords and how they can at times be completely necessary and accurate.

Susie Told Me to Run Away

I know that I have already written a "New Year, New You" post, but here is the continued learning from 2017 so far.

Many people haven’t had the greatest of things to say about 2016 and to be honest I don’t really have much good to say about it either. There were good times, but the reality is that 2016 wasn’t the greatest year overall for me. With 2016 leaving me bummed, I decided that 2017 had to be different. To move forward in the new year meant that I had to figure out what I wanted the new year to look like. With that being the case, I took a solo self exploration trip last weekend to Nashville to really think through things.

Here is what I learned:

1. I should runaway from my problems (Susie told me to).
2. Always tie up your imaginary horse.
3. Words don’t mean anything.

I should run away from my problems (Susie told me to)...
I had some time to meet with a good friend when I escaped from reality. During that time she told me that the best thing that I could do was run away from my problems. Okay, so what she really told me was that I needed to NOT run away from my problems. I have this tendency when people who care for me are telling me one thing that I hear the complete opposite.

During the last year, I spent a lot of time processing what was happening, but the truth is that I didn’t process what I needed to when I needed to. I allowed myself to get overburdened and I suppressed things that I didn’t want to deal with. Moving on meant growth and growth meant pain. I didn’t want to feel the pain. I didn’t want to go through my laundry list of issues that the year had brought on. I wanted to stop feeling inadequate and wanted to feel whole, but running away was the only thing I felt I could do.

Spending time with my dear friend last weekend helped me to let my guard down. It allowed me to take time to myself and really see how I needed to stop running and start dealing with what has been going on. I had time to spend alone and allow myself to think which allowed me to understand that I needed to wrestle through my issues. I was reminded that the only way to get through issues was to deal with them one at a time. Instead of running away, I need to run towards those issues and embrace them. I can only learn once I have started to actually handle

what is going on.

Always tie up your imaginary horse…

This really doesn’t have anything to do with anything except for the fact that Susie wanted me to add it in here. While we were walking through the woods, we saw a sign that said, “Please tie up your horse.” Susie made it a point to tell me to tie up my horse before we headed down to the river. I tied up my imaginary horse and we continued on to the river.

One thing that I can actually pull from this is that I have great friends that challenge me to be creative and imaginative. Even in the midst of anxiety, sadness, and chaos I have friends who provoke me to act like a child and to let loose. I have learned that it is in the times where everything feels so heavy that it is necessary to laugh and to have a good time. After all, they say that laughter is the best medicine.

Words don’t mean anything…

During my time of processing with Susie, I realized how this is a lie that I believe more than I would ever admit. I am as vulnerable as I want to be, but I have the tendency to keep myself from letting words affect me. I don’t take in compliments and allow myself to hear truth. I don’t allow myself to be hurt when I need to from the words spoken to me by dear friends. I don’t allow myself to be sad when I am put down. I don’t let words say what they are meant to say, but instead I allow myself to believe the lie that they don’t mean anything.

I want this year to be a year that I allow words to sink in, but not over think the words that are being said to me. I want words to hold the weight that they are supposed to hold. I want to think carefully through how I speak to and of others. The truth is that words have meanings for a reason and I need to be real about those meanings.

That my friends is what I learned on my solo weekend to Nashville. Even though 2016 wasn’t my favorite year, I believe that it has brought some thoughtful challenges for me to accept for 2017. I am ready to move forward this year and to allow myself to be renewed.

New Year, New You

The beginning of a new year always brings questions and challenges. We read statuses about "New Year, New You" and have conversations about who we want to become. We think through the all of the good times and the mistakes that we have made in the previous year. We take all of that only to start over new and wipe the slate clean. As the reminders have been strong around me over the past few days, I too have been thinking about what 2017 will bring.

To be completely honest, 2016 wasn't the greatest nor was it the worst. It definitely brought some challenges and at times I was knocked down, but I also had some pretty great times. The past couple of days have really challenged me and have challenged me in who I really want to be in 2017. I don't want to become someone new, but I do want to continue to grow in who I am. 

Here's what 2016 taught me:

Family is important. I care about my family and I appreciate them, but to be honest I haven't always been the closest to them. During the past year, I truly started to understand the importance of my family. Last year challenged me to be more of a support in my family and to be strong when it was hard for others to be. It challenged me to be there even when being there was the last thing I wanted to do.

Grace is necessary. Relationships are messy. As we get older, the messier they seem to get. We hurt others and are hurt by those who care for us. We break hearts and get ours broken. We have arguments and say things that we don't mean. The reality is that in the midst of all of the pain that we put each other through, we need grace. We need to show grace to each other and we need to show grace to ourselves because in the end those relationships that we fight for are worth it. 

Give grace, but speak truth. Being gracious doesn't mean not being honest. Be honest about what truly happened. Be honest with yourself about how you are hurting yourself. Be honest about telling others how you feel. Speak truth in order to give grace, grow, and move forward. We all need to hear truth in the midst of struggle because that is the only way we will grow.

Don't disregard feelings. I struggle with not talking about things with people because I feel that I am burdening them. We all have those constant struggles that we go through and it is easy to push those aside. However, the reality is that we still need to be real about what is happening in our lives. Just because we have a reoccurring struggle does not make it any easier to handle. It reoccurs for a reason and there is a deeper root. We have to keep talking through them and being real about how it is affecting us. 

Here's to what I am going to do in 2017:

Continue to be a better sister and daughter. I want to continue to grow and be there for my family. I want to be challenged by my family and I want to make more memories with them.

Accept grace and give grace to myself. I want to continue to learn how to be gracious towards others, but I want to be able to more fully receive grace. I want to be able to own the mistakes I make and to give myself the grace I need to grow. I want to be able to accept grace from others and to see my true worth.

Be honest and communicate more often. I don't want to allow situations to get to the point where they break me or to a point where I hurt others. I want to continue to communicate more clearly with those who I am in community with but also be able to be vulnerable when necessary. 

Be real with emotions even when they seem stupid. I want to continue to learn how to embrace what I am feeling in order to grow. I want to grow in owning situations and learn how to better process through them. 

Last year started to shape me into a better human and I want to continue to become a better version of that person. I have set the typical resolutions, but these are goals that I really want to continue in 2017. I don't want to start over, I want to become better. Here's to the new year.

The Plague of Anxiety

Anxiety is a beast that I have yet learned to tame. It is unpredictable and sneaks up at the worst possible times. It’s not always triggered by the same things and it completely cripples its victims. Needless to say it is the worst.

I have struggled with anxiety for most of my life but it’s recently been a topic of conversation. I usually keep my anxiety to myself and don’t talk through it. I have found in the past that it is hard to talk through with people who don’t struggle with it. They always want to make it better or make it go away when it just doesn’t work that way. Because of this reaction I get more anxious to talk about it which in return gives me panic attacks and makes the whole situation worse.

As I was talking to a friend yesterday she told me that she is fearful of how I do not show my anxiety when it is having an affect on me. My normal response was that I have to keep it under control and by letting it show is letting it control me. I have justified that by not talking through it or by keeping it on the down low that I am controlling it. However, the more that I process this the more I realize that I am letting anxiety control me. I am letting my fear of reactions control the way that I handle the situation or even the way that I let it affect me.

The reality is that our society doesn’t allow for the normalcy of anxiety. We deem anxiety and depression as some kind of abnormality. Despite the multitude of conversations that have come up in the past couple of years, there is still a stigma about this issue that does not allow humans to be who they are in the midst of their struggles.

Our culture does a good job of trying to find the root of these issues, but as a Christian woman who struggles with both anxiety and depression I want to be very honest about what does not help. It does not help to have someone ask you about if you think it could be spiritual warfare. Yes, I have thought through this and yes I think that it plays a factor into my mental health but it is not the root of the issue. It is not solely resting on my relationship with God or with the amount of time I spend in the Word. Instead of harping on the spiritual warfare and how it must be satan that is doing this, pray for those who have anxiety and depression. Be encouraging with the Word.

It does not help to remind us of how we should go see a counselor or therapist. Chances are that we have tried this or we aren’t at a point where we feel comfortable going. The reality is that sometimes we just need those around us to hear us and to be there. This doesn’t mean finding a solution to what is wrong, but it means to be a good friend who is caring and loving. Sometimes it means just giving us a hug or an encouraging word because we need to know that we aren’t alone.

Finally, it does not help to hear that it will get better. It might get better in the future, I am not discounting that, but it might not. This may be something that we struggle with for the rest of our lives. We understand that it might be something that will always be hanging over our heads. Of course this isn’t ideal, but it is reality. The truth is that we need our friends and family to understand this as well. We know that those who surround us want it to go away as much as we do, but we need the support of reality. We need to have people around us not try to understand what we are going through but just to understand in general.

This isn’t meant to sound negative or cynical but is an honest post about what I have been struggling with. I think that I struggle more with it because people look at anxiety and depression as being fearful and sad. It’s hard to recognize it as more than just that and realize that it is an illness. However, in the midst of all of this I do find joy and happiness. I do not let this destroy my life and not let me live, but some days are harder than others. My challenge to all humans is to start hearing out the words of those who struggle with this. Don’t be a fixer, but be a listener. Allow people to have a place to put their trust and a place that helps them to feel safe. Don’t be afraid to voice concerns, but know the audience you speak to. Most of all, don’t downplay the reality of anxiety and depression.

10

Two days ago I was sitting with my family and my father had mentioned that he was asked to be interviewed for the 10 year anniversary of the Taylor accident. There was frustration in his voice as he talked about it and he responded with, "they all want to remember it when there are a few of us who are just trying to forget." The pain and the frustration in my father's comments made this year's anniversary harder for me than in the past. 

In all honesty I don't want to forget the accident and to the reality is that I will never be able to forget the accident. It changed my life forever and has shaped me into the human being that I am in. However, the pain that my father has gone through within these ten years has brought me to a place where I am fearful to talk about it. Part of me feels dumb to continue to grieve after ten years and another part feels that for my father's sake I should forget it. 

Throughout the day yesterday, I did not have much processing time or reaction to the accident. As the day went on there were more and more posts and texts that came in that eventually brought me to a breakdown point. We recognize the event as we have gone through life and everyone has moved on. We have grown and we have been through life, but I don't feel like it was ten years ago. I feel like everything happened yesterday and my life is continuing to be impacted by it. A lot of our lives are being impacted by it day after day. It's hard to believe that it was ten years because it has felt more like one day. 

I don't want to forget this day ever happened and I want to continue to remember it. I would love to forget some of the pain, but the truth is that through the pain I have grown. Ten years later and I am still learning from the lives of the people who died that day. I am grateful for the interactions that I did have during their times at Taylor. I am grateful for the people that they had become at that time and how they impacted so many lives around them. I am grateful for how they taught me to love others and that everyone in my life that I come in contact with is important. I am grateful to grieve because grieving means that there was meaning in that accident. 

The accident still challenges me in the goodness of God. Even when I don't want to listen or when I am trying to run away, he continues to speak through this event. I have seen what he has done through this and what he continues to do. Here's to ten years of remembrance and to those lives who have had such an impact on who I am today.

Lies of a Stranger

Not too long ago I was on my way to meet a few of my friends for dinner when something so odd and a bit hurtful happened to me. I was stopped at a stoplight and this woman looked at me and said, "Oh my God, what happened to you? I feel bad for your parents." As anyone would be, I was a bit taken back by this comment. I didn't really know how to respond aside from just saying, "excuse me?" That is when she responded with, "You are really ugly."

The truth is that I don't try to hard to be the most beautiful human in the world. To be quite honest I often envy my friends for how gorgeous they are but at the same time outer beauty has never been something that I value too highly. I value being comfortable in my skin and living life the way I was created to be. That has never been something that has been hard for me to do because I find such high value in human beings. However, these words brought me down and brought me down hard.

There is one part of me that realizes that the human being who said this to me does not know me. She does not know my life or what I do for a living. She has absolutely no clue who I am or who I aspire to be. Then there is the human part of me that realizes words hurt. This woman may not know me, but she still took a hard punch at me. The truth is that I can be the most confident human being in the world but I still have fears of how the world sees me. I don't want to be viewed as the most beautiful human in the world but I also don't want to be called ugly. The truth is that words hurt and they can really do damage to the soul.

This situation hasn't ruined my life or brought me down every day, but it has challenged me a little bit. It has challenged me in what I value and in who I am to an extent. The truth is that I still struggle with comparing myself to the other women in my life and even those who I have never met before. I constantly struggle with not being as beautiful or talented as them. The moment that I start having those thoughts is when I hear this woman's resounding voice in my head.

This scenario has been much more real lately as I hear all of my guy friends talk about all these smoking hot girls. They talk to me about my friends and how beautiful they are. I have always been one of the guys in these situations. They feel comfortable telling me how great all my friends are and how they would love to go on dates with them while I am left here thinking, "Why don't they notice anything about me? Why is it always someone else?" I sit there hoping that maybe they will throw a compliment my way instead of telling me why everyone else is so great.

In no way am I saying that I am not beautiful or that I don't have things going for me, but I will say that my pride has been hurt a little bit lately. The struggle of trying to find myself in the midst of constant lies is definitely real. The reality is that I continually have to remind myself of who I am and the woman that I am growing into. That constant reminder is exhausting and sometimes even unbearable, but to fully give up is even more exhausting. There will be many challenges and fights about who I really am, but I am confident that I can overcome and win those battles.

The Fear of Being an Adult

When I was a kid I wasn't much of a fearful child. There were never any monsters under my bed or in my closet. The trees outside during the storm were always trees to me never any giants trying to get in to take me away. The fears of a child were illogical to me even with my never ending imagination. Clearly I was afraid of things, but fear itself was never something I was familiar with. There was always a logical explanation and through that explanation any ounce of fear disappeared.

Today I still don't fear much, but fear has definitely become more of a reality to me. It's not of anything dumb like spiders or snakes but I have a great fear of loss. I don't fear natural loss but I do fear losing what is closest to me. I fear what is not logical or what I cannot make sense of. I fear the things that I have no control over and the pain that comes along with those situations.

Over the past few weeks this has become more and more real to me. I have been walking in the midst of fear and have been paralyzed by it. This fear has taken me to a place where I do not have any words and have no ability to communicate. It keeps me from being able to truly see what is going on in the world around me and has stopped me in my tracks. The worst part of all of it is that I don't really know how to overcome the fear right now. I don't know the best way to talk about it or to work through it. All I know is that I hate this feeling more than anything else in the world.

A few weeks ago I found out that a person who is dear to me has been diagnosed with cancer. When I first heard the news I was in shock. After the shock had worn off, I went through the the typical stages that I go through when I am in a time of crisis. First, I made sure that everyone else was dealing with it and helped them through their thoughts and feelings. Then, I removed myself from everyone else and tried to "handle" it and "be strong" just like always. Finally, I hit the point of where I am at now where I see the importance of processing, but have no idea how to.

The final stage of crisis for me is where all the fear kicks in. I am fearful of talking about it but also about not talking about it. I am fearful of all the possible situations and not knowing outcome. I am fearful of not feeling any pain at all and being numb. These are the fears that we start to face as adults. We start to realize that the world around us is real and that there is true pain in the world. It is at times like these that I would give anything to have childish fears. I would do anything to come face to face with the monster under the bed or the angry tree that lives outside my window, but that just doesn't come with adulthood. As for now I must grab my shield and my sword and go at life with everything I've got because these fears aren't going to back down and I'm never going to let them destroy me. Here's to fighting on and moving forward.