2012

The other day, I realized that I had not done a reflection post about leaving 2011 behind.
As I thought more about it, I realized that I did not really feel like doing a reflection of 2011 post.
2011 was a crap year.
I don't feel like writing a nostalgic post about a crap year.
Instead!
I decided that I will look forward.
Even though I am already a full month into 2012, it is already shaping up to be a good year.

Here are just a few of the reasons:

1) I've already gone on a trip to NYC
It was my first trip there, and it was AMAZING! I cannot wait to go back. Maybe long term? I don't know. But I now know I can hold my own there.

2) THE END IS IN SIGHT!
Graduation is almost in my grasp. I have the ability to count down the days. Not necessarily on my fingers and toes, but none the less, I can number them.

I mean, c'mon.... Don't all these people look so happy?

3) The proposition of moving in with a GREAT group of girls.
Who doesn't dream of living with a group of friends at some point in their life? It seems like an experience that I simply do not want to miss out on. And, the good news is, the more girls we gather, the better the proposition of renting a house is, and the cheaper the rent will be. SCORE!

4) Turning 21 in May
Whereas most college students dream of turning 21 so they can go out and get wasted using their own ID, I have no such desire. I'm excited to turn 21 so that I can buy my own cooking wine and amaretto to bake biscotti with. I know. I'm boring.

5) Being in two of my friends' wedding in October.

They have been an awesome example of a healthy, Godly relationship, and to be able to stand with them and watch them exchange vows, become one, is such a wonderful privilege and an honor. Besides the fact that I'm paired with my best guy-friend and he and I are going to have a blast!

6) Getting my drivers license. (FINALLY!)

I know, I know.... I'm almost 21, and I still can't drive. Whatever. Bring on the jokes.

7) Romance?

I don't know. I'm happy where I'm at, while not wanting to stay here very long. There's part of me that really just wants to get out, spend time with single guys, get to know more people, and drink plenty of coffee while doing it :)

8) The next step?

For now, I don't know what awaits me beyond 2012. And, for the time being, I am content to bask in the peace of uncertainty. It is such an oxymoron, but it aptly describes where I am at currently. At peace with not knowing what awaits me. I figure God will tell me when the time comes. 

Cry of the Vulture

Tonight, as I lay in my bed, my mind has been drifting about, thinking about different struggles, different instances in my life, and all sorts of frustrations that can bog me down if I let them.
As my mind wandered, it flitted upon a statement that it grabbed hold of and ran with.
Men are unreliable.
It is something that every once and a while will glance across my mind, but I am usually able to suppress with thoughts of the wonderful men in my life, but tonight, for some strange reason, it has taken wings and flown in circles about my mind like a vulture circling its prey.
The vulture cried out to me about Jon, the boy that promised me so much, and failed to bring any of those promises to fruition. Oh, how I long to just not care about it any more. I pray to become indifferent towards him, after all, that is better than allowing his mere existence to break me down. And yet his failings have added to the vulture's cry.
It mentioned my father. A man who has never been a stable figure in my life. Someone who I have fought more with and has been the root of much frustration, mostly because I do love him so dearly. But, even through that love, so many of his actions throughout my childhood and teenage years screamed out that fathers were not to be trusted. That men are so very unreliable. And so the cry of that vulture grows louder.
Then it circles around to David. A man who should not be on this list, and yet my mind stuck him there. He was a father figure that was as fathers should be. He would have given his right arm to ensure the mental, emotional, physical safety of me and my brother. Although he was not perfect, he loved fully and gave of the deepest part of himself. But my mind claims, what that vulture in my mind cries out, is that his death, though it was nothing of his own doing, proves further the unreliability of men.
And so that vulture circles, crying:
Men are unreliable.
Men are unreliable.
Men are unreliable....
It is not something that I want to thing.
In fact, everything in my being bucks against the thought.
And yet, tonight, whether it just be my current emotional state or if it is simply where I am at in my healing process for the time being, I cannot shake it.
So friends, pray for me.
Because, I need to know that it is all worth it.