From Christmas 2013

12/24/13

Dear Christmas 2014 Eve Stephanie,

Hey :) How are you? I come bringing you good news. Would you like to hear it?

You are in a better place than me! Isn't that a relief? I am so happy for you. I worked really hard to get you here. I dedicated myself to my school work, and opened myself up to new friends, and tried to get deeper with God, and wrote more, and read more, and pushed Sam to the right place on my priority list.

You are the result of a very difficult Christmas 2013, and probably a pretty tearful following New Year's Eve. How do you feel? Pearls are made from being trapped. A phoenix rises stronger from the ashes. Diamonds form under great pressure.

You a pearl, a phoenix, and a diamond, produced from the captivity, heat, and pressure I'm feeling right now. I'm so glad that you're alive. Aren't you glad? Isn't it nice just to be alive?

I don't care if you have a boyfriend or not :) If you do, I trust that you think a lot of him and the two of you are a reasonable kind of happy. If you don't, keep believing that God has someone good for you, someone who will ask you on real dates, and write you letters, and pray with you, and make you laugh, and propel his own life forwards.

I hope you're loving being an English major. I think you are, even if you've been frustrated this year. You love words so much. Just think about how you feel when you read a good book, and how powerful writing inspiration is. So many people have told met hat I'm a good writer, so you must be even better. Remember, every time you think you've lost your touch, you read and love something you wrote LAST time you thought you lost your touch. Things go in cycles. You're destined to write something worth it, I'm sure. Believe that.

You're not fat. Don't even think that. You look great, I'm totally sure. I'm going to make sure of it.

I bet you have time to read a whole book between now and when you go back to school. Go for it!

Please don't be sad :) I'm fighting considerable sadness myself, and the thought of you being happy is one of the only things keeping me going.

Love you, Stephanie of Christmas 2014! I hope your first year out of the teens has been alright!

~Christmas 2013 Stephanie

Thankful. Or "Hashtag Blessed," If You Will

This has been an enigmatic Thanksgiving.

I got home on Monday night with two term papers to write completely. They have made me stressed, irritable, and unable to relax. {I still love being an English major. But really, fml.} As I type this, I have one complete rough draft of one paper {due Monday}. Today I will research and outline for the other {due Tuesday}, and write it tomorrow and Monday.

I really need an A on both papers. Unfortunately, I think I only have the time, energy, and resources to pull out Cs or Bs. But hey. In five days, it'll be over. For better or for worse, in five days there will be nothing I can do and I am pretty damn sure I can live with that.

For the next fifty minutes, I am giving myself a break. I will eat lunch, and I will blog. Because deep down inside, I'm actually perversely happy. This Thanksgiving has kind of sucked, but at the same time, it's been uniquely great. I want to take some time and Be Thankful since I didn't actually do it on Facebook like everyone else on the planet.

Family

Or more specifically, a Mom who's like my best friend, partner in crime, and confidante now {when did she stop judging me and start being my ally?}; a Daddy who always looks for the best in every person and every situation; and a sister who I would CHOOSE to hang out with pretty much any day of the week.

Roommates

Or more specifically, Harley {the redhead with the thumbs up}. Harley is my best friend at school. We get along flawlessly. I think we're the only two in the apartment who haven't gotten on each others' nerves. I help her with her papers; she lets me use her printer. She washes the dishes; I pick up her late-night cravings on my way back from work. There are no conversational boundaries. We laugh til we cry. And we form a Thermostat Team against Mary and Allison who like the apartment to be Hot As Actual Balls.

Internship

Yeah, it totally sucked away all my homework hours and made me have to do these papers over freaking Thanksgiving. BUT it also introduced me to the world's best boss, the world's coolest coworker, the world's greatest coffee, and a lot of unbelievable opportunities for the future. So cheers.

SRMUN

The Southern Regional Model United Nations conference. Like the internship, this conference kind of made my life Hell and contributed to having to do papers over freaking Thanksgiving. BUT AGAIN, I met amazing people, made hilariously awesome and eye-opening memories, and opened excellent future doors. So I am thankful it happened.

Cassidy {on the right}

Who apparently doesn't have any recent pictures of just herself. So I am also thankful for Allison on the left. But Cassidy is the girl I am closest to on the planet. I can't live without Sarah, and Harley is my everyday buddy, but Cassidy knows it all. She supports me, listens to me, advises me, helps me see things more clearly {including myself}. We laugh together, have those eye conversations, discuss makeup, discuss people, discuss futures. She may or may not have a Pinterest board dedicated to MY wedding one day... She's gorgeous, brilliant, loyal, hilarious, and I am so lucky to have her in my life.

No More Wisdom Teeth

Seriously. Having my wisdom teeth removed had been hanging over my head for like a decade.

The Road Trip

After three years of joking around, we took the trip of a lifetime. Those laughs, pains, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and stories will be a highlight of my life until I die. I'm sure. From sharing a tent, to belting out songs in the car, to seeing the St. Louis Arch, to walking around Chicago at night... There are no words. Just trust me when I say this trip easily ranks in the top five Best Experiences of My Life.

Working Out

The place, the ability, the people to do it with. I love feeling strong and healthy.

This Kid

I'm sorry. I'm just really, really, inappropriately, overpoweringly happy that I'm dating him. I'm not even gonna try to be sarcastic and offhand about this. I'm in love with him and I think he's amazing.

He's the kind of guy who would like to spend an evening playing cards, but went out clubbing with me anyway.

He's the kind of guy who gave up forty-five minutes and a lot of convenience to figure out a way to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving with me.

He's the kind of guy who buys me books and reads Paradise Lost for me even though he's not an epic poetry fan.

He's the kind of guy who can both make me blush and make me feel genuinely valued.

I've been lost in love before, and it almost destroyed me. But being lost in love with Gem feels an awful lot like being Found.

Runners Up for Most Appreciated In My Life:
1. ChapStick
2. Coffee
3. New windshield wipers
4. That hangnail finally leaving
5. Not having to have braces
6. Chocolate

And also, thank YOU for sticking with me :) I really do love you guys.

~Stephanie

Just Another Blog About Marriage

I have a problem.

My Facebook newsfeed is clogged with blog posts about marriage. "Single and Not Waiting." "My Husband is Not My Soul Mate." "I Wasn't Ready For Marriage." "Got Engaged and Immediately Doubted My Decision." "Hey Young People: Now's the Time to Get Married." "Stop Dating Someone You Don't Have a Future With."

Oh. My. God.

Leave. Us. Alone.

{And thus, my problem:  How do I blog about blog posts about marriage clogging up media without it being ridiculously ironic? Answer: I don't know. If I figure out a way before I finish this post, awesome. If I don't, I'm posting anyway. Everyone knows I love irony.}

I honestly don't know why this annoys me so much. Maybe because I feel like it's a trend. It's TRENDY to talk about marriage right now. It's an infinity-scarves-and-Starbucks thing. It's just what profound Christian twenty-something bloggers discuss. The theme came up out nowhere, and will probably disappear having made no lasting impression on the world.

Marriage is important, yes. There are lots of misconceptions about marriage, and singleness, and the terrifying pop-culture concept of "The One;" I get it. We need to talk about it. We need to clarify the misconceptions and dispel the terror. We need to return to the Bible and be smart about how much we depend on another human for happiness and wholeness. Yes.

But damn. I'm dating a guy and I love him and I'm happy and we both love God and we get along great and we see a future together and I don't need some chick in Canada telling me that I have to put God first--I know that. I don't need some guy telling me that getting married isn't going to cause me financial stress--I pretty much know that it will, in fact, because combining two separate incomes and lifestyles will always pose adjustments. I don't need someone to tell me that I'm going to have doubts if I say Yes to a proposal--I am human and also Stephanie. Of COURSE I'm going to freak out and second-guess. {Although I do happen to have liked Mo's post a lot.} {And I like Matt Walsh, too.}

Maybe I'm just being bitter and petty and immature, but I feel like the media avalanche of marriage commentary is unnecessary. Anyone seriously considering marriage will come to these articles' conclusions on their own, and if they don't--in some cases--maybe that's okay.

If you're a Christian and you don't know to put God ahead of your spouse, then there are issues that a bubbly blog post is not going to fix.

And maybe you can marry someone you believe to be your soul mate and have a totally healthy marriage. Maybe you can live a totally moral and successful life without the disillusioning kick in the teeth of "HA HA YOU JUST HAVE TO MAKE IT WORK BECAUSE THERE IS NO ONE RIGHT FOR YOU."

Don't get me wrong, those articles are well-written and I understand the merit of being freed from counterproductive notions of marital perfection. I just subscribe to the Morgan Freeman method of social problem-solving. How do we fix all these problems? "Stop talking about them."

Can we stop obsessing and looking to other people to feed us Truths about life? What ever happened to logic and personal prayer and self-awareness? I just don't see taking someone seriously who comes up to me and says, "Oh my gawsh, this article, like, changed my life-ah."

{See, I can't even hear that sentence in anything but a Valley Girl voice.}

I think lasting, heartfelt revelations regarding anything, but maybe ESPECIALLY marriage, need to come from sources much more personal than mass-distributed blog posts.

I like to think that my role as a blogger is to start conversations. I have conversations, debates, and evaluations in my head, and I write about them as a way to process my thoughts. I hope that my posts might spark similar discussions inside your heads. But I never presume to tell you what to think. I'm not going to lie to you, but I will also be the first to tell you that I am not an end-all-be-all source of Truth. I'm not an idiot.

I'm still not sure if I've answered my own question of "why do I hate the torrent of marriage-related articles." Yes, I think they're overrated; Yes, I think they're pretentious and unnecessary; Yes, I think real heart changes come from more personal sources than blogs.

But maybe I just hate them because they're trendy and I'm tired of them. That also sounds like something I would do.

What are you thoughts on this?

~Stephanie

Colors on My Soul

"Teal”

10/27/14

I loved a boy with a teal soul.

He had teal eyes,

Neither blue nor green.

Ambiguous. Enigmatic.

Small and piercing; slicing, sharp.

They were a one-way door.

Sly and sneaking, seeking.

Secretive. Shocking. Stealthy.

They pierced, they sliced,

They sought, they stole.

It was a teal soul.

"Green and Gold"

10/28/14

I love a boy with brown eyes.

He has a soul of green and gold:

Deep with alive; rich with warm.

Gentle and bold.

Present and open; promising, proud.

They brought integrity.

Passionate and polite, perceiving.

Persistent. Pursuing. Purposeful.

They healed, they prodded,

They praised, they protected.

It made me whole,

His green and gold soul.

~Stephanie

A Spirare

I just hit the "Publish" button on the post called "Aspirations." I clicked "View Blog" to proofread it again, and was struck by that word:

Aspiration.

Out of nowhere, its Latin roots assaulted me unbidden:  a meaning "of, from, by, since" and spirare meaning "to breathe."

Aspirations:  Something from which we breathe.

Our aspirations--our goals, our dreams, our desires--are not only what we strive to, but what we breathe from. They aren't just in our futures, they are in us now, motivating us. When we breathe, we breathe because we're working toward something, working to be something.

I got up this morning because I aspire to be an English major. To be an English major, I must get up and read things and write things and study things and drink a lot of coffee (it's in the major requirement. Don't check; it's there)--and breathe. Because I aspire to be an English major.

I'm really starting to love the word "aspire." It is a light word. It's airy and crisp and invigorating--like a breath, I suppose, but a really good one. A breath of cool, sharp air that fills you with energy like electricity and makes you want to jump higher and run faster and smile brighter.

Aspire.

To what do I aspire? From what do I breathe?

I aspire to be a lover of words:  to speak them effectively, read them closely, write them artfully.
I aspire to be a champion of truth, valuing it in people, institutions, and ideas.
I aspire to travel:  to see places that amaze me and meet people who change me.
I aspire to know God and make him known.
I aspire to drink my coffee at a mature pace.

From what do you breathe?

~Stephanie

Aspirations

You know how some people--and maybe you're one of them--can make a cup of coffee or a bag of M&Ms last for like hours? The cup just sits beside them on the desk as they attend to their work with focus and tranquility, largely oblivious to the delicacy at hand. Occasionally they'll take a sip. The steam starts to subside, but they don't seem to mind. They have mastered the arts of moderation and indifference.

I am profoundly jealous of this mastery.

I first noted this kind of detachment when I was eight years old. Matt, a first-grader, would come over to our house after school if his babysitter had some other commitment. Sometimes Mom would give us a snack--chocolate chips or something--to eat as we did our homework.

My chocolate chips were always gone within the first three or four minutes. They were delicious, and after a single chip, I became a temporary chocolate addict. I couldn't resist eating them one after another until they were gone, and my homework barely started.

Matt did his homework with the meandering, selective attention of a little boy who does not want to use a number line to practice subtraction. However, he ate his chocolate chips the same way. Every few minutes, he would blink at his snack as if he'd just remembered it, pick up a couple of chips, and then immediately forget his snack's existence again.

How could he care so little about chocolate chips? How was he not driven crazy by their tempting presence until it was fully relocated into his stomach?

As a third-grader, I chalked it up to the fact that Matt had funner food at his house (which was true). He was used to candy for snack; it wasn't a treat for him. It has lost its novelty. I wondered if the same phenomenon would be true for me if I ever became rich enough to have fun food on hand at all times.

To some extent, that philosophy proved true. My family now has orange juice on a regular basis, and I no longer feel compelled to drink it all the time just because it's there. The same is true of cookies, and Cheez-Its, and flavored yogurt. I have risen above the animalistic urge to consume these relatively mundane foods.

However.

With "treat" foods and beverages, the art of pacing oneself is still lost on me. I buy a smoothie, and it's half gone before I'm even back in my dorm room. I open a 2-serving bag of M&Ms, and within ten minutes, it's empty. I grab an iced coffee on the way to work, and I'm sucking at the ice fifteen minutes later.

Meanwhile, I watch people around me exercise this intensely classy combination of absentminded appreciation and tranquil indifference to their "treats." Large iced coffees go minutes and minutes and MINUTES without even being touched, and people don't even seem to be struggling to resist.

Maybe they're just all rich and have treats all the time and the novelty has been lost, like Matt with his chocolate chips? Or am I totally and abnormally self-control-deficient when it comes to delicious things?

All I know is that I envy the air of maturity embodied by people who can resist their treats. It's a level of maturity to which I genuinely aspire.

And I will get there, even if it means drinking steamless coffee and drooling on my keyboard.

~Stephanie

Double Life

I feel like I'm leading a double life.

On one hand, I am happier than I've ever been in my entire life. I am happier than I ever thought possible--much happier than I deserve.

It's the people:  my suitemates are perfect living companions:  we get along flawlessly, balancing late-night life discussions and sessions of politely ignoring each other while we do homework. We laugh loudly and often and share inappropriate details about our lives. It is truly awesome.

Cassidy is still my best friend. We understand each other, support each other, and share hilarious text messages that make me burst out laughing in moments of silence. Our relationship feels the same, except older. I think it's what growing up is supposed to be for best friends.

And Gem. Things with Gem are amazingly great. He gives direction to my aimless everyday inefficiencies and overwhelming mundane endeavors. I take the best naps with him. He has the best story ideas. He's the best kind of stubborn. He sent me a Batman ice cube tray in the mail the other day, for no reason. He takes me on dates because he likes to. He sends me spontaneous flirting texts in class and I cannot help smiling.

These people light up my life. Sometimes it almost makes me cry. God is so great. He has blessed me more than I thought possible.

I am so happy.

But on the other hand, I have never been this miserable for this long in my entire life.

This entire semester has been depression and struggle and frustration and helplessness. I have not had a single day where I woke up with a smile and thought I can do this. Every morning has been like a punch in the stomach, oppressive and nauseating.

It's a rule that semesters start off rough, you know? It's hard to shake the summer mindset. It's hard to say goodbye to friends and family back home. It's hard to watch the tan leach from your skin. I expected these routine difficulties. But I did not expect them to persist relentlessly into my third month of junior year.

I am DROWNING in homework, internship, tutoring, and copy-editor duties. Drowning isn't even the right word. Suffocating? Flattening? My Model United Nations class consists of "Here's a textbook. Read it, understand it, and be prepared for tests on it. Also, please become intimately familiar with all current events and events pertaining to the UN from the last fifty years."

There's a conference coming up in November, where I will represent Belgium on a UN committee COMPLETELY ALONE. I have no idea how to prepare for that.

In another poli-sci class, I am the only non-political science or criminal justice major. I have a midterm in that class tomorrow. I haven't had time to study for it.

In all my three English classes, which I love, I think I've completed about ten readings. There has been a lot of skimming and SparkNoting and bullshitting. I hate doing that. I love being an English major. If I didn't have all the tedious, impossible work for my political science minor, I might love my life.

But as things are, I honest-to-God do not know how I'm going to keep going. Am I going to start failing classes? Am I going to start getting sick all the time? Am I going to lose myself in this relentless struggle to juggle my life?

I feel so trapped. There aren't classes or jobs that I can drop. I have to keep doing everything, but it's only going to get worse, and I'm barely keeping my head above water as is.

I love school because I love learning. But at the same time, I do not want to do this anymore. I am so over being constantly graded. I am so over living a life that is functionally disconnected from Gem. I am so over the entanglements of busy work and...just academics.

I know that I don't want to quit school, but at the same time, these overwhelming feelings of depression and helplessness are not tapering off as the semester progresses the way they normally do.

I'm just frustrated. I know exactly what I want with my life, I just can't reach it yet, and I can't tell if I'm on the surest, most efficient path toward that goal. Am I somehow causing myself unnecessary pain and stress? Or is this just the way it has to be for now?

No answers, only questions.

The reality of impending adultness continues.

~Stephanie