Gold Stars & Grey Dots

For every sincere congratulations on my upcoming marriage, there's at least one criticizing remark about the rashness of marrying young or foolishness of not continuing my education.  I don't think the polar-opposite responses are limited to me, my fiance, or our plans.  The temptation to compare and judge runs rampant at this time of year, especially for graduating seniors.

We compare ourselves to those that are getting married, going to grad school, getting a job at XYZ company, teaching overseas, becoming missionaries, moving back home, taking an extra year to graduate, are in 5 weddings, didn't get invited to any weddings, are getting a job at IDL company making more money than the person at XYZ company, have 3 interviews lined up, are working at a summer camp, winning this award, volunteering with that non-profit, and the person that has no idea what May 17th will hold.  

To justify our own decisions, we line up all of these options, place our plan at the top of the mental measuring stick, and then demonize the rest to assure ourselves that we are wise, we are valued, our four years at college did mean something.

I've done it.  I've watched my friends do it to themselves, to others, and to me.  As I watch this phenomenon unfold, a children's book I read when I was 7 or 8 comes to mind. 

In Max Lucado's You Are Special, there is a village of wooden people, each expertly crafted by the Creator.  Each wooden person has a box of gold star and grey dot stickers.  When someone does something impressive, looks attractive, or says something witty, everyone rushes over and showers them in gold stars.  But if you aren't so good-looking, have a tendency to blunder, or trip over yourself, it's grey dots for you.  

It isn't until the protagonist, a grey-dot-covered fellow, talks to the Creator and learns that he isn't a mistake but was carefully crafted by the One that loves him despite earthly successes and failures, is he able to start shedding the stickers.  The more he trusts in the love of his Creator, the less stickers will stick to him.  This confuses the other wooden people.  They rush to cover him with gold stars for not having grey dots, but they fall off.  So they try to cover him with grey dots due to his lack of gold stars, but those don't stick either because his identity rests not in the comparison of relative achievement or lack of failure, but in his identity as a creation of the Creator.

The story is beautifully illustrated in this 8-minute video below:

The stickers only stick if you let them.  The stickers only stick if they matter to you.

While the moral of the story is obviously to rest in your identity as a child of God, I particularly love the point it makes about the foolishness of comparing oneself to others.  People will love you for your lack of grey dots.  They will judge you for your lack of gold stars.  Which means if your worth is wrapped up in grey dots and gold stars, you'll always be better and worse than someone else and you'll always be miserable trying to change that.

As peers all transitioning from our undergraduate experiences to something, anything, whatever it may be, I think it's time to throw away our stickers.

Grove City Standard Time

I have exactly four minutes to write this.  Welcome to Grove City Standard Time.  Activities that used to take you an hour have about 10 minutes of scheduled time to get done.  You will manage your time or you will lose it, along with your sanity.  Yet even though the time has compressed and the clock's hands seem to be racing to see who can get there fastest, there is no other time zone I'd rather be in. It's amazing what you can get done in a minute when a minute is all the time you have.

Life at this speed is insane, impossible, exhausting, but also beautiful and precious.  We have such a short and undetermined time to be here.  This isn't a race to run you raggard but one to run with dilligence while resting in God's peace and ultimate sovereignty.  For as much as I'd like to think I can do, I am completely useless without Him. 

My time is up for now, but I'll be back.
Chloe

Final Check

Once Upon A Time I came home from college for Christmas break.  And by "A Time" I mean 4 weeks ago.  The sudden halt of activity and interactions jarred my sense of stability but there was Christmas to be celebrated, God to be worshipped, presents to be exchanged, and food (and food and food) to be eaten.  Just before the "Christmas Thud" overtook me, I was rescued by my to-do list.

A mere sticky note could not contain this masterpiece.
I listed people to visit with and projects to master, new skills to learn, habits to begin, books to read.
While I thoroughly enjoyed seeing my friends and repainting my bathroom and running every day, I was still resting.  For me, true rest is not in social interaction or sleeping or laying on the couch reading.  I enjoy all of those things but true rest is in God. 

I began feeling frustrated that my intellectual and spiritual growth were slowing down just because I was slowing down.  However, with some good conversation with friends and God I realized this didn't have to be the case.  I've learned different things here at home, but I am still learning and still in awe of all that I don't know and get to discover. 

Now, this computer is the only thing I haven't packed yet.  My to-do list is completed and instead of feeling relieved, it makes me a bit sad.  Sad because I don't have things to accomplish and sad also because having things to accomplish has become so important to my sense of stability.  Still a work in progress with that one. 

I feel empty and I don't know if it is just the angst of transition or sadness about leaving such a lovely home or trepidation for what the future holds and confused because all of these feelings are rather foreign to me.  I have so much to learn.

Legos Life Lesson

I loved playing with legos as a small child.  Yet considering that I usually started my construction projects in the middle of the highest traffic area in my house, they inevitably got broken.  Have you ever stepped on a Lego?  Now you can understand my parents' pain.  This also might explain why I went to kindergarten so early. 

Anyways, the thing with broken legos is that once I came back to see my little house lying in little pieces and bricks, I didn't just pack them back in the box and move on to a new activity.  This was a chance at something new, something bigger, something better.  Soon, my dinky 10 by 15 Lego brick house became a towering hotel.  with attached parking garage.  and pet salon. and grocery store. 

Brokenness feels like, well, it feels like your soul has just been smashed to smithereens.  Everything constant about yourself that used to give you peace and security is laying in little pieces on the ground and everyone around you is complaining that they hurt their poor little feet while stepping on the sharp shards of soul that used to be you.  Brokenness might feel like the end of the world.

It might just be the beginning of an even better world.  Everyone thinks their little Lego house is pretty sweet until they see the 5 star Hilton made of primary colors in brick form.  Perspective is everything.

Personally, I believe that you cannot have deep joy until you've experienced deep sorrow.   You can be ecstatic, excited, happy, but without having known what it is like to be apathetic, discouraged, and dismal you don't know how beautiful joy truly is.  Joy must be appreciated in order for it to reach it's full potential.

Maybe you are the towering hotel right now.  Just don't forget that its the lows that got you this high.  If you are in shatters on the ground, feeling trampled and bruised, don't go running back to your box to hide.  Let your brokenness build you.

My Feeble Attempt

I like quotes.  Mostly because they do what I never can.  They  take a thought, an idea, an emotion and turn it into a sentence or two.  It usually takes me more like a paragraph or two.  Sometimes I browse the web for quotes when its a rainy day out like today and nothing is really pressing on my shoulders right now and I need some new ideas to fill my brain with.  The one above is a good example of your typical internet quote.  It is decently nice.  It is also decently egotistical.  I browsed a bit down the comments about this one and one read:  "Don't you ever forget, You Are Perfect!" 

That's a really nice thought.  A really nice thought that's really false.  You aren't perfect.  I'm not perfect.  We never will be.  I don't even have a good proportion of doing things right to messing up.  In fact, I'd estimate that I mess up 8.48 times for every one time that I actually do something right.  But that's just a rough guess. 

I'm okay with that.  I want to do better in every area of my life but there is something to be said for imperfection.  It makes us vulnerable.  It tears down some of judgment walls if we would just realize that everyone is just as broken as we are and we are just a group of fallen people feebly trying to hold each other up while resting in the incredible grace of the God who created and saved us. 

It also makes the small perfections in life even more beautiful.  The innocence of children is even more precious, the sincere smile from a stranger even more encouraging. 

We are wonderfully made and known by name by an incredible God, yes.  Perfect we are not.

The Deafening Flood

I ordinarily have to force myself to get my western civilization reading done.  Today was no exception.  History will never excite me as much as its art, or learning about how we think, or even how to account for depreciation of assets.  Yet while trudging through the text today, I was reading about the Islamic infantry troops called Janissaries which consisted mostly of Christian boys that were recruited and raised to be Muslim and a part of elite military troops.  Which probably has a lot to be said about it but that's not what caught my attention.

 It was this line instead, "It was thought these troops would be extremely loyal to the sultan and the state because they owed their life and status to the sultan." 

How did they know that this status was so valuable that they would sacrifice their life to it?  Exactly how are powerful are the cultural standards that flood our vision and deafen our ears? Can they really convince us that there is some level we need to achieve and that it is worth every fiber of our being?

Yes.  They can and they will because they are sneaky.  No one hands you a slip of paper with rules and regulations for fitting in with this world.  Its not just from the magazines and TV and billboards all though those are certainly deserving of the criticism they receive for creating impossible ideals.  The thing is, those wouldn't exist if we didn't want them to.  They only work because we respond to them.  We want something to affirm us or deny us but either way give some stability of what is right. 

It doesn't have to be a negative thing.  We simply intrinsically gather information from the people and things around us to help us know what is valuable and true in this world.  Look around yourself.  What are your surroundings?  Who is around you?  They might not define you but they will create the definitions that you use to label yourself with.

A Step Back

There is something incredibly powerful about being in community.  Its encouraging, enlightening, and empowering.  If you are slightly introverted like myself, it is also exhausting.  Which is why I have learned the value of taking a step back.

Taking a step back from a stressful situation can reintroduce the big picture into your stream of consciousness.

Taking a step back from your inner turmoil can help you reprioritize.

Taking a step back from the constantly streaming to-do list, post-it notes, deadlines, and responsibilities can help you be human.

Tonight, taking a step back meant sitting in the chapel garden and gazing at underlit leaves that seemed to shine against the pitch black night.  Instead of standing shoulder to shoulder in a hot, packed, chapel, I sat alone on a bench and closed my eyes and felt the cool of stillness.  In no way am I insinuating that I felt ostracized from worship or this beneficial gathering.

Sometimes, there is greater beauty in the observance than the participation.  To be still for a few minutes and hear at least a hundred of my classmates sing that "naught be all else to me save what thou art"  was moving to say the least.  There is nothing wrong with group worship and it is an amazing thing.  Yet sometimes, it makes it too easy for me to focus on me.  My worship, my experience, my catharsis.  Taking a step back allows me to realign.

 I want to walk around seeing the value in everything: every person, experience, and situation instead of walking around only focusing on what will validate me.

Rephrase and Rethink

One of the most frustrating feelings in the world: having something to say that you can't express.  It feels like your entire existence depends on this one moment of self-expression.  The words bounce around in my mind until they are tangled, torn, and troubled.  I rephrase and rethink.  I try to sculpt this mess of thinking mass into something someone else might possibly understand.  I force myself to look at it from a different angle, flipping the idea over and over again until I can't remember which way is up anymore.

It's exhausting, all this fruitless thinking.  So I try to distract myself.  I surround myself with new ideas, new people, new music, new books.  Yet everything I read or listen to seems to march me right back to that holding cell with my original thought, now just with some extra perspectives picked up along the way.  My distractions might be completed unrelated to my thoughts, but I'm reading and listening only to hear what I want to think about so inevitably, it comes around.

This stifling feeling of not being able to express what I want to is equaled only by a paralyzing fear of being misunderstood.  It is this fear that makes me hesitate before speaking, that can halt me in the middle of a sentence or conversation and force me to change directions completely.  My unspoken words never even got the opportunity to escape.

Yet there is something far worse than this combination of not being able to express myself or be understood.

What terrifies me most of all is this:  I arrange my ideas meticulously, polish them for hours, overcome doubts and hesitations, say exactly what I want to, and am perfectly understood--only to realize that everything I want to say isn't even worth my breath, that this completely consuming idea is completely insignificant.

A Soul in Shambles

I've had a fear of bridges for as long as I can remember.  It's an irrational fear but I can't go over a bridge without feeling like the car is going to plummet into a watery grave or I'll be completely impulse driven and walk off the edge.  Yet bridges can be beautiful.  We just drove over one that, while possibly fatal, overlooked a gorgeous valley with a peaceful river hemmed by trees that even the best Hudson River School landscape painter couldn't enhance.  I had this overwhelming sense of dread and fear yet a complete appreciation of the beauty around me.  That most aptly wraps up how I'm feeling right now.

My heart is heavy.  It's the type of heavy that makes it hard to sleep.  I usually sleep on my right side but with this lead-weighted heart, it feels like my heart will crush my lungs and I'm left gasping for breath.  I just mixed a physical and emotional description but its as close as I can get to depicting this feeling without actually giving you my heart.

This feeling of breathlessness and a heaviness of heart is because I am downright sad.  The wonderful people I've spent time with this week will never be in the same place with me ever again.  I'll come to visit of course, but things will never be the same (everything is forever changing, remember?)

I'm also downright terrified.  I've learned much about God and myself and life in a week (we will touch on this later) and as I approach home, I can already feel this slipping away.  The old frustrations and confusions and struggles are waiting to welcome me back.  Also waiting are my family, friends, to-do list, shower, and bed--all of which I'm eagerly anticipating. 

So here comes the beautiful river and trees and serenity part that lies beneath my deathtrap bridge of over thinking and fear and sadness.

This week was good for me.  Other than seeing everyone mesh and grow into a family and stronger children of God, I got to serve others in perhaps the simplest form of meeting needs.  The majority of my time was spent in soup kitchens ranging form a very high-tech program to churches with kitchens to a small facility in a shady section that ran like clockwork and seated 22 people yet fed 400 people in 3 hours.  I did some street ministry and prayer walks which were good but not life-changing, which was also perfectly fine.  Oh, and my partner and I dominated in euchre all week.  Good times were had by all (except possibly our euchre opponents).

So even though I'm going to miss my 3D Visioners like crazy, there is beauty in knowing they are on fire for God and will do amazing things for Him.  In an interesting stroke of timing, we just passed the exit of Grove City.  The idea of new friends and experiences and adventures is beautiful too--even if it is overshadowed by my fear of losing those I love so much now.

So even though I'm terrified of reverting back to my old self, with my soul in shambles, there is a new serenity in knowing that God can put it back together and I don't have to.  I'm a realist.  I know my struggles won't disappear in this life time.  I know my soul will be in shambles once again, and probably sooner than I'd like.  But I'm a realist.  I know that my God fixed the problem of an irredeemable human race and can surely fix me.

Since I abandoned my previous day by day structure (for an excellent play-by-play please visit: http://northoakschurch.org/?p=2339)  I'm sure I've missed some details and important revelations and good stories.  However, there is value to consistency so I'm going to relate in as concise of terms possible (a lost cause at this point, I know)  what I have learned during a week of serving God in NYC.

Lessons Learned:

• Just because my comfort zone is getting larger and larger and proportionally harder and harder to break out of, it doesn't mean that the things I participated in didn't have impact
• Serving others is ultimately about, well, serving others and about serving God.  Even if I didn't have a huge epiphany it doesn't mean that it wasn't significant.
• I need to slow down myself and my thoughts.
• When I pray for others, I become personally invested in their lives.  Therefore, I find it easier and easier to care about their well-being.  This gives new light to the idea of praying for one's enemies (or at least the people you'd rather avoid).  It's more than a test of forgiveness, it may just be the best way to eliminate having enemies.
• Release
• The thoughts that occupy our thoughts the most and dictate our actions are the things we "worship".  Yet these things do not love me in return.  They don't redeem me, tell me I'm beautiful or worthy, give me peace, protect me, save me, or offer eternal life.  But God does.  So why worship the things that enslave me and rob me of happiness instead of the God who will set me free and give me true joy?
• The value in being real.
• God puts me where I need to be for a reason.

Writing a Better Story (Part 1)

Blogger graphs the page views from this blog, and I've found that it has a unnerving correlation to my personal up and downs.  The best parts of my year have huge peaks then there are massive valleys during the hard times, when I want to write, to express myself, to shout something, but nothing comes out.
Speaking of writing, I have been thinking a good deal lately about stories.  In particular, the story that is your life. 

Do you realize that?  That this life is a story, and we are in the process of shaping the rising action, anticipating the climax, and choosing the setting.  Arguably, it is God doing the writing but I will discuss this later. 

I have a friend who put it this way: "We define ourselves as characters with our actions, our inactions, so on, so forth.  And really morality is merely doing exactly what your protagonist would do."

I tend to agree.  I'm not promoting a frantic, Willy Loman, "I haven't got a thing in the ground" reaction to the story idea.  A life lived solely for the purpose of leaving a legacy will most likely look very impressive.  However, a character that has spent so much time focused on the appearance of their actions will miss the actual living part.  

I am promoting an intentional life.  What can you remember from your story so far?  Which moments stand out?  If you were weeding out all of the commonplace events and stringing together the significant ones would it make a good story?  Would you make a good protagonist, one that you would root for and relate to?  It doesn't matter if it would make the bestseller list or end up in the free box at garage sales.  What matters is if it is a story that you would like reading, and inevitably, one that you wouldn't mind reading to God.

At the end of any book, it usually isn't the success of the mission, the resolution of the inherent conflict, or whether the boy gets the girl that makes an impact on me.  If it is any sort of quality book, it is the personal success (that is, the development of their character towards a better end) that creates an enticing plot line, significant climax, and satisfying end to any book.  (Side note: I have a habit of aligning myself with the wrong character in any given book, which my English class was ever so kind to point out to me.) 

The reward you get from a story is always less than you thought it would be, and the work is harder than you imagined.  The point of a story is never about the ending, remember.  It’s about your character getting molded in the hard work of the middle. [Donald Miller]

So envision what you want life to be.  Decide to like the main character, which, by the way, is you. Take the opportunities to write a better story.  Don't shy away from confrontation and changes.  But be wise, be careful, and seek God's will continuously.  The only problem with writing a better story, is that it might just work.

This is living.

She shudders as the thunder blankets the sky.  Her reaction is to hide, to withdraw inside of the house, herself, a book, anything.  Sheets of rain driven by powerful winds rush by the window.  The movement of the individual rain drops down the glass and the immense force that they command together frightens her so much that rationality is abandoned.  Rubber boots are adorned instead of logic.  The umbrella is left lying under the tackle box in the closet, her mothers warnings are left unheeded by ears that need to hear the wind in its full force.

The wetness is trapped in her clothing.  It wraps around her tightly, clinging to her skin.
She runs.  The neighbors peer from behind their gingham curtains and wonder why she must run, never once thinking that they must run as well.  She doesn't notice. 

There is renewal in the rain and joy in the puddles.  The rain forms moving walls that travel down the road.  She laughs and runs after something that is impossible to catch.

Mud splashes with every step, barely noticeable on her legs and shorts that are saturated with water.  She does not stop running.

Until she does stop and opens her eyes and her arms because this is the time to create a photograph.  This is the time to be symbolic and embrace the rain.  The smile is small but it has started from the heart and it cannot be stopped.  Exhausted, she lets her hands fall, palm-down, over her head, onto the ground that is so wet that it accepts the hand prints willingly as they impress into the mud.  Her body forms an arc.  Slowly, she lowers the spine and lets it mold into the ground. 

Eyes closed she lays there, soaking in the water from the earth and from the clouds.  The thunder no longer blankets the sky.  Each peal moves through the clouds on a diagonal, followed by a slight turn of the head.  Sunshine replaces the darkness but the rain has a steady, lulling, consistency. 

Each drop feels like it will pierce her skin as it lands on her legs and arms but the way it kisses her lips balances the pain.  This is living.

I need a checkered bandanna.

I was driving to church the other day in my usual habit of thinking over all the things that must be thought over.  I was driving along when something caught my eye.  Turning onto the road was a person on a bike.  I couldn't tell their gender because they had a checkered bandanna pulled up over their mouth and a big floppy denim bucket hat on.  Their orange backpack clashed with the tomato red shirt.   As they turned the corner, they looked back behind themselves.  I knew that look.  They were watching to see if someone was following them.   I don't know if they just robbed a bank or were escaping a psychopath or just simply paranoid.  All I know is that in the five seconds it took for me to take in this oddity I had this crazy yearning inside of my heart. 

"I want to be that person!"  my soul was screaming at me.  They might have been in trouble or causing trouble but I didn't care.  They were having an adventure and they were living.  Not that going to church isn't living, this really has nothing to do with faith or religion.  It's just that my drive up this road is so incredibly routine.  Here are some things I want:

I want to hold a mug full of warm tea and drop it and watch it fall and hear the ceramic crash into a million pieces and possibly cut myself on the sharp edges.

I want to throw my gum out the car window when I am done using it and not worry about littering.

I want to refuse to show up where I'm supposed to.

I want to hop on my bike and pedal and not stop until I physically can't go any further and not bring a cell phone just to be safe and get lost and have to figure it out. 

I want to do all these completely unreasonable things.  Yet there is that annoying rational voice that keeps my mug securely in my hands and my gum in my mouth and my empty body at its appointments and my feet planted firmly on this mundane ground.  I know this all sounds rather out of character but I'm sure you've felt like this before.  Sadly, I am quite too sensible to show up somewhere late or not study for a test or stop being responsible and stop being me.

The Best is Yet to Come

Many times during the day I begin to compose a post, journal entry, essay, random prose, if you will, in my head.  One of the recent ones was bemoaning the fact that my life was a series of to do lists and as soon as one major goal was finished (ie AP tests) another one quickly bopped its head up to request, no demand, my complete attention, time, and energy (ie getting a summer job).  It inspired a mental essay on the futility of life, and the continual tasks that will never cease to rob life of meaning and joy.  I'm so glad that idea never got onto paper.

Next mental musing: Something sweet and nostalgic about the future and the past and the present (those three always go nicely together)  After all, this is the time of last tests, last classes, last hugs, last friendships, last everything, right?  It is only appropiate that something sickingly sweet drip from this post.   Again, I'm so relieved that one never came to fruition.

So now I've got two ideas that I don't want to write about.  You might be wondering if this post is ever going to have any meaning.  Here it comes.  While I was wrestling with these very different ideas in my head (rat-race life vs. kind reflectings)  I had a new thought.  My mind was turning around questions like....

"Can I be happy just living off a to-do list and fleeting memories? Is this the best it is going to get?"  In the midst of this self-interrogation came a refreshingly clear and simple sentence. 

The best is yet to come.

Not tomorrow, or in 10 years, or when I am retired. As long as I am me, things will be quite the same.  No, the best will come after this life.  How could the best possibly be in this world that is filled with brokenness and pain?  If we continue to believe that the best is just another day away, we might just never get there.  There is a bigger picture than this life.  It's not only bigger, its better.

You'll play lonely games too.

"Fame! You'll be famous as famous can be, with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.

Except when they don't.
Because, sometimes they won't.

I'm afraid that some times you'll play lonely games too.
Games you can't win 'cause you'll play against you.

All Alone!
Wheter you like it or not,
Alone will be something you'll be quite a lot."
~Oh, The Places You'll Go! by Dr. Suess~

Fame is exciting, motivating, whimsical, depressing, destructive, and wonderful.  People have gone to the ends of the earth to find it and hold onto it. I love the reality check that Dr. Seuss throws in here.  "Except when they don't because sometimes they won't".  Life can't always be a mountain top view.  Being at the top is fun, but completely unrealistic.  No one gets a free helicopter ride to the peak of the mountains of life.  You have to get out the grapple and hook and start climbing.  And once you get there, what are you going to do? Stay there forever?  In order to move on with life, you must keep moving.  Sometimes that means going back down to the valleys.  Sometimes that means finding an even bigger mountain to climb.  However, it is times "when they don't" praise you and applaud you that really let you live.  Those are the times when you aren't living for someone else.  Those lonely games can teach the most valuable lessons.  God's will and your own personal expectations should be the only benchmarks for success.  Comparing yourself to others won't get you anywhere, expect maybe into a deep abyss of insecurity and unhapiness.  Don't go there.  That is not a neccessary part of the journey.  Rise above the temptation to base your own success on someone else's failure.  Or worse, the temptation to label your own efforts as worthless because of what you see others doing.  It's a waste of time, energy, talent, and a perfectly wonderful you.

Random Rant

For some reason, I have a strange compulsion to share about myself. I have all these thoughts spinning around in my head and I'm starting to get dizzy. Plus, I am not focusing on my art history like I should. So perhaps this will help.

1. I am a dreamer. I dream almost constantly. Not just when I'm sleeping and not just nice "here is what my future will look like" dreams. I imagine every scenario in my head, realistic or otherwise. It's my type of escape. The only problem is, I often forget to come back to reality. So if you hear me talking or gesturing and I seem completely disconnected that's probably exactly what has happened. I disconnect when things aren't going well. I know eventually I'll have to always live in this world but I don't know what I'd do without my dreams.


2. I have a bad habit of trying to make everyone happy. Not because it isn't a noble goal, but because it is impossible. I try to be everything to everyone and I end up burned out. But I know I also am quite selfish. So its not that I am always giving or anything like that. I just change who I am to fill in voids way too easily.


3. I love my job. Even though I rarely want to go, spending time with kids can make my day so much better. I like the fact that I'm needed and that there is someone always asking "Chloe, can I show you something?"


4. I am horrible at lying to other people but amazing at lying to myself. I have figured out how to change my memories. While this helps with the rough patches in life, it also makes me doubt what really happened and can be quite confusing. I can seperate who I really and who I am being so I end up unsure of which is real. I'm sure I'll figure it out someday soon.

I have more to say, but I think I've sufficiently emptied out my brain so I can now memorize more pieces of art. ta ta for now.

So there's this new drug called Facebook.....

Hello. My name is Chloe Smiley and I am addicted to Facebook. This addiction has afflicted an entire generation. I know several friends who have reached a point of no return. You know the part of all of those medicine commercials that list off all the potential side effects? And if you listen closely you start to wonder...why in the world would I take medicine that might kill me just so my legs stop feeling restless? It really doesn't add up. The same goes for facebook (see, I wasn't completely off topic). We are so easily impressed by the flashing images before our eyes that we stop hearing the side effects. So I am going to spell them out (cue images of happy people walking through fields of flowers to distract you)

1. Tendency to walk through life seeing it through the eyes of "ooh! that could be a good status" This has been reported to cause fatal narrow mindness and inability to enjoy life for what it is instead of enjoying life for the status it could inspire.

2. Leads to fatal self-centeredness. Many people have found that facebook leads one to base self-affirmation in number of comments, likes, friends, wall posts, etc.... Once reality hits, these empty affirmations will hurt you more than a denied friend request ever could.

3. Abnormal behavior and seizures when denied access. Life seems empty and meaningless with Farmville.

4. No longer able to communicate with friends face to face. People with this side effect often try to link things to their friends in the real world, only to recieve weird looks. Also leads to attempts to comment on others conversations resulting in the unsavory titles of "evesdropper" and "creeper"

5. Unexplainable urge to poke people as a form of interaction. The results when one finds others do not think poking is endearing can be disastoursous.

6. Inability to go on the internet/do homework/fulfill responsibilities/pet your dog/eat........without checking facebook first. These distorted priorities will catch up with you and the resulting chaos will provide the perfect sympathy evoking status. Lucky you.

Some claim that the benefits of facebook (being friends with people you don't know, seeing events that you weren't invited to) far outweigh these side effects. Don't let the pretty pictures fool you.

This is only the beginning but I can't finish this post now...I need to go post this on my facebook.

The Way I Saw It: 9/11/01

I found this story on a piece of paper under my bed a while ago. It is about the way I saw 9/11. I don't believe I wrote it while I was six but rather a few years later. I'd date this around ages nine or ten. I typed it up as is, please excuse the grammar and incomplete sentences.

War to a child

Sitting inocently, playing with her sister, her Mother rushes to Tv. People on the screen talking frantically. Billows of smoke.

What Is Going ON!

Mother explains two very tall buildings have been hit by airplanes. Olders sister seems to understand. Everyone is so gloomy. It's rather confusing and consuming. A family that rarely watches TV has the news on. The only thing that makes any sense is that there is a pattern to the news. They repeat the same clip every fifteen. In between are reports of more terrorist destruction. Everthying is touched; even her birthday, the on month anniversary. The airplanes flying by seem rather frightful. The years pass, the war does not. It is continual. It slowly slips from the child's mind only to suddenly be brought back with a new "terror" report.

Will it end before her childhood is over?

I wrote this so long ago and yet the question is still valid. Will it ever be over? My childhood is quite gone. Yet the war and terror remains. Is this a passing phase or new era?

Things That Make Me Happy

• warm chocolate chip cookies and milk



• bouncing a rubber ball



• finding something that I thought I had lost forever



• adults asking (then listening) about my life



• potato soup in a bread bowl



• color-coded anything



• knowing that God has a perfect plan for my life



• organizing anything (drawers, school supplies, my friends' lives, you name it: I'll organize it)



• turning off my alarm and going back to sleep



• chocolate milk



• running past a house that recently did laundry and smelling the detergent and dryer sheets



• watching old home videos



• wondering at how I survived my childhood after watching old home videos



• ducks (any type)



• a really good book



• writing in this blog



• knowing my future husband is out there somewhere and wondering if he is thinking about me



• making up impossible life situations



• going home after a long day



• people that remember something that is going on in my life and ask me about it



• peanut butter, chocolate, and pretzels



• genuinely friendly strangers

Perception and Preparation

I realized today (while on a jet ski) that difficulty is largely due to perception and preparation. Perception deals with the view. Who is describing the difficulty of a task? People have very different thresholds for hardship. It does not mean that one person's difficulties and way of dealing with said difficulties is less valid if they have a lower threshold. They are feeling the same level of personal angst as one with a higher threshold. It is, however, harder to sympathize with the person who is complaining about a scratch after you have undergone surgery.