Control

     This week has been all over the place, and not always in a good way. While I try to consistently approach things knowing that I have nothing at all to complain about, there was a moment, a text, Thursday evening that knocked the wind right out of my sails. I was hanging out with a group of friends and it was so noticeable that my best friend pulled me aside and asked if everything was okay. She could read it plainly on my face.
     Yes, everything is honestly fine; some potential fun plans that I had been looking forward to since last Saturday changed drastically, and now my weekend is completely, utterly free. Harry Potter movie marathon, anyone? (No joke. I have them stacked by the TV, ready.)
     This isn’t the end of the world. I know this. Though as a planner, big last minute changes rock my world, leaving me reeling, so it took some time for me to come back to my center of balance. I fell asleep unhappy Thursday eve.
     In waking up yesterday morning, I told myself that it wasn’t the end of the world, truly. I’d had a bad moment, but I would not let that define my week. So I put on my gym clothes and smiled, pouring out those grimy thoughts along with the sweaty exertion of exercise.
     My message today is this: you have the power to determine how you feel. We all have bad days - it’s okay. It’s part of being human. But those bad days have absolutely not control over your mindset. Whenever you get thrown, pick up however many pieces have shattered at your feet, tell yourself it’s okay, and strut through the rest of the day or week like the majestic peacock you are. Your mindset matters, so make it positive.
     I leave you with a poem I wrote on a particularly rough day years ago and serves only as a reminder of how far I’ve come.
   Ta~

I
wish
I could choke
on stars
and implode
until there’s nothing left
just so
someone
could make
a wish.

     V

2016 - One Month Down!

     Friends! Long time no see! If you'll refer back to the very first post I made in 2016 (Welcome to 2016), I had quite a list of goals to achieve this year. Here I find myself already in the month of February, and nearing the end of my first full month back at college. Just as a side-note, there was a "100 days party" thrown for all graduating seniors last Thursday night. A week later, there are only 93 days left. Time is such a slippery thing, though I'm trying to take each day as it comes and suck all that I can out of it.
     Anyway, if you'll recall, my personal goals in no particular order for 2016 were these:

• lifting weights 3 times a week

• eating healthy (no coffee, much less sugars, less dairy, more veggies and red meats, and no processed junk if I can help it)

• doing Lumosity daily

• Duolingo (in Spanish) daily

• reading the bible and journaling every morning

• Praise Jar slip daily

     I'll use updates here as a way of keeping myself accountable, although so far I've done a great job keeping up on my own. All of the above are habits that I began at the end of September 2015 (aside from the Praise Jar), took me about a month or so to solidify, and have made it an overall goal of 2016 to maintain. So far, I have not missed a single gym day since January 1st (and I've added an hour of yoga twice a week!), have been eating tremendously healthy (following the close of the "holiday diet," of course), and since mid-December I've only missed two days of bible reading/journaling. I also haven't missed a single slip for my Praise Jar! As for Lumosity and Duolingo, well...I kept that up for the first week or so back at school and then fell off the wagon. My first two weeks at school were bizarre mainly because I had to maintain this routine in a totally different environment and Lumosity and Duolingo were throwing things off too much. However, my balance has returned, and I plan to toss them into the mix once more now that I've gathered my wits.
     Seeing as it is the final semester of my undergraduate career, people give me funny looks when I tell them this is the easiest/best semester ever for me. All of my classes are Tuesday/Thursdays, I work three days out of the week, and have three day weekends every weekend. With this newfound balance and routine, I am doing very, very well. Spiritually, mentally, physically, emotionally...I have never felt this good. I'm seeing definition in my body like I never have before, feeling and seeing the effects of reading God's Word daily in my life, and my stomach has never been happier. Just to make things even crazier, I'm sleeping a consistent average of nine hours per night with a bedtime of roughly 10pm and an alarm set for 7:30am! How many "college kids" can say that with a smile?!
     Shifting my circadian rhythm has also been a huge improvement. In several years I have struggled to fall asleep before midnight and wake up before 9am. It was ridiculous and frustrating. There was a season where I was getting up at 5am every day to babysit for twelve hours (sometimes more) and then could not fall asleep until midnight. Five hours later, I had to be awake. It was maddening and I couldn't figure out what the problem was. My sleep schedule wouldn't shift. This has been a struggle for years. Until 2016. Still not sure how, exactly, I got my circadian rhythm to finally shift, but I'm clinging to it!
     I made it a point to include "emotionally" in the list above, too, because I have struggled with true, soul-shining happiness in the past. Freshman year I was the type of person who romanticized cynicism and maybe faked seeing silver linings, but never believed in them myself. I was hyper-critical of myself as well as the people around me. I didn't make many friends here at college because I told myself I didn't need them. Over the years I have made a gradual change, but this last semester saw the most drastic of it. I now have the "problem" of having so many people ask me if I want to get dinner that I either have to turn someone down or mold friend groups together. I have group chats with people where we talk daily about all manner of things. Friends are stopping to chat with me while I have lunch.
     Mercedes, one of the only real friends I made Freshman year (somehow), recently saw me interact with other friends while we had lunch together and was amazed. Later she said to me, "don't take this the wrong way, but I have never seen you talk to anyone like that here." She has taken note of my slow slide down the spectrum from introvert to extrovert. I now consider myself more of an ambivert than anything, which means I now enjoy the company of others in addition to solitude.
     In short, friends, I am the happiest I have ever been. I operate daily on the combination of God's promises and positivity. I treat myself with respect, accept my faults and mistakes, and continue on knowing that life is a constant process of betterment. I filter my thoughts, pray constantly, and smile often. I've never been so content in my existence, never been able to love myself so fully, and never felt so great being on my own.
     Thank you to those that have encouraged, put up with, and guided me over the last several years. I of course had to reach this point naturally and on my own, but a few pokes and prods always help. 2016 is shaping up to be the best year yet and I'm confident I can keep it that way.
     Love,
     V 

Time as a Construct

Time as a Construct

     I have never been able to fully grasp time as a concept. It’s the thread that holds everything together, and yet it’s something I can totally forget about for large periods of time. I’ve gone through moments in my life wishing for entire years to pass instantaneously due to some emotional desire, not caring what each individual day might bring - I wanted to fast forward and jump past all the experiences I would have had, only to get to that “ultimate” one. That’s idiotic. How could I be so heedless of time and its wonders? How could I not realize the same sixty seconds, or sixty minutes, could be spent in so many different ways? Perceived differently? Agonized over and forgot about? When I’m doing a plank hold for one whole minute during my workouts, it feels like the longest minute of my entire life. Later in the same day, five or even ten whole minutes could pass in the wink of an eye and feel more like a couple seconds than ten minutes.
     Relativity, I’ve found, is the best way to begin explaining time. Time is very dependent on what’s going on inside and around you at that very moment. If I watch the clock and listen to the tocks, time slows to its normal pace, somewhat reminiscent of the Weeping Angels in Doctor Who - if you look at them, they are frozen as statues, but if you blink or look away, they move freely, and very very quickly. Losing track of time is easy to do, friends, and I urge you to take on the challenge I have presented to myself in these past few months. Take each day as its own separate entity. Don’t be like the me of the past, always counting down to the next weekend, the next break, to summertime fun with family and friends. Look forward to each day, and suck all that you possibly can out of it. Be mindful of your time, as it is limited, though as a younger human being it might not seem like it. Just last spring, I came home from a psychology class dealing with mental illness, and we had just wrapped up the chapter dealing with latent illnesses - ones that surface in later years of existence. I was overcome with this crushing emotion of fear and anxiety about the mortality of my family. I am not afraid of death for myself, and in fact welcome it, but thinking about the eventual decay of my parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles, mentally and physically…well, it was not pretty, and I was torn to pieces.
     I came to terms with it and pasted myself back together, waiting for time to come weave the splintered fragments closed again.
     Time, then, is not merely a construct. Time is many things. It is a healer, a mourner, a comforter, a teacher - more often than not preaching tough love and resilience. Time is willing to be your friend, your guide, an invaluable asset in your life, if only you’d stop and take a moment to say hello and keep it wrapped around your little finger.
     Therefore I leave you with a warning and an encouragement via poetry, though it’s very much unlike my normal style. Enjoy, friends. This coming week we will all be back to the collegiate grindstone.
Chance Execution

Execute yourself beneath thought.
Feel your destruction galvanize
wrongly placid thoughts, shove askew naivety
past the earthquake memory’s afterthought.
Taste reaction boiling everything ivory because of her
over an experience of failed love.
Accept freedom - love ferociously despite her!
rather than pushing yourself down,
launching into her abandoned friends,
opinions she the exquisite nerve
under skin placed alluringly warm
regarding romantic language, during your everything
and nothing.
No surrender. Resistance shouldn’t prove difficult
back against gossip knots whispering down your spine.
Treatment via punishment:
skirting other years
near to days, near to weeks,
time poking among your sidewalk thoughts,
frail theories now keenly harden,
dreamt during the tranquil night.

Fight me with words.
Fight me with belligerent phrases -
upward, worthwhile phrases, tested for
warlike pollution, for warlike shame
beyond rage’s armament inside needles
after goodbye. Pierce the harmony chuckle
behind somebody’s animal eyes, beside somebody’s memory face,
until the poison from operation
spreads, pathetic
despite a stranger’s stride toward sugar song
unless a prison traps the fingers
in silver, below all light.
Cagey within a jealous box
beneath an agonizing name –
charismatically persuasive; offensive and vivacious.
All apologies she’s accepting now,
worming through your blended brain. Relinquish her, until
after her rhythms decompose one another,
all pictures and records
through the regret around accidental versus deliberate.
Walk away. This war is no longer yours to lie down for.

~V

Orchard

Orchard

My heart is an orchard, with soft,

loamy soil to dig your fingers

into. Each tree has a name, and

each name has roots, some longer than

others, some younger still. A couple

trees have been selected for

execution, roots and all yanked

from the earth, my heart. These pits, these

empty spaces eventually

get filled again with dirt, and a

sapling is planted anew. A mark

is always left, however; some

rooted veins remain.

---

Friends. It's been a while. I apologize - life grows busier with each day. 

This poem was prompted by an event that occurred a little over a year ago that rocked my world. This was my analogy for the results. Some rare poetry for you today. 

Enjoy!
V

Welcome to 2016 - A Year of Improvements

(Post pulled from group blog: StalkerSubtext)
     Just as the title says, Happy New Year! 2015 was definitely a year of learning, humility, and listening above everything else, which is to be expected. I began doing my own research in the Psych department at school, went to two marvelous concerts, celebrated my 21st birthday, did a ton of visiting with my immediate and extended family, finished my third year at college out of four, celebrated my Grandpa’s 75th birthday, broke off a relationship that was doing more harm than good (one of the best decisions of my life, let alone my year), started a workout routine, and made some priceless, awesome friendships. Overall, it’s been a wonderful year, and I have learned from all of these things how to best approach 2016.
     I know the bottom line for every year is going to be that I am blessed beyond measure. I’m in good health, have breath in my lungs, and am loved by numerous people. Can’t get much better than that.
     However, I know for a fact that I can actively take part in my own life and make it even better. How, you ask? Well, first of all I’m avoiding any New Years Resolutions - they’re usually cold turkey, drastic, or a 180 degrees turn around and therefore incredibly difficult to maintain. The amount of instant self-discipline and motivation needed generally doesn’t match up to how much one is willing to put forth for very long. My personal goals for 2016 are to keep up the routine I’ve been maintaining hardcore since the end of September, which entails lifting weights 3 times a week, eating healthy (no coffee, much less sugars, less dairy, more veggies and red meats, and no processed junk if I can help it), doing Lumosity and Duolingo (in Spanish) every day, and reading the bible and journaling every morning. Seems like a lot to keep up, especially when adding my final semester in college into the equation, but I already know I’ve maintained all but one of these things during this past semester, which was easily much harder than the one I’m about to begin. It’s feasible for sure.
     One new thing I’m planning to introduce to 2016 is something called the Praise Jar. Every day I will write down something I’m thankful for, or something I’ve been praying for, and drop it into this jar. The point of this is to accurately reminisce about 2016 on New Years Eve and see what all I was thankful for, and possibly what all prayers got answered. It’s just a fun thing to put into perspective the power of positive thinking and how the year really went. I decided to use paint swatches from Lowe’s as the cards I write on to give the jar color as I go.

     Needless to say I am ridiculously excited for 2016. My final semester in college will be the best so far, without a doubt. I’ve got an awesome group of friends, sweet possibilities for the future, and a very healthy relationship prospect.      Cheers, my friends. Remember that getting out of bed every day is a victory in itself and that you are never alone. Godspeed, and let’s make this the best damn year yet!
     V

Home (Haiku Sequence Segments)

10.18 - I'll Carry My Cross

Early A.M. car

troubles. Still made it to church. 

Rejoice through chagrin. 

10.20 - Turning

Wood stove is quiet,

though just barely. Toes shiver -

Fall beckons the trees. 

10.21 - Harnessed

Dad stands on the roof

of the garage he built with

his brain and two hands. 

10.23 - Times Have Changed

I have a day bed -

two mattresses, but no friends. 

Just soak up the dust. 

Dear Future Husband

(à la Robert Morgan, Dark Energy) 

Love me like Jesus loves the church.

Affirm your commitment with words;

songs or poems or handwritten

letters. Buy me office supplies:

pens and notebooks and notes that stick.

Curl my belly with your witty

morbidity, and don’t forget

to let the dog in at night. Live

with passionate ambition, tell

me every tiny detail while

I whip up two mugs of fresh brewed

tea. Be a reader, sponsor my

love of language. Activate your

soul’s depth with exercise; please join

my yoga sessions later in

the morning. Don’t make a habit

of spitting, and pay attention

to the sidewalk under your boots,

the drumming patterns of raindrops.

Remember to treasure me all

of our lives, for someday, darling,

when dim stars edge the ebbing blush,

I will return to ash and dust.