Now what?

Confession:

I've fallen off the wagon. Off my own personal wagon. Last December I heard the voice of God, clear as day, in my head. I was at church, a church I didn't want to go to, with a friend I no longer trust, the day before I was to fly out to visit family for a month, the first time I would be with family for the holidays since 2005.
"It's time."
It's time to move home.
I broke down. Crying. In the middle of a congregation that wasn't my church family.
I spent the next month job hunting in the state with the worst economy, highest unemployment rate, but, in what I beleive is the region with the most potential. I went to interviews, some encouraging, some disheartening.
I returned to Oregon, and moved all my stuff from where it had been stored, and from the friend's house where I had been staying, back to Joe. I would be staying there with the hope of finding a job in Michigan by April first. By the time I finished unpacking I had a phone interview with a company I had applied with online a day or so before I came back. A week later I called back to follow up, and told them I'd be willing to work anything, even hours pieced together from different jobs here and there. I could be in Holland by Febuary 1st to fill out the paperwork.
And I was.
I left a bunch of my belongings, giving most of it away. I packed what I could, said goodbye, got a $$ transfer to pay for gas, and Jenna and I hopped in the car and headed east.

Without a map.
I drove 3 days, 2225 miles, and arrived around midnight Sunday January 31.

So now I'm working that job, 6 days a week, plus substitute teaching, and trying to start a legitimate career as an artist.

For a month after I got home, I had trouble getting out of bed each day. Life was supposed to be better after I got home. I did things that should have been wonderful, steps towards what I wanted my life to be like. But it didn't help.

Then I realized I wasn't serving the Lord with my daily activities. So I had to make the decision to try harder.

And I am. I'm trying harder. I'm attempting to do "art" everyday, whether it's working on a painting, using my pinhole camera, etching the favors for my sister's wedding, or working creating stuff to get into a shop somewhere, so one day that elusive 'first sale' can happen.

I'm church shopping. Whole other story.

But I don't feel the connection I had when I was driving, that feeling like I was following God's will for my life.

What am I supposed to do now?

Continue this way for how long? What should I be doing to make it better?

The traditional measures of success aren't important to me. Owning a house? Don't care to. Nicer car? Nah. Bigger bank account? Maybe. Husband and kids? Would be nice, but there's no "how to" for achieving this.

So now what?

Sit. Listen. Wait. Be patient. I never expected to hear His Voice so clearly. But if it happened once, it can happen again. Right?

*The image at the beginning is from PostSecret.com on 5.16.10.

What it is like to run (as me)

Okay, I use the term "run" loosely. I try. Give me credit.

Here is the recipe.

Take 2 large latex balloons (or condoms, I hear they can hold 10 gallons of fluid, as if that was necessary, ever). Pour in 4-6 cups of quick set jello. Tie off, removing any air inside. Before the jello sets, attach it to the waist band of your undies near the tag in back. Heft the bulk of the balloons over each should past your ear, stretching out the balloon material, so the majority of the mass is centered over your own nipples. Stand there, and wait for the jello to set up. If you can stand in a walk in cooler, like the beer cooler at the convenience store, it will set faster.

Yes, the latex stretched over your shoulders will start to dig in and cause pain. That's the point of this activity. So you will experience and understand. Once the jello is firm(ish) stuff all 8-12 cups of semi-solid material into a sports bra that bruises the flesh under the band because it is so tight. The point is that your "girls" don't slip out under the band. Now put on 2 more painfully tight sportsbras. You may feel that the jello is crushing your ribs, compressing your lungs, about to crawl up and smother your face. This is normal. Now attempt to run in this condition.

So it has been since I was 11 or 12. Except I didn't wear 3 when I was 12 and they were too big to be effective at holding everything as tightly as they should, so in essence pointless, so I quit sports! Dumb thing to do, now I'm chubby.

I can't beleive I just...

spent 3 hours reading another woman's blog. About her life. This is not the first time it has happened. Not this particular blog, but Internet, I love to read. There are very few books I will walk away from, and a blog, that is updated, it is like a book that never ends, and comes in very short chapters. I get sucked into the ones that are honest. That talk about ordinary life, baking pie, drinking cheap booze.


It's April, almost 3 months exactly since my last real post. When I moved back into Joe's, after spending a month with my parents, after moving out and starting to cut ties with a person I had thought of as my closest friend, who I learned, had even bigger demons than me, who wasn't/isn't ready for change, and who I did not love enough to stick around and help.

That sounds selfish, and it is, but I have my reasons. 1 It was not a romantic relationship. I made no commitment to her. I still pray for her, but she is not my responsibility.

2 She was tearing me down to build herself up. She was critical of everything I did, everything I said, my happiness, my friends (who were terrified of her, justifiably so), the men I dated, to the point I looked into herbal diet supplements to alter the mindset she drove me into.

3 I can write this 5 months later. In December, the day before I left for the holidays, I went to church with her, for her. (Long story, ask, I'll tell, until then, shelved). During the praise section of the service God told me it was time to move home. I heard his voice, I knew it was Him, and I started weeping. At the end of the service she inquired, and I told her. Her indigent response was "Are you sure, have you prayed about it?" It may seem a logical question, but in my head she was saying "No no no, that's not how it works, first you have to pray this many nights, read these chapters, no smoking, no impure thoughts, torment yourself this many hours with self doubt, and then, if you do all those things just right, He'll give you a sign" because that is how she practiced her religion. There is a lot more background that goes into this, but in the end, it was the nail on the coffin. I was moving home, as soon as I found a job in the crappy Michigan economy, I was gone.

That is not where I thought this post would go, but it's out, and it feels better, and I don't want to talk about it again. Which starts another tangent. I don't like to dwell. Sometimes it feels good to verbally hash out what is happening in my head, or treat it to tumble dry in the appliance that is my brain, but once I'm done, once I've had my say, I'm done. That's why I don't like to talk about my extremely long resume of short lived jobs. I did them. I learned from them. I enjoyed parts of all of them, and there is a reason I'm not doing them anymore. End of story. But people want to know. Then I tell try to skirt around the scandels and near death experiences and heartbreaks. Because people want juicy details. I don't have those details. Because they aren't important to me.

It's getting towards the end of the month...

and I haven't written much since I lost that last job. All my updates at that point were about a contest between me and a friend to see who could stick to our daily goals more faithfully. I as winning. Then I lost the job and fell to shit. Now I am living with a friend, in her bedroom that she wasn't using, on a futon with most of my possessions in storage at other peoples' homes. Love you Jeff, Betina's parents!
So now my goals are get up in the morning, go running every other day, I just got a part time job until after the holidays, that will hopefully tide me over until I can obtain a real job. By real job I mean one that I am qualified for based on experience and my degree.
I've will have 7 paintings for sale around town as of tomorrow, and if all the money rolls in, it will be close to $1000. That is deposit, and first and half a month's rent on an apartment. A cheap apartment.
Because I hope to move, to the coast, or the East coast after I successfully challenge a statistics course at the local community college I have very little interest in starting a relationship right now. My interest in the opposite sex is passive you could say. Ah shit, I can't write the next part because my roommmate has access to this... Nevermind, if you want to know, post a comment and I'll email you.

How did I get here?

What I'm missing right now... "pretty" describes an element of my former life that is no longer present in my current life. There was a glimpse of it when Bella Sera was novel. I don't know how to describe it, other than a date on a warm night in October, where the lights in the trees lining the streets are reflected in the ... puddles on the sidewalk (11 PM or so) and restaurants without televisions open 6-7 nights a week with a full menu and going somewhere else to see music, or a show, or (gasp) going to a bookstore (what kind of nerd goes to a bookstore on a date) and instead of going to a participant's residence to make out, you get a cup of coffee (somewhere other than Denny's - do you know there are cities where non-franchised coffee shops are open after 6 pm!) and talk, or read out loud to each other. How did I get here?