Deciding it's a Gift and not a Burden

Our pastor at church is in the midst of a unique series called "Servolution". It's about learning to, and giving us opportunities to serve others. Part of what started this whole thing is a lemonade stand that our church family will be running during the South Plains Fair.

This past weekend, Pastor B discussed how to find your spiritual gifts. My husband elbowed me several times during some of the options.

Yet, as I sat there, my mind wondered, about what my gifts were.

See, I always wanted to do something that made a difference. Apparently I should have been more specific, and I've definitely picked the wrong major if I wanted a career that made a difference. Although, I did pick my career based on something that I love to do, that I enjoy, which makes me excited to sit through millions of hours of classes each semester. Can crazy be a gift?

So as Pastor B talked, I wondered what I'm good at.

I'm a nurturer by nature. I like to do things for other people. My friend Andrea that was diagnosed with cancer this year can agree to that. I've shared the wealth more often than not, that she probably gets tired of the text messages involving care packages for dinner, breakfast, and dessert. Although, I totally love sharing. It's nice to make a cake, and have someone enjoy the other half of it, instead of the creatures that roam the dumpster in the dead of night. I'd rather not think about those creatures, because they have beady little eyes, full of evil, and long twitchy tails, and they are just roaming the streets looking for tasty morsels.

Fabulous, now I'm not going to want to let my dogs out when it's dark tonight. Fan-freaking-tastic.

I like to listen to people talk. Not necessarily joining in, but just listening and observing. You learn a lot about people that way. Another of my friends, wiggles her hands when she is discussing something she would rather not be talking about. She rubs on her fingernails, and constantly moves her fingers. My husband, avoids eye contact. He looks down when he would rather not have the conversation with you or even glancing away while talking to you. My mother-in-law likes to dictate the flow of conversation. She likes the subject to change when she has nothing else to say about it, not necessarily when the rest of the group is ready to move on. So it makes me observant, and when something interests me in the conversation, I add to it. Or manage to say something that pisses someone off, depends on who's around and how much sarcasm I used. Super powers shouldn't get you in so much trouble, should they?

Back to Servolution. They were asking for volunteers, and frankly I miss church when we don't go. I never regret it. In fact, I have this amazing analogy that will probably have me skinned for making on my blog.

Church is like sex. Once I get there, I wonder why we don't go more often. Or why we don't have sex more often. Not while we are at church, but just in general. My husband goes to bed at 6pm. I have homework. You do the math. It's not easy to do either, but it's always worth it in the end.

 

Sorry John. Aunt D. My old youth minister's wife. Mom. Dad. Andrea.

 

 So volunteers. Well, they have this bible study at TTU on Thursday nights. So I thought, you know, maybe if I got to know some of the losers, underage hooligans, babies, youngins, fellow students, I might not feel like I'm all that much older than them. So because I had procrastinated, because let's face it, I'm not a people person. I don't like talking in front of crowds, or in front of small groups either. I don't like being put on the spot, even with people I know. So I hadn't emailed the guy in charge and told him that I would offer up my services. Just couldn't do it. So my husband drug me, by my hair, kicking and screaming to meet with the guy after church.

 

Here's how much I'm not a "people - person".

 

"Hi, I'm Abby Normal, and you don't know me, but I'm fantastic and you should."

 

Yep, totally said that. Still not sure why, but I was nervous, and I say goofy stuff. And that was just talking to him with no one but my husband as a witness. So I spewed out that I went back to school, blah blah blah, did he need help on Thursdays. All the while, praying he would say no. So apparently, the 30th, I'm serving pizza and bottles of water to college students, and trying not to vomit or say something goofy. It's going to be interesting to say the least. Will I regret doing it, probably not. But for the next 3 years, because that's probably how long it will take for me not to want to hurl before I walk in the door, I'll do it. Because, believe it or not, part of me would like to step out of my comfort zone.

 

The other part of me, well, she would like to find something that makes a difference. Not necessarily so that I can feel good about what I'm doing for someone else, but so that I can feel good about who I am again. Because somewhere along the way, I've lost that girl who wasn't afraid to take on the world. I've lost the girl who wanted her life to matter, not to someone else, but to myself. I'd like to find her, before I get older and have any regrets about what I could have done, if I'd only been less selfish, and less afraid of talking to strangers.

My mom should be so proud, apparently she nailed the "don't talk to strangers" lesson, since it still works on a 25, 29, 30, 32 year old.

Letting Go

After yesterdays long, drawn out, soul bearing post your probably afraid to read this one.

Fear not. I'm back to normal. Well, as normal as I can be. Which is probably not near any normal according to standard industry ratings.

Yesterday was just one of those days when I needed to whine. And when I needed a good butt chewing apparently.

You know that phrase, can't see the forest for the trees. Well, that was me yesterday. I saw the bad everywhere. I saw the worst in myself everywhere, and when you only see the bad, your attitude and everything else just plain sucks. Including your outlook on life in general.

My good friend, who I'm pretty sure is actually my sister and we were just separated at birth, sent me a message about my little post yesterday. She gave me a good butt chewing, and a big dose of perspective. So I guess the 2 tons of pressure that I was feeling yesterday, that I seem to have lost today, I can thank her for.

I have to learn to let go. I've had to learn how to let go of cooking dinner and doing laundry and cleaning, at least the majority of the time, simply because I can't do everything and go to school at the same time. I have to set priorities, I have to manage my time wisely if I want to have enough time to study and do everything else. So I had to learn how to let go of that stuff, and I had to learn to deal with the guilt that I feel when I watch my husband dust and vacuum so that I can study. I've had to learn how to handle that the best way that I can. Which, I'll admit I don't always do. I remember laying in bed one night last semester crying because of the guilt that I felt that I couldn't do everything. After some reassurance from my husband that no, in fact, he didn't resent me for making him chase dust bunnies and wreck spider homes, I felt much better.

My first semester left me feeling like I could conquer the world, and last semester left me wondering if I had lost my mind, and everything else along the way. Those grades hurt. They hurt to admit, and I felt like everyone was just telling me that they were ok, and that they were secretly thinking what a moron I was. When realistically, because all of my friends are old, they don't really care, as long as I pass, so that I can graduate and move back out of the college life and into the middle aged life.

I realize that all of the cliches of "Finding yourself" and all of that go along with college. You learn how to do laundry and be an adult without mommy and daddy looking over your shoulder and guarding your every move. Yet, since I've been there, done that, maybe college will be about me learning to let go. Maybe its not about me finding myself, but about finding out who I'm not and who I don't want to be for the rest of my life. Maybe it's about learning to let go.

I know that my feeling sorry for myself has affected my blogging ability. I actually have a bunch of posts that I wrote, and that were supposed to publish, but for whatever reason blogger saw fit to ignore my advance scheduling. Maybe because I needed that post yesterday more than I realized.

There are exciting things coming. I was approached by a digital scrapbooking company (more details next week) about hosting a giveaway (which will be coming up week after next). I'm looking for a couple other giveaways for the next year. Stick around, things just might get interesting.

A Beginning

When I started writing this post today, I promised myself that no matter how much I didn't want to, when I was done that I would actually print publish, instead of adding it to the rather large collection of drafts that I seem to have acquired in the last few weeks. This post is probably going to require that you pack a lunch, and make a day out of it. Just so you know.

Where do I begin?

That's a really good question. One that I don't have the answer to. I used to think I did, but now, well now I'm not so sure.

Today, well let's face it, assuming we are being honest here, for a long time I've been...well for lack of a better term; lost. And miserable.

Sure, (just so my husband and parents don't panic) there have been times where there has been contentment, happiness, pure, unadulterated joy, but those moments, they are so rare anymore that it's hard to see them at the moment, it's days later that I realize how perfect those moments were. About how at that particular moment everything clicked, everything fit. Everything was perfect.

Some days I hate that I have that Type A personality. That everything has to be perfect. I honestly wish I could be more go with the flow. That things like C's and burnt chicken didn't hurt me. Because realistically, who cries over C's. Most people are happy to pass and move on. I'm happy to pass, but those C's just made me feel like a failure. Like I was less, and add that to everything else, it's been down right hard to get enthusiastic about a whole new set of classes that start tomorrow. For the first time in my life, I'm not excited about school. In fact, I dread tomorrow with the same amount of passion as I do/did with having to go to funerals, memorial services of the people that I love.

I guess, since my posting has been sporadic, this post is going to be too. Sorry.

I'm so unhappy with so many areas of my life, that some days, it's all I can do to go to work and come home and fix dinner without bursting into tears a half a dozen times. And right now, I feel so powerless to do anything about it.

I've also discovered that there are things that are annoying me worse than I thought that they were. Like the issues with my inlaws. As much as I hate to admit it, even to myself, it bothers me more than I wanted to realize. I have slowly allowed it, along with other issues to eat away at my self-esteem and my self-worth. I realized that a few days ago. See, I'm the peacemaker, when everybody is pissed off at each other, it's usually me that jumps in and tries to smooth the ruffled feathers and get everyone back to being happy again. I can't do that this time. Simply because those involved see me as part of the problem...probably won't see me as the solution if I try to "fix" things like I always have. Plus it's hard knowing that the grandmother-in-law that loved you and cared for you, can also turn against you when it suits her purposes. This is one of those things that I can't fix, and letting go of that has been nearly impossible, but I realized that I'm going to have to let it go if I want to reclaim my life, and myself in the process.

I was sick the week before Christmas. Thanks to the stomach cramps that were purely the devil at work, and barfing up some of the foulest smelling stuff possible, a trip to the doctor was prompted, because I didn't want my gallbladder or any other internal organ to be planing it's untimely escape and me be oblivious. I felt so bad that I even called in sick to work. For the 2nd time in 3 years. (The first time being when I was in the hospital for the equivalent of dysentery.)

:sigh: I can't believe I'm about to put this out there on the internet for all the world to see. It's no surprise to the people who know me and read this blog, but to the rest of the world, it might be or then again maybe not. I'm overweight. Not just pleasantly plump, but if I were to be at the top of my healthy weight range, I would have lost a person. Like a 154ish pound person. It just hurts my heart to type that out. Anyway, back to the doctor. She ordered blood work to make sure that there weren't any other problems as well as checking insulin, glucose, and cholesterol. I'm pleased with the cholesterol numbers, some of the categories weren't were they should be, but it's a big improvement over where they were when she first did that blood work a few years ago. My good cholesterol was through the roof (once again, my theory that the low fat/preservatives stuff played an issue might actually have some truth here). However, my insulin was too high. 22 and it needs to be 20 or less. It's not a big concern, and it's not even considered pre-diabetic. But it was definitely a wake-up call. One that I didn't care to get. But apparently I needed a health scare to get my head wrapped around the fact that loosing weight was no longer my choice. It wasn't a should anymore, it was now a must.

sucky grades of last semester and WHAM! (Insert failure here).

School. Like I said previously, I dread tomorrow. I can't find a single shred of excitement. Just dread. Lots and lots of dread. See, even though no one else thinks so, I failed last semester. My first semester was hard, it was tons of work, there were tears, there were lots of days of constant work and where I was pretty sure I was going to drown. But I pulled it all out with A's and B's. Made the dean's list. Then my girlfriend tells me that it's not a big deal, she did it too. No body cared. Then last semester, oh my goodness. Last semester. I hated my classes, I hated my professors. I hated with a passion. So my grades suffered because I was unhappy. Hopefully I didn't make that mistake this semester too. I'm taking classes that I was excited about when I signed up for them. Sure, there's a few, like statistics that I'm not looking forward too. It's math, it's hard to get excited about math. But the accounting, marketing, science and history classes I was actually looking forward to them.

Yet right now, I can't get that giant F off of my forehead. No, not for Freak, but for Failure. Those 3 C's are just eating away at me. I don't get C's. Period. I've only gotten C's in math classes, and that was always okay. I got C's in regular classes too. Spanish, Economics, and Business Calculus. But those 3 C's make me want to curl up into a ball in a corner and cry and not come out for 20 or 30 years. It makes me want to think, "you can't do this" "you are such an idiot" "who are you kidding" "you won't ever finish" "your just going to be a failure". Some days I succeed in telling that little voice to jump off a cliff, and other days, well, other days that little voice wins. And it takes another chunk of my self worth with it.

So where does that leave me?

Exactly where I am. I have convinced myself that I can do nothing right. I can't write, so why even attempt to write blog posts. Why even participate in 5 Question Friday, when I can't write, when I'm not really funny. I am so sure that I have annoyed some good friends of ours, who in a few short months have became more like family than friends. I'm so sure that I will never be able to lose weight that I'm just destined to be fat forever. I'm so sure that I'm going to fail all my classes. And I'm so sure that when I do, all these people are going to line up and tell me "I told you so".

And no, this isn't a ploy for the few people who still pop in and read my blog from time to time to give me some props about how great I am. Because let's face it, the posts that I wrote a year ago were a whole lot better than the garbage I've attempted to do over the last year. Those posts meant something, the posts now, not so much.

This was and is about being honest, with myself and with the few people who still pop in and read from time to time. It's about trying to dig out of this hole I have dug myself into. It's about trying to find me again, and not just the shell of the person I used to be. It's about trying to make peace with my life and move forward and rebuild the life I want and not look back in 6 months and think that I should have tried harder, like I seem to find myself doing constantly for the last year. I say that a lot to myself. I should have. I would really like to change that into I am or better yet, I did.

To the family and friends that will read this: I promise, I'm okay. I'm not crazy, I'm not contemplating suicide or anything wonky like that. I talked to the doctor about it when I went to see her 3 weeks ago. She said that it's a lot of things, but she doesn't think it's depression or anything like that. Frankly I don't either. I just think that the last year has held so many changes, so many things that are out of my control that I'm trying to find myself and my footing and let's face it my self worth and confidence again.

I'm not sure where that leaves me. Other than in need of a good couch and a crazy doctor. Okay, probably not really, but still. You never know. I realize that I always put me on the back burner. I typically take care of everyone else, and leave me for last, but that's just me. I just didn't realize that I've been doing it for so long that I've let myself take a back seat that I now think of myself as being less important than they are. Don't get my wrong, I still intend to take care of the people in my life that need to be taken care of, but at the same time, I'm adding my name to that list too. I'm a priority too. And if I want to be treated like one, perhaps the first step is in making myself a priority too.

Opportunity of a Lifetime

So yesterday sometime a week or two ago (oops) you got the background story on the Dean's List.

Let me give you the story on the Congressional Internship that I was invited to participate in.

So I get this email from someone telling me about this internship in Washington, DC where you work with a member of congress for a semester as an intern.

It's a big deal, you live in a house with other interns from the same college and you all work on Capital Hill for a whole semester. How freaking cool is that?

Really cool.

It's so cool that I debated, and I wondered and I tried to imagine what kind of opportunities would be opened up to me if I were to apply and be selected. Because even though they sent me the email, I still had to apply and be accepted to get selected to go.

Then I prayed about it. Then I told my husband. Then I told everyone on facebook about it. And how I wasn't going.

What?!?!

It's the chance of a lifetime, it's the opportunity of a lifetime. Just not mine. Part of me would have liked to have gone, just for the experience. Plus to have lived in Washington DC for a semester, and played tourist on the weekends to all the fabulous places nearby, it would have been wonderful. It would have been breathtaking. But I couldn't imagine doing all of that stuff without John. I couldn't imagine giving up my life here, for a temporary life there. I couldn't imagine putting all my heart into it, when it wouldn't be.

It's the opportunity of a lifetime for someone else. Some other student at Tech has dreamed about this internship. They want it so bad that they can taste it. I know how that feels. I know how it feels to want something so badly, to have dreamed about it, to have planned your life around it, that when the opportunity slips through your fingers you wonder what just happened. Your entire existence is questioned, every plan, every dream, everything is suddenly very different than the life you wanted. It's hard having to pick up and move forward from that. It's hard to give up on something that you want that badly.

And deep down, when I had that realization, I knew that I couldn't take that dream away from someone else. I couldn't do it because it would be a good opportunity for me, but my heart just wasn't in it. I wanted to go for purely selfish reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with the actual internship. My heart wouldn't have been in the internship. Sure, I would have still worked my butt off, but it's different when your heart isn't in it. There's no passion, there's no joy, it's just mundane and routine. And life's to short to have given up 5 months of my life for something that my heart wasn't fully into, when there was another student whose heart is set on going.

It's the opportunity of a lifetime, just not mine.

To Write or Not To Write

When I started this blog (almost 2 years ago), I was a random, when the mood struck kinda poster. I wrote when I had something to say, or when I needed to vent. There were no requirements, no schedules, no deadlines, no minimum requirements. It was just when I felt like it. Sometimes you got one post a week, sometimes you were lucky to get one every few months.

Then I had a brilliant idea. One that involved posting more often. Like most days out of the week. And obviously 5 Question Friday. And that was going OK. Some weeks I had lots of stuff to whine about, other weeks not so much. Then I decided that I needed to go back to college at 31 and holy batman and robin bring on the piles and piles of homework. So the posts were sporadic at best. Mostly when I needed some major stress relief.

See writing has always allowed me to express thoughts and feelings uninterrupted. I don't have someone (other than the voices in my head) interrupting and wanting to add their own comments into what I'm trying to say. I just go on my marry way and type along and suddenly I feel better. Putting everything on paper give me a different perspective and makes me feel better about whatever the situation is that's bothering me. It's cathartic. Most of the time. Sometimes it does raise more questions than answers, but those questions help lead to answers, so it's usually a win-win.

Yet when I decided that I was going to have all these posts each week, it has became a chore. It's became the cause of stress. This blog has became the cause of stress. Which was never my intention. I wanted this to be a stress relief. I wanted this to be something I loved doing, instead of something I dreaded.

Right now you are probably panicked. Wondering if the inevitable is coming. It's not. I'm not shutting down the blog. I'm just not going to put so much pressure on myself to perform either. If I write 12 posts this week (I'll stretch them out over several weeks) then it's awesome. If I write one, even better. This blog needs to be fun. It needs to be me. It needs to reflect me and who I am. And the crappy, awful posts of the last few weeks prove that this blog isn't me anymore. It's simply me, trying to be someone I'm not.

I miss spending the time on my cooking blog too. Did you even know I had one? I haven't posted on there since sometime in January. I'm prepared to lose some readers. I'm prepared to have some people annoyed because I don't write more.

But, no matter what, even though you don't know who I am, or where exactly I live. This blog is still me. I don't do anything but protect the names used. My real name isn't Abby and my husband's not really John. But the content here is me. It's supposed to be an outlet, a representation of who I am and what I stand for, instead of just trying to fill up space with meaningless words and tidbits to fill the space and a deadline that I placed on myself.

Sure, there are still going to be goofy, posts, but the serious posts, the ones that made me cry when I wrote them, the ones that meant something to me. The posts that I was proud of, hopefully there will be more of them. Because this blog was never about pleasing anyone but me, and somewhere along the way, I have gotten lost. I've forgotten why I started it and I tried to give you something that wasn't me. And it's time to remedy that, while I still can.

So check back in. I might surprise both of us.

Lost...and found

I have struggled since I started at Tech to continue to write this blog. I have seriously thought about having a copy turned into a book (because I have written a few awesome posts) and then shutting the whole thing down, permanently removing myself from the blogging world.

My reasons for doing this was time. Or so I thought. That's what I have been telling myself anyway. Well, that among other things. I have said that I can't relate to a 30+ year old anymore, and I don't relate to the college students that I mostly surrounded by each day.

I keep getting these emails about college life and adjusting to your first semester and yadda-yadda. About how college is hard and how this is a time that many people "find" themselves.

Hello - I'm 31 years old, I have been found for a while now. Or so I thought.  Don't get me wrong, the nerd in me loves all of the things that I am learning. About Wednesday of Spring break I was ready to go back to school. I had all of the break that I cared to.

However, the self conscious person in me, hasn't been prepared for how unworthy and how much I stood out would make me feel. See my resume should say things like "doesn't like talking to people she doesn't know", "doesn't like standing out in a crowd", "doesn't like being put on the spot", "doesn't make friends easily".

This isn't anything new, I have been this way my entire life. I start second guessing myself and I start thinking things like "I'm so old that I don't get Pokemon". "I'm so fat that all these people are staring at me", "I'm so stupid, why did I ask that question?"

Going back to college has done a lot for me as far as believing in myself with starting something and sticking through with it. I wanted to go back to school, so I did what I needed to, in order to put myself in this position. That makes me feel like I'm more capable of doing anything that I have given myself credit for. I feel good about what I am capable of doing. I've also discovered what they mean about college being the time that you find yourself.

I have been taking out of my comfort zone, which has affected my entire life. My marriage has taken a few hits since January, my relationships with other family has changed, and I didn't realize how this whole process was going to change me. I haven't realized how different this would make me look at the world at at myself.

There are days that I laugh at the level of naive-ness that abounds there. They think that they are going to graduate and life is going to be all roses, they have no idea how quickly their life can change and some of the hardships that they will face before they turn 30. They don't know that they will have their house and their 2.5 kids, they think that they will marry the guy that they have dated for the past 3 years. There are a few that are right, and there are so many who will face things that some can't even begin to imagine. Life will get in the way, and some might not even finish their degree. Yet they are all so full of hope and energy and great ideas and dreams of how they are going to change the world, and some of them will. They can't imagine how immature they are, and how unprepared they are, even though they think that they are such big, bad adults.

I assumed when I joined the ranks at Tech that I would be teaching, offering my experience to the "kids", yet know I see how seriously wrong that I was. I didn't realize how much this little endeavor was going to require of my thinking, my perspectives, and my heart. For someone who has always been self-conscious, college has just magnified those feelings of how "un" I am. Someone else is everything that I'm not, smart, beautiful, capable, thin, funny...the list goes on and on. It's like high school, except minus the drama.

So I got lost. I started thinking about how little I had to offer to these people, about how much smarter and easier they make everything look. How much younger and thinner and smarter and prettier they all were than me. How I didn't really have anything to offer to them or to a future employer. Who was I kidding? I was worse than a joke. So I got seriously lost, and my damn GPS kept telling me I was on an uncharted road. Ya think?!

Then, I got on facebook yesterday and a high school friend posted a link to a blog that a football player at Tech wrote. I'm not a sports person, but man can this guy write. I highly recommend opening up his blog and if you read nothing else, read When Ripples Collide. Then scroll all the way down and read my comment.

I will admit that I haven't been honest with anyone around here, especially me. I do have a lot to offer, to you, to me, to the "kids" at Tech. I have a voice, and I just need to remember that my own actions screw that up, not others. That I am everything that I have always been, I just need to use my voice.

So my question for you today is this - think about your own ripples. Whose life are you changing today? Whose life are you saving today?

Yesterday, I saved my own. Along with several others whose ripples have affected me. Yesterday, I found my voice.

~Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose direction and begin to bend. ~Walter Savage Landor


~People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates. ~Thomas Szasz