sometimes I love my major

"A man, in his love choice, is strongly tempted to win the woman who best corresponds to his own unconscious femininity - a woman, in short, who can unhesitatingly receive the projection of his soul." - Carl Jung

please just get here already

It's true that I get cold way too easily. I love Summer and everything it brings with it. But Autumn is by far my favorite season. There is nothing bad about Fall (except that it leads to Winter, which is the bane of my existence). Here in Tennessee, Fall is beautiful once it finally gets here, but that usually takes forever and it doesn't stick around long. This year seems to be no exception. It's the end of September and it's still in the nineties. I cannot even begin to express how ready I am to pick and carve pumpkins, curl up by the fire, drink hot chocolate, eat vegetarian chili, go camping, layer my clothes, look at the bright blue Autumn sky, and feel it's crisp, cool air. I want to just go to the mountains and soak in the beauty of Fall. It makes me feel romantic and nostalgic and warm and fuzzy and just so good. I love love love Fall.

Please just get here already.

LOVE

I love every single thing about this collection by Gary Graham. I wish this was my closet. And I wish I could have been at New York fashion week to see it first hand.

lookatalltheprettythings. ugh.

Birthday Presents

So this summer I made my wonderful boyfriend a scrapbook out of an old book for his birthday since he loves to read so much and he had been complaining that I hadn't put any pictures of the summer up on facebook. So I just thought I'd share a few pages. I haven't scrapbooked in ages, so they aren't that great, but it felt good to be creative anyways. Luckily, I'm in 2-D this semester, so hopefully I'll improve over the next three months.

insecurities

We all have them. And they strike at the most inconvenient times. As a strong, independent, confident female (or at least I think that's what I am...), I'd like people to believe that I never look at myself in the mirror and analyze every last detail of my body, or leave the house wondering if my new co-workers will like me. Or wonder what on earth my amazing boyfriend could possibly see in me. And at a time in life when I supposedly should be in my physical prime (not just in appearance, but strength too), I often think I passed my prime about five years ago. Insecurities are no fun, but they're something we all have to deal with, no? So, like so many other things, the fact that we have them isn't really the issue. The important thing is what we do with them? Do we let them make us weaker or stronger? I let myself cry a little bit today. This isn't a common occurrence (unless I'm in chapel. cut me some slack ok?), but today, I just needed to let it out. Because sometimes I feel like I'm not enough and too much at the same time. And that applies to so many areas of life. But at some point, I have to wipe my tears and stand up to myself. One of the biggest challenges in life is to overcome yourself - the ego. And my ego better believe that I'm a fighter.

Things I'm currently enjoying:

1. thisvideoiposteverywhereallthetime. If only we could all be that positive.

2. All the illegal songs I downloaded by The Pretty Reckless. I realize that Taylor Momsen is an over-rebellious, teenage hollywood crazy, but I've gotta give her some credit. I like her stuff.

3. Skyping my incredibly sweet, amazing boyfriend I don't deserve. (Not in this order. This should be first). Now if only he would get here already.

4. Scrapbooking for the first time in years.

5. This city. Despite the fact that being here is confusing, it has been truly awesome.

6. Vintage/Thrift shopping in Brooklyn. Holy Moly Ravioli! Brooklyn blows Nashville out of the water in this regard.

Just thought I'd share.

Why am I here?

I rarely take the time to sit down and write anything of any real consequence on this blog. In fact, I don't think I have ever written anything worth reading. Quite frankly, I'm not sure why I have this thing to begin with. I'm not clever, I don't have some sort of talent like knitting or baking to write about and I never really feel the need to post my feelings in a public forum. And really, what else is there in the blogging world? However, it seems unfair to let this space continue going to waste and so, tonight, I've decided to tell you (my five readers) where I am in my life. And I don't just mean that in the geographical sense, although that's got a lot to do with it.

This summer has been the definition of a whirl-wind experience if I've ever seen one. First, I came home for a few weeks. Between the end of the school year and leaving for Eastern Europe, I got very little rest, but I did spend those few short weeks in an awesome Bible study with my closest girl friends from high school. It was so powerful to spend time learning about what it means to be created in God's image as a woman with the women I love and admire most.

Next, I boarded my first Trans-Atlantic flight to Bucharest, Romania. The next three weeks are so difficult to put into words. So much so that I only just "finished" journaling about my experiences there. I have yet to detail all of the confusing, heart-breaking, joyful, terrifying feelings I've felt since. Eastern Europe is one of the most beautiful, broken places I've ever been. And now my heart beats for that place. It was so hard to be there and it's so hard to be away.

I have lived in the same house since I was three months old. I've never known anything else to be home. I do believe I know what it feels like to go home. To walk through a door and immediately feel the warmth of a place that has captured your most memorable, joyful, scary, life-changing, broken moments and everything in between. The wood in my house creaks with the laughter, tears, and shouts my family has shared over the past twenty-one years. When I "left" home for Trevecca in the Fall of 2007, it was hard to believe anywhere else in the world would feel like home to me. Then I fell in love with a tiny school on a hill and that became my home. But, as any student who stayed in his or her hometown probably does, I began to feel trapped. So, when I found out about the trip to Europe with my two favorite professors, I jumped at the chance. My ultimate goal this summer, was to learn as much as I could about God, myself and the world, and to do so far far away from home. Little did I know, by leaving Nashville, TN, I would be going home.

We spent a great deal of time in Bulgaria. One village in particular really captured my heart, and the heart of many others on our team. This village, close to Vidrare, is about an hour outside of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Though this village is quite small, it carries many burdens much heavier than its residents can bear. Visit the orphanage for mentally and physically disabled children, and you will see this instantly. Very few employees work at the orphanage - I believe there were about six or seven for almost 100 children. The children were beautiful, but we quickly realized that the issues they deal with were much bigger than six care-takers could address. In the middle of the night, men from the community come into the orphanage and sexually abuse the children. Not only that, but the bigger children take advantage of the smaller orphans. The bigger children also, unknowingly, abuse the smaller children physically. Among the orphans you'll find the most beautiful children. Children who are malnourished, bright, funny, fun-loving and in need of love and human touch. Little do these sweet angels know, they touched the hearts and souls of 17 Trevecca students in that one short hour one day. I will never forget their faces. They are permanently inked to the insides of my eye-lids. My heart is forever broken. Leaving them was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

Next, we discovered that in this Roma community, (known by us as gypsies, although this is politically incorrect) it is traditional for girls to be sold to their husbands at the young age of twelve. If they are not sold for a bride price within the next few years, they are often sold into the sex trade. I met a beautiful woman there named Petya. She had a sweet five month old baby named Nadia. Petya, Mallory and I spent the remainder of the day together attempting to communicate. I fell in love with her and her daughter without fully understanding anything she was trying to tell me. I found out later she had been sold to her husband a year earlier. She was eighteen.

For years I have been searching, hungering for true community. I have prayed, cried and screamed out in anger when I couldn't find it. Then, I flew over an ocean and I was welcomed with open arms into a family, a covenant. I have Bulgarian, Romanian, Albanian- Kosovar, and Roma brothers and sisters I would do anything for. The cross-cultural struggle we all faced brought us closer than I could have imagined. At the end of three weeks, I was forced to leave my home. Bulgaria in particular still weighs heavy on my heart.

So how did I end up in New York City, the very center of capitalism, after such a profound journey in a foreign land? That's exactly what I'm wondering. I didn't find a place to live until a week before leaving for Europe. I had given up until my best friend gave me a book about things to do here in this collosal (okay, so I'm realizing it's really not THAT big) city. I prayed about it, gave it another go, and the next day I found somewhere to live. And it's perfect at that. At the time, I took this to be God's way of telling me this was what he wanted me to do. Now, I'm not so sure. This place doesn't fit. Here, everyone is rushing even if they have nowhere to go. Here, in one of the biggest cities in the world, I am alone. And I don't know how to process all of the things I saw earlier this summer. I don't know how to cope with the immense sense of loss I felt when I boarded a plane back to the states. I don't know how to do these things without my new community, without any community at all. Why am I here? Where am I? I have landed in some limbo land between who I was before I left for Europe, and who I am now. I'm not even sure what that means, but I'm certain it's the case. Because the girl who left for Europe was fighting her desire for adventure, glamor if you will. She was afraid her love of culture, art, fashion, music, literature would either be a tool used for God's will, or the very thing that turned her against it. And now, here she is in a place that brings all of those temptations to the very fore-front of her life, as though New York is the tree of life and the serpent is saying to her "go ahead, eat." I don't want to eat anymore. I don't want to be a cannibal. I don't want to take pleasure in my Roma sister's pain.

I want to go home.