There is no Arthritis in this Post–check the sed-rates.

Right now I am in the beginning of a descion that will affect the rest of my life. I’m not in the middle just yet, I’m at the beginning and I am scared. Once upon a time I fell in love with this boy. It isn’t an especially interesting story. We just kind of had the presence of liking each other, and then dating each other and kissing each other, and talking on the phoning each other. Against a backdrop of school, and graduations, and summer outings and fun and vacations to foreign countries and to tropical islands. And when that part was over it came down to this fact, that is that while the two of us loved from a distance, we loved with a passion when we saw each other once more. I thought that we were going to get married and live our lives. And then we had serious conversations. And now I’m faced with a choice. And there are many factors on both sides to consider, and be swayed by. But the reality remains, I have to choose to Marry the man I love more than I thought possible, or I walk away and follow the rules of my faith. There are deeper complexities to this beyond the simplistic view I’ve presented. But tell me strangers of the internet, if you have stumbled over here help a girl out and tell her how to go about making this decision. Please?

Fear Not.

Throughout the course of last year I often told people that God was being a little heavy handed with his messages to me. Over and over again, in every conversation, every dream, every Sunday school lesson was directed on the subject of trials. On overcoming adversity. At a certain point it started making me mad. I got the point! My life sucked, and I needed to live through it to be stronger, and blah blah blah did we have to do all the adversity RIGHT THEN?
Last year was hard, is what I’m saying. My biggest regret is not listening to the messages. I didn’t strive to be stronger, to be closer to God. I sat on a log and pouted, and felt sorry for myself, and for everyone else. I just felt hopeless.
The last several weeks have been like one giant shot of perspective. I watched a beloved friend lose her father to a devastating illness. It was at his funeral that the lesson, that pesky adversity lesson finally gelled.
His wife read a scripture that has been ringing in my head ever since: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” I say it to myself over and over again. Fear not for I am with thee. Fear not for I am with thee. Fear not. Fear not. Fear not.
And it’s weird, because where last year I felt like God and the universe had the “trials trials trials” button on repeat, this year I feel like every single interaction I have, every human interest story I catch on the news, every book I read or song I hear is telling me not to be afraid. To be brave, because all is well. And the weird thing is that nothing is different. All the things that sucked before are still true, I still have no job, no money, I still have to go to school and to my internship, I still have arthritis, I still have family issues, I still have no boyfriend, etc. But I feel different.
So I think one of two things is happening: One, because my own suffering is what was on my mind most last year, that’s the message I found in everything. Now because my new found inner peace is on my mind, the message I search for is different. Or two, now that my attitude is different, God can move on to the next lesson, the better lesson. Or actually, maybe it’s both.

I keep on waiting….

For my life to be inspiring. Or funny, or even remotely interesting. I’m sure that if I just wait one more day that something usual will happen, and I’ll suddenly have some kind of super power that makes me able to write funny and intelligent blogs. But I’m kind of sick of waiting one more day, so here is the scoop on THIS day:

• I deleted my first bullet point because it was too personal and someone might hypothetically read it and feel bad.
• I’m kind of proud of this, kind of not.
• I wrote two thank you notes today. It was like pulling teeth. Which is super weird because I WAS thankful, and I wanted them to know it, but I felt like every sentence was too gushy or too formal, or not formal enough…Emily Post would probably hate me.
• I renewed my registration today, and paid more than a hundred dollars in unpaid parking tickets. I have a problem. It’s not that I don’t want to pay them, it’s that I seriously FORGET.
• True story, I also had a doctor’s appointment this morning that I have been HUGELY anxious to have, and I forgot about it and slept right through it.
• I’m thinking about opening a high yield savings account for my student loans, because a random article told me to do this, but  I’m not entirely sure what that means. Random google searchers? Help me out?
• I’m having a mid twenties life crisis. Which may seem a little premature to the elder set, but fortunately they don’t know how to use computers and so they won’t ever read this blog. I think that joke was ageist, and not really funny even if it wasn’t politically incorrect, but I’m leaving it in because I’m trying not to delete this. I dread tomorrow. Tomorrow I must pretend to be a grown up. I have to put on a skirt, because all my grown up pants need to be hemmed. I must wear fancy shoes and put on make up. I’ll sit in an office and follow directions, and talk to students and try to seem confident and comfortable. I’ll leave and rush home, put on jeans and drive forty minutes to school. I’ll face the professor I’m afraid of. and beg to be allowed to do two extra classes independent study. For what purpose? Maybe so I’ll seem successful, if only because I’m so busy. Maybe to distract myself from feeling sad. Maybe so I can graduate on time. Who can say, really?
• Weighed 117 when I woke up this morning. I am ashamed to say that this was the high light of my day.

Stories of a Real Live Mooching Freeloader.

I live at home. Well, I guess that’s kind of a given. What I mean to say, is that I live in my parents home. I, a twenty-six year old adult, live at home. Now I know what you’re thinking: “Why did she purposely name her blog mostly true blah blah blah REAL LIVE GROWN UP if she still lives at home?” Ok, maybe that’s what I’m thinking. But given that at the moment I am this blog’s sole reader…I think we can just let that slide. I have mixed feelings about living with one’s parents as an adult. In the first place, I hate that people automatically look at this kind of living situation as a mooching freeloading apron strings tied too tight deal without knowing the particulars. (Well DUH I hate it, that means people look at me as lazy/needy/lazy again.)

Look. This is California. It’s effing expensive. How responsible is it to go and rack up tons of debt to live in a tiny room? I’m in graduate school. I’m just about to embark on completing my fieldwork hours, and endeavor that is going to take the bulk of my time and energy, while continuing to take three to four classes a quarter. Physically, emotionally and psychologically I have nothing left with which to take on a job, at least not on a full time basis. I know these things to be true. I know that living with my family is the best, most responsible choice for me right now, and I’m so so grateful that my family is in a position to help me out. 

And yet. I feel so ashamed to not be self sufficient. I feel that I have lost inertia. I wonder if there will ever come a time when I’ll be able to rent an apartment much less buy a house. I wonder if I’ll be a burden on others forever, never moving forward, never progressing. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to plan a trip for real, to really travel and see the world, or if I’ll always have to settle for drives to Utah and Arizona to visit family. 

I’m trying not to listen to that voice. I remind myself that it is statistically very unlikely that I’ll be unable to find anyone to hire me. I tell myself that these are the dues everyone is so fond of reminding you must be paid. I’m putting in work now for a pay off later. And I make myself find perspective and realize that one year is not so very long. That I am progressing. That even though it feels like I’m standing in the same spot I was a year ago, I’m actually halfway down the track. I’m closing the loop on this program, I’m almost there. (Sudden track metaphor? Just go with it.) Sometimes these self assurances fall on deaf (metaphorical) ears. Sometimes I’m not interested in perspective or understanding. Sometimes I just want to beat myself up. 

I had a rough day today. I slept late, procrastinated on a project I really have no business procrastinating on, and was on hold with financial aid for an hour. Over the last year I’ve funded my existence on student loans and the occasional substitute teaching gig. (Gig! How rock and roll!) Well, it’s summer now and the teaching jobs are non existent, and I didn’t get any financial aid for the summer. I’ve been surviving on my parents food and a loan from my sister. I feel pretty low about it. I guess I should say I’ve felt low about it. Writing this down was actually kind of helpful. 

I need to make some changes in what I’m doing. I need to stop staying up late and waking up at noon. I need to structure my time and activities so that I can succeed in the end of this quarter. I need to make myself be productive. More than anything I need to let go of the things I can’t control and focus on the things I can. I would never write this on the blog that my friends and family read. I hate people to know that I struggle…ESPECIALLY the people I love. It feels kind of freeing to write it here though. To attach my name to my own feelings of inadequacy. Maybe one day I’ll even start to tell people about it.

Early Bird Doesn’t Get Screwed Over by Procrastination, How’s THAT for a Pearl of Wisdom?

You know how sometimes people procrastinate and then they tell a self deprecating tale about the hardship it caused and whoopsies I’ve sure learned my lesson you can bet I won’t do that again WHAT A STORY!  And it’s funny and charming and you laugh a little and identify with your own procrastinating tendencies? This isn’t one of those times. 

I deleted a project on Wednesday. A project I had been working on for six hours. One that was due and hour and a half before I deleted it. I sat in the computer lab at my school and I contemplated what to do. I wasn’t even done….I was just almost done and getting ready to print what I had to try and make it work. And then…poof. Gone and no hope of recovery. So I did what any normal girl would do. Frantically looked to gchat for even ONE friend to magically fix it. No one could. So, I said the f word, and walked quickly to my car to cry. Once in my car I sobbed on the phone to my sister Emily for a few minutes, and then drove to McDonalds. I didn’t make it to class that night.

When I ran into a couple of classmates the next day (at a midterm for another class AWESOME week!) they of course wanted to know why I wasn’t there. I explained the story, trying to sound sort of breezy about it, but when I came to the part about deleting EVERYTHING, they gasped so loud that people for three rows in front turned around and started asking what happened. 

So here it is Friday afternoon, and I’m working on a Literature Review for one class, a case study for another, and a ethical code summary for my third class. And nothing is due till Tuesday.* I’m LEARNING!!!!!

For the record, I recognize that the fact that this is my version of NOT procrastinating is sad. But lets not mock progress shall we?

4 years, 8 blogs, 57 posts: The Embarrassing History of an Intermittent Blogger.

Hi, my name is Hannah, and I? Am a real live blogger. This is my seventh blog. (eighth if you count myspace, but I certainly don’t.) Let’s all think about that for a moment: SEVEN blogs. Not blog posts mind you…BLOGS. But before you go thinking that this is because I am in anyway a prolific or sought after writer let me correct you. My first blog was created at blogspot and consists of one post, dated May 22, 2005. I just went and checked it to see a) if I could remember the domain, and b) if it still exists. Here is the full content of the first and only post: “Well, I’ve created my very own blog.” Inspired, no? I was surprised to discover that I have three comments on this brief but poignant post. One is directing me to a new website, one is offering me free porn, and one is offering me a college degree in less than two weeks! (I’m now kicking myself for not checking this earlier, as I could have saved myself considerable trouble when it comes to grad school.)

My second blog was created on June 12, 2005, and was a live journal account. Here is the entirety of the first post: “Above the desk where this computer is sitting is one of those Elvis clocks that has the legs swinging back and forth like he’s dancing…but from the angle I’m looking at him from it looks like he’s stuck in the air and his legs are swinging out of control. It kind of makes me like him better. I’m sitting in my cousin’s computer room putting off going back to school until the last minute. I have a final tomorrow. I’m not so in to that. I’m more into the whole not having a final tomorrow. And pie. I dig pie. With a fork.” 

Thrilling stuff folks, THRILLING. STUFF. I kept it up until January 21, 2006. There are a total of seventeen posts. Progress! I never really thought of this as a blog however, it was more a place to write things for two of my cousins and one of my sisters to read. I just kind of stopped writing in it.

The third blog was created mid 2007, and had double the content (TWO posts!) before I decided I hated the domain name I had come up with and immediately deleted it. To my knowledge no one else ever saw it. (This was also a blogspot creation.)

The fourth blog was created shortly afterwards, with the first post was one July 27th 2007. Which I just realized is exactly two years ago today! This is my primary blog, and I’m still technically writing in it, but I’m finding that I do so rarely, and I have a difficult time doing so. After having said blog for two years, I’ve posted exactly 31 entries, most of which appeared in 2008, which frankly, is not good blogging. The main problem with this one is that too many people I know read it. My grandmother, and my aunts and uncles and cousins and friends and neighbors, and I feel inhibited. I don’t want to write about negative things that are going on because it feels too personal for a group of people who actually know me. More on this later.

The next blog was created as a place to talk about juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, a disability I’ve had since I was three. I have a hard time talking about this to people without sounding whiny to my ears, or lying and pretending things are totally fine. I want to find an honest and positive way to write about my experience with this disease. But, even with a shiny blog created for that express purpose I haven’t come up with the words for this, which is illustrated by the lack of any post whatsoever. Oh well, onward and upward!

The seventh blog is a SECRET blog, where I post anonymously my deepest and darkest fears and truths. It’s very boring. And while it’s been up and running for four months, there are currently four posts. 

Oh! I just remembered another SECRET blog I created two years ago that also has two posts in it! Which would make this my eighth blog after all. Embarrassing!

What is the point, you ask? Well, I don’t know. But the thing is that I love blogs. I love to write and I know I could be better at it. I want to be able to write for friends and family and neighbors without censoring myself, but I feel like I have to get some practice in before I can do that effectively. I’m not really trying to hide this blog from anyone, it isn’t anonymous or anything…but I’m not going to advertise it either. I’m just going to write in it and see what happens. Maybe THIS will be the time I start actually writing what I want to.