The Ashes of my Ex-Life.

I was digging through some old posts and I found this one that never got posted for some reason: 

I'm an obsessive journalist. I write down e v e r y t h i n g that happens to me- as it happens. You can find almost all my important thoughts stuffed into binders and boxes in my room. It's really important for me to build life perspective. I do this by writing down what I feel and then digging it back up again six months later and reading about it.

There are parts of my life that aren't important anymore.

Those parts get edited out.

Every life is a story and every story has parts to it- good parts, bad parts, happy parts, sad parts.
Every person has to live through good times and bad times.
Every person has to cry... every person wants something and is brutally crushed in the process...
Everyone faces disappointments. 

Trouble With Adults

This is for every kid who is confronted with that age-old question that every grown up asks (especially as they get closer and closer to the end of childhood and the beginning of adulthood) and can give no other answer besides a short pause and a long, Uuuhhh...

I've been there.

So, Tina! What are you going to do after high school? Where are you going to college? Do you have your license yet? When do you turn eighteen? Any boyfriends? Who are you going to be? What are you going to do????

Ahk!!!! STOP IT!

I DON'T KNOW!!!!!!!!

Alone.

I drove home tonight

                                Alone.

I walked into a quiet, sleeping house.

I picked up the cold dinner they left for me and heated it

                                Alone.

I ate it, standing up in the kitchen

                                Alone.

It wasn't as painful as it used to be at first. I'm starting to get used to is. I don't think I'll ever be okay with being alone. I don't think the pain gets any better.

I think that most of our lives we will spend alone.

I came to that realization this year.

I stand before God         Alone.

He judges me                               alone.

The people and the things that I love

         will all be taken away from me one day.

On that day, I will die and take nothing with me.

It should not come as a surprise to me that I am sitting here typing these words and I am alone in the house that I call home.

I'm not talking to anyone.

I'm just being ALONE.

(P.S. Have you read this book, "My Many Colored Days" by Dr. Suess? I love that book so much. It is one of my all time favorites. It is a comfort to me when I am confused, but mostly when I am lonely.)

Walking in Cement Boots.

I have to laugh at myself at least once every day. My young life pretty much consists, right now, of...

Learning how to park a car


Putting the keys in the SAME PLACE every time so I don't LOSE them


Struggling to get the words in my head out of my mouth in a sensible fashion.


Remembering to put my name on quizzes... so I don't get marked off!!

Saying all the wrong things.

Walking in Cement Boots. 


And, frankly, just being a kid. The toughest thing for me to do right now, and I'm not even sure why this is, is simply to relax and enjoy all of this foolishness the way I should. 


I wish I could enjoy my life now, but I think too hard and too much about it. I'm too worried I'll lose something...what? What do I have to lose? 


Everything it seems.... everything and nothing. I was wondering about what it means to have something. I was thinking about all the things I have and realizing that I don't really have much.


All the things I thought I had I don't really have at all. What I thought I lost I never even had to begin with.


That pretty much sums up friendship. If I understand friendship, I know that it is spontaneous. You cannot ask for it, even if you want it more than anything else in the world. You cannot control it. And, when it is ready to leave, you cannot keep it from going.


There is only one thing that you can do. You can take what you've been given for a short while, love that, and let it go when the time is right. 


Only then can you really relax and enjoy what you have. I'm afraid I've been so worried that I'm going to lose what I have that I haven't spent any time enjoying it.


That's a shame, really.   

Aftermath.

I am found, in the aftermath...

Biggest Loser.

If I haven't told you already, I'm deep into a season of loss. This year I've lost more than I can express. There are just those years in everyone's life where God takes everything away... everything. You walk alone and everyday is more painful than the previous.

The first thing I lost was my sense of life mission. For years I've wanted to be an overseas missionary. Through special ways, God has revealed to me that's not exactly what He has in mind for me. That has been crushing to accept.

The next thing that happened is that I lost two siblings at once. My sister married and moved away and my brother graduated college and moved to Mississippi. The loneliness I've experienced because of that is piercing.

My uncle passed way. My grandpa left us. Just when I thought nothing could get worse, I had to face something I never expected. My closest friends changed so fast that one by one they moved on to different stages of life.


Do you know what it's like to have a best friend? Do you know what it's like to love someone more than you could every express? To lose that person is to lose so much of yourself. The grief that consumes you is enough to take over your whole life.