I've lost my religion. Now don't get me wrong, I've never considered myself an extremely religious person, but I definitely believe in God, and I definitely feel like I'm not giving him enough time in my life. I was raised Catholic, and while I could probably recite all of the words to a Catholic mass to you if you asked me to, I never felt like Catholicism was really what I was looking for. I always envied Southern Baptists because I felt like their understanding of God was so much deeper than mine. I feel like when they go to Church its not a feeling of "Oh man, it's Sunday I have to go to church", but more like a celebration that God is in their lives and has created them and has given them all of the gifts they have. I had a discussion last night with a fairly new good friend of mine. He said "God loves you so much its ridiculous, He has an incredible plan for your life and supports you every step of the way." This reminded me of a conversation I had with Jarrod over the summer, and a conversation I had with both the guys I met while I was in the Virgin Islands. The sailor I met while I was there reminded me that if God puts me up to a challenge, there will be a reason for it in the end, and that has proven true in the past almost year of my life. A lot of things ended last year around this time, but a lot of things began that I wasn't even aware of. I don't think I give God enough credit. After this conversation I was trying to remember when the last time I had been to church was, and I realized that Christmas Eve was the last time, and that's kind of an obligatory church holiday. I'm not sure that going to Mass will help me rediscover religion, or God, or whatever it is I'm longing to discover in my spiritual life, but I know that something needs to change. I take for granted every single day what I have, and I will be the first to admit that. I try to remind myself daily that God made me the way I am for a reason, and he blessed me with the talents I have for a reason, and that I need to go out and share those with the world. But everytime something brings me down I just throw any sense of God having a plan out the window and think of all the things that I think are flawed about me. But then, everyone is flawed, and thats what makes them special. So why do we all strive for perfection? Why can we not just appreciate what we have, instead of constantly degrading who we are and what we've been given? I think about these things all the time as far as other people, especially the beautiful girls I'm around every day who ridicule their bodies and their talents, but I never take my own advice. My dad said something the other day that has stuck with me all week, "Focus on what you've been given. It's less stressful that way." I've tried all week to focus on the good things about me, and though I still have trouble sometimes, it actually made me feel better to pat myself on the back when I did something good instead of thinking about how I could have done it better. I'm going to apply that rule to this week as well, just to see what happens.
Also, I found this website "100 Ways to Live a Better Life". It was actually really interesting. So I thought I'd post that here for your reading pleasure.
http://www.dragosroua.com/100-ways-to-live-a-better-life/
And so begins this week. Hope everyone has a good one :)
-B
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
5.
I feel like something incredibly inspirational is going to come out of me sitting here staring at my computer screen and trying to think of something to blog about. I doubt it.
I promised myself I'd journal every day or at least every other. Since I failed at doing so on paper, I guess this will have to do.
Things are decent. I have a lot on my mind and I'm not sure what to do to stop my head from spinning in the way that it is. I think I'm letting past experiences affect my judgment, and I shouldn't be doing that, but how can I not? I mean I learned my lessons and I learned them well. I got dirt kicked in my face and I stood up and brushed it off but I'm not sure if I'm ready to try that again with the chance that I might once again get kicked to the curb. Its just something I need to think about. I can't go my whole life afraid of what ifs. If I do that I'm going to drive myself insane.
I had my first real coaching of my song yesterday. I"m a little wary of this song because its the highest I've belted since Children of Eden, before I really learned how to sing correctly. So I went in nervous, and preparing for the worst, and everything kind of fell into place. I was also surprised because in my song I'm playing a girl who is pregnant and has just felt her baby move for the first time. I obviously have no experience with this seeing as how i have never been pregnant, but I have never felt more connected, and I actually teared up while I was singing which was something that hasn't happened in a long time, given I've been working on more comedic stuff as of late. It was just really nice to step up to the challenge and give it all I had and succeed.
I have to say goodbye to a very good friend of mine tomorrow. He's getting the opportunity of a lifetime and I'm so happy for him, but I'm also terrible at goodbyes, and he's one of the few people who constantly helps me remember why I do what I do, and he's also one of the very few people in my life that I let in. So I wish him all the best, but I will miss having him around a LOT.
This blog actually turned out to be much more substantial than I thought. So that's a good sign. Maybe I'll actually keep up with blogging, since I seem to enjoy doing it so much.
-B
I promised myself I'd journal every day or at least every other. Since I failed at doing so on paper, I guess this will have to do.
Things are decent. I have a lot on my mind and I'm not sure what to do to stop my head from spinning in the way that it is. I think I'm letting past experiences affect my judgment, and I shouldn't be doing that, but how can I not? I mean I learned my lessons and I learned them well. I got dirt kicked in my face and I stood up and brushed it off but I'm not sure if I'm ready to try that again with the chance that I might once again get kicked to the curb. Its just something I need to think about. I can't go my whole life afraid of what ifs. If I do that I'm going to drive myself insane.
I had my first real coaching of my song yesterday. I"m a little wary of this song because its the highest I've belted since Children of Eden, before I really learned how to sing correctly. So I went in nervous, and preparing for the worst, and everything kind of fell into place. I was also surprised because in my song I'm playing a girl who is pregnant and has just felt her baby move for the first time. I obviously have no experience with this seeing as how i have never been pregnant, but I have never felt more connected, and I actually teared up while I was singing which was something that hasn't happened in a long time, given I've been working on more comedic stuff as of late. It was just really nice to step up to the challenge and give it all I had and succeed.
I have to say goodbye to a very good friend of mine tomorrow. He's getting the opportunity of a lifetime and I'm so happy for him, but I'm also terrible at goodbyes, and he's one of the few people who constantly helps me remember why I do what I do, and he's also one of the very few people in my life that I let in. So I wish him all the best, but I will miss having him around a LOT.
This blog actually turned out to be much more substantial than I thought. So that's a good sign. Maybe I'll actually keep up with blogging, since I seem to enjoy doing it so much.
-B
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
4.
I just had this on my mind and I thought perhaps blogging about it would help me to make sense of it. Growing up, I never had any close girlfriends, but I always had lots of close guy friends. My teachers would get concerned that I wasn't spending enough time with girls, but I never liked being around girls because I thought they were mean. When I moved to Edwardsville, Chase and I became fast best friends. As long as I can remember all of my best friends have been guys. From Chase, to Brandon, to Jarrod. The strange thing is, I don't have a best guy friend in college. I have a lot of guys I'm good friends with, but there is no one that I know I could call at 4AM if I was worried about something and needed to talk. This is interesting to me because my two best friends at college are girls. One is my roommate, and the other was my roommate my freshman and sophomore year. I love both of them dearly, but being best friends with a girl is so different than being best friends with a guy.
I think this makes sense, because I feel like in conflict and in life I tend to think in a more "guy like" way, meaning if there's a problem I want to address it, fix it and move on. I hate dwelling on things and I hate drama, so I try to fix things as soon as they become a problem. Its just an interesting thing to think about. I sometimes miss having that solid guy friend in my life that I know I can count on to be there for me as much as the girls. I have Jarrod of course, but when your best guy friend lives 8 hours away and is busy pretty much all the time it becomes more difficult.
I always look at everything as a sign. I can't help but wonder if the fact that I don't have that "best friend" who's a male means that maybe I need to learn to depend more on the women in my life. I thought this would get me to some sort of conclusive statement, but it really hasn't. I guess what was really on my mind is that I see everything changing in ways I can't quite grasp or understand right now, which I guess is a good thing. I just have to learn to accept it for what it is.
-B
I think this makes sense, because I feel like in conflict and in life I tend to think in a more "guy like" way, meaning if there's a problem I want to address it, fix it and move on. I hate dwelling on things and I hate drama, so I try to fix things as soon as they become a problem. Its just an interesting thing to think about. I sometimes miss having that solid guy friend in my life that I know I can count on to be there for me as much as the girls. I have Jarrod of course, but when your best guy friend lives 8 hours away and is busy pretty much all the time it becomes more difficult.
I always look at everything as a sign. I can't help but wonder if the fact that I don't have that "best friend" who's a male means that maybe I need to learn to depend more on the women in my life. I thought this would get me to some sort of conclusive statement, but it really hasn't. I guess what was really on my mind is that I see everything changing in ways I can't quite grasp or understand right now, which I guess is a good thing. I just have to learn to accept it for what it is.
-B
Monday, February 1, 2010
3.
Two blogs in the span of a week, that's some pretty impressive stuff.
I realized recently that I don't consider all the positive things in my life nearly enough. Last March my boyfriend of three years and I broke up, and every day since then, or at least last semester, I spent time wondering why he had a girlfriend now and I still had yet to go on a date. I'm a firm believer in everything happening for a reason, and so I had myself convinced that now simply wasn't the time for me to find someone. Towards the end of the semester I found someone that I really really liked, and I thought that it had potential to go somewhere, but things were complicated, so it never did. I thought a lot over Christmas break about how it felt to not have someone there all the time. When you get out of a long term relationship I think that it takes a lot of time to get used to not having someone there for you all the time. But as I thought about it I realized, I'm more independent than I have ever been in my life. I would love to find someone, but I'm not willing to settle, and I want to find someone who appreciates me and all I have to offer instead of someone who tries to control me and make me into something I'm not. I love who I am, and I want someone who will love me for the big geek I am too. Not only that, but everything else in my life is great.
Speaking of great, so far I have some awesome stuff to work on in the showcase. I'm singing Die Vampire Die from Title of Show and a chortet called Are You Me? from the Mistress Cycle. I"m not sure if there will be more but I'm so excited to get to do such versatile pieces, and I"m a sucker for a good comedy piece. I'm really excited about all the music in this show, and I think that it's really going to be a great project to work on.
School's busy as always, but today turned out to be the easiest Monday ever considering all of my classes except my Gen Ed were cancelled. I'm not sure that I'll know what to do with myself when next Monday rolls around and I actually have all of my classes at once.
I'm glad that I'm blogging today because I want to remember this high I'm feeling, so that when I'm feeling not so great I can come back and read this and remember what this felt like. I honestly haven't been this happy in a very long time. I just pray that things continue looking up and heading in the right direction, especially with summerstock auditions coming up in less than a month.
That's all I really have to ramble about, I hope everyone else who reads this blog which is probably a total of 2 people are having wonderful days as well.
-B
I realized recently that I don't consider all the positive things in my life nearly enough. Last March my boyfriend of three years and I broke up, and every day since then, or at least last semester, I spent time wondering why he had a girlfriend now and I still had yet to go on a date. I'm a firm believer in everything happening for a reason, and so I had myself convinced that now simply wasn't the time for me to find someone. Towards the end of the semester I found someone that I really really liked, and I thought that it had potential to go somewhere, but things were complicated, so it never did. I thought a lot over Christmas break about how it felt to not have someone there all the time. When you get out of a long term relationship I think that it takes a lot of time to get used to not having someone there for you all the time. But as I thought about it I realized, I'm more independent than I have ever been in my life. I would love to find someone, but I'm not willing to settle, and I want to find someone who appreciates me and all I have to offer instead of someone who tries to control me and make me into something I'm not. I love who I am, and I want someone who will love me for the big geek I am too. Not only that, but everything else in my life is great.
Speaking of great, so far I have some awesome stuff to work on in the showcase. I'm singing Die Vampire Die from Title of Show and a chortet called Are You Me? from the Mistress Cycle. I"m not sure if there will be more but I'm so excited to get to do such versatile pieces, and I"m a sucker for a good comedy piece. I'm really excited about all the music in this show, and I think that it's really going to be a great project to work on.
School's busy as always, but today turned out to be the easiest Monday ever considering all of my classes except my Gen Ed were cancelled. I'm not sure that I'll know what to do with myself when next Monday rolls around and I actually have all of my classes at once.
I'm glad that I'm blogging today because I want to remember this high I'm feeling, so that when I'm feeling not so great I can come back and read this and remember what this felt like. I honestly haven't been this happy in a very long time. I just pray that things continue looking up and heading in the right direction, especially with summerstock auditions coming up in less than a month.
That's all I really have to ramble about, I hope everyone else who reads this blog which is probably a total of 2 people are having wonderful days as well.
-B
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