Maestro's Wise View on Materialism

Everyday I take my furry little soulmate for a stroll. Sometimes we walk fast, eager as a beaver to get just a few feet further. Other days we stop almost constantly to smell every inch of ground along the way. Sometimes Maestro finds an object of fascination; a perfectly smooth stick, a prickly pinecone, a rock. He is so consumed by whatever it is he pulls and chokes his little neck until he can reach it. He holds his head high and trots along holding his new toy eager to show off his proud accomplishment. But just as quickly as he snatched it up, he releases it and goes on his way without a second glance behind him. This is my goal; to be excited when new things come my way, but to never get attached, and then release them soon after. On my way to a life of voluntary simplicity. 

Reality Romance

I have lived with boys my entire life. I have woken up to SportsCenter, come home and discreetly turned down the volume of whatever game was going on, and tried to zone out the zombie apocalypse on Sunday nights. But with a female roommate, a whole new devil moved into our home; The Bachelor. My roommate, like many women, would float home on Monday nights to the anticipation and seduction of, dare I say it, Juan Pablo. Despite being dead set against shows exactly like this one, I found myself casually tuning in periodically until Juan's exotic Venezuelan accent and rock hard chest sucked me in entirely.

Every Monday seemed farther apart from the one before as I eagerly awaited the romance and imagined being the lucky girl chosen out of a pack of 27 beautiful women to ride off into the Fijian sunset riding on an elephant ( I don't even know if there are elephants in Fiji). It didn't take long for me to realize that watching this show was affecting me, more than that, disrupting my relationship. My fiancé would hand me a box of chocolates on valentines day, or take me to dinner on my birthday, and I'd think, or accidentally say, "Why can't you set up a private concert with my favorite band while we bungee jump down a waterfall surrounded by candles and baby monkeys?" To which he respond, "because I'm not backed by ABC."...If you loved me you'd find a way!

I am not ignorant about these lies, and this show still subconsciously ninjad its' was into my brain until I had doubts about my life. I found myself so angry at this show for making me unsatisfied with my perfectly healthy and  REAL relationship. Whether we are aware or not, these shows affect us! They ruin women's expectations for romance, and completely distort their idea of true love, at least that's what I think Don Jon was trying to get across between the obnoxious Jersey accents and abhorrent masterbation scenes.

But then the show took a giant turn. I've never gone from wanting to be someone's dirty little concubine, to absolutely despising them so quickly. In the season finale Juan Pablo, with a disgustingly giant Neil Lane rock in his pocket, chose not to propose to anyone, I was outraged! How dare he not commit his entire life to a woman he met 6 weeks ago! What does he mean he doesn't know her well enough to love her?! Stop being selfish! This isn't about you Juan, it's about all of us out her that want to believe in some bullshit love that doesn't really exist and spend the rest off our lives turning down good guys in pursuit of it! 

It makes me giggle that this show upset me so for not being a realistic representation of love, and then pissed me off for delivering the exact opposite. Because the truth is, we don't watch reality tv shows to see reality, we watch them to escape it. 

Changing my Lens

I've spent so much of my life wondering and worrying about the pressing issue of my fast approaching future. I couldn't decide what I wanted to be and all my choices sent me into massive decision anxiety. Suddenly I found myself in the doldrums where I refused to move forward in any direction and instead put all my efforts into stopping time. I've suddenly realized I wasn't going about my future in a helpful way. I would beg God to make my heart's deepest desires loud and clear, help me find what I love doing, what I'm good at. Through all of it I kept my future in my own hands, grasping it tightly. It wasn't until these last couple of years when I have truly relinquished complete control over my life that I've made any progress. Lost and tired I finally handed my dreams, goals, fears, and future over to God and said a different prayer; please use my life to make the world a better place. Please help me be the person you created me to be, your will be done with my life. In doing this I realized something, maybe what I am "meant" to do isn't something that will come easy to me, or even something that I love. Maybe I do have a calling but contrary to what I have always believed, it will be hard, it will challenge me everyday and some days I might hate it. Maybe God calls you to do things in life that don't play off your strengths, but instead force you to face and cripple your weaknesses.

~Care

Please take it...

There's this part of my heart that I won't give to him. I keep it locked away for myself. I keep it there so I can never be vulnerable, so I can never be hurt, so I will never lose everything at once. I hold on to it so tightly because I refuse to give someone the chance to strip me of everything I am. He can have my joys, my dreams, my time, my attention, but my fears, my past, my faults and weaknesses, these things are mine and mine alone. I want to love him fully, with everything I am, but I don't know how. I'm not even sure why I don't. I trust him. I know he is pure and his love is true, but my fingers are still turning white from holding so tightly to that little piece, and I can't pry them open. That's when I realized my relationship with my fiancé is the same as my relationship with God, and my fear of getting hurt perils in comparison with the possibilities of what I could do if only I gave of myself entirely and let this broken being be totally and completely stripped.

Just living in a snow globe

This morning my puppy bounded noisily off my bed. On a snowy Saturday! Readjusting? I hoped. Just scratching his ears? I prayed. But when he didn't return to his place between my feet I mustered up some courage to peek at him from below the mound of cozy covers. He was sitting patiently by the door starring right back at me, no concept of time, no look of remorse on his sweet face. I grumbled and grabbed my nearest pair of sweats. Convinced that no one on God's good planet would be crazy enough to be up this early I decided to forgo the leash, and let him run free through the courtyard of the apartments. I was delighted to find the most beautiful of mornings. Snow perced carefully on every branch, untouched powdery snow spreading as far as I could see, and a sky so white I could of sworn I was inside a tiny snow globe. Flakes lightly brushed my nose but I did not feel cold, on the contrary I felt lucky, safe, happy to be all alone in this crowded world. My puppy ran ruckus around the fresh snow and buried his face in it time and time again. I giggled, and thanked him for waking me up so early on a Saturday morning, how could I have missed this? 

Once Again Looking Back 2013

2013...hmm.

This was a different year for me. I started off this year working at a hospital. Every day I strutted down the hallway, swiped my badge and let it snap back to the clip attached to my pocket. The doors opened gloriously to restricted access zones and I felt important crossing over the red tape. I got dressed in an oh so pretty shade of blue, ill-fitting pair of scrubs, walked into my department and...cleaned blood off of instruments. Many days I blasted my music, that I was constantly ridiculed for by the "cool kids" of the sterile processing department, if there could be such a thing, and questioned my entire existence. Then there was the time I took off my gloves to find me bleeding my own blood and had no way of knowing which disease I had inevitably contracted.

The funny thing, while here, I learned a lot. For one, I learned how to have faith in the little. If I could roll up my sleeves and work hard with a good attitude, maybe God would reward me with more. I had a routine here, I met the strangest bunch of people I ever did meet and the funny thing is, I enjoyed their company, I called them family. I even got beer with them on Friday nights and brought in cake to celebrate their birthdays... and then I was asked to leave. As simple as that. Right when I had started to find my way, when I had learned all the hundreds of instruments and how to out prank the others, I was asked to go on account of a back stabber. Someone in the department had complained to HR that I was working with my brother and the nepotism wasn't fair. Apparently they are not familiar with this term because my brother was a freaking hard-ass on me, harder than anyone else in the department, mainly because he could prove I wasn't sick when I called in... which I do sometimes, sue me. And just like that I felt betrayed and was forced out of a gig that I was secretly starting to enjoy.

Then on my 23 birthday I took a call that stopped me in my tracks. My grandfather had died. My heart hurt more than it ever had. I had been so afraid of death, like literally I had been staying awake at night so afraid of being left on this planet by the people I love. Then it happened, and you know what, I heeled, I kept going. Life will always go on. My papa left me with so so much wisdom, he was a great man, but he left two pieces of advice consciously to his grandchildren; 1, Don't take yourself to seriously and 2. Go to church. Which I started doing more regularly.

In July I finally got to bring home the cuddliest silliest little bundle of joy. I finally got a puppy! He is perfect in every way and I learned so much about what kind of parents Kevin and I will be, how much joy awaits us with children, and how much conflict with the grandparents as well. 

Then my future sister-in-law brought a man to dinner and the second time we met him he asked for her hand in marriage. I would have to share my wedding spotlight with someone else, someone else who in my eyes had not earned the right to be promoted to this stage in their relationship yet. Like a child I was upset about it instead of being overjoyed by the fact that two more people had found love in this crazy world. I'm not proud of how I responded. I failed her, as a fellow human, as a friend, and as a sister. Now I feel nothing but happiness for her and the wonderful man she is marrying.

Then I lost patience and wondered if my boyfriend would ever ask me. I found an email in my fiance's inbox telling me exactly when, which happened to be later that week. I bet you can guess how that made me feel about snooping, yep, like I didn't deserve to be loved. But the thing is when I revealed this bit of information I didn't feel excitement like I always thought I would. All I felt was fear. I panicked. Marriage weighed heavily on my chest and I found it hard to breath. After all this trouble I had caused, what if I said, no??

Knowing it was coming made the day hard to enjoy, that and the horrible cold I had untimely been infected with. But when he did ask me I saw his mouth move and didn't hear one word he said. Despite all my worries I could do nothing but bawl and shake my head yes.

Then our life suddenly got very expensive and I got a job at a Victoria Secret. This was a test all in its own. Here I learned lessons that I had to learn, but it was not easy. Anyone who works at Victoria Secret can not afford to shop there. I found myself wanting things I didn't need and didn't even like! Everything was shiny and pretty and new colors were coming in constantly creating the illusion that I had to buy everything now! I started staying up at night making lists of things I was going to buy. It totally consumed me! Materialism consumed me. It went something like this; after I buy that I will be happy, I just need this, then I will be content. That's when I realized not only did I need to get out of there, I needed to get rid of all my stuff, literally. I returned lots of things I had bought and got rid of more clothes than I ever have. Through working at a store I learned to disconnect from things, which is one of the greatest lesson I have ever learned. It has created a whole new desire in my heart, to simplify.

Looking back on this year I originally thought it was an uneventful waste of a year, but now I realize just how necessary this year was to my personal growth. Through every job I have undergone, hated and quit I have learned so much and gained confidence. At Shur-Sales I quickly learned everything there is to know about industrial and fire equipment, at St. Anthony's I memorized hundreds of surgical instruments in a couple of months, and at Victoria Secret I mastered 10 different bras in a couple of weeks. These are all things I have no interest in, just imagine how quickly I could learn about something I love.

This year wasn't an easy one for me. I saw how sad life can be, I saw how ugly I can act, and despite my best efforts I was miserable at every job I took.

This next year I want to refocus my efforts on a meaningful life. I want to become a better person, I wan't to connect with people, I want to be a good wife and honor my husband the way he deserves, I want to give him the part of my heart I've never given anyone, I want to make the world a better place, and I want to be proud of who I am, not just what I've accomplished.

Cheers to 2014

Decisions

I find myself in this constant dichotomy, one between having this amazing career, or having a family. I'm sure I am not alone in this, it is probably one that many 21st century women face. Today we have choices, endless in fact, which is a wonderful prison to be in. Recently I have acquired a great opportunity in the workplace, and yet I find myself turning away from it. People around me find this preposterous. How could I possibly turn down such a great opportunity, a resume builder? And sometimes I listen. Sometimes I feel like if I turn this down for a life raising children I have failed. Failed myself and my high expectations, wasted my potential as a human being, and given up my life of adventure. Well for those around me and the conflicted fear absorbed voice in my head I say; I met my soulmate at 16, grown into a relationship that not only have I not seen duplicated, but not even fathomable by most, I double majored in college in four years with a 4.0, I've been to more countries by the age of twenty-three than most see in a lifetime. To these people I say; I find myself inspiring those around me, and not because of how impressive my job title is, or how much money I make, but because of who I am; my values, strength, lifestyle, and most importantly, my undying devotion to following my heart. It is always a risk to turn down opportunities, but one thing I will not risk is my happiness.

Death

Death is so strange, and yet it is inevitable. It has happened to everyone that has ever walked the earth and will happen to everyone walking, or crawling it now. The best, the absolute best case scenario, we can hope for is for everyone we love to live a full life and fall asleep peacefully in old age. The worst is we send our beautiful, perfect 6-year old to school and they never come home to throw their backpack on the floor, and track in mud because they forgot to leave their shoes at the door. But no matter how or when we lose someone it leaves a big hole in our life. We look around and can't understand why the car behind us is riding our ass, or why people just keep going on like nothing has changed. So we continue on also, the best that we can.

I don't know how we cope, but we do. Although I don't understand how atheists and agnostics go on. The only thing that seems to make since about death is returning to God. Without this to hold on to I fear my tears would last forever and would not be selfish tears, but tears of fear and discontentment.

I have been so afraid of death, not of dying, but of not living fully until I do. People know it is there, that there is no escape, but still so many wasted days continue to take place. Working jobs we hate, holding grudges, not spending our free time with those that matter most. How do we forget so easily, myself included. Forgive, Quit, make phone calls, make time, move! Find what is important to you and spend your life doing it.

One more time I ask myself how should I spend my short amount of time here? How can I affect the most lives? And last, why on earth do we seem obsessed and completed engulfed with the fear of being forgotten after we go?

Love you papa, a life well lived, and a beautiful soul. R.I.P. Jackson Girtin