Mo' money, mo' problems.

I've started my big girl nursing job. I can't describe how much this job has stretched my comfort zone, half the time I get home and can't believe at where I've ended up. I mean that in both good and bad ways.
I'm learning to serve.
I'm learning patience.
I'm learning my capacity to do what needs to be done.
I'm learning just what I'm made of.
I've had an up-and-down week. On the downside, my first week on the job was rough. Like... REALLY rough. To top it all off, I've caught myself the flu despite getting the flu shot! Bugger.
On the up-side, I just got the new Bon Iver album on vinyl, it's everything I hoped it would be and more. Except for one track that sounds like a 90s pop abomination. But I'll let it slide this time. If you haven't heard this album yet, go listen to it right now! It will change your life!

Sept 15, 1945

Sometimes, the wisest words come from people who don't know what year it is.

She looked at me with unseeing eyes, a trembling hand, and a drawer of stolen trinkets;
"You are lovely, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks and it doesn't matter what you think.
If you don't like where you are, if you aren't happy, then get out. You're too young to be unhappy. But if you have found something that you love, or someone you love, you never let that go."

Yes, she may not know who the president is... but she speaks more truth than I have heard in a long time.

Franship

Picture yourself as friends with yourself.
Now think about all the things you tell yourself every day.
"Why aren't your eyes bigger?"
"Why did you just say something so stupid?"
"You should probably work out more".

Would you be friends with you?
Today, I'm going to try to be a better friend.

Blue Jeans are Mean

Months of work on my self esteem
Years of being ok with my little imperfections

All forgotten in one afternoon of jean shopping.

All I can think to soothe my fragile, shivering ego is a lovely Regina Spektor lyric:
"I've got a perfect body, but sometimes I forget. I've got a perfect body, 'cause my eye lashes catch my sweat"

Labels

Some labels assume action.
For example, before I got a nursing job, I would tell people I was a nurse because I had the license and the title. The next question was inevitably, "Oh, where at?" The label of "nurse" assumed that I was, somewhere, somehow, actively being a nurse.
I believe that to me, the title of "Christian" should be the same way, a label that assumes action. That by carrying the title, you are somewhere, somehow, actively being a Christian. Whether you are in the unreached parts of the world telling the good news or simply spending your time actively and intentionally loving others around you, you are earning that label.
So when we say that we are Christians, let us live in such a way that their next question will logically be, "Oh, where at?"
Does that make any sense?

Find me

Find me that love that makes me a better me and not a better us
Find me that love that's for who I am now, not the person that I was
Who would want to obsess over me?
I will admit, I've been broken before and the glue is wearing thin
I will admit it's getting harder harder to let anybody in
But there's more to me than meets the eye
Someone might see, if they just try
Who would want to obsess over me?
Maybe my own love can set me free.

Painting

I've been painting with my eyes closed lately
The colors and strokes haphazardly strewn about the canvas
Guided by my impulses, guided by the hands of those around me
I open my eyes;
Before them, a reckless, violent piece of art I don't recognize
My signature, scrawled in red
In the bottom, right-hand corner.