This is all well and good.  To update, I did it.  I moved to Kansas.  I work that job.  It should be a blog!  Maybe it will be.  I have friends.  A boyfriend, even (at least today!).  An apartment.  A dog trainer.  A good life.  My life is nothing to write home about, but I have started to find myself again.  And I’m liking what I see.

Looks likeI’m going to be working in Kansas.

I guess.

I think.

I hope.

I took that phone call and was filled with anxiety.  Why?  Because it’s real!  I have talked about moving.  About giving KC a try– not for the reasons I once thought, but for better ones.  I have prayed.  I have probably worn God’s ears out praying about all this!  I have visited the office of an apartment building.  I have tried to find the closest grocery store, gas station and Walgreen’s.  I have questioned people of where things are, what things are like.  I have even driven on the expressway.  Seriously!

I have mentally prepared myself for the possibility of moving.  I have mentally listed what I will need.  Thought about where I’d work.  Where I’d put the couch.  The cat.  The pictures on the walls.

It’s not that I haven’t played this over in my mind about a thousand times.  It’s not that I don’t feel at home there.  Honestly, I feel more at home there than here!  This place, this building, it’s never felt like home.  I felt more at home surrounded by people I hardly know this weekend than I feel here.  I know that a building doesn’t make a home (just a house), a heart does, and my heart has never been in this place.  My heart is more invested in an apartment I’ve never seen than it is in this, my home.

I am excited with the prospect of moving.  Of being broke.  Of working hard for not a lot of pay.  Of being lost and scared.  Of being overwhelmed.  Of having approximately 1.2 friends.  Of having to start a new life.  Of stepping out in faith.  I am excited to keep only what I need.  To have dog parks to take Buddy to.  To eat a lot of Ramen.

But I would be lying if I didn’t find the thought absolutely terrifying as well.  Why are emotions always mixed?  I will miss my friends here.  The comfort.  The familiarity.  The fact that I know where to find all my groceries in the store.  The fact that I can find the store!  I will desperately miss the square, the fair, the lake.  The town and the people that have made my home for nine years.

But the most terrifying thought is the possibility that it might not actually happen.

Sometimes I get treated like I am stupid.  I tend to avoid that word– but in this case, I’m using it to mean lacking a certain quality.  The quality of discerning subtleties.  Just in this post, right now.

In some ways, I do have difficulty with that.  I’m pretty easy to lie to, generally speaking.  I tend to believe people and to believe they are basically good.

It seems that as of late I have been given some comments that sort of make me feel that people think I am stupid. 

Thinly veiled lies.  If I can tell it’s a lie, it must be a bad one!  I do not do well being lied to, particularly by friends who should know better.  Friends who should know that I’m not going to be bothered (at least not really bothered) by the truth.  If you don’t want to see me, that’s fine.  Don’t lie to me and then lie to cover up a lie.  All you’re going to succeed in doing is really hurting me.

Maybe it’s more than being called stupid.  People assume that I’m hard to hurt with words and actions.  That you can lie because I won’t know and it won’t hurt.  You can say that any guy who would be interested in me must really be a good guy and I’ll take it at face value.  It won’t hurt.

Reality check: it hurts.  I am not stupid.  I do know when hurtful things are said to/about me.  Maybe not always, but I hurt when I do know.  And I hurt deep.  I feel taken advantage of, worthless and that you think I’m stupid.  I didn’t realize that friends were in the business of hurting and lying to one another.

I am fine just the way I am.  I am pretty in my ripped-up jeans and t-shirts.  I am real.  I am a good person with a good heart.  I care about other people.  I am not stupid.  I have a pretty deep emotional capacity.  I possess the ability to be hurt.  And to be healed.  The person I am today is good enough.

This does not mean that I am not a sinner.  That I am not broken.  That I do not struggle.  That I cannot be a better person.

What it means is that I’m developing that inner voice that can say to someone else that he or she is wrong about me.  This is a very painful, but very good, thing.

And I am not stupid– though I sure feel that way sometimes.

I somehow have it in my stupid head that I am going somewhere.  That I am leaving my house and the town that has been my home for the last nine years.  Why?  Hell if I know.  I tell myself that there are more opportunities.  But mostly it is because I feel like I’m being dragged.  I’m sort of starting to fight it.  Not because I don’t want to go.  Because beyond all reason I do.

I am fighting because of the stuff.  I just want to remove about three boxes of stuff, my animals and maybe my couch from this place and then just light it on fire.  Get rid of that extra junk.  And I’m not even horribly materialistic.  This is just a silly little fantasy– like so many other things.  Watch me still be sitting in this same room on this same couch whiny about the same old stuff five years from now.

And not all the stuff is material.  It’s piling up in my mind as well.  Getting a job.  Figuring out if what I feel so strongly that I must do is right.  Trying to draw out fantasy from reality and harmful fantasy from harmless mental play.  That last one kept me up for about 48 hours straight– no wonder the fumes knocked me on my ass.

I think fantasy becomes harmful when we begin to believe that reality WILL come to be like the fantasy.  I think it’s OK for me to think that if I were to move where I want to that I will make more friends and have more to do.  That I can get a better job there than here.  But when I create a job for myself or mentally create an entire life for myself (which I am wont to do!) it becomes unhealthy.  If you don’t dream a little bit, what’s the point?  What will motivate you to get off your ass?  Not much.  If you don’t reach a little bit, don’t believe a little bit in the power of dreams, you are going to be a really sad person.  But if you believe innothing but dreams you’re going to be pretty sad, too.  I know that much.

I used to spend hours each day in a fantasy life.  Really relied on it.  Ending up dating a guy because I thought he was the one I had always dreamed of– and maybe he was, but that didn’t make him the right one.  I’ve tried to escape reality about a hundred thousand times (at least) by jumping into fantasy.  Instead of thinking that something real will be great because I will be with people I like doing something I enjoy, I try to put a very fine point on what will happen and then get disappointed if reality doesn’t end up being like what I created in my head.

That is bigger “stuff” than the boxes in my living room, but just as tossable.  Just like these objects around me, the thoughts inside can be sorted through.  Some are important and needed (or just wanted) and can come.  Some get boxed up and put in a very special place to be taken out at certain times and displayed or appreciated– the “good” fantasy comes in here, I think.  Some can be given away.  Shared and used by others.  Lessons learned.  But some needs to be tossed.  Given to God and tossed.

And so as I sort stuff I will sort thoughts as well.  Regardless of what happens, it will be helpful.  To burn it, bury it or destroy it would be easier, but what would be learned of that?  Who knows what of much use would be lost to the flames.

But before I do that, I’d better get some fresh air and take a nap.  Damn that stuff is powerful!

I have been struggling with understanding why God would actually love and care about me, at least to the degree that He does.  I mean, I’m kind of a giant asshole sometimes.  Pretty much worthless and screwed up, even.  (Aren’t we all?)  Why would He want me?  Of what worth to Him am I?  (Relax, this gets better.)

A couple weeks ago I was driving to Wal-Mart to pick up some pictures and I saw there were people selling puppies in the parking lot.  I have designated myself as the puppy checker for this area, so I went to see the puppies.

They were miserable.  They were tiny, skinny, wormy, covered in fleas, eyes swollen shut with infection, scabs covering their little bodies.  There was nothing cute about these puppies.  The fur they had stuck out at funny angles.  They had ringworm.  They were pretty much about as ugly as puppies can get.

I couldn’t stand there and do nothing.  I couldn’t walk away and let this go on.  So I bought the entire litter.  Every last puppy (there were five of them).  And then turned around and put them in the rescue.

I think about those puppies a lot.  I have a vested interest in them.  A vested interest in five ugly little puppies.  Why?  I bought them for a price.  Not a high price, but I would have given every penny to my name (which isn’t that many!) to make sure they were safe.  I felt responsible for them because I could do something for them.

Imagine if those puppies were my creation.  If I had paid for them with my own blood.  My own life.

Makes me understand a little better why God might want something to do with me after all.

Laying in bed last night I started thinking about the whole concept of treating your body like a temple.  What would I do to/for a temple?

Keep it clean.

Fix it if stuff inside it gets broken.

Make it look nice.  Not showy, but new paint and stuff.

Real simple stuff.

So, as much as I don’t want to do this– and I DON’T want to do this– I’m going to try something here.  I’m going to do just that.  I’m going to “make it look nice”.  Now, I’m not breaking out the make-up bag here, but I’m going to make a very small effort and do things like put on a polo shirt and shower every day.  Keep the smoothing/curling crap in my hair.  Try to eat right (without becoming obsessive about calories).  Get off my ass.

I’m not doing this for me.  I’m not doing this for the world.  I’m not doing this for other people.  I’m going to do it because I should do for myself what I would do for my church.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

Yes, that is in reference to sex and such, but I’m going to give this a try.  Taking care of myself.  And speaking of bought at a price…

Whilst going through my clothes I have done a lot of thinking.  I mean, there’s not much else to do.  Listen to the radio.  Fold.  Remove cat from pile of laundry.  Fold.  Find more songs on Grooveshark.  Decide to stack underwear on cat.  Fold.  All the while thinking.  About life.  About the pull to leave here.  About the pull to change.

Staring at every piece of clothing I have makes me agree.  Staring at those around me makes me agree.  Looking myself in the mirror makes me agree.  Clothes do make the (wo)man.

I wonder if I were to change these clothes.  Would that change how people view me?

One day in high school I dyed my hair purple (sprayed it) and had my mom put it in pigtails.  I put on my baggiest carpenter jeans and borrowed a friend’s brother’s Good Charlotte t-shirt.  It was two sizes too big (at least!) and bright yellow.  I think I even did some make-up.  I topped it all off with a dog chain (purchased from Walgreen’s) around my neck.

The purpose of this was for an organization I was a part of.  It was about breaking stereotypes.  I was supposed to be a punk– I think.

Nobody could believe it was me.  I was complimented.  Told I looked cute.  What did I usually look like that made THAT look cute?

Recently I was told that any guy who would look at me the way I am must really be a good guy– must really care.

My girlfriends get stared at.  They manage to look put-together and cute pretty much all the time.

Then there’s me.  I’m not quite the girl from my hall in college who wore nothing but men’s boxers around the bathroom with her shaved head and flat chest– the one who would make us double-take that there was a dude in the girl’s bathroom.  I’m not her.  Of course, that look was intentional– she wanted to be a guy– but still.

I look at what I own.  I look at what I wear.  Jeans– almost all the time, jeans.  Preferably with holes in the knees.  T-shirts.  Not as baggy as they were in say, junior high, and not with the flannel shirts I wore then (at least grunge was in in 1995!).  Sneakers.  Right now, bright pink Chucks purchased from the youth section of the Target in Ottumwa.  Hoodies when it’s cold.  A boy’s size 16 U of I jacket in the winter.  Black boots.  Life is Good shirts.  I pretty much hate jewelry.

Now, I own a pair of khakis that I love.  I even like polo shirts.  I willingly wore a sundress to my uncle’s 90th birthday party– with sandals!  But I feel like a liar in those things.  I feel like a schoolteacher (probably because those are what I wore when I WAS a schoolteacher!).  I don’t feel like me.  Not really.

I know that jeans and a t-shirt don’t make me look pretty.  I know that not wearing make-up or jewelry doesn’t help my case.  I know that scrub pants are in no way attractive.

I’m not stupid.  I clean up well.  And it’s not laziness.  A polo takes no more time to put on than a t-shirt.

You know that part in the movie where the pretty-but-fashion-challenged girl suddenly wakes up, gets a haircut, learns how to put on make-up, buys something fashionable and no one recognizes her?  How everyone says she’s beautiful once they realize who she is?  How she’s suddenly happy with herself?  There’s a whole show on TLC about it– “What Not To Wear”.  Even I have watched it.

I don’t see that part of the movie happening for me.  It’s not that I’m not pretty.  I’m at least tolerable.  It’s not that I don’t care.  I mean, I put some goop in my hair this morning.  Then it curled (even though it was smoothing goop).  That’s how this crap goes for me.  Right now, I have no desire to be Carlene.  Maybe someday a fairy tale will come true for me, but it will be a Shrek and not a Prince Charming to play to my true love’s form.

15. He doesn’t channel-surf during commercials.

14. He thinks an afternoon at the lake is possibly the best thing this side of Heaven.

13.  He listens when I talk to him.

12. He loves children.

11. He protects me when we walk after dark.

10. He makes it easier to talk to people.

9.  He just wants to cuddle.

8. He makes me laugh.

7. He is gentle when he should be, playful when he can be, and blind to the differences between people.

6. His idea of a good night is getting some ice cream and going for a drive.

5. He’s not afraid to look silly.

4. He makes it clear when he needs his space– and lets me have mine.

3. He will eat whatever I cook, even if it is awful.

2. He is my best friend and I trust him completely.

1. He doesn’t steal the covers.

Everything that happens is supposed to be
And it’s all pre-determined, can’t change your destiny
Guess I’ll just keep moving, someday maybe
I’ll get to where I’m going

Because sometimes the one random song I know by a band can explain what’s going on in my head better than I can.