but you, you just know, you just do

This passion of mine has dwindled down and become a rare occasion that only happens when there is absolutely nothing else to occupy my time. Yes, that saddens me. I wish I could remember to document all the wonder moments in my life, the ones that make me grin ear to ear, the ones that I never ever want to forget... but the things is, that's just not how my passion began, and so I'm not in the habit of writing about all the grandeur. Instead, my writing had its humble beginnings pining over lost loves, aching, wondering, wishing, loathing, but never loving in the sense that I was loved back. I loved to write about being what I thought must be love. But four years of highschool and two years of college came and went, and with one person my passion for spilling my guts in prose faded away because now I didn't have to write about unrequited love. Suddenly my life was a whirlwind of wonderful and I had no need to write my frustrations down because, to be honest, they were few and far between. Sure I still wrote here and there... but I forced myself to. It wasn't something that I had to do for my own sake. I used to write because that was the only way I could deal with rejection and heartache, all my poor pitiful overemotional self inflicted pain. So when that pain stopped, the writing stopped -- or at least minimized quite a bit.

He views this as in insult. I used to write pages and pages about other guys. Heck, even a book! And he gets what? Some letters here and there, and a failed attempt at a blog. But I try and tell him it's the biggest compliment he could get. Honestly, he does so much, I don't know how I could even begin to write down all the ways he makes me happy. There are moments, so random you'd think nothing of it, that I just feel an overwhelming sense of happiness to be with him. And it totally makes me think of a line in the movie Never Been Kissed,

"That thing, that moment, when you kiss someone and everything around becomes hazy and the only thing in focus is you and this person and you realize that that person is the only person that you're supposed to kiss for the rest of your life, and for one moment you get this amazing gift and you want to laugh and you want to cry because you feel so lucky that you found it and so scared that that it will go away all at the same time."

with every step, love grows.

2 years and counting...

our anniversary was a beautiful disaster, complete with ups and downs.. but at the end of the day, we came out stronger, closer than ever before. i've never had someone understand me quite like he does. i mean, he can tell me what my next move is before i make it. maybe that just makes me predictable? either way -- i wouldn't change our relationship for the world.

pressed on letterpress

www.bellafigura.com

i stumbled upon bella figura letterpressing and i'm in love.

still falling, breathless and on again

there are countless things i could analyze tonight.. where to begin? i'm still insecure. i still care what other people think about me. will that ever change? deductive reasoning brought me to these conclusions. it all boils down to insecurity. why would i get upset that someone said "does tamara comment on your facebook about everything you guys do?" - that makes me feel dumb. needy. clingy. insecure. it doesn't help that his response is, "i didn't know what to say so all i said was 'she really likes facebook'" - that makes me feel even dumber. needier. clingier. more insecure. because now not only does said person think i'm all those aforementioned things, but my very own boyfriend does too. my mind spirals down into condescending thoughts about myself and i feel the freaking right* to say something.

*ah, the right. which stems from all those years when i made myself feel "wrong" for letting things bother me. when i would accept blame for things that were anything but my fault.

so i speak up. and he shuts down. "i'm not even going to argue about this." he grabs keys, ready to get out, pronto. before she gets mad. before she blows things out of proportion. before he has to deal with me. his intentions were honest, he didn't want to fight about something that was not meant to start an argument. but it hurt my feelings. the comment. the aftermath of trying to avoid talking about my hurt feelings. the quick sorry and out the door before the (pardon me, i am ignorant) shit hits the fan. i just wanted to solve a problem.

have i, in my liberation from self-worthlessness and self blaming tendencies, swung too far on the opposite side? he says i say things without considering his feelings. i tell him how i feel, no matter how it makes him feel. how do you deal with that? how does anyone win. its a lose lose situation. i don't say anything, my feelings are hurt. i do say something, his feelings are hurt. i never intend to hurt his feelings. it is never my intention to say things out of spite or use harsh words or do anything to bring him down. i simply feel the need to express how i feel, let him know what hurt me, so that we are both aware and can try to not let a similar situation happen again. it seems like such a good intention.. and yet, at times, he shines a light on the other side. how does it make him feel. with all the sugar poured on it, the words still resonate with bitterness. i wish it wasn't so, but i see how they do.

so do i bite my tongue? do i force myself to fall back into a more neutral spot on the spectrum of speaking my mind? do i let more of the little things slide? my questions are an endless tangled mess, fighting to be answered... admitting defeat with every fight that ends in tears and apologies and promises to do better.

my insecurities cause these questions. as much as i've grown and changed, i still have them. they are a part of life, and will always be. what matters is how you react to them... and obviously, that's something that i'm working on and will continue to work on. at least i know he'll be by my side no matter what.

don't know where i've been, but i know where i want to go

sometimes i wonder where this luck came from? or is it something more than luck? skills. talent. blessings... or are they synonymous with each other? i've been "the intern" at maycreate for two weeks now and i must say, i am really enjoying it. much more than my last internship (no offense true north). my first project was a logo for an onpoint event. i'm thrilled to say that out of 4 designs (only 2 of which were mine) -- one of my logo designs was chosen! now i'm working on round stickers, bumper stickers and t-shirt designs for onpoint and thinking of ideas for chattanooga library's event "club lib".. the projects keep rollin' in. and i couldn't be happier. it's exciting to be working with such talented people, in such a creative environment. everyone's been super supportive (so far haha).

my schedule continues to just fill up, then empty up, only to fill up again. some days i'm swamped and others i get out of class nearly 2 hours early, giving me time to actually work (or in this case... blog.. hmmm) but now, all my shows are coming back on tv so all my evenings will no doubt revolve around which show is on and how important it is to watch it. of course i have DVR, which should solve that problem.. but there's something about watching live tv. it's more exciting. the anticipation during commercials for whats going to happen next -- i don't know, i'm weird i know.

now i must go make a box.

yes, you read that right.

my next project for 3D graphics is to make a box... for my product design. i'm doing honey and biscuits. so i need to make a box for the biscuits. just a cut out for now. but did i mention that i'm horrible at packaging? not the design part, but the cutting part? exacto knives never do quite what i want them to do. just like printers. but such is life.

falling slowly, eyes that know me

yes, those are my awesomely 80's legging/socks - the multi-colored stripped ones, courtesy of Robert's Journeys purchase. We had the Staff Secret Pal party last Saturday night and it was a success! Most everyone dressed up 80's and had a great time taking pictures and exchanging secret pal gifts. camp is coming to an end. with only 4 days left, i'm starting to feel a little sad. despite all the reasons why i felt the summer was mediocre here... i'm beginning to realize that it wasn't. i'll take away some amazing memories from here, from all the people, and wally the chipmunk. isn't that how life works a lot of the time? sometimes you don't even realize the good while it's happening, but once time passes and you looked back on the memories -- they make you smile and miss that place or those people. true, i'm still here and true, i want to leave... but i know in a week from now, or a month, or a year... i'll look back with fond memories and i might just miss camp.

To see clearly...

 “Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”
                                    - Phillippians 4: 8, 9

Yesterday I was wearing glasses. Now, many of you didn’t even know that I wore glasses because I’m always wearing contacts. But occasionally I’ll bust out the glasses, and yesterday just happened to be one of those occasions. At evening program, Randy asked to borrow my glasses for a skit… so I let him, consequently causing me to be blind for a whole 5 minutes. It was in those few minutes that a thought came to me… and I’m going to share it with you this morning.

My story takes place back in the good old days when I attended Westdale Elementary School in Saginaw, Michigan. I was in 4^th grade and if you can imagine, was a complete nerd. I mean, I wrote poetry and got straight A’s. I didn’t have any really good friends, but even now I don’t remember it to be a bad year in the least. However, it was in that 4^th grade year that something started happening…

“Tamara, why are you sitting so close to the tv?!” My mom began to ask me every time I’d sit down to watch “All That” or reruns of “Saved By The Bell”.

“I don’t know…” I’d reply. I didn’t really think about a reason. It was just what I did.

At school I began to realize that I couldn’t make out anything on the whiteboard. I’d squint to try and see, but to no avail. I knew what this meant. Glasses.

I was already a nerd to begin with, now we really have to add the glasses into the mix? Why yes, yes we did. So I told my mom the reason why I always sat so close to the tv and she quickly took me to the eye doctors where I got my eyes checked and a prescription made for a shiny new pair of glasses.

I remember the moment like it was yesterday. I was sitting there, waiting to put on glasses for the first time in my life. I didn’t think much of it, until… whoa. I could see. No really. Those big green blurry bushes, were actually leaves on a tree. Details were in full focus and all of a sudden I was so shocked at how much I was missing out before. People can actually see all of this, from this far away?! I was amazed. And happy! I could not wait to wear my glasses all the time!

But, unfortunately, the excitement died down… and two years later I couldn’t stand to wear my glasses. I was going into the 6^th grade, transitioning into Middle School and just had to look cool which meant – NO glasses. I was NOT going to be a nerd anymore. I had boys to impress! Popularity to achieve! The world was mine for the taking – without these nerdy glasses.

Contacts were not an option though. I couldn’t stand the thought of touching my eyes, let alone having something in them all day. I shuddered to think of it.  So instead, I just didn’t wear my glasses to school. By this time, my prescription had gotten progressively worse and worse. But I didn’t care. I refused to wear those glasses because I was convinced that I looked ugly and uncool in them.

How did I survive, you ask? Oh I had perfected the art of the eye squint. I would make sure no one was looking at me, and pull the sides of my eyes to make them squint. The distortion it caused my retinas made my vision to become clear, although I was seeing only a sliver of anything. But it worked. I’m sure people saw me and wondered what in the world I was doing, but I thought I was pretty clever and sneaky.

The story eventually ends in me getting cool glasses to wear (that weren’t really that cool but I just thought they were) and then eventually getting up the guts to get contacts, which I wear til this day.

But I was thinking about this story and the similarity between us and God’s truth.

All of our visions are blurry. And sometimes we don’t realize it. Sometimes we think we know what is right and what is wrong and what’s best for us… and we are content to see things the way we want to see them. And over time, we may begin to realize that our way of thinking, the way we see things, may not be exactly right or clear…

And when we make that decision to trust in God and allow him to show us his truth… we get the metaphorical glasses and our vision suddenly becomes so clear. And the things that we didn’t understand before, lines that may have been blurry, we now see clearly. And we are so excited! We can’t believe we didn’t know all this before.

And over time… maybe…. Some of us decide it’s not quite “cool” to see the right things. To really know the truth and act upon it. So we metaphorically decide to take off our glasses and try and see on our own again. Distorting the truth so that we still look cool and may be technically right, but aren’t allowing God’s truth to really show us the right way.

The verse I read in the beginning, Phillipians 4: 8,9 is one we’ve all heard many times. It gets a little bit overdone. Yeah yeah yeah, whatever is good, kind, noble, yadda yadda yadda. But if you really think about it, many of us brush this verse off because we don’t fully know what is right and good and noble because so many of us are distorting our eyes from seeing God’s truth. That’s why I love the next verse that says, “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”

Jesus came as an example to this earth – to show us the Father. In my opinion, the one word to sum up God is Love.

So often I feel threatened by verses in the Bible that say you have to think on all these pure, good, holy, right things… because let’s face it – we are sinners. We don’t always do that. We try, but we fail many times... and we get discouraged and we feel ugly and take off our glasses because we see what’s right but just can’t seem to do it the right way.

But our God is a loving God. A forgiving God. If we stand up, put on those glasses (whether or not they are cool) we will see clearly. And no matter how many times we think we can do it on our own, we think we know what we’re doing, we can just take off those glasses and squint and see fine… Just know, God will always be there, waiting to hand those glasses back to us so that our vision can be perfectly clear.