A tangled mess.

What are friends for? You know like why do we get tangled up in someone else's life and they get tangled in our lives? 

Some people stay and try and untangle the mess, but it's impossible so they leave, while others stay long and love the tangle. Some people look at the tangle and want nothing to do with it and other just jump right in. 

But what happens when you try and go into their tangle? Do they let you get close and learn about it, do they let you in but not too close, do they let you try and untangle it. 

It all comes under trust. What if you try and untangle something and it gets it more messy or breaks a string!? 

Do they trust you enough to let you do things on your terms or is it always in their terms? 

Are they always getting what they want, are they always telling you when and where and why?

 A tangle can not be controlled it just has to be. And yes sometimes it looks better when things are neat but that's boring. 

Have you ever tried to untangle a knot by yourself? Was it hard? Did you let someone else try. Everyone has a different perspective. Everyone has a different way of doing things. So why is it that we won't give someone a try with our knot. 

Trust.

We only trust certain people. These certain people we always let them control out tangle. But some people are "in" the tangle but only on certain terms. Only when you say so, only when you want them. 

Does that seem very fair? 

To me this make no sense. Why can you control my tangle but I can't come every close to your tangle? 

It seems to me like I am not a certain person. So what do you do now? If you can't be in someone's tangle like they are in yours, do you leave? Try and find another tangle? 

What's the point of loving a tangle and not being allowed to love it and admire it. 

You can't tell me what to do, what to love, where to go, when to say something. That's not fair.

 I'm not going to let you control my tangle anymore if I can't control yours just as much. 

Hold my hand...

Do you have loved ones that is slowly being destroyed by something slowly? Cancer, drug addition, depression, Parkinson’s, alcoholism, HIV, bipolar, PTSD, Alzheimer’s, an eating disorder. It starts to slowly changing them. Pushing others away, acting stubborn, playing the victim.

What do you do for or with these people? How do you treat them? Are you strong enough to stand next to them as much as they need you? Is it your job or pleasure to stand next to them?

Are they calling out for help? Are you slapping their hand or holding their hand?

Are they impulsive? Are they numb? Are they angry? Have they turned to a substance/behavior addition? Are they becoming disassociated? Do they feel powerless? Do they feel guilty? Are they shameful?

There are 5 steps of loss and grief, and one can go through these when they start to loss themselves. 1. Denial and isolation 2. Anger 3. Bargaining 4. Depression 5. Acceptance.

This is a cycle it takes a long time to get through to the last step. How long will you hold on to their hand? How long will you walk along side them?

Some times life just isn't fair...

Do you ever have those people in your life that just can't take you for who you are. When you are down they want you to be happy, when you are happy they can't handle it and just push you away. I don't understand it. Or when you want to go somewhere, and they don't, then you don't go either.
You feel like you pull them down on days you are down, but when they are down you have to be strong and can't let your life get in the way. They yell at you for almost hurting them, when you get hurt.
You seem to just keep fighting over nothing all the time. The stress from other factors are heavy and you are just tired of everything. Its the same fights, its the same reactions, the friendship is pretty much just there because it is easy and comfortable.

It doesn't seem fair to me.

Who is that people to you, do you really want them in your life, do you need them or want them. If you want them try and new way to show them that this week. What is it going to take for you to know who that person really is to you?

Being vulnerable

Do you ever miss the safety of someone? The person you can say anything and not feel silly or stupid or dumb.  Up can just be completely vulnerable with them? You can cry as much and as long as you want. You can laugh at nothing and not feel stupid. Do you have someone like that. Have you had tht person in your life?

I'm extremely missing this person from my life. My best friend. They just get you. When you walk into a room and they just know and all you have to do is give them "the look". I miss that. Why it is that we usually want it so badly when we can't have it.

What do you do to cope with it. I need some ideas. I'm stuck. I feel so empty and so lonely. What do I do. I can only do so much.

Love is love

Have you ever heard the saying "I'm not a slut I just love love". I'd say I really love being loved but I'm not a slut. I love being known. I love being wanted and I love when people love me. Who doesn't right?

Have you ever wanted something so badly that it hurts to see other people with that. Whatever that is we get jealous and bitter and angry or hurt. This is what is happening to me with love. 

When I see love I get jealous I get bitter and I get really upset. Because I want it. The worst part is when you don't get it but you give it. Love is crazy and love is strong but love is hard and love is fun. 

Expect and never get...

Do you have those certain people in your life that give you a lot. And after a while you get use to what you receive and then after a little bit it goes away and you are let down. Those people that are suppose to love you all the time no matter what because that's just who they are in your life. Those people who you usually don't need to tell them what you need, they just know. Those people that should be able to give you what you need and what you want.

What about those people that love you and love you and love you and then stop. What do you do? You're attached and you can't leave but stay almost here just as much because they have almost just stopped loving you and pretty much just forgotten about you.

What do you do? It hurts both ways. They aren't giving you what you want or need anymore so do you leave and find someone who will or do you keep your promise "through sickness and health"

Life's not all butterfly's and flowers and when it's not I hope you have that one or few people to lean on.

"Those days"

Do you ever have "those days". And you aren't allowed to have "those days" because you have "that job". Those days where it hurts to get up, everything you do takes the energy out of you, and its hard to fill in empty time. That job that you have to be happy all the time. You have to make an impression to everyone and you feel like anything you do you fail at it.

These days suck. No one understand that you can't do anything about it you just kind of have to let it happen. You have to just slap on that fake smile, that lame laugh and go with the flow.

What if you are leading a group of kids? You can't be down, you have to have energy, you have to fill their time with something. You are their day, they rely on.

So what do you do? If you keep faking it, it will get worse. Some days you just can't do it. Today was one of those days, but I couldn't show it and now on my off time all I do is criticize myself and get more and more depressed but still can't do anything about it. Isn't your time off suppose to be rejuvenating and relaxing. So what do I do? No one will understand it, no one gets it.

I just have to keep going.

For someone else...

 Have you ever heard the question are people were created good people and socialized to be bad or are we created bad and just taught what good and bad is. This is a good question, but I think what I have come up with is that we are created to as good people but in our world, we have realized that we have to be selfish to survive and therefore we will do anything to put ourselves first.

The last two weeks I have found this to be very true. People suck. However, people only suck when they are selfish. If it doesn’t affect them directly it doesn’t mean anything.

Have you ever try to do a nice gesture for someone and they just bush it off or not even notice it. Have you ever gone way out of your way to simply show people that you love that you care about them? They don’t get it. They don’t see how much you put into it or how excited you were for it and got nothing. People are selfish. 

 

Yes I am selfish as well. I don’t get excited at things I probably should. Or I’m not as thankful as I should be. I suck. I get mad at things I shouldn’t. I bush little things off. I say no when I should say yes to letting people do things for me. I’m not saying I’m perfect, but I do try and I try very hard. 

They say it’s the little things that matter, and it almost seems like these little things are over looked now-a-days. Why don’t people do the little things anymore? They still matter. 

What are you going to do for someone you love today? Wash the dishes, buy some flowers, call them at work just to tell them you love them, clean the house, have a coffee and chat, watch the baseball game on even though you rather not, take a walk, send a gift, surprise them with more than they expected, etc. 

Do something for someone else. It will make you and them feel better.

That bug that always bugs you.

Do you have things in your life that bug you to no end. You think you have killed it and over come it but something or someone brings it back up. This bug for me is feeling worthless and unwanted.

Have you ever felt that way over and over? Even if people tell you over and over that they care about you and love you but something pulls you apart like time or distance or both. Over time without being told that they care about you, you almost start to forget and then that bug comes back and just eats at your heart.

What is your bug? Your self image, your looks, your shopping sprees, depression, jealousy, school and grades, relationships, failing, caring too much, ect... all these things we continue to struggle with and we go through seasons of them coming easy and other times are extremely hard. But I hope and I wish you have people around you that will help you and support you during these struggles. You have to remember that people can't read minds, so keep up with your communication.

Make this bug of your smaller than you think it is. Reassure yourself and love on the people around you. It will rub off and they will love you back. Don't think of yourself so harshly.

The Waiting Game

Have you ever played the waiting game? Where all you are doing is waiting around for everything. You wait for your spouse or your parents or your siblings to come home, you wait for dinner to be made, you wait for your friends to respond so you can hang out, you wait for the next vacation, you wait for the next job, you are waiting for everything. Time seems like it is not on your side at all, you feel more and more lonely the more you wait. You start to sleep in longer because you rather sleep then wait. That is where I am at right now.

I got out of school a little over two weeks now, and my summer job doesn't start for another two weeks.
I am in the waiting period. I don't have many real friends and the friends I do have here, most of them aren't real friends, so I wait for their responses for them to tell me that they have no time for me.
I wait for my parents and brother to get home so I'm not alone anymore.
I wait to see if my mom is going to cook dinner and by 8pm I'm staving I figure out that she is not making dinner but by that time I'm to tired to cook so I just don't eat.
I wait for my dad to tell me that he doesn't have that much work for me, so I go to work with him and just bored waiting to go home.
I wait to get a phone call from my best friend but end up not getting anything because she has a life and works and is too busy for me.
I wait to go swimming but I find that no one likes to go swimming if they have a pool.
I wait for my mom to come home so I can have the car so I can have some freedom.
I wait for text messages that never come back with a response.
I am waiting to get to my summer job, because I know I will have people around me and a purpose to my life.

But this waiting period sucks. This month seems like its not worth it. It seems like I have no purpose in life. I feel like a waste but I know I am not, I just have to wait.

But why do we have to wait? What are you waiting for? Why can't we find something we like and put it into a hobby and let time fly by instead of crawling by.  I have no hobbies right now. I'm bored and I'm uninterested in everything. It's a game, and I'm losing because I am waiting and I am not having fun.
 
Waiting sucks.

Can't just stop...

I can't just stop caring about what or who I love. That's not how love works.

I have recently watched the Twilight series. This is a movie about love and friendship and what it means to really love someone or something. Honestly, it's hard for me to watch movies like this sometimes because sometimes I go through dips and lows of not believing in love. Love the cliche, happy ending, Disney love.
I've never been the one to see myself happily married and settled down in a house with 2.5 kids (the American dream). I ask myself why all the time, but I don't think it matters why. Love is different for everyone. Friendship likewise is something different to everyone.

I have some very close friends, some closer than others and it hurts when there gets more and more distance between us. But people come and people go. But there are those who really change your life. There are people that I will always care for. I will drop what I am doing and help them, comfort them, be with them, talk to them, listen to them, care about them. There gets to be a point in life with some people where you just care too much about them to just stop loving them.

There are some people I can't just bail on. I'm always there for them, and I love every moment of it. Yes this is a form of attachment but its also a form of love. And I'm sorry you just can't stop someone from loving another person.

In the Twilight series, it is a story of a girl who falls in love with a vampire, and she just cant stop from falling in love with him. She loves him so much that she wants to be with him for the rest of her life, and even deeper she wants to change and become an immortal so that she can live forever with him.

There are some people we come across that we just can't get unattached from. I want to encourage you that that is okay and perfectly normal. People just don't talk about love and touchy feelings. Mostly because they don't know how to express it. But it is normal.

What experience can bring you...

Life is about experience. Experience gives you understanding. Understanding give you love and compassion.

They say "You never know until you try it" I would agree with this statement.

We all grow up being told different things, what is right and what is wrong but what is fun in be told things. How care we sit there and say what is right and what is wrong when you don't know how it feels on the other side.

People grow up in church's. people grow up with parents who are racist. People grow up being told they are stupid or ugly, we believe these things, the things we are told.

And sometimes we are brave enough to try things outside these comfort levels. It hurts and it's confusing and everything gets all mixed up, but after awhile you see that those things that were so wrong are not so wrong anymore. Not that they maybe right but you become more open minded. You become more expecting.

So what or who do you trust. What life experience gives you evidence that there is love in that trust. Because without love there is no understanding. without understanding there is no experience and without experience there is no life.

How are you living? By control and rules or experience and love?

Observation: Best Friend?

Lately I have just been watching people around me. Professors, family members, parents, friends, friends family members, children, and even strangers. As I watch them different thought enter my mind, like "I wonder what kind of parents you grew up with," or "do you and your best friend hang out all the time?" or "I wonder how often you get lonely," or "who is your best friend?" or even "are they happy with their job."

These are all questions I am asking myself, and want to know who all around me may be feeling the same way. And I am coming to the conclusion that most of the people around me are lonely and want to hang out with friends more, but yet no one does much about it. We are suppose to live in community together with each other.

As I look at the best friend groups around me, most of them are always together. They are literally living life together. Some of them have a life outside of each other and others do not. Some of them live together and so do not. So what do it mean to be someone's best friend? Why does this matter? Do we need a best friend? Do all the friends around you have best friends? Do they take pride in their best friend? Do you take pride in your best friend?

 These are all question I've been struggling with because my best friend is a part of me and that is okay to me, yes I think it is healthy to have a life outside of them but I value the time spent with her and I cherish her. Why because time after time she has shown me that she cares about me. We teach each other things, we laugh, we cry, we are goofy and we have inside jokes. We are living life together.

Now what if someone came in and said that we couldn't be best friends any longer, or what if someone came in and said you can't hang out when you want you can only hang out two days a week or a max of 6 hours a week together. When every other friend group around is doing fine and living life together and what not, and all you want is your best friend back in your life. That would be hard right?

What would you do? Just let it be? Fight for the other person? A best friend is okay to have, I think. I think it is a healthy thing to have. But that is just me. What do you think? Have you have ever thought about it? Who is your best friend?

Sometimes...

I meet with the dear friend of my that gave me the idea that life is a road trip a couple of days ago. We caught up and i told her how my break up and how I'm doing and she just looked at me smiling and says,

"You have been on a dirty road the last couple of months, but you know what I can see the pavement ahead, things are going to smooth out and things and you are going to get back on the highway."

I took an exit without even knowing it because I ran into it. I stayed at this exit for longer than I should have. It was beautiful, it was an adventure, it was what I needed at the time, but because I stayed longer than needed, it started turning dark and lonely leaving me and others hurt.

Now I'm getting back on the freeway, not looking for an exit just looking at beauty around me. I have a lot of sorry's to say, asking for forgiveness but telling them that I am going to be okay. I also have many people to say thank you to, for loving me and being right next to my side the whole time.

I visited Minnesota for a week and a half while I was on break and my father took my to go walk on a frozen lake for the first time in my life. As I am standing on 13 inches of thick ice, I am amazing at the feeling it gives you. Its not humble but empowering. Water being my favor element giving me the power to stand on it.

Who cares about frozen lakes. I do. I care about the empowerment that the Lord gives us. I could have left that exit i was just on a lot sooner than I did, but I wanted to know how far I could go, too see what was next, more adventures out of it, and the Lord gave me the power to say when and I choose wrong.

I do not have the wheel, but I do have some of the power to say where I want to go and when to leave.

I'm getting back on the road.

And tie it in a bow...

What is attachment?

Isn't it a form of love?
A mother is attached to her child because she loves it so much?

Isn't it a close bondage?
Two people become attached through shared experiences.

Yes there are negative attachments like being attached to something that can harm you. But there are also a lot of positive attachments like loving and caring for something or someone.
When you're attached to someone they make you feel safe you can rely on them more so than others. Why is that a bad thing.

There is something that makes you attached to this thin or person. It is that it makes you feel good, happy, free from worries. And that is good to get away from the world sometimes. And these things or people bring the best out in us. But my question to you is, when does it become unhealthy,. And how do we know its unhealthy, then what do we do about it?

It's our human nature to be more attached to what is good in our lives that what will destroy us. It's our human nature to get attached, so why can it be so harmful?

And if attachment is harmful but attachment is a form of love, and love can hurt then why does attachment hurt? Why can't we just be okay with attachment as a form of love?

Want vs. Need

As humans I think one of the biggest mix up's we have is the understanding of what we want and what we need. What makes this mix up important is the attitude behind it all. A positive attitude or a negative one.

Think of it like this, "I want a cup of coffee," and "I need a cup of coffee". When we say I want a cup of coffee it is more postive and you enjoy it. When you say you need a cup of coffee, it is more negative and its not a desire but a grumpy mood.

So what do you do when you want and need the same thing? We will just keep the same example, What if you wake up and you need coffee and  you want coffee, well good news, that's a great thing. When we want and need the same thing, I personally think that it is a very healthy thing. Why is it good, becasue then you want what you are going to get. It is like needing a vacation and wanting a vacation and when you are wanting it, and your boss comes in and says "you need it get out of here, see you in a week". It makes the vaction so much better.

Or a lot of us need certain people in our lifes, they bring things to us, to make us happy, to feed us what ever it may be, but when we want them it makes that need so much better. Let's take parents for example. We need our parents for at least a good thirteen years, to help us grow up strong, smart, and mature. Then we grow up and we don't need them, we can drive after a couple of years, we can find a job, buy food, make food, and how to get by in life. But what is great is when we want them in our lives, to help us, to be a good influence, to have fun, to listen to stories, and we create a friendship when it turns to a want and then your parents are a good thing in your life.

What about relationships? In the beginning you want each other. You love what they wear, their smell, their touch. You want it all. Then you get married and get a house together and maybe some kids, now it has turned into a need. They need to be home to help you with the kids, they need to work so they can help with bills, and the want starts to dwindal.

So what is it that you need and want? If you need something or someone but don't want it or them, then maybe something needs to change. You should want what you have, and if you lost it, it would hurt.

Who are the Hardest People to Love?

Why do we have the tendency to be so selfish? We are the most selfish when we are the most down, the most empty. It's a way of crying out. But being selfish only pushes people away which leads you to more emptiness and more down, which causes you to become more selfish and more careless.

So how do you know when you have hit rock bottom. What does it take for you to know that something has to change with in you. You can't keep blaming others, you've pushed them away. You can't keep wanting what ever you want, no one is going to want to be around you. You've been around selfish people, and they probably aren't your favorite people.

It is a vicious cycle. What does it ultimately come down to though. Selfishness comes down to the act of not loving anymore. You stop loving others and caring about others, because your eyes are on yourself, and hopefully you aren't in this cycle for to long or else you might loose everyone around you that really loves you, and is trying to stand by your side.

Being selfish is only going to lead you down into someone and something you don't want. You maybe hurting right now and not know where it is coming from or how it got there, but that doesn't mean you push the closest people to you away.

Selfishness isn't the end of life, it's the end of living. Say sorry, get the people you hurt back, care again. It is a want that you have lost, not a need. Go get them and put your hurt and your pain aside for a day and see what happens. I guarantee they will ask you how you are doing, how your day was, what today and tomorrow look like for you. I bet if you ask them first and actually care about the answer they will care about your answer to, not just to know what your doing, but because they care about you with all your heart. It just starts with one simple step, saying I'm sorry and actually meaning it, after that you'll know what to do.You may have to change this in side yourself, back to what you use to be, and that is okay.

Its not easy, have patience and grace.