Insanity

Am I insane? I'm pretty sure I'm insane. What is it that suddenly makes us decide to do what we've been afraid to do for ages? Why today of all days after years spent talking about getting the hell out of New Mexico and moving to Colorado did I finally find the courage to apply to not one, but two jobs in Durango? I have not a single clue. But I did it. It's done. Am I crazy for just going for it? Um, yeah, definitely. But I'm tired of hating my life, tired of hating where I'm living. I'm 27 years old, dammit. I should be out living my life, but here I am stuck in a city that I hate and a life that is unfulfilling. I keep feeling like if I get that magic degree, suddenly my life will be set. But I've been in school for a long time and more and more I'm wondering if I really need it. Maybe I put that on hold. Maybe I actually get out there and live my life, get out of my comfort zone and at some point in the future I'll go back to school. Or maybe I'll look at getting my degree through an online college which would be a plus because then I wouldn't have to deal with people. Can you tell that I'm anti-social?

I've lived in my comfort zone for so long that I don't even know how to live outside it. I've depended and lived with my parents for so long that the idea of being independent is both terrifying and exciting. Because this won't be like last time. Last time when things got hard, I was able to move back in with my parents with no issue. But if this all works out, if I actually make it up to Durango, it's not going to be so easy. I'm going to have to actually be an adult. Take responsibility and all that. There's not going to be a net underneath to catch me if I fall.

So, I guess, here's to a potential new beginning and getting out of comfort zones and living a little.

Future, What Future?

What do you do when you begin to wonder if you're truly cut out for the career path you've started down? What do you do when you begin to question everything that you've been striving for? It seemed so clear initially, everything made sense. But as time passes, it becomes less and less clear. I went for the more practical career, the one that was respectable and made sense. I've always loved animals, always been good with them. But the science of it all makes my head spin, makes it hard to enjoy what I'm doing. So I start to wonder, is it for me. And then I come back to, god, what a failure I would be again if I gave it up with just two semesters to go. But then, what does it say when I dread going back and trying to wrap my mind around all these complex procedures. I love animals, but is that enough? And more and more, I'm thinking not. I find the science interesting, fascinating even, but the understanding of it often eludes me.

Considering Thoughts

The other night as I stepped outside of where I work to take out some trash, what greeted me was a thick haze that at first I thought was fog until the overpowering smell of smoke hit me.  My first reaction was panic.  Oh my gosh!!!!  There's a fire in Albuquerque!!!  My second reaction was to calm myself down because if there was a fire in Albuquerque of that magnitude, I would likely be hearing sirens or something.

It turns out the smoke was coming from a fire somewhere in Arizona near the border.  So while my first reaction was to freak out, my second reaction was to look down at my work clothes and realize that they were going to smell like smoke the next time I wore them.  Since I had just washed them, I was not happy.  I voiced my complaints to my dad as I called to let him know that I was heading for home a while later.  But as I drove, another thought came to me.  Here I was complaining about the fact that I was going to have rewash my clothes before work the next day when people in Arizona might not have a home to wash their clothes in anymore or even clothes to wash because of that fire.  Just thinking about that made me realize how selfish I had been.  There were people who had potentially lost their homes or who knows what else in that fire.  Surely that was more important than the state of my clothes!

I realized that I really needed to consider my thoughts and what I'm thinking.  I can choose to complain or I can choose to be selfless and take a moment to pray.  Granted that's not always easy.  We are creatures of sin by nature, and we are selfish by nature.  It can take a concerted effort to get rid of those selfish thoughts and replace them with selfless ones.  Still, it's well worth the effort to do so.  It makes us feel good and it honors God.  Two for the price of one, you can't beat that!

This post was originally published on Sunday, June 5, 2011.

British TV Shows In Quotes

Sometimes I wonder, as I'm sobbing over the death of yet another character in one of the British tv shows I watch, if this is healthy.  Is it good for me to watch shows that draw me in so easily, that captivate me, get me attached to the characters to the point where when they're in pain I hurt for them or if they die I'm left crying my eyes out?  And yet that's what makes them so fantastic, because they can do that.  Because they make you feel something, look at the world in a different light.  Because some of the things the characters say make you really think, make you look at your life differently.  They let you dream, let you believe even a little bit that maybe those amazing things you see episode after episode could be real.  There's something special about that.