Discouragement

I feel a tinge of discouragement running through my veins. A torture-filled symphony filling the caverns of my soul that were once overflowing, yet now are found empty and echo-filled, lifeless, numb. I feel drained of the creative breath that I so long for. It is as if time has stopped. Or at least the time in which my dreams have dwelt in the past. My realities are swiftly passing by, with every blink; yet remain crippled through every mundane moment that shoots past my weary eyes. They have become some blurry, my vision so unclear. I now possess the innate ability to flee from every aspect of focusing only to dwell in the craziness of my procrastination and laziness.

This must be defeated. This battle must be fought and must be won. Victory is the only option or this creative life shall surely die away into nothingness. I’m sick and tired of the lists, of the worthless to-do’s that never gully get done. I have no excuse. There is enough time within my day. I waste so much time due to my own sheer laziness or dwelling in the other extreme of keeping myself busy enough that my soul becomes satisfied with auto-pilot. Numbness ensues. I know that I am the only one that stops me. What else do I know? Two things. That I was made to love and that I was made to create. Music. People. Art. I must not give up within this journey. Even if day in and day out, I must force myself out of bed and to my work desk, to speak to people of all things dental and finance, if only to carry the hope within me that the creative lies on the other side of the work day. Creativity. Creative freedom. Every moment within that realm counts far more than I often realize. Every detail and minute bears the weight of all the moments that will fall after it.

It must not be about “making it” or “getting my stuff out there.” That should never be my intended goal. But, will I be able to look back someday upon my life and marvel at all of the people I met along the way, all of the moments that were captured in every photograph, and all of the songs that we etched into the sound waves over the years? My goals are not easy. They are not simple. I know very well that I will not awake tomorrow and have it all figured out and set in the course I would desire. I must start small. If I don’t, I know that I will hardly even begin. I mustn’t get discouraged. This path is not for the faint of heart. And it is what I have chosen.

One day at a time. One moment at a time. One detail at a time.

Quitting is never an option.

When People are in Love….

They do crazy things.

I cooked dinner.

I know shocking.

Yes, you read correctly. I COOKED. Despite the belief that I am completely unable to complete such a feat of domestication and depth.

And it was pretty darn good.

Ryan and I, both being photographers, also went on an adventure yesterday afternoon in an attempt to shoot our own engagement photos.

Might I add that is was one degree outside.

ONE FREAKING DEGREE.

I couldn’t feel my toes or nose by the end of it. But I think they turned out just swell.

Being in love is awesome.

Random Inspiration…

I’m absolutely in love with random trips to the thrift stores around town.

Just the other day, I discovered this sweet jacket for 13 bucks.

And I’ve created a display of some of my prints. They are a constant encouragement of why I do what I do.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been working through this book. It’s a 12 week course all about finding your creativity once again. It is nothing short of inspiring! I wake up everyday so excited to just create. I have so many new goals floating around in my head and heart lately!

Check it:

<The Artist’s Way

Some current goals…

1. Fix my Protools rig and start recording again.

2. Get out of debt.

3. Thrift Stores!!

4. Start a full fledged photography business.

5. Business cards

6. Play atleast one show a month.

7. Visit Portland

8. Read lots!

9. Update my photo equipment and macbook.

10. Learn lead guitar.

11. Actually master the art of the latte!

So many things, and so little time.

I love my life.

“If you want to work on your art, work on your life.” Chekhov

I’ve Decided…

That I really enjoy Mondays.

Lots of coffee, lots of gear, lots of music and vision.

And I also love flea markets…

And the sweet red chairs that I find at them.

I love the simple things in life.

Finding My Feet Again

….this is what it’s like
finding your feet again
the part of you that couldn’t
finally thinks you can….

Denison Witmer

Words

You learn to speak by speaking,

to study by studying

To run by running,

to work by working.

And just so,

you learn to love by loving.

Begin as a mere apprentice

And the very power of love

Will lead you to become a master of the art.

-St Francis of Sales

….more words to come. There is much burning inside of my heart lately, good things…..

I’m Engaged!!!

I have never smiled as much as have been these past few days. So much has happened, so many things so unexpected, so many things that I have only dreamed of yet never lived through.

My entire life has taken a turn for the better in these past few months. I have never felt more like myself, more alive, and more encouraged to embark upon the calling upon my life than I have in these passing weeks.

For those of you that know me well and know the past few years of my life realize that this is a complete change from the darker season that I found myself in this time last year. I was influenced and sucked in to a culture and relationship that only began to destroy every single bit of my soul, every dream that my heart ever possessed, and every desire to be the person I knew I was called to be and to become.

I now can look back and realize that I was supposed to go through all of that. To be broken. To lose so much. To walk through the process of grace and forgiveness. To actually see the picture of redemption played out in every moment of my life and before my very eyes. I don’t think I ever really had a grasp upon what Christ actually sacrificed for me upon the cross, until I had begun to fall away from all I had ever known and walked away. He never left. He was by my side the entire time, holding me through the pain, being there even when I wanted nothing to do with all of it. He was there when I was trying to get as far away from him as possible because I knew how far I had fallen.

And walking away from that dark season has brought me into a season of so much unexpected light. So much joy. So much laughter. So many desires and dreams that laid so dormant for so many months.

I am living fully alive.

Fully awake.

In the midst of all of the healing…. I met my soulmate. I never quite knew what to expect about the relational side of my life. For I had screwed up just about everything in that area of my life and had lost a  lot of belief in all of it.

But then Ryan came into my life.

At the very moment when I needed to meet him the most.

My life will never be the same.

We, together, are the picture of the grace and love of God.

And on Sept. 27, 2008, he asked me to be his wife.

We were at Red Rocks seeing Sigur Ros (the best band ever!). Through certain connections, we ended up sitting in the very front row center. We had the best seats in the house, 9,000 people behind us and the band so close I could hear everything that went on. I couldn’t believe it. I wish I could have brought my camera in, but wasn’t allowed.

Then next thing I know, Ryan is on one knee and proposing! In front of 9,000 other people.

I couldn’t be happier. I can’t believe waking up every morning now and realizing that it all isn’t a dream, that I WILL spend the rest of my life with this man, and that the only way I got to this place was because God brought both of us together. God knew all along. His hands were upon our hearts even before we knew what he was doing.

I’m never turning back now.

Coffeehouses, Chord Charts, and Craziness

I need to just take a moment and just…….
BREATHE.

Right at the moment when I thought my life couldn’t possibly get any more busy, it did.

Right at the moment when I thought my dreams had been destroyed forever, I found hope.

Right at the moment when I thought I could no longer get myself up to face the mundane, I discovered once again the extraordinary.

Right at the moment when I thought I would never find love again, I ran right into, at the most unexpected of times.

And now at this very moment, I can yell to the masses with the utmost confidence that….

I LOVE MY LIFE.

For me to be able to get to the place to say that is only by the hands of a redeeming, forgiving, loving God. I would not be anywhere near the place I am today if God hadn’t taking me up out of the pit, dusted me off, and brought me head first into a life of craziness, extraordinary opportunities and relationships, and living through days of light that I only dreamed of in my darkest of times.

I’ve always been the kind of person to point out all that is going wrong, all that I would like to change, all of the things that need patched up and tossed aside. I’m the melancholy musician that always wrote the songs after the breakup, only to walk around with a mentality of the glass half full and only my loneliness and frustration as my comfort.

Yet, now it is different. I can’t even begin to describe what it feels like to be where one should be, to be doing what you created to do, to be able to live out all of the things that have burned so intensely in my heart for so many years. It’s as if all of the years of wandering and wondering have finally brought me to this place, the place of home where I thought I was going backwards, yet in all reality would discover the life I was meant to live. I am still restless, I still get lost at times, yet not as much as I once did. I still know I will face change and difficulty, yet my eyes and heart have been opened to so much more.

Now my task at hand is to organize and simplify through all of this craziness. Everyday is spent sorting through my schedule, over and over again, in hope of landing on something that doesn’t overlap all of the things I need to get done and to narrow down my to do list to something manageable. I feel like I want to do everything. Everything I am doing is something that I love, every aspect a different part of myself and my dreams.

An update (since I hardly ever blog because I hardly can sit down and write our all that is burning inside of me….) ……

I just gave my two weeks notice at the coffee shop I was working at. Due to many things and the fact that I finally got a job at the shop I wanted, I will be free from the coffeehouse I have spent many hours of frustration and even joy at. It has been a good run, yet I am so thankful that it is slowly coming to an end. The new place is far more of a good fit for me. I am overjoyed at the opportunity to work there.

I am playing shows again, with a new band and no idea where the future will lead me. I’m alright with that for now. My days of music filled excursions have lessoned since Portland, yet I still get a taste every once in a while of what once was. Not recording currently is killing me, yet I also have hardly had the time to pen the songs of my heart in these passing months. That season always comes and goes for me, I just have to be alright with the times when it is not the moment when I get to release the songs I’ve held onto for months and months.

I’m working at church again. I don’t think I’ve felt this alive in a long, long time. Even in the midst of chord charts, file folders, and far too much coffee, I am finding my feet again. I had been so derailed from the last season of my life, my heart had been so broken, and my soul so beaten. I find hope every time I go to work, every time I sit at my desk, every time I sit at the piano on Sunday. I am finally free. My life has become such a picture of redemption and hope. I am reminded of it every time I am there.

I just want to wake up everyday and create something.
To build something.
To endeavor upon all of the relationships that have been placed in my life.
To find the joy even in the maintenance of life.
To take time to breathe every once in a while.
I can’t do everything. I’m slowly realizing that and I am taking steps towards getting to the place I absolutely need to be.

I’m just loving life and seeking more focus in all of it
Yet, it still continues to become more and more beautiful with every second.

“For us to get focused, we need to make adjustments.”
-McManus.

Welcome to my current existence of craziness.

An Update……

It has been quite a bit of time since I last was able to sit down and allow my thoughts to seep out on to paper with pen, to quiet my heart in the early hours of the morning out on my back porch and be able to articulate all that is occurring in my life as of late. So many things have changed in these past few weeks, so many new experiences, so many new memories, so many new aspects of my journey of life. I can hardly contain all that is being built up inside of me. I feel refreshed. I feel renewed. I feel like for the first time in a very, very, very long time that…..

I am where I’m supposed to be.

Those seven simple words haven’t graced my lips or the crevices of my heart and soul for a very long time. I have lived so restless, constantly stuck between my existence and my dreams; being torn between all of things of my past and all of the aspects of my future that I tend to shut off due to the experiences that threaten to tear me down at times. Yet, for once, I feel free; free to walk into my future with an open heart and open eyes.

As far as my life goes…..a quick update since I haven’t written in a while.

I’ve finally made a decision, after much prayer, after much seeking, and after many hours of losing hope and only gaining frustration, I’ve decided to stay. For the time being, Colorado is the place for me. Much of me still knows that it is not forever, that my feet will once again be able to grace the soil of the northwest, yet for now, I have made the decision to stay. It was sitting in the back of my soul for many weeks as I continued to push it away in hope of articulating the answer I wanted to hear of allowing myself to be released to the place in which my heart is still so attached to. Someday I will once again rest in the place of rain, coffee, the music that is so dear to my heart, and the people that I have spent the last few years of my life with. Everything will change, for we are always in transition, yet I know that when it is time, it will be time. I’ll know it, just like I know I’m supposed to be here right now.

Days after I had finally made the decision to stay so many pieces of my life began to fall into the place, there was calm brought into the chaos of my soul and I began to see more of the big picture of my current journey living back where I came from. It was so strange and thrilling to realize that I had finally come to a healthy conclusion and the cause and effect began to transform right before my eyes. All of the puzzle pieces of my existence that had been laid on the table in disarray finally have begun to come together to create something of meaning and clarity.

For starters….

At the beginning of September, I’m beginning an internship back at my home church. I’ll be organizing all of the chaos of the worship ministry and will be leading worship once again. It feels so good to be connected again, to be a part of a vision once more, and to dwell in one aspect of my calling. I love the feeling of being able to make a difference through the Bride of Christ. All of things I wrote about and learned through college can now be applied once again in the reality of the church I grew up in. The internship will consist of worship and all of the behind the scenes organizational stuff that I for some reason love to do. I seem to find a certain sense of accomplishment when I sort through all of the file folders, contacts, and chord charts. (Strange, I know.)

I’ve also had the most unexpected person come into my life in the past few weeks. An amazing, creative, man of God that has taken me completely by surprise and continues to make every single day I wake so much better. I was to the point of almost giving up the thought of a guy in my life, I was settled on the fact of my singleness, yet God had another plan in mind. The very moment, in which I thought I would never find someone again, I was hit dead on with a person I had only dreamed of and had began to forget in all of my hopeless wandering since the last season of my life. I’m falling in love.

I am completely in awe of the way God brings people into our lives, at the most unexpected times.

In a week I will be returning to the northwest for a week. So much of my time this summer has been spent counting down the days until this trip, for I get to return to the place that still so holds the strings of my heart so tightly; some days more intensely than others. I’m doing photography for one of my best friend’s weddings. I’m so excited to be back there once again, yet am also very fearful of becoming so attached to the place once again. My heart is bursting at the seams though with the thought of all of the people I get see in a few short days and be back treading upon the ground that changed me so much in the last few years. I grew up there, my heart died there, and the restoration of my soul was began upon that very ground. The significance of the place and the people causes my attachment there to be so intense and irreplaceable.

So much of my life is changing. I wake up every morning with an expectation for what the day will hold. I’m lacking in so much sleep due to the fact that I don’t want to close my eyes, for the minutes during the day seem strangely unreal most of the time; I fear missing all of the amazing moments in time that I find myself in. I still wake in the mundane, yet there is different light that rests upon every day. My heart feels so alive, my soul feels so refreshed. I have not been at this place in a long time, if not ever. It feels so good, so unknown, and so unreal.

Life is truly beautiful.

Restlessness

So many unknowns weigh so heavy upon my restless frame in these quickly passing days. I go to sleep so restless, then advance to being haunted within my dreams, only then to wake up and start the battle all over again in the early hours of every morning. Over every cup of coffee, during every early morning drive to work before the rest of the world has even opened up their eyes, in the silent moments when I sit at my porch contemplating the mysteries of my heart I battle with one unending phrase….

WHERE DO I NEED TO BE?

Six simple words. Yet they have morphed into the most difficult question I have ever needed to sort through in my heart and my mind. This question has no desire to remain silent. I’m to the place where it isn’t even the question of what I WANT, but what I NEED to be doing with myself. I want to make a difference in this world, to look beyond myself and my doubts, to actually be able to touch the lives of the people I come into contact with daily.

I know that I have not been called to live life comfortable, that I need to take risks, to learn, to discover, to breathe, to break. Yet, all feels like time is standing still, never ceasing, yet never advancing into a break of clarity and hope. I am left only with unanswered questions begging for solutions and an unsettled heart longing for something more. I KNOW THERE’S MORE.

I keep trying to think of the last time I was truly happy….

My last day in Longview. The ocean breeze upon my face, the looks of the faces of my friends. All of realizing that in a few short hours our existence for the last few years would make a drastic change. We all stood out in the parking lot at Starbucks, saying our goodbyes, giving our hugs, as the tears formed in the corner of our eyes. Then I somehow made it to the point of driving away. That was the most difficult moment.

And then the flood came. All of the tears I had held back for so many weeks finally broke.

There are moments lately when I am greatly torn between two worlds: here and the northwest. It’s not the risk of moving that frightens me, it’s the thought of making a poor decision and forsaking being in the place where I need to be. I want to be in the northwest, yet I still remain unsettled. I wake each day only to present my heart with my little lists of pros and cons in hope of finding the answer somehow on the pages of my moleskin notebook. It pains me greatly to think that so much of my decision making is based upon money, or the lack there of.

I just want to know. I have no desire to make a mistake and continue on questioning everything. This past year has been one saturated with some many decisions, some poor, some right, some still unknown. I would hope now to have some idea as to where I need to be.

I have no idea.

I will rest on this very porch everyday and ask these questions until the fateful answer is revealed to my seeking heart. I desire God’s will. I desire to know where I can make the most difference and throw myself wholeheartedly into that cause and destiny.

I have no desire to continue to plan my way into all restlessness.

I believe there will be a day where I will just make the decision. A firm yes or no. Then I shall take the risks and not look back.

Today is not yet that day.