The day after V-day

Well yesterday was Valentines, Singles awareness day (S.A.D.), the day that is loved or dreaded by many and do you know what I find annoying? The people who gripe about how they hate Valentines day.

Okay, so maybe I don't have much to complain about considering my boyfriend wrote 100 facebook status each containing a different reason why he loved me. Although I will say that I was sick for the entire day...and by sick I mean laying in bed and wanting to whimper type sick not 'sick' as in I want to take the day of to hang with my boyfriend who just so happened to have had to work for most the day.

But honestly. If people hate the day so much why don't they just forget about it? Its like someone who hates carrots but continues to eat them, just stop eating the stupid carrots.

Maybe I just don't fully understand how these people feel....maybe I am still fairly uncallused to the ways of the world but up until a year ago my Valentines days were celebrated 'alone' and what did I do? I spent it with my family or took advantage of the season to by discount candy and chocolates or just treated it like any other day of the year.

As for couples, do we really need a day to celebrate love? Shouldn't we be loving each other everyday and not just one day of the year? True, I love the rose that my boy gave to me, but isn't it so much nicer to get a give on a random day for no reason at all instead of expecting something on that one day and then being disappointed if nothing comes?

And does anyone even remember what Valentines day stands for anymore? I doubt anyone really remembers the Saint after whom the day is named after or what he did to get a day named after him.

In other news. Did you know you can pay around $110 for a dozen roses on valentines day when I know you can pay around $20 on a regular day at the grocery store? Did you know that it was Henry VIII that proclaimed Valentines day in England....he was the guy who killed and divorced his wives. Did you know that in Medieval times it was thought that if you were singled, the first (unmarried) person that you saw on Valentines day was to be your future spouse? Did you know around 3% of pet owners prefer to give Valentine gifts to their pets? Did you know that as far as we know 15% of women send themselves flowers on Valentines day?

Anywho what did you do yesterday? I laid in bed and ate pickles.

Family Meeting

Several nights ago was a night of great release and understanding for me. I finally was able to talk to and explain my thoughts and opinions with my parents and they were able to do likewise.

Now I am sure we all have things that we wish to tell or ask our parents but we are too afraid to, afraid of what they might say or afraid of what they might do, that they wouldn't understand or maybe just not care. That's what kept me, and my younger sister, from talking to our parents about certain topics. We would talk to each other about them and we eventually resolved ourselves that our parents wouldn't understand and that maybe we would/could talk to them several years later..like after we moved out. Thankfully that didn't happen as we managed to talk with them long before then.

Because I know you are all dying to hear what it was that we talked about I shall give you a breif summary. For me it was dating and hanging with my guy friends. My parents couldn't see why I still was (seemingly) actively involved with my guy friends still, which included going to Japan next year with my 'brother' as I refer to him (and it wouldn't be just with him but with a group of friends). I was able to explian to my dad who wondered why I wanted to hang out with my guy friends right after I got home with my new boyfriend that I wanted Jesse to meet all my guy friends so he would know who I was hanging out with. I still wanted to hang out with my guy friends but the situations and times I would put myself in with them would change somewhat.....for them explaining this was important because times have changed since they were dating and at first they couldn't understand why I would find it important to hang out with my guy friends still. For example when I started dating and throughout my relationship my Brother continually checks up on me...if I never hung out with him one-on-one (with my boyfriends knowledge of course) then he would never have the opportunity to ask me about stuff like that.

The other major topic included individuality, as in music (my sisters topic) and clothing (mine). My clothing style has strayed a little from what my parents believed was right, and while in some ways I am not totally proud of it, in some ways I needed that. Once again we were able to explain how times have changed a bit and how different people view things differently and that does not mean that one person is wrong or less godly then the other one. For example my mom firmly believes that skinny jeans are a sin, that it is flaunting your body in a way you shouldn't. And for her, maybe that is the truth. But from living on campus I know people, strong godly Christians, who wear skinny jeans as if they were normal jeans and they do not see that as wrong. I was finally able to come to an agreement with my parents, they will not bug me so much about my clothes, I am 19 and can make my own choices. Instead of telling me that they don't like my clothes they will simply ask if I am comfortable wearing something that.....lowcut, tight, loose, etc. For me this was a wonderful thing, to finally feel that I could make a choice without my parents judging me (which they never did, but simply were trying to protect me).

That night we also talked about schooling, drinking and tatoos, not as a major topics but good ones none-the-less. My mom and I were finally able to figure each other out, with help from my sister....my mom found out that I often take advice personally while I found out that just because my mom was giving me advice did not always mean that she saw me doing something wrong or that I needed to be corrected but because she loved me and wanted me to know this so that when the time came I would have that knowledge under my belt.

I love my parents dearly. They have done their best to raise me as God's child and have given me everything I could ever need. We don't always see eye-to eye and I am sure there will be more disputes among us, we are humans after all, but it is comforting to know that my parents love me and care for me and that they do want to understand me.

So how is your relationship with your parents doing?

Caring

I am considered, or at least I consider myself to be a very caring person. I find that (besides spending time with my boyfriend) I get the most happiness out of serving and caring for others. March 14th was pi day and for it two guys and I made 4 pies. Bringing them to the 3rd floor prayer room in res we share them among our friends. I snatched up the job of cutting and dishing out the pie and whipped cream and I think that I enjoyed doing that even more then actually eating the pies.

Although one thing that I have found out about caring is that it sometimes can hurt. Sometimes people don't want you to care for them, or at least not in the way that you care. For example I have recently discovered that one of the ways that I care for people is by worrying about them. And maybe that sounds weird but for me it is a reality, if I care about you, I will worry about you. Yet some people don't like it when I worry about them. For a while I felt really hurt when people didn't like me worrying about them and I didn't know why until I found out that when people rejected my worrying I felt that they were rejecting my love, but this isn't true, at least not always. There are different ways to show I care and I think that I need to focus on those ways instead of worrying about people, it will probably make their lives a bit easier and it will definitely make mine easier.

So how do you show you care?

Fear

One of my favorite 'get-to-know-you' games that I love to play with new friends is a question game. One person asks a random question and both (or everyone in the group) has to answer the question, including the person who asked the questions. The questions range from being very random and funny to very serious. One question that generally always comes up and for me I have been asked several time over the last several months is "What are you afraid of". I never really know what to say about this but for some reason I have been thinking about this alot lately, what am I afraid of.

I am afraid of falling. I love heights and being high up but if I do not feel secure I do not like it. I hate the sensation of falling. For this reason I am not a huge fan of floors that move when you walk on them or that you can see through or stairs with the gaps between them (unless they are really secure like the ones here at my school) because for some reason I get the feeling that at any moment they might break and I might fall.

I am afraid of pain. I do not like to hurt, either physically or emotionally. My whole family will confirm when I say that I have or at least had a low pain tolerance. I remember as a kid getting a paper cut and almost passing out because it hurt a bit, also when I got my ears pierced I almost passed out....at age 15. Thankfully I am getting better at handling pain but I still don't like it.

I am afraid of not being loved, of being alone. This can be a serious downfall for me if I am not careful because, from my past, I know that I would be willing to change myself to be more loved. I am a very affectionate person so it hurts when I know people don't like me. This is something that I am constantly working on and I am getting better on thanks to the knowledge that God will always love me, but I am still afraid of the time when those I love may not love me back, which may be silly because I know that those who truely do love me would never do that, but it still is a fear for I know that if those I love ever no longer love me back, how will I ever be able to believe in love again?

I am afraid of broken promises. I am afraid that when people promise me something, that for some reason something will happen that they will not be able to fulfill their promises, that their promises will be broken. Little promises I am not that concerned about being broken, they still are important but it is the big ones that I am afraid of falling through the cracks. Similarly with the previous paragraph I feel that if these promises that are so important to me are broken, how will I ever be able to believe in them, both the promises and people who make them again?

Besides that I am not scared of things like others. Having a sister who loved the outdoors and creepy crawlies and lived in the country for several years, bugs and snakes and other things don't scare me. I am not afraid of animals or the dark, I don't get claustrophobic, I don't like being in small areas with a bunch of people but I can live with it. I am more afraid of the things that I can't see, I am afraid of the emotional aspect of life. Throughout my life I have been getting better at conquering these fears, but some of them I feel might always be there.

I must forever pray for God to give me strength and power over these fears so that I might not let these fears have power over me.

So what are you afraid of?

Changes

Well it is only the second month of the new year and already so many of my plans and different aspects of my life has changed. Some of it has brought tears and frustration, some of it has brought smiles and laughter and some of it has brought both.

To summarize briefly, I broke up with the first boyfriend that I ever had and had been dating via long distance for 5 months, decided to stay out in Calgary for the summer (if I can find a job and actually start to earn some money) as well as maybe work at a camp out here, decided to make a program change (but to what I am not sure yet) and I started to date a guy out here. And everything that has been changing in my life I have felt that it has been a total God thing.

My former relationship was with a great guy with a great heart and love for the Lord and others but it was not where I was supposed to be and I was not able to handle the distance with so short of time that we had been dating and the personality that I have.

If God opens up a job out here for me it will just be further proof that this is where I should be as I already might have several friends who would be willing to rent a house with me this summer and the next school year, or I can just stay in res for cheap! I can also get paid to work up at a camp near here and the neat thing is that the camp is situated on a lake that I used to go to with my family when I was a kid.

I really feel called to stay at this school but I want to get started on a career so am going to change programs and have started a series of meetings with the career counselor here.

And my newest relationship, well I knew Jesse a bit last semester as we were in a group together for a school Halloween party and went to church together but this semester we really started to hang out together and he was really supportive and always there to listen and talk to, as well as give good Godly advice as I thought about school and my life and before you knew it we started dating and I feel that this is a good thing for me.

My life is still changing and most likely will continue to change and will always be changing. I just need to remember to incorporate God into these changes and hopefully they will be for the better and not for the worst. I need to make sure that I am opening my life up to the changes that God has in store for me and be willing to surrender everything that I have into his hands.

So what changes have you been experiencing in 2010?

What is Love

I pretty much always enjoy having long talks with friends about life. And while I may not always agree with how they view things it causes me to think in more detail. For while I can think (which may be a shock to some of you I know) I rely more on my feelings then my thoughts. For example in all professional personality tests I am always an F - a feeler

A while back I had a nice talk with one of my friends out here in Calgary. I unfortunately was half asleep and slightly stressed so I wasn't able to think as much as I would have liked to but the conversation we had remains in the back of my mind as well as the question that came up. Is Love a choice or is it involuntary? After our conversation I cannot say for sure that either one is correct. In fact I believe that love can be both. For example the love that parents have for their children is involuntray. Yet then we choose to love God and we choose to 'love' our neighbors. We also choose when we don't want to love someone. But then what about falling in love? Is that a choice that you make or is it automatic? If it is a choice then how do you know that you made the right choice when marrying someone, or if it is automatic is it from God or just your hormones and thoughts pumping overtime?

I have not had much experience in love myself, outside my family, church and group of my friends, and alot of what I believe in comes from my own experiences or the experiences of those around me. But I do have a wonderful boyfriend (Matthew Stinson) who I must say that I love a lot. So was this love a choice or did it just happen? If I recall correctly it was one of those things that just happened. I had known him for a couple years now and while the first time I saw him I thought he was kinda cute I didn't ever expect that I would actually end up liking him in that way, in fact on time I was afraid that he might like me and tried to avoid him for a while because I just wanted to be friends. Last winter I had decided to give up on guys for a while and finally just rejoice in my singleness and that it is possible to be just friends with guys. Ha! Well that didn't last long for as spring rolled around I started to like Matt as more then just a friend, although, as my best friend will testify, I strongly denied for a while that I liked him. I feel that this feeling that I had came around on its own (or from some higher source =D) but I admit that I went along with it, I could have chosen to stop this feeling but I didn't. And finally ('cause if you know me you know that Matt is my first boyfriend and actually the first person to actually ask me out...unless you count those grade 1 and 5 encounters) it all worked out as that August he asked me out and I said yes. We now have been dating for 4 months and I'm as happy as ever.

So what do you think, is all love a choice? Or just some of it? Why do you think so?