Hello, loves.

I have not written in here in far too long. You've probably forgotten I had this blog. I almost did. Luckily, my mother remembers, and apparently reads it. (Thanks, Mom.) I'm not a great writer, but it is great therapy, and it's fun, so I need to get in the practice of doing it on a regular basis. One site I'd like to start using more for that is hitRECord.org. If you haven't heard of it, it's an amazing website where artists of ALL different kinds can get online and collaborate, and even possibly earn money for their work. They post weekly writing challenges, and there are tons of opportunities to get involved. Mostly, I just get on there and read/ watch/ listen to things, but if I do write anything there, I'll try to remember to post it in here as well for y'all to see.

An update on life since I last wrote: I live in my own apartment now. (Hurrah!!) It's been a long time coming, and it hasn't been easy, but I've been very lucky. My first roommate moved out about 2 months after I moved in, and my new roommate has been incredible, but sadly, she's leaving as well to go to school in another city. She's become a dear friend to me, and I'll never stop being grateful to have had her in my life, especially during this difficult time.

Work has been truly draining. It really has been pulling me under for a while. Our store manager wasn't really doing her job or taking care of us. We've been running on 4 shift managers for months at the busiest store in the area. Not only did we only have 4 shift managers (you need at least 3 different managers every day), but we've been incredibly understaffed with barista's as well; constantly expected to get a million things done without the physical number of bodies to do them. There's no way I can communicate what that was like, except to compare it to overwhelming stress and depression. I'm a new manager, and was thrown in with almost no training. Considering my personality, I think I've done pretty well, perhaps just out of sheer determination. God knows, I haven't loved my job for a long time. Anyway, at the time, we kept telling her we needed more people, and she kept telling us, we weren't earning more people, and that we just needed to work harder. Now that we have a new store manager, I know that must not have been true. The first thing our store manager is doing is getting us more fully staffed, thank the Lord. She's also listening to  us, and what we need. We talked yesterday, and she knows that maybe the most important thing is taking care of her employees so that they love their job... she knows that that is the best we to make the WANT to work hard and WANT to do their job and WANT to stay at her store. Imagine that. Anyway, I realize now how traumatized I've been, and how thinly we've been stretched for so long. Thank God all this is being taken care of in time for the holidays. I don't know how we would have ever managed. We weren't really managing before.

All that said, I've been pretty miserable. I just gained financial independence (barely), so I'm heavily dependent on that job. Yes, I've been looking for other jobs, and applied at several. Luckily, work is getting better, because obviously, none of those came to fruition. But, even though work still isn't perfect, just seeing the light at the end of the tunnel... knowing that it is getting better.... just that is pulling me out of my funk. I'm starting to feel like myself again: that silly, passionate girl with big dreams and no plans. I may not have a plan, but it's still FAR better than the desperate hopeless nothing that I've been feeling. It's making me want to try again, and that's how everything starts, right?

I wish my amazing roommate/ friend could stick around now that work is getting better. Hopefully, I'll have the strength now to start working on all the things I want to work on and become a better person because of it; the one I want to be and know I could be. God knows what's best though; she's going to school for nursing and if all that works out for her, she's going to be the best damn nurse in the world.

I'm finding my determination again. For now, I need to focus on teaching myself all the things I want to learn: German, piano, painting, cooking, photography... writing... lol. If I don't start making those things a regular part of my life, I know I'll lose my soul. Dramatic, I know, but that's the only way I know how to put it. Those things are a part of me. Just like singing and performing, which I also desperately need to get back into. I'm not saying I'm good at any of them. I'm not saying any of them will make me money one day, though it sure would be nice if they did. All I know is that, aside from the people I love, which will always be of primary importance, these things... these beautiful, artistic expressions, are all that I see worth living for. And so, here I go...

Pray for me, as I will for thee. I love you all.

Passion vs. the World

I like to say I'm artistic. I've been called artistic by people close to me throughout my life. Does that make it so?

I love art in all of its forms. Love. And I mean that, passionately. Surely, anyone who truly knows me can attest to that. And yet, I don't do very much art at all.

Why do I allow that?
How does one allow the mundane, daily actions necessary in "life" to become bigger than your passion?

I've dabbled in many passions. I grew up in a musical family, and therefore always had that as a basis, but was consistently associated with color and expression as well, and as I grew, developed a passion for many other art forms...

But dabbling isn't enough. To be great, one has to throw yourself into it, with every tiny atom of your being.

It's so much easier to look at what other people have done and give up on oneself; to say, "Well, I'll never be *that* good, so what's the point?" Especially in this day and age where there are more videos, songs, clips, stories, biographies, photographs than one could ever possibly view or read or listen to in a lifetime.

All that thought makes me wish for is an endless lifetime.

I want to see the Exposition of 1900. I want to listen to Hitler give a speech and see if I would be one of the millions blinded by his propaganda. I want to experience Rome, Ancient Greece, and the life of Jesus all for myself. Who wouldn't? My hope is that in Heaven, I will finally be able to see all of those things.

But regardless of that, I only have one life here on Earth. Rationally, I know that, and yet I put more energy into "resting up" for my shitty little customer service jobs than I would ever care to admit.

It's a choice. It's a choice to give up on oneself and settle... or not.

I'm ashamed of my settling. I hope that in writing this, I will be giving myself a slap in the face to wake up and do what I love before it's too late....

But not so deep down, I know that daily life will get the better of me. I'll realize that I have to pay the bills, and tell myself that maybe I'm being selfish for wanting all this passion in my life.

How fucked up is that?!

I don't have the answer. My "answer" is to tell myself to follow my heart instead of my head.... and then to continue paying the bills and playing by the rules like a good little girl, just hoping that my opportunity for greatness will sneak up on me one day, and suddenly, I'll finally feel a sense of absolution: like I have actually managed to live my life to the best of my ability.