A week left

All of my professors decided to have everything due at the same time. I have two papers due Wednesday, one Friday, and some project stuff that I completely forgot about due next week. It was way more squished together than that, but I got some stuff moved around. I have a lot to do, but I don't know where to start, and when I do start, I get writers block and my thoughts get even more scrambled than when I first sat down. I can't even look at all the facebook statuses like, "I'm done..FOREVER!!" Thanks for reminding me that I still have a week to go. Hopefully my GPA won't completely tank..

For the record..

When I get a prophetic word spoken over me, I like to write down the day, and even the time it was said so that I can look back and read it to remind me when I inevitably forget what God said. For some reason, I didn't do this last week, so here it is before I forget:

Saturday, April 10, 2010, at 8:49 p.m., my dad called me and said God put it in his spirit that He has a job for me, and that I will like it.

You have no idea (or maybe you do) how that made me feel. Earlier that day, my mom called me to say that I'd gotten a letter from the place where I'd had an interview weeks ago. Letters are never good, and I knew that if I'd gotten the job, they would've called me, but I still had some hope that maybe I was wrong. I wasn't. Even though I knew it was coming (they told me they'd have an answer in 3 weeks, it'd been 6), it still hurt and I cried like a baby on the phone while not trying to let my parents know I was crying. I really wanted that job. Like really. There was a small part of me that somehow wasn't too keen on the job, but the rest of me wanted it sooo bad. Hearing that I didn't get it was a dagger. I mean, how many rejections can a person take? My Plans A, B, and C failed. Plan A's, yea, you hope they come through, but it's not exactly certain, so you make a plan B. That's why people have Plan B colleges they apply to, so they know they have somewhere to go. Rarely do you ever hear about Plan B falling through, and who talks about Plan C's? So I was walking around with a heavy heart. Most of the day I was fine, but then at some point everyday I was having little panic attacks and mini-breakdowns because I have no idea what I'm doing after graduation, and when I saw a way up, inevitably I seemed to crash back down. Those times, my future looked...blank. That's a scary thought.

So that word was timely for me. Everything that my dad has told me is coming from the Lord has come, which is one reason why I hadn't had a full breakdown yet. He'd told me over the summer that God was planning on doing great things with me. So if I had this word, why was I so distraught over a simple little job that I probably won't keep for that long? I don't know. I guess I looked at it as something that was far off, that eventually I'd get there, but the steps to it were hazy and dim. To use a cliche, I couldn't see the forest for the trees. I've been keeping scriptures like Jer 29 in my heart: "I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." I'd begun to actually believe this when my dad gave me this word a week ago. The panic attacks had started to come less frequently, but the bad news about the job set me back like 2 weeks. Once, I tried to write about my fear of being a failure, but something in my spirit checked me. Confirmation is a good thing. So now that I know what's happening, I have more peace now. There's some part of me that's still a little anxious, hoping it's going to come before I graduate. But since it's coming, I'll keep the word close to me, and work on completely getting rid of the anxiety.

Can you really call it trusting in God if you're constantly worrying?

Dear Applicant

Dear Applicant,

Thank you for your interest in this position, but QuietQueen, Inc. is no longer accepting applications for a muse, sidepiece, fling, or any other superficial and superfluous position. We also would normally tell you to check back in a few months when QuietQueen is hurting, feeling vulnerable, or just all around feeling depressed and wanting attention and entertainment, but we don't anticipate that someone of your pedigree will be able to fulfill those needs in a satisfactory manner as QuietQueen is currently growing and maturing.

Wishing you the best in your future endeavors,

HR

Transitional phase

This is the phase that no one talks about in speeches and biographies. And if they do, it’s often romanticized, and by the end of the book, it’s a distant memory while basking in the glory of your accomplishments, after you’ve “arrived.”

This is the phase when the things that happened in the past don’t matter as much anymore because you need something good to happen in the here and now.

This is the phase when you see glimmers of light and pray that you didn’t misread the signs, that the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t an oncoming train about to crush you.

This is the phase when I remember why I don’t write anything during phases like these, why there are big gaps in my diary. I don’t really want to remember this feeling and relive the pain. I know it will hurt a little to read a few months/years from now, whether because it was as bad as I thought it was, or because in the big scheme of things it was trivial and realizing that I wasted time worrying about it when I could’ve been doing other productive things.

I blame my parents…

Since I’ve gotten out of the house, I can see why my parents did a lot of the things they did, and I appreciate it much more now. The only thing that still bothers me a lot is the music thing. Since I was only allowed to listen to gospel, and even then, there were some gospel artists they still didn’t like, my repertoire of music is relatively small. I don’t know any of the so-called “classic” music – those songs and albums that every black person knows, or should know by the invisible Council of American Negroes. So now that I’m basically grown, people talk to me and expect me to know these things, but I’m like, um, yea, uber-sheltered kid here. I used to get a pity look and a sympathetic nod, but now it’s just a major side-eye or an incredulous “What?! You don’t know about ____??!!” So I just shrug; what can you say? I mean, you can’t catch up on 18+ years of music in 4 years at school. You can catch up on a lot, but you’ll never get to where the people are who’ve been listening to the stuff for a while. There’s a whole nostalgia thing attached to the song that I will never be able to get.

*reading over*

This sounds…real whiny, like the-other-kids-are-doing-it-so-why-can’t-I type thing. Or like a Christian that wants so hard to be like everybody else, and not be different. Even now, there’s a lot that I don’t even try to listen to cause I don’t feel like the possibility of being exposed to something that’s gonna mess me up. I know there is good non-gospel out there, but you have to wade through so much junk to get to it, I don’t know if it’s worth it. I guess I’m at the point where I’m leaning toward ignorance of what’s out there; in this case, ignorance is bliss.

Transition period

Being in a state of flux is uncomfortable. I’m not one for incessant anticipation, sitting on the edge of my seat for a seemingly interminable amount of time for the next event to pop out at me to scare the crap out of me. Then I just get angry and frustrated, but I still can’t stop watching. It's like a slow-moving train wreck. So I’m fighting to get out of the angry and frustrated phase, cause that’s no way to live. It’s mad stressful. Something is around the corner, whether it be a job, or feeling like I’ve finally come to the place in God I’m supposed to be right now. But I will keep praying, constantly, because I can’t do this life without knowing that I’m doing the things I’m supposed to be doing, that even if I’m struggling, that God has a purpose for it, that it’s not in vain. Friend with Special Place is always emphasizing the struggle part of it, but I just can’t dwell on that. As long as I know that God is with me, then I can deal with it a lot better. When I’m not sure if it’s me screwing up or God testing me, that’s when I freak out. As I’ve been doing for the past few weeks. It just seems like it’s been one thing after another, with people actin a fool for no reason, missing job opportunities by this much, and juggling school and credit card payments so my bank account doesn’t suddenly converge to zero, especially when there’s been things coming up that have been taking me away from working (but really, I wonder why I’m spending so much, cause I usually don’t do things like this. I feel like I’ve been constantly whipping out my school/debit/credit card. Mint.com here I come.) I really didn’t want to touch my savings this semester at all, and since I decided that, it’s been cut in half. Ohhhhh, life.

Just to give you an analogy for what I feel is going on: In football, when the receiver is running with the ball, there’s usually a line of people coming to tackle him. If he can get around that last dude and “turn that corner” to run up the sideline, then he could possibly go straight for the touchdown.** But even though he’s really close to getting clobbered, there’s a very real chance he could make it. I just know that if I don’t let despair and fear tackle me, I will be ok. Actually, I’ll be fantastic. The people who can “turn that corner” get put on the highlight reel. Not that that’s my goal, but you know what I’m saying; it’s a signal of a good play. I just try to think about the things that can come to me, the things I can accomplish when I defeat the things that are trying to defeat me. So here’s to overcoming.

He don’t want you sad, He wants you seeking
I watch and pray as I’m peeking
Have you now known, have you not heard
Isaiah 40:28 words?

- “Strong” by Adrianne Archie

**Shoutout to Dad for unknowingly teaching me lots of things about football over winter break.

Finally, a useful snowstorm

The last storm was on a weekend = useless. So in all my four years and snowstorms at school here, this is the first time we've had a snow day. So now I'm just hoping my job closes so I can write this paper.

I'm realizing all the time I've wasted at school, so now I'm gonna use this last semester to leave my imprint and do what I should have been doing for the last 4 years. So here goes...