Day 162: February 5, 2012.

On August 2, 2011 I came back to this blog that I'd abandoned since spring, saying that I was starting it back up and I couldn't wait to get rolling again with my daily "likes." Well, that was short-lived, to say the least! That lasted one post before laziness and inner discouragement took back the reigns and inhibited my readiness to get myself on the path to finding consistent positivity and happiness again.

I've thought about this blog quite a bit since last August and how I hate how I didn't continue on with it.  How I let anything and everything get in the way of keeping up with it. How missing one post would turn into three, which would turn into a week, and then all of a sudden it was months later and the blog was still stuck on some date so far in the past it was simply embarrassing to even think about starting it back up.  I truly was my very own barrier there for awhile, but it's a time of my life that, now, I'm nothing but absolutely grateful for.

Over a month into the year and two weeks into my final semester of my undergraduate college career, I am in an incredible place, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally...And let me tell you, it's taken me, honestly, about a year and a half to two years of learning and discovery and experience and life to get to this place of true, joyful contentment.  I've experienced the highest heights and the lowest valleys and through it all, here I stand (well, sit, at the moment) with a heart full of unadulterated joy.  Peace. Gratefulness.  I'm not saying happiness exactly, because there are days when I wake up and it's all I can do to haul myself out of bed, I go through the day sourly and with bitterness, and all I can do is dwell on how much I really just want to be sleeping or how much I'd love to take a little break and head home to Virginia for a few days or how much I want to, like, go on a tropical vacation on a private island in the tropics (okay, that last one isn't fully accurate, but every once and awhile I admit I've thought it!), and I come home at the end of the day as down as I left in the morning, unable to shake the negativity all day.  I do, however, seem to have reached this place of honest joy.  Joy, I feel, is an emotion I associate with peace.  Calmness.  Again, gratefulness.  It's the place where I can be perfectly content with everything that this moment right here is holding--no matter how great or how awful--and be ready to proceed into the future with a sense of awareness for where I am at this time and the feeling of excitement to take on whatever task or adventure is thrown my way.  I'll tell you, I can't put into words just how incredibly thankful I am to feel this way.  It's truly an amazing realization to come to, experiencing joy like this.  Because really, for the first time in a really long time, not one fiber of one bone in my body is dwelling in anxiety.  And after a long road to get here, it's an amazing place to be :)

Without either the times of absolute victory or the tough spots and times of doubt and darkness, this newfound thankfulness for each and every day wouldn't be yet attainable for me.  Over the last two years or so, I've had the time to learn just what it is that I'm capable of as far as my own influence on myself, both positively and negatively.  I've learned what I have to do to achieve and I've learned what I can do, or not do, that keeps me in a place without progress.  And now, being still at the start of an incredible new year and a promising semester before embarking on the next chapter of life, this is the time to take all of those experiences, all of those lessons and, most importantly, all of the tools I've been blessed with so far, and use them.  It up to me to act and that time has come.

And I feel it.  I feel the shift in perspective and approach to each day...I feel happiness for things that I wouldn't have let myself even acknowledge during the days of self-pity and self-doubt...I feel excited to work hard for my dreams and can approach the pieces of the puzzle that I find difficulty with or may not like as much as others with confidence and the willingness to problem solve.  I keep saying it, but my heart and soul are calmed with peace, and all it took was time and then one moment when I knew enough was enough...No more moping, no more waiting, no more whining, no more excuses and no more temporary fixes.


It was time to move forward, so onward we go :)

I've been writing a lot this year, which has helped me with this gradual turnaround.  (Looking back over the last few years of writing is really eye-opening and it's really amazing to see the twists and turns my daily life has taken!  I highly recommend journaling to everyone.)  So since writing has become a daily habit again, I figured now is the time to reinstate The "Like" List.  My journal entries recently have been much more upbeat and I seem to be taking note of the small things throughout these days that are bringing me happiness so, again, now's the time for no excuses; embarrassment over incompletion won't keep me quiet any longer!

I'll do what I can to stay as updated as possible, but like I've said, learning how to live right here and right now is the beautiful gift I'm working every day to use and strengthen so I can't promise perfection.  But I will promise genuine gratefulness in all accounts included :)

"Let your eyes look straight ahead,
fix your gaze directly before you.
Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm.
Do not swerve to the right or left;
Keep your foot from evil." 
          (Proverbs 4:25-27)


Onward.

Today, new beginnings and renewed joy and gratefulness make me happy :)

Day 161: August 2, 2011.

Well hello, my beautiful friends!  It has unfortunately been quite a number of days since I last touched this blog, but I’m here to say that I am BACK!  Those of you who know me well—or even those of you who don’t know me that well! —may have noticed that I fell off the positivity train these last few months and the attitudes I’ve always been so vocal about shifted significantly for quite some time.  Around late spring I kind of became more overwhelmed than I knew what to do with and from there the downward spiral careened.  It was one of those periods of time that came on so fast and unexpectedly I wasn’t in any way prepared for the emotional toll it would take on me.

Anyway, as you know, I stopped posting my daily “likes,” the positive statuses became fewer and fewer and I found myself in a place where it simply became easier to dwell on the negative things going on.  I wasn’t praying about my troubles as diligently as I should have been, I wasn’t sorting through priorities thoughtfully, and I got really frustrated really quickly because I knew that this wasn’t not a productive or healthy way to be living my days.  I didn’t feel like me and I didn’t like it one bit.  What I did know all along that comforted me was that as with all times like this I was confident that it was just an ugly phase that I would come out of sooner or later, but I wasn’t taking any steps toward reaching the light at the end of the tunnel myself because as much as I absolutely hated it, I was spending more of my time being suffocated by self-pity than just letting go of it all and saying, “God, I can’t do any of this on my own.”  I knew even at the onset of the very first pang of sadness that that was ultimately the answer to any and all trials I would face, but out of a nasty case of pride and the constant feeling of personal failure, I couldn’t get out that simple cry for help.  Because, no!  I’ve got everything under control!  I’ll figure it all out!

Ha.  Really?

Remember that feeling of being a kid and knowing you did something wrong but trying to keep it a secret from your parents?  As we get older we learn that we really aren’t getting away with as much as we think we are because our parents actually knew what we’d done all along; they probably even watched us do or say whatever it was we were ashamed of!  But when we’re young, our initial reaction to a wrongdoing is to keep it from Mom and Dad.  They can’t find out or I’ll get in trouble!  As time passes and we still think Mom and Dad have no clue what we’ve done or said—or haven’t done or haven’t said, for that matter—we realize we’ve gotten out home free!  They don’t know and I promise I’ll never do it again!

Right?

In my experiences…Wrong.

That feeling of victory was always fleeting and quickly gave way to the heavy feelings of embarrassment and guilt that would fill my heart and my mind, and those similar feelings of embarrassment and guilt had been slowly welling up in my mind and my heart over the last few months.  I know that the negativity I’d let grow into such a tangled web was the result of my own negligence for the values and truths I know to be truth, the standards I hold myself to from the time I wake up until the time I go to sleep that night. I didn’t turn from that knowledge per se since I’ve known full well through the whole ordeal what those standards are, but I merely became embarrassed by the lack of effort I was taking every day to live up to them.  I felt that I was falling short of my potential, so the longer the lack of confidence went on the more I shut down.  I didn’t want to talk about much, I didn’t want to go anywhere, I didn’t want to do anything…I don’t think I’d ever felt as incredibly low as I was feeling at that point.  (And I don’t think I’ve ever been as incredibly thankful for a lesson as I feel right now.)  Eventually it got to the ultimate breaking point (Mom and Dad can attest) and I knew this phase had to end now.  Food wasn’t comforting me anymore.  Dance wasn’t as therapeutic as it should be because I wasn’t in any kind of physical shape to really be able to get something out of it.  I missed a few days in this blog and those few days turned into a week, which turned into two, which turned into “I’m too far gone now, there’s no point in keeping it up now.”  I just felt extremely stuck in a feeling of letdown…The feeling of letting down the beautiful people I am blessed to know as family and friends as well as letting down myself. 

Melodramatic, right?  (Might as well have been scripted by a soap opera writer, is what it felt like!  Has anyone said “Cut” yet?!  Geez!)  Yeah, I know, but it was my reality for awhile so it is what it is.

I’m happy to say that sitting here in the Barnes and Noble in Union Square sipping my iced coffee (yes, I’m starting to really enjoy coffee now!), wearing a sundress, and makeup and feeling like a person again, the days of the funk are coming to a beautiful end.  This is not a, “woe is me” post fishing for pity, nor is it a self-righteous “I survived the storm, look at me now” kind of thing.  What it is, is just another account of an incredible demonstration of the love of God.  Stories such as mine are lived out every single day.  We all have problems.  No one is happy all the time.  No one can lead a perfect life because, I hate to tell you this but we’re simply imperfect people.  The great thing though is that we are not expected in any way to be as such.  We’re expected to fail, and from those failures can come the most valuable bits of knowledge if we so choose to allow ourselves to learn them.  In Romans chapter 3, we read, “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (3:23-24 NIV).  So, we know it’s going to happen.  But we know that we’re forgiven.  So the embarrassment of failure, and then the embarrassment brought upon by the embarrassment of failure—what caused me to stop dead in my tracks and freeze my life for what seemed like eternity—was totally unnecessary and completely created in my own head.  Yet though I’m still kicking myself a little for unnecessarily taking myself through such a rough patch, I’ve been so amazingly reminded that while I may have been carrying myself with very little honest faith, God never once lost faith in me and He was—and is—always here.  And as if that’s not enough, on top of that I’ve been so amazingly reminded that what has happened is of the past.  I am to learn from what my past holds but not be tied down by it.  From here I can move forward happily, confidently, and with motivation and excitement because I—we—are loved and cared about to the greatest degree. 

“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times

of refreshing may come from the lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you.” (Acts 3:19-20 NIV)

Since the past is the past and what has been done has been done, the “Like List” is back :)  I’ll pick up from where I left off, going forward with my refreshed attitude and perspective.  My year will become longer than 365 days, but who says the calendar year is the timetable for this project?!  It’s time to finish what I started and remember what is actually important day in and day out :)

So today, on day 161, renewal and forgiveness are the greatest blessings I can possibly ask for :)

P.S. This is one of my favorite songs these days! Give it a listen if you are so inclined! :)

Day 160: April 3, 2011.

My wonderful friend Lila sent this video to me the other day but I've been watching it ALL weekend and it needs a post of its own on here because it's kept a smile on my face all weekend!! I laugh out loud just thinking about it!!

KAITLIN AT THE MALL. CLICK HERE RIGHT NOW!!

Today, Saturday Night Live, Amy Poehler, and friends with great senses of humor make me happy :)

Day 159: April 2, 2011.

I haven't been feeling well today so I've spent most of the afternoon on the couch.  I was planning on going out and running some errands and really enjoying this GORGEOUS day, but I've been feeling really awful since about 10 this morning.  But staying in has really been okay with me!  I planted myself on the couch, turned on some mindless TV, took a fabulous nap, and did a whole lot of nothing before heading back to the theater to finish up my house managing duties for the SADC showing.  

It may sound kind of silly, but I really like the window we have in our living room.

I really like how big it is and how it doesn't back up to a brick wall (last last year) and I can see a lot of sky.  It's really easy to feel claustrophobic here sometimes with so many people and such tall, concrete buildings, so being able to lay on my couch and enjoy the openness of sky is something I really appreciate.  

Today, finding relaxing space like this makes me happy :) 

Day 158: April 1, 2011.

HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S DAY!


I hope everyone's had a fun and funny day and hasn't had any terribly dramatic April Fool's jokes played on them ;)

Today after technique class we had our first audition.  What is SADC you ask?  Well as most of you know, because I so obnoxiously talk about it all the time these days (sorry!), NYU's dance program is only three years long.  When you get to your third year, the class is referred to as the Second Avenue Dance Company, or SADC and you no longer keep the schedule that the first and second years do.  Every day you have a "company" technique class at 1:30 (which only includes third year BFAs and second year MFAs) and then after class is over at 3 (3:15?  I'm actually not sure!) the rest of the afternoon depends on which pieces you're in.  Along with student works and the faculty choreographer for the year, four guest choreographers come in and set pieces on us.  Next year we have an AMAZING lineup of professional choreographers coming in to set work!  Along with Cherylyn, the faculty choreographer and the chair of the dance department, pieces will be set by Sean Curran, Kate Weare, Sidney Skybetter (NYU alum) and Aszure Barton.  It's safe to say that we're excited and ready to get started!! :)

Especially after our first audition this morning.  We had Sean Curran and I absolutely LOVED it!  He was awesome and full of such a fun energy, his movement flowed really nicely and felt really great to dance.  Even though it was just the first audition and we won't even find out which piece(s) we're in until after our last one in September, today made look forward to next year even more :)

It's going to be an incredible year filled with awesome experiences :)

Today, the future and its opportunities make me happy :)

Day 157: March 31, 2011.

What's a better way to end a long Thursday than going for frozen yogurt with a great friend?!  Right now I can't think of one!  As you all hear me complain all the time, Thursdays are ridiculously long days. It's just go, go, go, class after class after class...They're definitely not bad, they're just definitely very long.  So as time was dragging by in my American Musical class tonight (which is a joke of a class-so easy-but painfully long and boring), Caroline and I decided that after class we'd go over to St. Marks and grab a little froyo! It was a great decision.  We got to enjoy a little treat and some great conversation! What's better than that?! :)

Tonight, friends and frozen treats make me happy :)

Day 156: March 30, 2011.

I really like this song right now:

Max Richter-"On the Nature of Daylight."

As I said in my previous post, I'm so loving instrumental music these days!  Can't seem to get enough!

And when I listen to this one I just want to start dancing :)

Tonight, artistic inspiration makes me happy :)