twenty-four

Birthdays after college just aren’t the same. No more midnight ambushes, off-key singing by JN, cupcakes, birthday froyo, half-offs, multiple cakes, giant margaritas at Mad Mex…

Sometimes the memories from this time of the year hits so sharply I can’t breathe. But this will do. Plus I like the number twenty-four — lots of factors. Another year older, another year wiser. Hopefully my decisions will reflect that.

that time of the year

To add to my list of things I have loved and have learned to let go of:

- booth and carnival
- a cappella

But it’s carnival weekend and all I can think of is the last few carnivals and senior spring and all the music and the people…

Why am I going to Boston instead of Pittsburgh?? Augustana made Boston the go-to city to run away from everything else, but it’s just never worked out that way for me. Maybe this time?

juice cleanse

The first time I heard about cleanses was in the elevator at work, a few months ago. The conversation went something like this:

Girl 1: I’m so hungry. I’m on day 5 of my cleanse.
Girl 2: Oh you’re on a cleanse?? You look so fresh and glowing and… cleansed!

I can’t make that stuff up. Apparently it’s the trend nowadays to pay an exorbitant amount of money ($65/day) to deprive yourself of food and drink nothing but juice. Is there nothing better to spend money on these days?

Every department at work has money to spend on an “outing” every so often, but since mine couldn’t agree on what to do (mani/pedis got shot down), we decided to do a juice cleanse. Instead of going bowling or drinking like all the other departments, we decided to torture ourselves. But with summer coming and the claim that you could lose up to 8 pounds doing this, everyone really wanted to do it. So we ordered them, and on Monday morning, our fridge at work looked like this:

And that’s not even including the two fridge doors, which were also packed to capacity. The rules are pretty simple. Six bottles of juice everyday, at least an hour between each one, the last one finished at least two hours before going to bed. No other food or any other addictions, like smoking or coffee. It involved phasing out foods slowly the three days before, and I’m currently breaking the cleanse by eating only fruits and veggies for the next few days. Yeah, right.

The experience itself wasn’t terrible. The first day was hard, but not because I felt hungry. I just wasn’t used to drinking so much liquid. It felt like a form of torture. And then I couldn’t drink each one fast enough, so the rest of my bottles got delayed and I ended up finishing the last one later than I had hoped. My issues with time management clearly showed up during this experienec.

The second day was slightly easier, since I got the hang of it. Still wasn’t hungry, but it’s hard to feel hungry when there’s so much liquid sloshing around in your stomach. The only issue was the frequent trips to the bathroom, which was kind of funny, since I saw at least one other person from my department each time I had to go. And by the last day, 7 out of 9 of us had already cheated by snacking on things from the cheat sheet (celery, cucumber, etc) or taking bites of real food. At the end of it, only me and my manager had survived the whole thing without taking a bite of solid food, which we celebrated this morning with a banana for breakfast.

It really wasn’t hard. It was definitely easier to resist food since we were all doing it together, so it wasn’t too much of a temptation. Although most of our conversations during those 3 days revolved around all the different types of unhealthy foods we wanted to eat.  Overall, it was an interesting experience, but one I’d probably never do again. I did learn that eating takes up a lot of time — I had so much more time because I wasn’t using it to eat meals. And I really just wanted to see if I could do it, if I’d be mentally strong enough to survive all 3 days, which apparently I am. But by the end of it, I only lost a pound and didn’t feel cleansed or detoxed or glowing; I was just cranky and wanted to be able to chew something again. And it absolutely blows my mind that people will pay to starve when there are so many hungry people in the world. Between Lent and fasting during Easter weekend and this cleanse, I think I’m going to stop depriving myself of food for a while. Some things are worth it, but this was just stupid.

burn out

I’ve experienced burning out enough times by now to recognize the symptoms. It happened a few times at school — skipping classes, meetings, rehearsals/gigs for weeks and choosing sleep instead each time. It usually coincided with grey winters or traumatic (not really) life events.

But I can’t just skip class and stay in bed anymore. Life after college comes with responsibilities and I can’t just take a month off of work because I’m doing too much and burning out from it. This past week I decided not to go to small group because I was exhausted and knew I wouldn’t be able to drive safely, but it crossed my mind that this is exactly how it starts each time. First it’s a meeting or two. The next thing I know, I’m sleeping for a full week and pretending the world and all my responsibilities don’t exist

I’m starting to learn that it’s okay to give up some things. There are some commitments that I can set aside for a while, and some things responsibilities that are okay to place lower on my priority ladder. Relationships should be pretty high up, because people always matter and relationships aren’t things you can just place on hold and come back to when you have more free time, expecting everything to be the same.

For discipleship I just started going through the book Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World. Super relevant for both me and the person I’m discipling, and probably for a lot of people trapped in the never-ending busyness of life. God’s been using it to show me how certain things have been distracting me, discouraging me, and causing me to doubt, ultimately leading to burning out. Identifying the root of a problem is a always a good first step. It gives me hope that maybe this time, things won’t be so bad. And even if I do end up burning out, God is so good. Always.

just another story: my cult experience

I had the most bizarre experience this past Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

The Landmark Forum is one of those new age, 3 day, 13 hours a day ordeal that’s supposed to “transform” your life. It’s $600 for the weekend, but my company pays for each of their employees to attend because it’s supposed to help you clear up unresolved stuff in your life, and no company wants their employees bringing their baggage to work. I had to sign up within 2 weeks of starting my new job, and at the time I had no idea what my company was like so I didn’t think too much of it. I figured, if it can help me with my communication issues, why not give it a shot? Plus, I really wanted Monday off, which I would get if I attended. I looked up more information as the date got closer, and went into it knowing that I had to be mentally, emotionally, and spiritually guarded against the brainwashing that seems to go on during those 3 days.

Day 1. I arrived there at 8:30 and sat in a room with 150-200 people who seemed normal and friendly enough. There were signs hanging in the front about “The Realm of Possibility” with sentences like “New possibilities for being call you powerfully into being. Huh. Our Forum leader seemed like a nice guy. He stood on a platform in between two mics set up for people to come up and share. People came up to share about why they were participating. Some wanted to find their purpose or identity, most were dealing with divorces or the lingering effects of their parents’ divorces. The Forum leader started talking about shutting up the voice inside our heads, and how it’s not a part of us. He moved on to talking about the story that we create for ourselves as a result of some event that happens — the story is the way we perceive what happens. People started coming up to share deeper issues. One man in his late 30s shared about how he was raped when he was 5, and how it’s affected his way of thinking and life since then. Now I’m no psychologist, but somehow I don’t think telling someone the last 33 years of his life weren’t real and was “just a story” is the way to help someone move past a traumatic event. This happened for each person who went up — they stood there until the Forum leader led them to a point where they admitted that everything outside of the actual event was just a story. I just sat there and prayed for them as they shared and struggled to find peace. My head was spinning by the time we had our first 30 minute break; I didn’t realize how much I needed the fresh air until I got outside.

goodbye, sweets

I’m observing Lent for the first time this year and have decided to give up sweets and basically anything with sugar (excluding natural sugars).

I don’t regularly eat cookies and candy, but there are some things, like my weekly Dunkaccino or bubble tea, that will be difficult to give up. Last night I ordered pizza for dinner and had to refrain from getting pineapples on it because those would definitely come from a can. I can forsee it being especially difficult at work because my co-workers and I like to talk about brownies and ice cream and desserts we crave as we eat our salads and healthy, organic lunches. It can get pretty bad sometimes — we sound like recovering addicts. Today we talked about ice cream, chocolate, and slurpees.

But I think this will be good. It’s not supposed to be easy, plus it’ll be giving me opportunities to share my faith with my co-workers. I just  need to learn how to drink black coffee.

love

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

I don’t really know what love is. I mean, I know to varying degrees of head knowledge. And I’m not talking about the “fall in love at 16″ kind of love either, because anyone who thinks love is something you “fall” into probably needs to re-evaluate how much they want to feel something they have no control over. But I mean the love that’s characterized by 1 Corinthians 13.

I felt it once, and the thing that stood out to me the most then was the part about how love isn’t supposed to be self-seeking. It’s so easy for love to be selfish, for it to be about serving ourselves, and what we can gain from it. It becomes all about consuming and demanding the other person’s time and attention. And so when it wasn’t like that, I knew. But I also knew we were heading in a bad direction the second we became selfish.

It takes relationships for us to realize just how selfish we are as people. I’ve become more aware of it the longer I’ve been in this relationship, and that makes me question whether or not it’s love. I can say I don’t want to consume all of my boyfriend’s time and affection, and I really don’t, but the deeper part of me that’s trapped in the sinful desires for a worldly relationship says otherwise.

It was so easy last time, but I think that’s the part that’s throwing me off. Maybe love’s not supposed to be that easy. It’s definitely not something that can be achieved without the Spirit in us. It’s something that apparently needs to be worked on everyday, because love’s not some feeling we have no control over. It’s a decision, a commitment, and a decision to commit. And when it comes to commitment… more on that some other time.