Monday, May 6, 2013

what. i. do.


Day 6, Monday: If you couldn't answer with your job, how would you answer the question, 'what do you do'?

i have tried writing this blog a few different ways but nothing really seemed right. i tried writing a list of things i don't do in honor of one of my favorite chapters in bittersweet by shauna niequist but the pieces just weren't fitting. i also wrote the blog the long and exquisite list of things i have mastered in life which kind of listed a lot of things so i have been stuck on this one all day. but finally after an hour long discussion with jordan i decided to look at this question in a different light. 

if i'm being honest i am just a 23 year old girl who is still figuring out who i am and what i am doing in this world. and most of the time i'm not even sure what i'm doing. there are tons of things i like doing; like reading, going to sit down restaurants, and going on drives with my friends but none of those things really define who i am as a person. so i have spent some time reflecting on the things that i do, do, and of those things which ones that i think make me who i am.

so without further ado here are the five things i do:

i love.
this little heart of mine reaches it's capacity daily with all the love that pumps through it. i see old couples holding hands and pictures of smiling kids and i feel like my heart is going to burst. i want to lay it on thick with the people in my life who i am closest to. i adore hugging & holding hands & tear stained letters & letting the people who i hold in my heart know i love them. when my time has come for me to leave this earth i know that the people in my life will know that they were special to me. if i had it my way i would love on everyone i met and let them know how truly wonderful they are. but it's not always about quantity but quality and i want my love to be genuine and true and heavy and full and make their cups runneth over. 

i write.
ever since i was a little girl i always expressed myself through writing. whether it was in having the perfect paragraph describing what polar bears eat in my second grade project or the pages i scribbled in my journal, i have always been a writer. writing to me is putting my soul into words and i can't imagine my life without putting the pen to the paper or being able to put my fingers to the keys. now don't get me wrong, i'm not saying i am a good writer by any means, but something i have always done is write. i write song lyrics on napkins. i write letters and leave them on doorsteps and sneak them into lunch boxes. i write things some people don't like talking about. i write when i am hurt. i write when i feel like falling in love. i write when there are no words left. i write to stay alive. and i will never stop writing until this heart stops beating because stringing prepositions and verbs together is what has kept it beating all along. 

i laugh.
when i think back on my life the one thing i can remember is i have always been able to laugh. through the good, the bad, and the ugly. i have never taken myself too seriously and have always been able to laugh at myself. because lets face it, i definitely do plenty of things worth laughing at. regardless of the reason, i love being able to make people laugh or smile. it's one of those things in life that brings me great happiness. i hope i can be one of those awesome old ladies when i'm 80 that wears bright pink cat sweaters and says outlandish, inappropriate comments that make people uncomfortable and laugh. i think that's a pretty worthy goal to have for the rest of my life.

i believe.
even through the hardest times in my life i have always believed in something. i grew up believing in God and even when i didn't know who He was or why He did things i didn't understand i still knew there was something there. and today i believe in Jesus and that He created me to be exactly the way i am. i also believe in the good in people. i believe in the country i grew up learning about and that one day it can get back to that place. i believe in true love even when people tell me it isn't real. i believe in the words i write and the words i speak. i believe in promises. i believe in speaking the truth even when it isn't easy. i believe in staying true to myself even when i don't like the person i am sometimes. i believe in the people i consider my best friends. and i believe that in order to truly be happy you have to believe in something greater than the sum of your own parts. and that, i believe, is something that is humbling and beautiful all at the same time.  

i dream.
many of my childhood was spent drawing up floor plans of my dream house and spending hours daydreaming of jonathan taylor thomas. as i've grown bigger so have my dreams. i dream of my one-day-some-day wedding. the center pieces and the candles and of the happiness i will feel. i dream of running my toes through the sand on beaches of all the great waters. i dream of the day i will be a mother and know what that love feels like. i dream of finally putting a line through the last thing on my bucket list. i dream of so many things i hope and dream for the future. someone once told me dreaming is destructive to the soul because it makes the soul wander to places it will never go. but if i have learned anything in the twenty three years of my life it is if you don't ever even dare to wander to those places then you will never know what could be. and oh lets be honest, aren't the what if's the greatest fuel for the fire of a dream? 

so there it is. the things i do. it's not much and even though there are other things i would like to do someday these are the things i have always done and hope i always will do.

 so in simple, to answer what i do. 
i'm a girl that spends her life loving, writing, laughing, believing, and dreaming. 

1 comment:

  1. There are not enough words for how much I love this. All I can say is that I hope you keep being exactly who you are. I HOPE that you are that old lady who makes outlandish, inappropriate comments (and I really hope that I’m in a matching sweatsuit right next to you). I HOPE you keep writing and that you write all the things you want to write about, big or small. I HOPE you keep loving the exact way that you do because you have taught me in more than a million ways what it looks like to love someone. I HOPE you keep believing that there is more to this life than meets the eye. And I hope, DESPERATELY hope, that you keep dreaming. Even though we may never live on that house on my street with Natalie, I will always keep those floor plans we drew up and love that we planned out our life together. Even though we may never have our planned out relationships and dream weddings, I think we will look back and smile and realize that God had something better in store for us, after all. I think dreaming is where realistic, common sense life ends and magic begins. And from everything we’ve been through together in this life, I have no doubt that magic exists.

    Sorry for the novel of a comment. I just love this post and I love you and I love your heart.

    Keep writing, babygirl. It’s all good stuff.

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