The Most Roundabout Book Review You'll Ever Read

Every once in a while I get confident enough to call myself a writer. But then reality comes crashing in when I read something like Charles Bukowski’s “The Last Night of Earth Poems.” I read his short, simple, disgusting, brilliant poems and think “these could have been mine! Every one of these! I’ve had these thoughts, I’m sure of it! I recognize them.” But the truth is, a true writer crafts beauty out of those mundane moments most people only recognize as valuable when they are thrust into his/her face.

I read Bukowski and think how simple it is, how easy to write the way he does, but when I sit down and put some Benjamins to my lips I realize I’m not a writer. Not the way he is. We could both stare at a paper clip and come up with completely different results. Sure, I could get past just describing the object itself. I could make some sort of elaborate analogy about holding things together in life, blah, blah, blah but that’s almost like cheating. Bukowski has a way of looking at something head on and recognizing the beauty that’s already there instead of creating something imaginary and irrelevant.

I don’t know if any of you are writers, but am I the only one whose writing is mostly born out of envy? Seriously, I feel like I will read something brilliant and think, well, now I have to try to do it better. It’s like planting roses in manure. Sure, the results can be beautiful but the process to get there is just crappy. But I guess a rose is a rose no matter how it gets there (I have to be careful I’m treading dangerously close to Shakespeare).

Maybe that’s why I’ve started writing about five different books but I haven’t actually finished any of them. Envy is a short-lived motivator, kind of like a sugar rush. Anyways, I’ve just noticed that this whole post is sort of ironic since I’m spending the whole time talking about how I’m not a writer. I guess I can’t avoid it. Writing is sort of a part of me. But if you’re looking for actual writing, read Charles Bukowski. The man is a genius. 

Thank Goodness for Thermostats

So after spending a few days in the blissful 70 degree North Carolina weather, I started to wonder if I had Seasonal Affectiveness Disorder (SAD). Seriously! I was insanely more upbeat underneath those beautiful rays! But after some self-reflection I realized two things: 1) even taking only a few psychology courses has pushed me towards a tendency for hypochondria (if I am convinced I’m not a hypochondriac, does that mean I’m not? Because wouldn’t I be sure I had that disease if I was a hypochondriac? I’m getting off track here aren’t I). 2) I think winter makes my heart heavy because it echoes the inevitable emptiness of life.

Now before you start to worry this is going to be an incredibly depressing post, let me explain. Life is full of beautiful, breath-taking moments, but it is also full of mind-numbingly mundane and empty ones as well. We’ve heard a thousand times that life has its seasons of summers and winters, and I know its cliché but I think anyone would agree it is true. There is no use pretending life is always perfect. My life has been full of moments of extreme heat and blistering cold, but I am fortunate. Because I also have another thing that makes life immensely more bearable: an internal heating and cooling system.

I can’t help but laugh at myself when I mope and whine all day about how it is below 30 degrees outside when I haven’t even taken one step out of my nicely heated house at 68 degrees. But really, I shouldn’t be complaining! For all I know, it could be 68 degrees outside and I would still be complaining simply because someone made me believe it was only 30 degrees. 

But this is a perfect representation of my life. I get so swept away in my emotions, my meager, human perception of my life. I look through the windows of my pessimistic eyes and see a 30 degree day and mope and wine. But inside I have that constancy, that internal regulation that does not change no matter the weather of my days: Jesus.

If I’m truly living the way I am supposed to be, the weather should not matter. My emotions are meaningless. They are unimpressively human. After all, I have a God within me who can bring joy in the midst of sorrow. That means I have the propensity for summer constantly burning within me. It’s just a matter of living by the images through the windows, or by the reality safe inside my home.

This doesn’t mean I can never be sad or bored or angry or sick with life, it just means I cannot deny the fact that I always have a choice. Life is full of emptiness and sorrow. The weather really might be below 30 outside (and unfortunately it is in Mid-March). But my life does not have to be about my circumstances or feelings in this moment. I have a God who is constant, my continual consuming fire. I can choose to live my life as a gift from Him, and oftentimes when I choose to see my life like this, my emotions will follow. So thank goodness for my thermostat, thank goodness that it never lies. 

Significance

For some reason every time I return to my lonely Great Escape blog page just one thought runs through my mind: "Well this was a huge mistake."

The truth is my life isn't exactly noteworthy to anyone else since I graduated college. It hasn't exactly been boring (although I am burning through Netflix at a probably unhealthy rate) but there aren't any huge events or developments that can compete with my sisters' rapidly approaching due dates or my brother and his wife's hilarious newlywed antics (p.s check out their blog The Gent and the Journaler its a thousand times better than this one).

But I've realized that I am in a beautiful stage in my life where everything is frozen in beautiful simplicity. I've been busy most of my life, and I've always focused on the significant events. Its all I've had time for. But I am finding that there is such significance in those in between moments, those breaths before the jaw-dropping monologue.

Take today for instance. Nothing noteworthy or significant from a stranger's perspective happened. My sisters came over with their INSANE children and we all just sat around for hours and talked. Half the time I didn't even say anything, there were even a few moments when I wasn't even in the same room. And I'm sure my sisters thought I wasn't even listening (just like we always thought mom was just doing laundry in the other room when we were kids but then she would chastise us for something we had said when we thought we were safe--seriously, moms have the weirdest selective hearing). But the truth is I was listening, maybe not to every word they were saying, but I was listening in a different way.

It's like when you're exhausted and you put on a song you have heard a million times and you just lean back, close your eyes and hum to that old familiar tune. I grew up with that humming noise of colliding voices all talking over each other or next to each other or around each other. There's something beautifully comforting about a house full of familiar voices. It was a weird kind of gift to be able to experience that again today.

It was like I was seven years old again and Kari and Kristi were inevitably arguing in the next room while my brother and my dad were glued to the screen driving themselves insane with their predictions for march madness. Only my sisters weren't fighting and my brother wasn't there (it seemed strange that his voice wasn't added to the array), and my other sister wasn't annoyingly asking me to leave her alone. But it had the same feeling of fullness that my childhood home always had, a fullness that I always took for granted.

Now I've always sort of been a loner, and I've been fine with that. But running through my living room chasing kids while trying to simultaneously listen to my sisters' newest mommy drama reminded me why we were not created to be alone. There is beauty in simply being with people you love, doing absolutely nothing. Today, I look back on those childhood days where I was bored to death and all I could think to do was whine to my mother or siblings and I smile. Because those days were simple. Those days were beautiful. Those days were significant. Well, at least they are to me.    

And so it begins...

Well I finally made it. The Great Escape.  16 1/2 years in the making, and I am finally done with school. Ever since I was a child, I've heard that I need to color in the lines or else I'll never make it in grade school. Or I need to learn how to spell, or read, or write in cursive (LIES!) to ever survive till middle school. And, of course, once in middle school they prepared me for high school, and then high school for college. I got Hooked on Phonics, then on Bill Nye the Science Guy (or Bill Nye his mom's a guy, as he was so lovingly called by everyone back in the days), then on SAT prep courses, SAT/ACT tests (which let's be honest no one can prepare you for), until finally I made it to college. But even then, all college ever did for me is prepare me for the real world, to be a "proper image-bearer and communicator in Christ" as anyone with a Communications degree from my school has heard nearly a trillion times.

But now I am faced with the peculiar predicament of being done with the preparations. I have made my escape into the real world, but I still have that instinct that was hammered into me since Kindergarten to focus on the next thing. Now obviously I have a lot to work toward. I've been applying for jobs like crazy, even risking putting my personal resume on sites like "Snagajob" hoping that someone somewhere could possibly want a college graduate with a Communications degree and next to no experience. Sidenote: Isn't it lovely how there seems to be a trillion jobs in your field that would be perfect for you 10 years down the road after you've gained the necessary experience? Now I am faced with the ever so common dilemma of finding a job in my field with absolutely no experience. Seriously, somebody needs to figure out the whole chicken or egg came first scenario quick because clearly I can't gain experience to do the job at hand if no one is hiring anyone without experience.

That all being said, I am busy hopelessly lowering my standards and perusing every site imaginable to find a job that might put the slightest dent in my school loans, but I still find myself having some free time. Now over the years this has become a dirty word in my mind. Let me explain. In high school, the only reason I had free time was because 1) I wasn't doing any of the piles of homework I was assigned, 2) it was 4 in the morning and I was forgoing sleep that night 3) I was home sick or unable to go to basketball, softball, track, or volleyball practice for some reason. In college, I had way more free time but every ounce of it was dedicated to hanging out with my awesome friends (shout out to HAVOC). So now, I don't know how to have free time without feeling like I'm doing something wrong.

Am I the only college graduate who wakes up like Rick Grimes from a coma during the zombie apocalypse when I realize I've slept past noon? Ah, but life isn't all bad, in fact its not even close. I have an amazing boyfriend, a hilarious family, and an awesome God who gives me purpose even on days like this when I feel I'm not doing anything with my life. But since the Internet seems to be the common place to vent about one's problems, I decided to share my frustrations with post college life.  I guess I could have done something more productive with my life than make a blog, but at the time it was either this or redecorate my parents' entire house after an extensive marathon of HGTV so I thought this was the safer option. In any case, you'll be hearing from me again soon (unless I get a job, then you won't....so hopefully you won't).