That "23 Things" Post...

So there's this blog post making its way all over Facebook Land.  It falls under the "Angsty Twenty-Something Single" genre and argues against getting married young.  Among other things, it accuses young couples of cowardice concerning facing the world without hiding behind a significant other, and then suggests that it's a far better idea to go "experience" the world, "explore religions," and not only date casually but also explore all the bases, if you know what I mean.

I'm a pro at this Angsty Twenty-Something Single stuff.  I know, I know, you're absolutely shocked, right?  So I clicked on the link that I assumed would give me either 23 distractions to help me deal with being single or 23 things to make a really adventurous bucket list (since mine consists largely of "get married and have kids" and I'm still waiting on that crucial first step of having a boyfriend in order to arrive at that end, my bucket list could use a bit of inspiration these days).

Instead, I get things like number 3: "Make out with a stranger."  Number 8: "Explore a new religion."  Number 11: "Date two people at once and see how long it takes to blow up in your face."  15: "Disappoint your parents."  20: "Hang out naked in front of a window."  22: "Be selfish."

Maybe I should've known that this wouldn't be my cup of tea when item number 10 was "cut your hair."

Basically, my fellow Angsty Twenty-Something Single is disillusioned towards marriage.  She makes this statement: "... the LGBTQ community isn't ruining the sanctity of marriage, the Kardashian family is," and I can't say I disagree with that sentiment.  At the risk of giving my fellow conservatives a heart attack: the Religious Right's argument that legalizing homosexual marriage defaces the value of marriage in a country where straight marriages only have a fifty-fifty shot smells rather hypocritical to me.  Number 7 on this blogger's list is: "Get a tattoo.  It's more permanent than marriage."  You can't deny it, that's a pretty valid point.

But her suggested alternative to marriage for us young people is to go ahead and recklessly explore all there is to be explored about life rather than letting the morals of an obsolete generation keep us from experiencing the world.

As I continue to practice dealing with my desire for a husband and a family of my own that just doesn't seem to be in God's outline for this chapter of my life, I don't think this alternative is what my Heavenly Father has in mind for me.

Among the handful of truths sprinkled into her post, this blogger mentions that twenty-three-year-olds don't know who they are yet, and need to explore who they are before they commit to marriage, and for some of us I think that's a good point.  But I'm not going to "find who I am" chasing cheap, short-term romances just for kicks and giggles.  I'm not going to "find who I am" by giving the universe the middle finger and doing whatever I feel like doing (or doing what I don't really feel like doing but the world thinks I should be doing... like making out with strangers and stuff).  I'm not going to "find who I am" hanging out naked in front of an open window, I'm just going to scar the residents in the next building for life.  And seriously, what in the world is the value of dating two people at once just to see how long it takes to blow up in your face?  I can't think of a single purpose that would serve!

I'm not going to find who I am by turning my back on God, the one thing that has been true and constant for all of my life.

I'll turn 23 in a few weeks, and I can bet that I'll still be single.  I can dream to the contrary, but reality dictates that I will still be single.  But rather than take the values and convictions that I've had my entire life and dump them out with the garbage, I'm going to chase the other half of the dream God's given me for my life: my writing.  I'm going to work on my patience chasing after this degree, and I WILL get my Bachelor's before my little brother does (if he vanishes his junior year of college, he may be tied up in my closet pending my graduation).

I'm going to explore who I am in the eyes of my Creator, who created me to bear His image.  Why in the world would I want to recklessly try to reinvent what He has redeemed and declared beautiful?

I may not like being single, and honestly I'm not totally convinced yet that I ever will like being single, but I will spend this chapter of my life continuing to love God in my own, imperfect ways, and drinking in His perfect love for me.

Everyone's path is different.  Some people do get engaged before they're 23, and that's perfectly fine.  (And yet it's the Christians who are always cast as the judgmental ones... I guess no one ever told that to this fellow Angsty Twenty-Something Single friend of mine.)  I'm working on my own list of 23 things to do while I'm single, ranging from getting published to loving on my daycare kiddos.  If you're a fellow Angsty Twenty-Something Single, try coming up with 23 things you can do while your single that glorify the Author and Protector of your faith.  Trust Him with this season of your life.  He can make it into something infinitely more beautiful than anything you can make on your own.

Hello, 2014, Let's Be Friends!

Taken in Chicago in March of 2013... Aside from a shot of me sleeping and another of me playing flute with a really sloppy pony-tail wearing my hat backwards, this was the earliest 2013 pic I could find of myself :P

Taken December 30th in Nebraska... While burning materials pertaining to my Women in Islam class :D

~  * ~

Reflection is probably the biggest thing about New Years that makes it my favorite holiday.  It's a chance to stop, look back over the year, celebrate the good moments and move away from the bad ones, take stock of what I've learned and how I've grown.

A year ago from this moment, I was sitting in a drafty, cock-eyed living room a few blocks over with my family, reflecting on 2012.  Now, I'm hanging out in my bedroom--my level bedroom, with right angles and reliable heat--reflecting on 2013.

I'm not going to lie, it's been a long one.  I took a pretty awesome poetry class the first half of 2013.  I went to Chicago for the first time, and hopefully not the last.  As it turns out, I have a tiny hint of wanderlust after all.

Just a tiny one.

I moved over the summer, and it's amazing what a difference those few blocks made!  There's something to be said about living without bats and cockroaches!  I've been blessed with a new friend in my roommate, and even our cats get along!  (As I type this, my roommate's cat is hanging out in my doorway and Gracie is planning an ambush from the bathroom.)

2013 also held what has become known as The Semester from the Underworld.  After a brilliant plan to take a class over the summer went horribly wrong and I blatantly refused to drop a class against my better judgement, I spent a semester working full time, taking 9 credit hours, and not sleeping.  I will never do that again, but it did teach me a lot.  Probably one of the most important things it taught me was that Philippians 4:13 does not really mean "I can do whatever I want to because I'm a Christian and that makes me super-human with no limits."  Actually, that passage of scripture is Paul talking about being content with his circumstances, wherever God placed him.  Philippians 4:13 doesn't mean I can work full-time and take a full-class load and still be operating at peak efficiency and be a wonderful human being all at the same time because God's on my side.  (Actually, it turns out that running on coffee until it makes you throw up kind of makes you a worthless human being in some ways.)  Philippians 4:13 means I can be content living here in Iowa City doing what God's called me to do, no matter how long this degree takes.

Copy and paste that last sentence and hang on to it for me, I'm probably going to need it more than once in 2014.

In 2013, the second Hobbit movie came out.  I will bear the scar of its betrayal for the rest of my life, but it was awesome seeing it in theaters with friends!  Speaking of which, yes, I have friends!  Granted, one of them is moving away in a couple of weeks since this is a college town and that's what people around here do, and maintaining my social life still requires significantly more effort than it did in High School, but I have friends who stayed beside me and prayed for me and cared for me in 2013, friends who were Jesus with skin on to me in my darkest and most stubborn moments, friends who were still there when the wreckage that was left of me slid across that finish line after the Semester from the Underworld.  I love my friends!

I became an aunt in 2013!  If you count my Rent-A-Nephew back home, I became an aunt twice in 2013!  Aren't they cute?!

Another year has gone by and my novel is still incomplete, but I did write three short stories in 2013.  I took two writing classes at the University of Iowa.  They were entry level classes, so nothing really fancy shmancy, and the only things I "learned" were the ideas that I contemplated and formed for myself about how I personally handle writing, but I did have some valuable experiences in class (one of the three workshops all semester was valuable at least).  Progress is progress, and I'm one year closer to being a published author!  (Not that I know when that is or anything, I just know I'm closer is all!)

Also very important to my writing career: On November 5, 2013, I MET TED DEKKER!!!

Not only did I get a hug and an autographed copy of Outlaw, but I also touched his chest!  AND he told me I was beautiful!  *squeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!*

Ahem.  Anyway...

I have three friends who are now engaged, and beyond my inauguration into aunt-hood I have two more friends who are pregnant, and this of course isn't counting all of those acquaintances and old friends and friends of friends and such whose life events somehow show up on my Facebook news feed all the time.  2013 has come and gone, leaving nothing of the sort for me, not even any interests.

Well, except for this guy:

But he cheated on me with an elf that Tolkien didn't even write and therefore doesn't exist, so I'm just back to wishing this guy wasn't already taken:

So I'll keep working on figuring out some positive points of being single.  I can't really think of very many right now, but I'm pretty sure they're out there.  Besides, the one that I do usually remember is a powerful one: this is what God wants for me right now.  So I'll keep truckin'.  I'll keep learning how to draw closer and closer to my First Love, my true Knight in Shining Armour, my Prince of Peace who's so much more than charming.  I'll keep letting Him teach me who I am, and keep learning how to be content where He's placed me, and how to enjoy being the me that He created.  All that sounds a whole lot fluffier than it feels, but that's the lesson that 2013 has taught me, and it's what I will carry with me into 2014.

A year ago, I wrote that 2013 was looking a lot like 2012: more work, more school, more time in Iowa City.  And sitting where I am now, 2014 looks painfully similar to 2013: more work, more school, more time in Iowa City.  While I was picking out classes for this upcoming semester, I calculated out how long this was going to take me at the current rate.  Depending upon whether or not I find a way to pull off studying abroad for six weeks at some point, I will be here, doing this, for 3-4 more years.  But there was a song I once loved by Avalon that went something to the effect of: "I don't wanna go somewhere / If I know that You're not there ... 'Cuz my heart needs to be where You are."

I could make a whole bunch of resolutions to try to make it feel like I'm gonna be a better person and come a long way in 2014.  I could say I'm going to study the Bible more, I'm going to read more, I'm going to write more, I could even set quantifiable goals because who doesn't like concrete thresholds with which to rub your own failure in your face with?  But I don't think I'm going to.  Instead, 2014: God's put us together, and I know He has plans for both of us that are better than any of my own ideas.  What do you say we just be friends?

I Was a Fan of Taylor Swift

I was once an avid Taylor Swift fan.  Primarily because of this song:

http://youtu.be/8xg3vE8Ie_E

But the name Taylor Swift now brings on much different ideas.  She has crated a reputation for being a revolving door as far as boys go, and her musical career makes her a pretty brutal ex-girlfriend.  I remember seeing a clip of her from the Ellen DeGeneres show where Ellen was putting up picture after picture after picture after picture of boys she had dated (to which Taylor was avidly trying to convince Ellen that one of them didn't count... Not that it wouldn't have made THAT big of a difference).  Taylor finally shouted something to the effect of: "Stop it!  This makes me feel like a horrible person!"

I honestly feel sorry for her. My heart breaks for her.  I can relate to several of her "break-up" songs from my experience with one boy.  I can't imagine going through that with as many boys as she has.  Seriously, you know what kind of relationship she started off wanting from her early albums, and for that many relationships to fall short?  For her heart to be broken that many times?  To be that big of an expert on how to break up?  People laugh at her, but I truly do hurt for her.

But yet, this is the image she has created for herself.  And now, she sings songs like this:

http://youtu.be/878KE8iDrh8

I was introduced to Taylor Swift because she was a country artist.  I know, I know, she's not really "country" necessarily, I'm one of those more-pop-than-country "country" fans; to the dismay of my father and older brother, I can only take so much Johnny Cash.  But seriously, Taylor?  What are you doing?  That dress looks like something Lady Gaga would wear!  And the outfit underneath?  Clearly, the money has gotten to you.

But I'm not so sure that it's just the money.

There's a freedom that the innocent have that the experienced don't.  The innocent are free to dream.  The innocent can cling to ideas of how it's supposed to work.  The innocent have a vision of how it was originally designed.

But girls passionately desire the companionship, the love, the feelings of being cherished by a boy that they are torn between trying to play it safe and recklessly going after what they want.  And if they are too reckless, the more bad relationships that they endure break down more and more of that innocence and the dreams, ideas, and visions that come with it.  There's suddenly fear and pain that reign them in from that innocent freedom until it's boy after boy, break up after break up, and when one ends all you have to look forward to is the next boy.  Happily Ever After is suddenly beyond attainable reality.  Sometimes it's gradual, sometimes it's not so much, but if a girl in today's world isn't careful, the path from innocence always leads to a downward spiral of shattered hopes and broken dreams.

Until you're choosing to take off the white dress and dance on stage in black leather and a whole lot of exposed skin singing about boys being trouble instead of laughing with joy because the boy finally earned your daddy's approval and you can go pick out a white dress to marry him in.

I hope that some day, Taylor can remember what she wanted.  Until then, I'll be singing her early songs while I wait to wear a white dress on my wedding day.