Pulling me from the other side of the world

(Magnetic–flyleaf)

Non-drunk drivers cause 4 in 5 traffic deaths…that is what the signs said as I was driving home…so in answer to the lady in the advertisement on spotify that sounds like she probably thinks she is too cool for you even though she is too stupid to realize what she is saying makes absolutely no sense…so why would you choose to drink and drive? Probably because you got thirsty…or if you are talking about alcohol, because it makes you less likely to cause a traffic death…I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’…

but anyway…I have like a billionty-jillion posts saved on my computer that I want to re-read and/or share, and I tried to start narrowing it down, and there were still a LOT of things I liked, so here is a (long) list of things I like…

I like the quadrillion of hashtags in this blog post, but the thing is, as cute as we make it, a month is not enough…people are still sick when the calendar page turns to June, and where is the support going to be then?

So true, but I think the idea behind the blog post was better than the actual carrying out of the post…but trauma can very quickly take over one’s whole identity, and it is difficult to separate the pain from who one is as a person…

Failure means I stop…what we need is persistence. We need standards, but we need strength.

I love this. Broken crayons make weak hands strong. We are all needed. We are not ever forgotten, just waiting to be used.

This article is incredible…the issues I had with church were not experienced quite like this, but oh my…there is another situation that fits well into this framework…Basically all of the big bold words resonate with me, but this one is short and sweet and can be altered to be very true: “Religion will molest you then accuse you of being bitter about it.” Abuse doesn’t have to make me bitter…it can make me sympathetic and courageous.

This story is really touching…A realization of a problem, followed by a promise that it will get better. “Not perfect, but better, so just hang on.”

I am not sure how I feel about this…while I do certainly agree that people should act respectfully towards one another, I also think that as professionals, we have a higher calling towards our patients. They are coming to us because things aren’t going so well in their life and our job as healthcare professionals is not to derive any benefit from them, but to serve them…I obviously do not know the entire situation presented in this article, but to me from the information given, the involvement of the police came way too quickly…calmly talking would have been a much more appropriate solution in my opinion…yes, it does not feel good to be yelled at, but involving someone else is only going to escalate the situation, and your job as a pharmacist is to SERVE people…maybe occasionally you will be praised and that will feel good, but that is not supposed to be your purpose in life…

I believe I have read every story on this list of articles, and almost every single one of them was so powerful and meaningful. It feels so good to know I am not alone. My heart breaks for anyone else who has ever been hurt and abused the way I have been, but breaking for these strangers to whom my only connection is pain, is strangely healing. Just a note, that I have not been sexually abused even though that is what some of these articles talk about. At the same time as it feels good though, it feels scary. I know this is a totally impractical desire, but I really want to somehow be able to protect other people from going through what I have gone through, and reading about how many bad people are in the world that I “need” to protect people from, is kind of scary…it forces me to recognize that I have very little power to protect anyone…I can tell my closest friends when they ask me that I would recommend they just trust me on this and whatever they do, do NOT talk to ___, but I can’t protect the world…Oh my though, besides that, it feels SO good to not be alone in this.

Cartoons about how to beat procrastination…could be cool to do something with this…

I LOVE this…as hopefully a future professional specializing within pediatrics, I definitely can connect with this environmental approach to children’s health…mom’s health will certainly impact baby’s wellbeing..

This is helping me more fully forgive…if you are incompetent and narcissistic and therefore feel threatened because anyone could rat you out if you allowed them to retain enough confidence to do it, it makes sense that you would hurt people and then play victim in order to feel powerful in attempt to cover how inadequate you know you are…It doesn’t make it okay, but it makes it easier to forgive more fully…(also, unrelated to the article, but I am very grateful to the person who helped me recognize that perhaps while some of the abuse was certainly intentional that perhaps parts of it were simply incompetence or poor training, and while ignorance is not an excuse, and the obvious factor should have informed some decisions, that was another propelling moment towards greater forgiveness) 

This is also awesomesauce…things you should know, like it is okay to cry and you matter.

…and now I need to write a list of things that I need to do, because relying on my memory is a good way for things to not get done until it is too late…like packing my intern manual…

It’s All But a Breath in the Grand Scheme of Things

(Different Kind of Free–ZoeGirl)

I love this lyric…this isn’t exactly the direction the song goes, but for me, this phrase is an incredible reminder that although hard and painful circumstances might seem all-consuming and never-ending, but eventually whether in this life or in heaven, those trials will have been alleviated, and when you consider that I have all of eternity to walk with my maker, the years of my physical life seem to be reduced to barely a mention. Ultimately, things that seem right now to have lasted a LONG time will eventually be just a teeny tiny part of my reality and my story.

Oh, and I am a day late, but am linking up with Holley Gerth again for the release of You’re Loved No Matter What: Freeing Your Heart from the Need to Be Perfect. The prompt is: Where have you seen beauty from brokenness?

One of my strengths when I took a strengthsfinder test first year was developer. That means, among other things, that I recognize and derive satisfaction from small amounts of progress. I think it is incredibly beautiful how although there has been a lot of pain and brokenness in my life, particularly over the past two years, that I am still thriving and learning to move past.

Today was an incredible day and there isn’t much of it I would change given the opportunity…except maybe a bit more focused studying…and perhaps a bit more sunscreen…’cause the sunscreen works better if you put it on BEFORE you start burning…luckily I burned enough that I am a bit uncomfortable, but not enough that it is excruciatingly painful…which is especially important considering how much time I will be spending in the car to go home in a little over a week…

So yeah, I had to walk around some puppies to get to the res hall after class and then to go put my shoes in my car before I lost them and because I struggle not to wear my heart on my sleeve, I was almost crying because I wanted so much to play with them and didn’t know if I could…so yeah…and then I found out I could and got to play with them and it was super exciting, and like five minutes later it was time to eat lunch with some of my friends, and I took a lot of breaks from eating to play with the dogs some more…and it was so fun to hang out with my friends for a while…and I found a bird on the sidewalk, and I wanted to play with it, and I kind of knew that like bunnies outside it probably wouldn’t let me play, but as it turned out, it did let me pick it up…it wasn’t a fan of being picked up with one hand but when I used two hands it seemed okay with it. I brought the birdie over to my friends and one of my friends took a turn holding it for a while…we were deciding what to do with the bird because it was super cute when I guess the bird got tired of being petted and photographed by a group of college students and flew away…here is a picture of the bird after its escape, sitting in a tree…isn’t it adorable?!

I then talked/played with puppies some more. Then my friends had to go to class, and I found a lot more friends outside…then I realized I’d been wasting time for about two hours and tried to get some studying in…with breaks for more puppies…and then a break for ice cream and juice and more social time…and now I am at the place I volunteer which I will deeply miss when I have to leave since I will likely not be back until August (assuming I am able to find the time to return in the fall)…

I am missing an event I kind of wanted to go to tonight, but I can’t do everything…and it requires being quiet for 49 seconds, and TBH, anyone who really knows me would likely be able to discern that I probably wouldn’t be overly successful at being quiet that long…but I really wish I could be there…partly because I want to, and partly because I feel really guilty missing events that I feel like I should be at…and as the secretary of self-defense club, I really ought to be at their special event.

So anyway, the fact that I even wanted to be at an event like this is awesome. Eighteenish months ago, the people everywhere would have been too much for me to handle instead of being invigorating. Twelveish months ago, looking at the dogs would have been fun, but there is no way that I would have touched them unless it was a social requirement, and even then I would have left to wash my hands as soon as it was socially acceptable…Actually, today was watermelon bash, and on the day of watermelon bash last year, I couldn’t go outside because there were too many people, and I was inside and held a puppy’s leash for a few minutes until her owner could put her away, and even that I was touching as little as possible and washed my hands ASAP once the leash was taken away…when the dog escaped a little later, I was thrilled to play with it, but back then “play” didn’t involve touching…luckily she (the puppy) was okay with that and was reasonably responsive to my commands, and the people whose office she went in before I could stop her were very gracious and stopped to pet her instead of acting like I was bothering them and probably should have been more-hands-on in my watching the puppy…and I am not going to describe the rest of the night because it is kind of embarrassing to talk about how I was crying at one point but couldn’t use my words to explain what was happening…but anyway…it was super awesome to be able to play with including touching the puppies and really only wipe my hands off on my shirt before eating…oh, and weeks ago just knowing who had the potential to be there would have left me wondering if I *really* had to eat lunch and see my 5th year friends or if I could just stay inside and pretend I didn’t notice how hungry I was…

I have a lot more to say, but it is far past time to get back to studying. I love my friends.

What’s your story of wrestling with trying to be “perfect”? How is God setting you free? Linkup with Holley Gerth

Hey friends! If you’ve been around here long you know other than in the past month I don’t really do linkups…but Holley Gerth, author of You are Already Amazing, You’re Going to Be Okay, and You Were Made for a God-Sized Dream (among others) just released a new book, You’re Loved No Matter What. Disclaimer: I have not actually read any of her books, but I want to…that is on my someday list…but she is an amazingly talented blogger so I have no doubt that her books are also amazing…

I have spent a lot of my life seeking perfection…and simultaneously having quotes like “Perfection is my Enemy” adorning my room…it is kind of a contradiction, but at the same time it really has described a lot of my life…

In school, people have always assumed that everything came easily to me and that I didn’t need to study…when in reality school was a struggle and I was spending every waking minute studying…I was the one in middle school who came to swim meets equipped with a calculator, textbooks, and graph paper notebooks in plastic bags, and while other girls were drawing on themselves or whatever else middle school girls do to occupy their time, I was doing homework…and I was and still am a firm believer in the idea that days off for school were created to give students a little extra time for studying (which is why it is frustrating sometimes to take finals and then immediately go on break in college…although I do appreciate only having finals twice a year so that kind of balances it out)…and with that comes the expectation that I would always do well on every assignment…people have literally told me that they wouldn’t expect anything but A’s from me…that’s a lot of pressure not to disappoint…

I want to do well…and I really want to make sure I am doing well enough to get the residencies and jobs that I want…but really I feel no need to be perfect…

…and I am learning to accept less than even “okay” because my grades are seriously bad…(people who know me might be expecting me to say that OMGZ I have like only a 93% in some classes, but I legitimately am rocking the D range in a few classes…at the end of the day D’s get degrees, but I doubt that D’s get residencies regardless of the situation surrounding the grades…and I only have about a month of school left to get the train back on the tracks…)…when I got my first bad final grades a year and a half ago, it was frustrating, but in reality, no one hated me…although unfortunately, it didn’t change people’s expectation of me…

…but seriously, I do NOT seek perfection, but it is seriously frustrating when I try so hard for so little results…I would really appreciate if my grades could reflect how hard I worked…or at least reflect how much I knew…

Part of getting free from the pressure to be perfect is knowing nothing can separate us from God’s love Linkup with Holley Gerth

So I’m a day late…and I don’t really have much on topic today, because I think that prompt pretty much sums it up better than I could say it myself anyway…

I talk to myself a lot…and sometimes I want to freeze in time some of the things I say, because while some of them are reflexive phrases that don’t mean much (like repeating you’re okay over and over when something is wrong), others I have to stop and think because did that really just come out of my mouth? So from the helpful to the mundane, here are a few of the random things that have come out of my mouth yesterday…and whether they make sense or not, God loves me the same 🙂

Emails work better when you hit send

People might make you mad but you are strong.

Life isn’t fair, and getting upset won’t change that.

Remember the surprises that are positive. That will be better for you in the long run.

You are a responsible capable girl whether people treat you like that or treat you like c**p.

When all else fails get up and try again…unless you just realized that your glasses fall off your face when you try to cartwheel…then carefully try to find them and sit your stupid butt down.

Look for the good in people whether they make you happy, frustrated, or are people who are getting a longer end of the stick than you are…everyone has some somewhere if you look hard enough…but some people make it like a really ridiculously hard treasure hunt to find the good…and maybe the good is only that they make beautiful babies…but someone’s gotta make good babies seeing as how you are interested in from birth special needs domestic adoption…and it is hard for a baby to not be beautiful…so basically, anyone who can make babies (including the dude, ’cause you can’t have a baby without a dude being involved) has at least a teeny tiny piece of good in them…

I don’t care that you weren’t going to get up again until you finished the paragraph—you are going to pee your pants if you don’t, and I am not interested in dealing with functional urinary incontinence.

There would be more cute drawings in your journal if you drew more cute drawings in your journal, but there’s not, because you didn’t.

Big girls don’t tense up and try to hide into a ball of flesh pressed against the wall when people stare at them. Eyes won’t hurt you.

Remember that you might not feel that smart but you are right way too often to be a weatherman.

Corollary: Trust your instincts, not the weatherman, and you will probably be less dissappointed.

Hold on tight but be ready to let go. Friends are awesome but it hurts less when you don’t have to have them pried out of your clenched fists…and cultivating relationship is good, but not when you stay even when you are being intentionally hurt.

Treat yourself the way in which you treat little people: markers break but there are lots of other colors left to color with.

Don’t forget sugar and water.

If you can’t stop playing with SD and can’t type and play at the same time then after 20 minutes it doesn’t matter that no one is taking her from you. You need to do homework. She knows the word mama…bring her as close as you can get to where mama hopefully is and tell her to find mama…

Sometimes spoons just need to go to spoon heaven, and you have to let them go. (I should probably explain about this one…see I have this folding spoon that I LOVE! Unfortunately, during fall break of third year I had a germ crisis and as a consequence, my nachos were heated over and over to the point of boiling to make sure they were clean enough to eat, and in the process this spoon got just a little melted, and ever since, no matter how much I try to clean it, it looks dirty and feels a little sticky…but it is an awesome spoon so I keep it and occasionally still use it, and I was doing dishes in the middle of the week which I pretty much never do because I wanted to use it again, and I decided that after this time I needed to consider throwing it away…I don’t actually believe that spoons go to heaven…just the landfill).

I should check out the semicolon project because after seeing this really powerful and reasonably well-done video about it, I am intrigued.

There is a special place in hell for toilet squatters. If you are going to pee like an animal then there are plenty of bushes outside…and as one commenter noted, even if you wipe it up with TP, that is NOT clean. Do you just let your kid’s blanket dry and re-make the bed when they wet it because now it is dry and therefore it is clean, or do you actually wash it?…umm please tell me you did not just read 57 pages of the comment section…this is why you get nothing done.

Be careful what lyrics come out of your mouth; “I don’t even have any clothes on” on repeat sounds real sketch.

That’s so tired.

Doesn’t everyone sleep with a cup of dried up milk?…but if I try to throw it to the sink it might land on top of the clean dishes…

You’re Loved No Matter What: Freeing Your Heart from the Need to Be Perfect

(Link up with Holley Gerth…who is an incredibly talented writer and has a beautiful heart…and if you are interested in adoption, she does that too…oh, and she is super encouraging and kind!)

Prompt: Where do you think pressure to be perfect comes from and what can we do about it?

On some level, people have told me when I did well that they wouldn’t expect anything less of me…and when I do poorly no one believes me because everyone just expects that I will do well. People think things come easily to me and thus expect me t perpetually come well…but they really don’t come that easily for me–I work really hard and sometimes that work just isn’t enough to get me where I want to be…and other times I am able to achieve…

At the same time, I would be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that I do have high expectations for myself. I don’t know that it is necessarily perfection that I am striving towards, but I certainly want to do my best, whatever that is, and am disappointed when MY best doesn’t quite meet the standard I set for myself…

Finally, I also have known what I wanted to do with my life since I was in elementary school…and to get there I need to have grades good enough to get into residency and eventually the job I want…I know that doesn’t require straight A’s (or at least I sure hope it doesn’t since I might as well give up now since I do not have straight A’s), but I also know that straight C’s and D’s isn’t going to cut it either…so if my best doesn’t bring me to at least a certain level then that is no bueno…