Why Bother?

I don't understand why you had to tell me you listened. Or why you had to tell me why you were listening or how you had convinced yourself to listen. This might sound selfish, but no matter how much something is about me it always, somehow, becomes about you. If you had to say anything at all, why didn't you just say congratulations? And why end your little emotional spill with how you think I should feel about the situation? I don't think either of us has any business telling the other person 1) how they think and perceive certain events, or 2) how the other person should perceive the same events. I was quite enjoying my baggage free months, or at least my talking baggage free months.

Stop backtracking. You are moving on, great, keep moving on, don't tell me when you think of me, or listen to me or most of all WHY you do it. You cut the final stings you don't get to re-tie them temporarily whenever it is convenient for you. "I want to let this story go, so please, leave me alone." Start thinking about someone else for a change, like how what you say and do affects other people, like me, or her.

Freedom

The page has turned. I was wondering when it would. I guess that means I am free from all of this. Free to let the scars heal, free to write happy songs. Good. It was about time.

Haha, I am not going to make this one an ominous rant about the deeply buried, soaking wet, heavy emotions of things I need to say. I don't really have much to say. Good luck and may it be better than before. For me too.

I am ready to turn the page myself, but I can't really control all the things the go into that. Maybe I should write a non-angsty song about patience, well I did that already. Gosh life is funny, and not always in the "haha" way. I am looking forward to this new freedom, free to dance, free to sing, free to go and do and be all that I am and all that God has made me to be, learning from the past but looking to the future. May each step be closer to God, further from pain, stronger than before and ready for the next. This is my freedom, I am glad to be here.

The End

It's tough watching things come to an end. The end of college, the end of a stage of life, the end of a friendship. Unfortunately, things in this life end all the time. But when they end, it is always true that they should be let go? Is there a time to hold onto something and not let it quite be over? What about when the merry go round has spun so many times around that you have to realize, you are not actually going anywhere, and you need to get off? What if you don't want to get off?

I have watched a lot of things end this year. I have seen the downward spirals and the bleeding hearts, the fair-weathered "we'll talk soon's" and the stormy weathered "what have we to talk about anymore". So when do we fight against the current and save what we have? And when do we realize, that time has come and now it is gone?

Change in my life has been a fairly regular thing. Nothing I feel has been simple and easy, and I don't expect that it will ever be that way. But I have come to expect that I do not know what to expect from this life and the people in it. These questions always lead me to the ultimate question that I can only do my very best to answer, without really ever knowing the answer. What am I to do about it? Whether I let you, or it, or the past, or whatever go, or whether I choose to keep you or it etc, in my life, I choose to be there when I am needed, I choose to love you even if you cannot love me in the same way, I choose to "talk to you soon" whether you care to hear from me or not and I choose to talk to you, even though I know we have very little to talk about. I will hold on to only the part that I care about and not so much worry about the effect the reaction has on me, that part I choose to let go. I will do what I can to benefit you, I will choose to be the person I am, whether you care about me or not. And I will do the best that I can to believe that through the actions and the choices I make, maybe somewhere, maybe someday, I will make a difference to someone, and if for no other reason, I will do it to praise my God. The End.

Finally Graduating!! Well Kind of...

Hello Friends and Family!

I suppose you have all received my graduation announcement and are looking me up to see if such a thing could possibly be true. Chelsea graduating? Indeed I am graduating, well kind of. Haha! So here is the actual deal as well as other life events that have and are occurring.

I am walking this May and "graduating" ceremonially. However I have one more semester left and will officially be done in December. After a couple of tumultuous years and lots of ups and downs, I changed my major from Nursing to Sociology. I did this, mind you, at the beginning of this year, my senior year! Talk about cramming it all in! I have put forth my best efforts to pack an entire major into a year and successfully did so, except for my practicum and one other sociology class. I also have one required class that is not in my major to complete. So this next semester will be three-quarter time and then FINITO! I am very excited to be out of school soon but with that comes the planning of the rest of my life, and with that, some fear and anxiety.

I have been working very hard on music and this summer, along with holding a job, I will be continuing to work on music. I recently put out a self-titled, self-produced (well a friend produced it, so we can call it "home"produced) CD with 11 of my original songs on it. It has been very exciting and I have sold about 100 with a few being given away here and there. My plan is to play around town, send off some demos, do some advertising, I have a friend who is designing shirts for me (she is awesome) etc. So lots of music this summer I hope. If anyone wants a CD ($12) you can email dassochels@gmail.com or call me :D

Um what else. Single. Summer work will be working as a phone interviewer for a research company so don't hang up on those, answer surveys! They help us! :D Um also, doing some nurses aide work, hopefully not at the nursing home I currently work at, they are awful...

Anyway, prayer requests?

Better job....better hours.

Music stuff if God wants that to go well (I kinda do) :D

Lots of weddings to go to this summer, safe travel.

That's all I can think of right now. If perchance you choose to peruse through the rest of my blog, please be aware that this is my outlet to process things in my life. Not all of it is happy, actually very close to none of it is. So be kind... and please rewind :D

I Will Wallow Today So I Can Pick Myself Up Tomorrow

I should be asleep, and for once I probably could be. I am exhausted, but because I have promised that tomorrow will not be spent drowning in my sorrow, I have to get it out today.

Once again I face a rejection, minimal in value but the sting hurts all the same. I wanted a job, it was going to be convenient, it was going to be a blessing, it was going to be exactly what I needed for the summer. But I didn't get it. I barely got told that I didn't get it. I got rejected.

Yesterday I was planning on playing my music this summer, having a day job, living with 3 roomates, graduating in December, and touring next summer with a band. Today, no day job, which potentially leads to no music, 2 roomates and no tour with the band. If I don't graduate in december I am going to be PISSED. Haha.

I guess I feel like a failure. Everything I seem to have put my mind to has failed, whether it is a long lived dream, a long loved relationship, a convenient shoe in job, a leadership position, etc etc. The only things I have succeeded in getting are a series of dead end jobs, wohoo. What is it about me that isn't good enough for something better than this? Why aren't I ever the chosen one? Why doesn't anyone want me and think I could do a good job? One time I got picked for something that could have been awesome, and that time I backed out because I didn't think I would. I failed even when given the opportunity. So now I am afraid. I am afraid of never being good enough. I seem to be a Jack of all trades and master of none. I can do some stuff pretty good but there is nothing I am great at. What am I supposed to do if I can never succeed? How will I ever succeed, if I never believe I will? How will I ever believe I will, if I never do? It's a vicious cycle. I choose not to live in fear and I choose not to be a defeatest, but I am more discouraged than hopeful.

Where do I turn when all the doors I knock on are locked? How do I figure out what God wants me to do if all the options I have in front of me are failing? What road do I not see and why do I keep missing it? I have tried SO hard to let God lead me where he desires me to be, but more often than not I feel I am being led down a dead end; or I am the densest person on earth; or I just don't I understand. I feel like my prayers have become futile. Everything I seem to pour my heart into, everything I seem to want or seem to think God would allow me to have, I don't get. What am I supposed to want? And why now should I have any expectation that I will ever get anything that I want? WHAT AM I MISSING?

What if I never see the big picture? What if I never understand why I am being tested, or why I am suffering, or why I seem to suck at life? What if there is purpose in my life and I never see it? What then?

I know God has a plan and I will never doubt that. I guess I just wish for once, I would see it plainly, and it would be easy. Not exactly what I signed up for when I decided to follow Christ. Tomorrow is a new day. I will start it fresh.

From Strangers to Friends and Vice Versa

Thanks for your patience.

Friendships are funny, and not really in the haha way, but in the strange and confusing way. The ones you think should last, don't, the ones that should no longer exist have been able to stand through the tests of fire, the ones you think and hope are over, pop their scary head out of the ground and the ones you think should have never started, bring a renewed sense of joy to life. It's funny (again not haha) when they all happen at once, or when you can see them all happening around you. I think that's where I am right now.

Deepest Wells But Shallow "Hi's":

I ran into a friend the other day. I had been meaning to go visit this friend for awhile but had just never gotten around to it. I remember the times this friend and I would hang out. It was always good, there was always a great conversation and jokes and meaningful interaction. This friends heart ran deep and I so enjoyed the time we spent together. When i saw this friend, I said his name, he said mine, I asked him a question, and his attention was already on the next thing, another person. I thought about stopping and waiting for a reply but I quickly realized that I would look stupid if I did, because I would not get a reply. It hit me as I took a glance backwards "we're not really friends anymore. damn." Perhaps it is partly my fault, I take responsibility, but it sucks that the well will never flow as deep as it did with this friend. I will miss that.

When You Least Expect It:

I received a call the other day. I received a call from someone I had asked to stay out of my life. It is almost a year since I asked him that. I didn't answer. Why was he calling? Is this the beginning of the cycle I had finally escaped, is this the charming enticement back into my life? I am not going to be that girl, I know that girl; the one who has to figure things out the hard way over and over and over and over, until she is exhausted, hurt and used to a point of lifelessness. I will not be that girl. So what am I to do? Do i open the lines of communication I have kept closed for almost a year, with the hope that I can tell when he is using it? Do I forgive him and maybe see if he wants another go at a friendship? I have forgiven him a lot over the last couple years, it hasn't been 7 times 70 but we must be getting close. Or is it better to save myself the drama and the frustration os having to deal with that mess all over again? I don't know what to do?

Lost In The Middle Ground:

You know how we are different things for different people? I am not saying we change depending on who we are around, but we always have a different relationship with whoever we are with, and we fill a specific void in that persons life. I like that feeling. I like being what that person needs, but what if what I am for one person, is in conflict with what another person in my life needs? This isn't really going to make sense and I am not going to explain it, but it is hard to help the hurt, when helping one, hurts another, when i am caught inbetween two people thata are hurting.

I am amazed however that one of these and I are as good a friends as we are. We have been in some of the most trying situations that two friends could be in and come out the other side, not allowing them to break our friendship, but to knit us closer together. I do hope that this situation is one of those, and that it does not break us, I don't think I can let that happen and I surely don't want it to.

An Unlikely Match:

The jock and the indie kid unite. It's a beautiful thing to see. One would think that this could never happen, but I love that it has. It almost proves to me that anything is possible and differences don't equate to hatred or jealousy, but that whatever stereotype you are, or have even placed on yourself, you can embrace and yet overcome for the sake of friendship.

It is hard to think about things changing. They always will and unfortunately not always for the better. Sometimes we get the short end of the stick. Sometimes we get hurt. Sometimes we realize something about ourselves and through it WE change. Perhaps it is through our friendships that we learn about ourselves, about who we are and who we want to be. Perhaps friendships teach us that even if we fail, even if friends leave or fade away, that for a moment there was value and purpose, that we learned something about life, that we gained something far beyond what we can pretend to know and that hopefully at some point, made perhaps the smallest impact on that person, who they are, and who they choose to become.

I hope that I have been a friend worth having.

Holding Space

I have something in the works, but this is a space filler, a teaser, something I like.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginably You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

E.E. Cummings