Let Go...

Those two words, Let Go.. They have been on my heart and in my mind for weeks now. I will be completely honest with you, this is extremely difficult for me. Holding onto unnecessary things, or people that do nothing but discourage you and bring you down. This is a challenge because although I'm a "lover" I fight to make things better, to solve things. My intentions are always in the best interest, but what I've realized is that no one is asking me to do this. I put these expectations on myself, that I have to mend, restore, improve and have this mindset that everyone is going to like everyone. The honest truth is that some people just don't care, point blank. How I should react to that is, alright that's fine and move on.  The reality is that I honestly can't help but to care, and I want to know what is going on deeper. My heart physically hurts when people have hardships,so much to the point of exhaustion. Finding the balance is really difficult, changing who I am seems ridiculous so what's the alternative? I never want to change who I am, but that balance is necessary.

 How you grow up really affects your morals, insecurities, outlook, and the way you deal with and handle situations. Although you can of course decide to live differently than your parents, it's what you know and a part of who you are. My second mom Theresa is awesome at encouraging me and kicking my ass at the same time. I remember having many relationship conversations with her about me not understanding. As lovingly as possible she would say "Christy, maybe they just don't care anymore, move on" ouch!, but it's the truth. Sometimes I think we can be in denial, and tell ourselves certain things to make us feel better because we are afraid of the reality. The reality that hurts, sucks and is uncomfortable to talk about. What I have learned from these realities is that, yes they do hurt but they also make you who you are. If we never had bad things happen, would we be able to appreciate as much? I don't think we would.

Wake up and live your life, let shit go, move forward and don't look back (speaking to myself mainly.) If we dwell we are missing out on so much!, the really cool thing about God and life is that everyday is new and different. The only thing stopping us is ourselves, not the people who have hurt us. They are not a part of you, they don't know your heart and if they don't desire to, why not let them go?. We get so far into our heads sometimes thinking and thinking, when we should be living. I know it's cliche but life is short, when you lose someone really close to you it's hard not to think it's going to happen again. Whether that be physically or emotionally it hits close to home. Love the people around you and do whatever it is that makes you happy and brings joy. Life is full of questions, that I sure the hell don't have the answers to but we are discovering and learning more about ourselves through hardships. Do what it is you love and never change who you are.

I aspire to do many things in life, my passions are endless. While this might seem exciting, it often becomes quite overwhelming. When you put all of these passions together it seems like my mind is a bit jumbled, almost like a puzzle with all the wrong pieces. Somehow in all of the “Jumbledness” there is beauty, creativity, discovery, ambition and the delights of my heart. This is who I am, a girl with a desire to impact, challenge, inspire and love.

So far this sounds like I have a pretty good idea right?, Haha. There is a story that always sticks with me when I'm trying to figure out life and discover who I am. When I was little I loved four things, Mermaids, Whales, Music and Writing (when I was little?). Singing and “swimming” around the house was my joy. I would put on shows for my family of myself as a mermaid ,singing a song I was making up at that moment. Seashells made out of cardboard were hanging from the ceiling, coffee table, and anywhere else I could tape them. My ocean life stuffed animals that I had collected from numerous Sea World trips would be scattered all over the living room, I mean “ocean” floor. I would have sheets of paper in my hands of scenarios I wanted to act out throughout my performance, according to my brothers it was quite comical. As you probably figured out by now, The Little Mermaid was always my favorite movie, I was Ariel. Being a mermaid was a big deal to me, I refused to just be Ariel at home. My mom constantly heard me say, mermaids need to buy groceries too!, mermaids like to go to the movies, they like riding in cars, eating cotton candy, playing volleyball and obviously they like to swim!. While my mother did not mind my creative little imagination, I didn't just say these things I acted them out. Mermaids need water to swim so while we were out of the water I “flopped” everywhere. Yes I said flopped. This caused my family a bit of embarrassment, watching their daughter and sister rolling in the middle of the seafood aisle at the grocery store. I wish that I could find this joy again, this is who I am, well not a meramid but you know:). Find that joy of who you are and don't care what anyone else thinks, don't be afraid to let go.

Jeannetta Jo

This weekend is Mother's Day. It is a really hard day for me. Five years ago, my freshman year of college I lost my mom to breast cancer. It was the hardest day of my life and although it's been five years I feel like I'm just now starting  to accept and deal with it. I don't feel like I have honestly shared anything about my mom because it's really painful to talk about her, but that is selfish she was way too cool to not talk about.  My mom and I did not always have the best relationship, we fought constantly actually. She wanted me to be girly, wear dresses and curl my hair and I wanted to wear baseball caps, skip showers and play volleyball (if she could only see me now:) ). She wanted to teach me how to cook, sew and be crafty (which are all things I absolutely love now!) and I again wanted to rollerblade, pierce my lip and wear all black. I don't know why I felt the need to be so rebellious but she always supported and tolerated my fashion and attitude phases.

The thing that is the hardest for me is that I feel like my brothers being so much older than me ( 6 and 7 years) had the chance to grow and make mistakes with my mom. When I finally started growing up and realizing that my mom had my best intrest all these years, she died. I couldn't get over the things she was going to miss, watching me walk down the aisle, being with me in the delivery room and calling her after having a baby asking "Is this normal?". Years 19-24 have been rough without my mom. Simple questions like how much flour to put in a recipe, what stitch to use for a skirt, why my stomach feels the way it does, mom stuff. I am very thankful that I got to spend time with her before she died, most people don't get a chance to say goodbye. When I flew home from college I had no idea that she was going to die, things progressed way too fast. The doctors told us that she would have about 6 months to live, that we should take her home make her comfortable and enjoy life. Well those 6 months turned into 3 weeks, I watched my mom suffer in pain and she took her last breath while holding my hand. It was an awful feeling, a feeling of being completely helpless. Although it was hard, during those 3 weeks we were best friends and told each other everything about how we felt. The cancer had spread to her brain and in her bloodstream, but everytime she was able to talk she would constantly remind me of how beautiful I was and how I was going to make a great mom. I was in tears constantly, my mom and I were finally starting to understand each other and then she was gone.

This isn't meant to be a sad post I promise. Even though all of this sucks, I have become a stronger person from everything that happened. I have learned to be independent and appreciate life in a new way that I wasn't able to before.I have realized that life is short and it's not as bad as we make it out to be sometimes:).

 Now to tell you the reason behind my blog name Lycaeides. Lycaeides is the scientific name for a blue butterfly, my mom loved butterflies and gardening. The real symbolism it has for my family is from a dream my sister in law had shortly before my mom died. The nurse told us to try and get some sleep so my brothers sister in law and I completely exhausted took a short nap. We woke up to the nurse telling us it was "time". My sister in law said she had a dream where a beautiful blue butterfly was flying really high, she kept trying to reach it but she couldn't and just as she was about to catch it the nurse tapped her. As I said before my mom loved to garden and all the little critters it came with, her favorite color was also blue:)  My mom died a couple hours later and ever since then we see blue butterflies everywhere and I can't help but to smile when I see one.

I am also realizing the traits and things I have in common with her recently. She could make absolutely anything out of anything, she made a ninja turtle halloween costume for me in kindergarten and all the kids were super jealous:) she was an artist. She was so funny oh man could she make you laugh.I loved when we would play cranium and she would have to act something out. She was trying to be a mermaid and looked like she was having a seizure on the floor, she couldn't understand why no one was getting it! lol. She loved to dance even though she was awful and she loved animals of any kind.She especially loved her pups, we had 4:)  Iced tea was her favorite drink and she loved to watch General Hospital ( didn't really have that in common lol)

Even though she is gone she lives in my heart. I will constantly be reminded of her through butterflies, gardening and everything else that she loved. Jeannetta Jo, my mom, my best friend I miss you with all my heart and I can't wait to one day have a little one of my own to tell them about their mamaw Jeannetta:)

Hakuna Matata

Today I find myself trying to be productive and failing. I have so much on my mind right now and it's like I all of a sudden just "woke up" and God is smacking some sense into me, it's awesome:). I was talking to a friend last night at the coffee shop about things we are passionate about and what makes us come alive. He shared a quote with me that I absolutely loved. "Don't ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go and do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive" dang, thats good stuff.  I have a passion  for Africa and the things that are happening there, it literally breaks my heart. I want to be able to fix everything and I absolutely hate being blind in America, we hear that terrible things happening but we are so safe and comfortable here that it almost doesn't seem real. Don't get me wrong I am extremely thankful to live in America and have clothing, food, shelter and protection but there are times where it honestly just  disgusts me. In the book of Revelation there is a church called Laodecia, they are neither hot nor cold in their faith but lukewarm and God says that he wants to spit them out of his mouth...When I read that for the first time I balled, because that was me and it was an awful feeling.If I felt like God wanted me to be in Africa again I would go in a heart beat, but I think that sometimes we need to be uncomfortable to grow , America makes me very uncomfortable at times. It's such an incredible feeling when you start listening to God instead of complaining to him. The things that seemed like such a big deal at the time, seem so meaningless now and you have this overwhelming feeling of joy even when things suck. I mean my car broke down the other day and I just started laughing lol.

When I was in Africa I met a lot of amazing people but there is one person who always sticks out, his name is Abendigo. There was no doubt that when you met Abendigo he loved God with all his heart:) One morning he greeted me outside and asked me how I was doing, I told him "I'm ok, how about yourself" he said "I am wonderful! sometimes I think God loves me the most!" I started crying(I cry a lot) because Abendigo's house is smaller than some of our bathrooms and he did not have "a lot". But I was completely wrong he had more than I could ever imagine having, he had love and faith and trust and knew that whatever happened in life he didn't need to worry.  So why is it that people that have nothing can be so happy, yet we who have more than enough are so unhappy all the time?. I remember my friends in Africa telling me that when I went home to the states to tell people about them, they would say"tell them about your african brothers!" "tell them Americans are lazy!" haha.. I told them about how you can drive by a window, hand the person a plastic card and recieve food, they were very suprised and disgusted. So I want to tell America about my African brothers and sisters, their story, what they like, the things that make them laugh and most importantly about their love.

So obviously if your reading this you can see that it is a passion of mine.Visit  http://www.invisiblechildren.com/ and watch the videos, it will seriously change your life. This can only give a taste to what people in Africa experience on a day to day basis, children especially. 

First blog, yay!

Well It's been an extremely long time since I've blogged, high school to be exact. My posts were all about me being a ridiculously teenager trying to figure out my life, I was so emo haha. I absolutely love to write, I kind of have an obsession with blank books and journals. yes I am one of those people who writes everything down:). Now that I have a new/used computer I thought I would try the blogging thing again.Right now whats on my mind is that I have no idea what I want to do with my life, I have dreams and passions but none of them seem to be clear right now. I absolutely love music, art, animals, nature, kids, traveling, people and the list goes on and on. It's a hard concept for me to understand that someone can say "I want to be a doctor when I grow up" how the heck do you know?? because I sure don't, which most of the time I am completely ok with but for some reason it's bothering me right now. I just want to love God and love on people in everything that I do, my heart is broken right now but not completely in a bad way. My heart breaks for things that I can't change, it's an overwhelming feeling but good at the same time. So for right now I'm just one confused girl.. kind of deep for a first blog, I'm a thinker what can I say:)