... breathe ...

timeso... blogging helps keep me mentally healthy. i've determined that letting out my thoughts in a filtered, others-can-read-them-if-they-really-want-to way is good for me. first of all, blogging is my way of proving to myself that my priorities allow me to have enough "me time" to sit down and write.. which is something i love. second, the way in which i write in my blog is radically different than the unfiltered version (my journal)... good practice for life, i feel.

oh, life.

so i'm a little worried because i haven't had time to blog lately.. things have been really busy.. good busy, but it still scares me a bit. my whole schedule is changing with my volunteer project in the mornings (yeaaaah woodruff road by 8:30am... woohoo!), so my body and mind haven't really caught up yet. for example, i'm deathly tired right now... and its 10pm. and i've been fighting the tired thing since 9pm.

well, fit me for dentures and call me gertrude.

so this priorities thing is getting to me right now because i've been thinking a lot about it. in econ class, specifically. i tend to do that in econ -- think, that is -- because i'm about as interested in elasticity of supply as ms. teen south carolina is in world peace.

low blow... sorry, ms. teen sc.. i've been ranking on you a lot lately.

but we were talking about mental health in intro to counseling.. and i decided that, for me, mental health has a lot to do with setting appropriate priorities and pursuing them in a realistic way. i had always thought of priorities as a time thing, too.. and something in me clicked the other day, and i realized that it wasn't really... just because something is a high priority does not mean it must take more time than lower priorities... it is just more imperative that the higher priority is met.

i don't know, maybe that's a given i just haven't gotten.. but i kind of get it now. liiiike... my family is a higher priority than my schoolwork, but as a student at furman, my schoolwork is clearly going to take more time. i don't know, something clicked, it makes sense in my head, etc.

so enough about prioirites.

--

today was nice... i feel like i get more done when i'm procrastinating than when i'm actually doing what i'm supposed to be doing. liiike... today i managed to make homemade granola bars, bake pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, clean the kitchen, clean the fridge, clean my room, refile references, and look up upcoming concert dates.

did i do homework? no... but i found out i only have one class tomorrow. and a lab, but i'm missing the lab for avery's funeral.

wow.

yeah, they took him off life support yesterday. by the end, though -- he wasn't there. he just wasn't. machines were making him breathe, making him eat. his body was doing what it was supposed to do, but machines had to provide the spark. he wasn't avery anymore.. and the hospital life had taken a lot out of his family, too.

ironically, i had devo at chapter the night before they took him off -- it was good; it made me reflect on everything, try to put into words what i was feeling.. what was hitting me. avery's dad was so beautiful.. he was in so much pain, but it seemed like humble pain.. pain that resulted from the fall he knew was coming. some people respond to horrible situations with anger.. but anger is just the feeling we get when we think we're entitled to something we don't have. humility, though -- it's the opposite. it's the realization that we're not really entitled to anything.

we're not entitled to friends or family or happiness or success or fun -- we owe all we are to something -- Someone -- bigger than us. letting go of that entitlement is the only way to really live. avery didn't do anything wrong -- he was pure, beautiful, young, vibrant ... his innocence made it seem like he was entitled to the world. sometimes watching him interract with people ... it was like God made him this giant playground of life, and avery was just groovin' along.

wrapping our minds around that, though -- we just weren't meant to. clearly weren't meant to.

so yeah, humility. you suck, but you're worth it, i guess.

sr. maris stella loves this prayer...

---

Litany of Humility

O Jesus! Meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved...
From the desire of being extolled...
From the desire of being honored...
From the desire of being praised...
From the desire of being preferred to othrs...
From the desire of being consulted...
From the desire of being approved...
From the fear of being humiliated...
From the fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes...
From the fear of being calumniated...
From the fear of being forgotten...
From the fear of being ridiculed...
From the fear of being wronged...
From the fear of being suspected...

That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I...
That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease...
That others may be chosen and I set aside...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I, provided I become as holy as I should...

Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

---

mmmhmmm... so a few days ago, i was feeling really down about furman... just feeling isolated, feeling kinda yucky about it... but i realized that a lot of the problem was controllable. i didn't feel comfortable with the same people and situations anymore -- so much felt fake. so much.

but its getting better now -- so much better. i'm getting up at the crack of dawn, working with an amazing boy for an hour an a half, heading back for classes, doing some clinical volunteering stuff every week, and keepin hoppin with the roomies and the sisters and the fam and the wonderful bf... and, of course, the campers.

OOH! IM HAVING DINNER WITH CRAFTY ON THURSDAY!!

the phone convo was quite interesting
"Hi, is Crafty home?"
~ "Yes, hold on one minute... . ... CRAFTYYYYY!"
-- "Hello?" :: giggles ::
"Hi, Crafty! It's Bridgette from camp... how are you doing?"
-- "I'm doing the.. CHICKEN DANCE!" ::bursts into a fit of laughter with her roommates::
"At 4:30 in the afternoon? That's pretty cool."
-- "So.. how are your PARENTS?"
"They're nice. Hey.. Crafty.. you want to go to dinner on thursday? Your dad said it would be okay.."
-- "I knew it. Oh, wow... you going to the weekend program? I sure hope so."
"I hope so, too.. but I don't know. We can talk about it on Thursday at dinner."
-- "Can we go to your parent's house?"
"They live 4 hours away.. so probably not. How about my apartment? Say hi to my roommates?"
-- "Oh, wow. Yeah!"

.. so I *think* we're on for dinner? I'll call the home and make sure.. she said something at one point about doing arts and crafts at my apartment, which could be disasterous. Extremely disasterous.

i'm so excited, though -- Crafty was like my sister by the end of the summer -- we lived together for six weeks... day in, day out. we joked like sisters, we fought like sisters. it was wonderful. i miss her like crazy.

i think cory is going to come, too. he's wonderful -- we were both exhausted yesterday, but we ended up going out to the great bay oyster house (surprised?) and having a really, really good time. and he puts up with my nerdiness.. in all my brilliance, i put off my econ paper until after dinner.. so i started a 3 pg paper at 10. in greer. which, under normal circumstances, wouldn't be a big deal. but my day starts early now, so i go to bed early now. it didn't seem so horrible with him laying next to me, though. sweet, right? ;)

so i got up at 5:50 thismorning and got ready for the day... then headed to panera to finish the paper and load up on more caffiene before school.

school was incredible.

"Todd" was adorable. i walked into the room, he took one look at me, and announced in his extremely annunciated and intonated voice, "OH! Hello, Bridgette. You came back!"

i'm just observing for now -- kind of helping him with his assignments and keeping him focused type-deal. he's amazing.. and his teacher is absolutely great with him. he appreciates todd's strenghts, glazes over the things he can't help, corrects the things he can. it's good. really good.

so we tried to do his writing assignment that we started yesterday. unfotunately, one of his fixations is nascar. more unfortunately, his zip drive broke so he had to start over. less unfortunatley, after a minor autistic stim session (he's really well controlled in his beahvior -- only "acts" autistic when he's upset, it seems), he decided to start a new story.

"I am going to write a story about YOU, Bridgette!"
-- "yeah? let's do your prewriting and you can tell me about your characters."
"Are you a bachelorette or a married woman?"
-- "... um... a bachelorette."

"I will make you married. To a man named Spencer. You will be 30. He will be 31." I looked at him and laughed, "Spencer, huh?" "Yes. I will call the story Disco Dancing. You and Spencer will go to a hotel with your cat... Tabitha. And I will be the manager, and I will tell you that you cannot have cats in this hotel. And I will find your cat. So you will put your cat in your suitcase and go disco dancing. And you will wear a polyester dress, and spencer will wear a sparkly sequined suit."

i would never date a boy in a sparky sequined suit.. i prefer boys in sparking sequined dresses, apparently.

so Todd starts writing. and writing. and writing. "You and Spencer will go to the Disco and dance until you can't dance anymore. Then you will go to the bar and drink alcohol. Then you will dance on the stage." I laughed, hoping his teacher-who-i-had-just-met-and-would-be-spending-the-rest-of-the-term-with hadn't heard about my fictional party life. "What about Tabitha?"

eventually, i had to leave to go to class.. so i said goodbye to Todd, and he immediately shouted, "OKAY CLASS! BRIDGETTE HAS TO GO TO CLASS AT THE UNIVERSITY! SAY GOODBYE!"

we bonded. it was a good day.

jeepers its 11:30. i have a date in the morning.. at 6:45.

i never thought i would wake up at 6 to spend 20 minutes with a boy. this one has me hooked, though.. absolutley hooked.

i looked at pictures today.. they just kind of popped up on facebook, as they tend to do. and i clicked from the beginning -- looking at the pictures from the night before i left for college, the few picutres left online that i didn't delete last year from freshman year... i wasn't the person i am now. i wasn't happy like i am now. i'm finally getting somewhere -- finally.

so i kept clicking... through sophomore year, through this incredible summer, into this confusing-yet-vibrant year... and i realized i wasn't smiling... i was beaming. i hadn't even realized i wasn't smiling before.

and then i looked at my life. pictures in 3-D. even better.

:) God is filled with surprises. He takes away, He gives.. and somewhere in the ebb and flow of life, we learn to take away and give, too. And we get to share the joy He has when He loves us... we tap into it by loving His world. His always-surprising, constantly-vibrant, joyful world.

g'nite!