Home Again

Today I temporarily relocated to my hometown of Charlotte for a month. It's so weird to be here because it is familiar and it isn't. Every time I come home everything that used to be a constant in my youth has changed. But it feels good to be back. I'm going to the beach tomorrow which I haven't done in a long time and I am going to be able to see some friends and family that I don't get to see often enough, so I am glad about that. At first I was a little leery of coming because I will really miss my friends at church in NJ and miss my routine. But I think a routine change is coming at the right time for me. I need a little time away from NJ to refresh and renew and recapture some of the spunk that I had last year this time. So I am looking forward to the weeks ahead and what they will bring. Also this will be the longest time that I have spent in Charlotte or out of New Jersey in a really long time so I relish having a break from the norm. Speaking of out of the norm, tonight my flight was on the runway at JFK getting ready to take off on time when suddenly we were told that we had to wait. A few minutes later our pilot came on and told us that President Obama was boarded on Air Force One and it was about to take off so of course we had to weight. I was sitting on the wrong side of the plane and didn't get to see the plane but how many times in your life will you be on the same tar mack as the President of the United States. Amazingly our pilot still managed to get us to Charlotte only a few minutes after our estimated landing time. Go jet Blue!

Also today I saw a story on CNN about the Bronx Zoo cobra that escaped a few days ago. Someone has taken to Tweeting as the cobra and it is hilarious! They have Tweeted about sight seeing and going around the City and all the fun that they are having with unsuspecting passersby. I love it! Also this snake has jumped from having 45,000 followers to having over 100,000 last time I was on Twitter. Awesome!

If you want a laugh follow www.twitter.com/@BronxZoosCobra

Don't Be Discouraged

Today's Joyce Meyer The Confident Woman Devotional devotion was about being on the Potter's Wheel. Meaning that God takes each of us and molds us to what He would have us to be rather than what we have become or think we should be. Joyce notes that often times this is a painful process. It hurts to be stripped and reshaped and molded into something different. It hurts especially when it takes so long. I am at this point. It sometimes is extremely painful to look at my life as it is now and wonder where it is going. When I first graduated from college the only thing I wanted in the world was to move to NYC and go to grad school and get a fabulous job and live a fabulous NYC life. That didn't happen. I didn't get into the schools that I applied to and it was heart breaking. I spent a year living at home and working a job I hated. But I became motivated to get back in the game and I reapplied for schools and by the August of the year after graduation I was headed off to grad school and a new place to live. After those two years I headed to DC which was my next choice of a place to live. Things started off really rough but then got better over time and I kept thinking that I just had to "pay my dues" and then I would have "made" it. And for a short time it looked like I was going to make it but things took a dramatic turn for the worst. I felt really blindsided by what was going on in my life and I was really upset and angry because the way that my life was going was not the way I had planned for it to go. It took a long time for me to realize that I needed to yield myself to God's will and trust Him to make all things work together for my good. It was a long road getting to that realization and then the point of giving it all over to Him and not trying to figure out how to do it all myself. Eventually I got to the point where I had to come to New Jersey and move in with my dad. I felt like I had completely failed in my attempt to be an adult and in my quest to truly begin my own life. I felt just like I did when I graduated college and I had to go home instead of to New York. But eventually I got to the point where I was motivated again and I thought that things would turn around quickly like they did with grad school. However, that was not the case. Throughout 2010 I worked for two months and it was part time. Time after time I applied for jobs that were great and I thought I would easily be a candidate for any of them but I got no responses. I kept thinking, "What is going on? Why is this taking so long?" It was very easy to be disappointed and disappointment led to discouragement. Discouragement for me led to apathy. I just didn't care. I wanted things to change but I felt that all my efforts were in vain because time after time I applied and got no response. This year I have renewed hope that it is only a matter of time before things will work out. It's still difficult and it is made more difficult by the fact that so many people around me are living fulfilled lives and it's hard to be happy when people are experiencing the very things you want to be experiencing as well. But it makes me think of something else Joyce said one time. She said that until you can be happy for someone else getting the exact same things that you want you will most likely not receive them. And in addition during the time you're waiting for what you want there will be an endless parade of it and the key to passing the test is being happy for those people that do have it. I can attest to this more than I care to. The whole world seems to have everything that I want and time after time it seems so unfair that I have had to work so hard and wait so long to have things that some other people have seemed to fall into. But I know that being bitter, discouraged or resentful will not help me get to where I want to go and that I have to be patient and just trust that eventually I will get promoted to where I want to be. It's not easy but I believe it will be worth it in the end.

"Don't be discouraged if you have not yet arrived." - Joyce Meyer

Changes In Plans

Today I was supposed to be in New York. I had been asked to be a part of a project meeting but it had to be resceduled several times and today was the date to meet. I was really excited about going to the city and going to upstate New York which I haven't been to for a little while. Then I was going to have dinner with a good friend. It was going to be an awesome day! But alas it was not to be. Yesterday the plans ended up changing abruptly and the meeting was called off and rescheduled for a later date when I won't be here because I will be in North Carolina. But I had to talk to myself last night and decide that no matter what things were going to be okay. I was looking forward to going for the reasons listed above but also because I was going to be able to make a little bit more money as well. I think I was really bummed about having to let go of those extra few dollars which mean a lot right now and I was focusing intently on it. But then in a moment of clarity I thought about it and decided that even if I wasn't going to be able to have my day in New York and my dinner with my friend in the end it worked out for me anyway because I was able to work, I was able to earn more money than I have in almost a year and then I was able to pay some bills that needed to pay. So even though things didn't look like what I had planned, hoped and expected that they would in the end it still worked out. And I thought about the fact that I have to trust God with the situation. God knows that the meeting, the dinner and the money meant a lot to me but there is another plan. I just have to trust Him and know that no matter what things are working out for my good just the same.I think what I actually got was a lesson in "Not my will but Your will Lord." This past Sunday at church part of the message was about having a vision for your life and then also submitting your will to God's in order that His will and plan can be done. And I think the constant rescheduling of the meeting and the change to the plans that I had and wanted are just a test of whether I am willing to submit to His will or whether I am going to try and make my own plans succeed without consulting and yielding to what His will is for me. I always thought when I heard about submitting your will that it was always something big or major but I believe that it can be something as simple as whether you want to go out and do something or be a part of something that seems harmless or unimportant or non critical. But we have to submit ourselves even in the small things.

Out of Mourning

Yesterday I was getting ready for church and I had a desire to put on makeup. I usually don't wear makeup even though there was a time when I rarely left home without it. It occurred to me that I wasn't wearing makeup normally like I used to because I didn't feel like I had anywhere to go or anything significant to do and it didn't matter if I looked good or not. As I was putting the makeup on it also dawned on me that I hadn't wanted to wear makeup over the last year because I somehow was letting my face show the feelings that I had inside about all the things that I was going through. When I use to live in DC I wore makeup everyday all the time and I took pride in doing my makeup. Then when my life changed so suddenly and without explanation I just stopped wearing it. I realized that I stopped wearing it because I felt like I had no reason to, as if any reason to be happy was gone. I let sadness and unhappiness sink in because I was mourning over the loss of the things that I thought I would have in DC. I was mourning the loss of working at the Smithsonian, living in DC, and the life that I had imagined I would have there. In New Jersey it took a while to get adjusted to being here and living with my dad. It took a long time to develop friendships and it took a long time to accept that this is where I was supposed to be. I was still looking backward hoping that somehow I would wake up from this dream of seeing everything disappear before my eyes and things would be "normal" again. What it took me this past year to find out was that I had a new "normal". I wasn't going back to DC because I had been planted in New Jersey. God has a plan for me here in NJ and I had to go through some difficulty to get here but this is where I am supposed to be. Over the past year I think outwardly I recognized this but inwardly I was still hoping that things would go back to my own plan for my life and what that looked like. It took putting on makeup yesterday for me to get a revelation of the fact that I can start again here and that if God wants me here and completely snatched me out of my plan to make sure I got here then I need to embrace being here and be happy that I am in NJ. I'm still in a test of my trust in God. I have no clue as to what is going on but I have realized for myself that I can have peace in the midst of uncertainty and not knowing and that is enough to make anyone happy. Even happy enough to put on their makeup!

Just Be Thankful

Just Be Thankful is one of my favorite old school 70s R&B jams but it is also a lens through which I need to look. There are many things that I wish were different in my life and many things that I want and need changed. But over the course of the last week those things have proven to not matter so much anymore. It was only a week ago that Japan was rocked by this horrible tsunami and earthquake that has killed almost 7,000 people, has 10,000 plus people missing and has displaced almost a half a million people. In light of what is going on in Japan I can definitely except the things I cannot change. And Japan is just another event in this year of already monumental events. Already this year there have been uprisings in Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, and Libya. There was severe flooding in Australia and an earthquake at Christchurch in New Zealand. All these natural disasters that we cannot change just prove to us that we have to be thankful for what we have and then be sure to help those that are in need. Speaking of helping those in need, I've been really surprised to see that the response in charitable giving for Japan has been surprisingly much lower than to other natural disaster relief efforts such as Haiti and Hurricane Katrina. I wondered myself what the reason was and it was actually what was guessed by a CNN correspondent. The CNN correspondent guessed that there was a lower number of donations because of Japan's status as the third most powerful economy in the world. And even though Japan does have a powerful economy they have very present needs that they are not able to meet on their own. They need shelter, food, clothing, medicine, and help with clean up. So I hope that there will be more of a response in the coming weeks in order to help meet the needs that the Japanese have. As someone who is strapped for cash at the moment. I'm giving what I can and praying that they get more. The situation is just really devastating. It also makes me wonder how long it will take for Japan to return to some sense of normal. Will they ever be able to get back to normal? Haiti is still reeling from it's quake over a year ago and they still need help even though they aren't on the evening news every night. With so much destruction and uncertainty it is comforting to know that we have a heavenly Father who cares for us and wants the best for us even when it seems the world is crumbling around us. All we have to do is cry out for His help.

All Stuffed Up

What a weekend! On Thursday I began to get some early cold symptoms. Then on Friday things progressed to a full on head cold. I could bearly stand without a headache and dizzyness. On Saturday I couldn't breathe out of my nose and I was quickly going through our new supply of Kleenex. Saturday and Sunday were a blur although Sunday things were looking up because I had a nostril to breathe out of and not being able or fit to go anywhere I got to watch My Fair Lady which I haven't watched all the way through in a long time. Yesterday I was feeling better but still experiencing difficulty with breathing and congestion. But things looked up last night. It took tons of Robitussin, Alka Seltzer Severe Nasal Congestion and Cough, and Vick's Vapo Rub but I am feeling closer to normal now. You never appreciate your health as much as when it gets challanged. So glad to be headed back towards good health.

Is It Really Only March?

Is it just me or does it seem that there has been much more crammed into the beginning of this year than any other year. I feel like the last two months have been six months. But I am glad that my year has been a lot busier than I thought it would be. January was great and then February although short was filled with good things too and March has gotten off to a good start too. This week was the week to finish up loose ends of the project I've been working on and that's coming together. There will probably be a little more work to do in the coming weeks but the end is in sight. I was hard pressed to find the motivation or energy to get things done but now I realize that no matter what I do I really do love research even if it may not be a topic that I get really excited about. This morning I realized that when I had to track down a watercolor drawing from the 19th century to it's original owner which happened to be in Canada. I realized that I love research! I love doing it and I love finding things and finding out about them. So I know that I am doing the right work. I was really excited and happy about that. And I am excited for more projects to come and believe that I will reach my goal of being able to be a full time curator with a museum.

In the mean time I am learning to be an adult and take care of my responsibilities. I got a reality "check" in the mail last week for a bill that I have owed on for a long time. Just as I was thinking about all the great things that I would be able to soon afford after having finished my work and received my check from the work. I soon remembered "Oh yeah" I have bills I need to pay. So I was actually happy to tally up all the things that I owe and realize that I would be able to pay several of them off in full and still be able to have a little spending money for things that I need and some things that I want. That was a great moment because I was really tempted to fall back into the old bad habits that led to me owing the bills that I am about to pay off. But through the help of the Lord and the agency that sent me the notice I realized I needed to make sure that before I go out adding more stuff to my stuff I needed to make sure that I have cleared all of my debts. I still have some things that I am in no position to pay but I believe that the Lord will help me to be in a position to be able to take care of. It was exciting and I was and am thankful to be able to take care of things that will make me feel good to be able to take care of and then will also take care of the agency having to send out a notice to me and waste the paper. It all works out!

PS- Next week I get to go to Beacon, NY my first foray into the upstate NY area in over a year. I'm really excited about my research "field trip"!