be friends with failure.

Do it. NOW. 

an...idea

i think i have a semi-interesting-maybe-exciting-and-workable idea for a series of paintings.

lemme tell ya...it's been a while since i've had a semi-interesting-maybe-exciting idea. and i'm putting it out there, in writing, to make it SO.

now to overcome the fear-of-failure-crippling-anxiety-mental-monster-of-lameness. 

"arrrgh you're gonna make nothing but crap!!"

also, i need to buy a bunch of new paints. 

so, ask me about it when you see me, would you? keep me on task? thanks. you're the best! :)

the secret mind palace

every so often, there comes the comfort that--to put it simply--just because you don't process and function they way everyone around you seems to, it doesn't mean you're broken.

i read this today, and usually these self-discovery/affirmation-type lists rub me the wrong way, even if i identify with  them.

but because this one hits at the Christian aspect of my life--that being, the most important and also the most personal and fragile part--and reflects me so clearly, it almost brought me to tears. the things i have always struggled with, and as a result feel like i'm not a successful christian. it's like someone looked into my walk and experiences and wrote this just for me (except maybe for the first sentence) one of those: "i know a lot of people think that this applies to THEM most, but if they only understood, they's see that it actually applies to ME more than anyone!!" ha.
tis bittersweet.

ways to handle a christian introvert

the next day

What did i tell you...? today is better.
Praying in the morning and reading "My Utmost..." with my husband over breakfast certainly didn't hurt.

Could i go so far as to say that's the whole reason?

probably.

ah, the wonders of a cyclothymic brain!

also, i'm gonna do this:

perhaps i'll upload the weeks's photos every thursday. that should be fun.

happy february :)

today i'm a regular lemon

One would think that, by now, i would have peaked in my socially awkward tendencies. At least i hoped i would have. Alas, little by little i continue to find that i have--most definitely--not.

Sometimes it produces no more than a shake-my-head-and chuckle-to-myself reaction...like when i do something weird, or say something endearingly (hopefully) erratic. Other times, like today (and, i will admit, most days i've been working here at disney) it just makes me feel achingly incompetent and broken as a human being. I know that sounds terrible, but i'm just being honest.

Everyone here is silly, geeky, sweet, and all awkward in their own ways. But every time i walk into the building or leave my cubicle for any reason, i pray that i will not run into anyone. I am very literally afraid of talking to people. They have parties, get cakes for people's birthdays, and i hear them all laughing and hanging out with each other...

sitting at work

and i sit in my little space and hope that no one realizes I'm in here and comes to get me. and i hate it.

i started experiencing these fears when i was about 14 years old. i remember. and instead of growing out of it, it has rather grown with me, manifesting itself in dishearteningly countless different ways. It is so familiar that i don't even think about it sometimes. But today as i walked through the kitchen instinctively avoiding eye contact with my co-workers, yet smiling dumbly to the floor so i don't seem like a jerk i was struck again with how ridiculous and crippling this problem really is to me.
The panic that sets in when i am standing alone in a room full of laughing people, the shot of adrenaline that burns in my chest when someone acknowledges my presence.

I just want to leave. So i can breathe. I leave early, not finishing my work, so i can be alone and not not in constant dread. So i can go home to my husband who doesn't make me feel scared. So i can sleep and not have to think of how dysfunctional i am.

And it happens
with

friends...

family...

church...

retreats...

social gatherings, holidays... and i thought that it would be better by now.

i suppose it is better, in some ways, yet in others it's worse. and i'm tired...today i am so. tired. of it.

It just makes me dread the rest of my life. I remember when i was in my 20 thinking "this can't go on forever, it can't. it won't. it has to get better because i can't live like this." and now i am 30 and thinking exactly the same thing. It's exhausting.

The difference is, that unlike 10 years ago, i know that the feeling ebbs and flows and sometimes i don't even feel it, so that's good. Also that "feelings" are rarely based in fact. It's kind of like realizing that you're dreaming while you are still in the dream. Things seem a certain way, but you know they aren't real and it's all in your head, but there's not much you can do but try to move along the best you can until it's over. But it doesn't really make what's happening feel much better.

And i also know now that "feelings" don't last...thank God.

i know i'm currently in the grip of this overwhelming, almost blind internal hysteria right now and that it will wear itself out. That's a difference from 10 years ago, too.

So i suppose i'll just take my own consolation and just ride this day through...and perhaps do the same thing tomorrow.
But i try not to think that far ahead. I like to hope that maybe, by tomorrow, i won't feel like such a lemon of a human--maybe it truly will all be better.

remember

if God gives me babies someday...i want to remember this.

I already hate having pictures taken of me. i haven't liked it since i was about 14 and my nose blew up and i got braces--aaand i never really grew out of it. 

I'm so glad there are so many precious pictures of my mom with my sister and me (not that she ever needed to worry about getting her picture taken)! I want my children to have documentation of the same sweet moments and memories. I need to remember that. 

reading Peter Pan

Halloween 1987

heart.

regret

today i encountered a situation where i felt i needed to say something.
i sat, and sat, and sat...thinking of what i needed to say, but how afraid i was to speak.

and i never did...

and now i just can't let it go. the conviction gnawing inside me...
sometimes i feel like the most epic of cowards.

...

i met sufjan stevens today...
(handshake) "hi colleen, nice to meet you, i'm sufjan."


*

i muttered a few words.

and proceeded to hide from him for the next hour and a half.

i'm the one in the back fumbling with the chords...

so, might as well let you all know that i am, in theory, the new member of a band called "letting up despite great faults".

i'll be singing, guitaring, and keyboarding.

i consider it unofficial because though i have met up and played a bit with them, i haven't had a real practice session (the first of which it tonight!!) yet, and in spite of their being super cool with my having only recently picked up the guitar, part of me is kind of waiting for them to see what an amateur i am and rethink the decision to bring me aboard...yay :D
anyway, it's kind of super exciting because they are a very talented, solid and established group...we'll see what happens!

website
myspace
wikipedia

hi, i'm miss police

tomorrow i have my first day as a substitute art teacher at maranatha.

high schoolers.

i was saying to my family tonight that i'm this really weird combination of feeling like kind of a cool, hip, older-than-them-but-still-young-enough-to-be-cool artist person...but also dealing with the fact that, when among them, the inside of me reverts back to a shy, insecure 15-year-old that is nothing but a painfully awkward geek who doesn't fit in with anyone...so it's kinda confusing.

should be interesting.

affirmation

it makes me feel very good about myself when people use photos i upload onto facebook as their profile pictures.