sorry again for not writing in the longest time....my computer's internet is still not up and running along yet, and i have not found the time amidst finals, classes ending, work, and the end of sanders to blog. but know please that i still want to write! i need to write....

i've had a lot on my mind lately...and it seems that i can't sort it all out. i cried a lot today....out of fear that i won't be following my passions once i graduate in less than six months...out of fear that if i do follow my passions (which if i didn't i think i might die) that i won't "succeed"...and i i chatted briefly online with ellen about this (pre-date for wednesday's dinner and coffee/ reaaaalllllly long talk) about how i do not feel talented in the least and how all these people keep telling me that i have all this talent and that i can do amazing things but i never seem to quite have the opportunity to showcase the talent that everyone else seems to think i possess...or at least, i don't have the chance to showcase this talent the way i would like to...and a caedman's call lyric came to mind....

and maybe i have the gift that everyone speaks so highly of....funny how no one wants it....

so i guess i keep hearing that i am so amazing but i feel like i am already so far from ever getting anywhere. i know, that as an actress, i have to do other work to be able to do basic things-- like eat. i know that i most likely will not only be acting as a profession...and if i am, guard your eyes...it shant be a pretty sight.

sighs! there i go again....i talked with my mom tonight too. of course, i started crying then, because if you can't cry with your mom, can you ever really even cry? and crying with mom is such an experience....it's different than crying with anyone else, because she's your MOM, she's home. she's the one who's held your hair back when your heaving up a storm at three am and she's the one who sent you flowers as a stage manager for a children's show because she knew how much work you put into it, and she's the one who calls and leaves you a voicemail just to say i love you. and she knows you...it's like a glimpse of how God knows me, for me...because my mom knows me, she knows my insecurities, and many of my faults, and my potential and my gifts....and she loves me still...so much. and as i talked with her tonight, she was driving, and she just said....

kristy, you have to have confidence in yourself. you have to know you can do it...because if you don't, you might as well stop right now and think about going into something else. you are always degrading yourself, putting yourself down. you can do it...but you have to believe that you can....you have to have confidence in yourself.

as you can see, the words have stuck with me. at least for the past few hours. and i'm just sitting there, nat king cole playing along, and tears are streaming down my face. because i don't know. and i say i believe in myself....but i need all of this justification and encouragement and support from others outside of me....and i always put myself last. i never let people know i need that...i never let myself have time for me. so, i really screw my self over. because if i don't have time for me, how am i going to see what God is doing in my life and what he is calling me to do and to give and to take and to learn moment by moment? i need to reflect more...i need to refocus, yet again.

and i get so busy, but it seems like i am never getting anything done. not anything of worth at the moment...in the long run, it's towards my diploma. and it's towards short term goals, like speech, or ireland...but for my life...my passion...i haven't taken voice lessons in a year and a half. i haven't danced in longer. i haven't had an acting or theater class since the spring semester....a whole summer and now a whole fall semester without training in acting. and i am supposed to go into auditions in less than three months? i don't even like my monologues! and still, i have no TIME to work on these things...and still get school done, and keep relationships. i have speech...but i don't put much effort into that, and still i get trophies. which don't mean much to me...though a first place here and there doesn't hurt the ego, i'm not so sure it's the ego that needs nursing so much as it is the soul.

so i look to others for my value. that's pretty normal, and i recognize it, so it's not like it's out of control yet. and by recognizing, i want to do somehting about it (again)... i'm just tired of feeling like a failure by myself.

and i keep thinking about this quote that andrew has shared with his classes a lot this semester...

The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one of these destinations. ~CS Lewis

how am i treating others in accordance to this? how am i treating myself measured against this standard? which is truly a standard of love. kelly v. blogged about love a week or two ago... made me think a bit more. because i've had a lot on my mind as to figuring out what love is and how we measure by it....how faith, hope, and love will always remain, but the greatest of these is love...and how is it the greatest? what makes it so much greater than faith? or hope?

so i come back to where my focus is. and who i love most. what i love most. how i love most. and is that Christ? right now? always? i want the Lord to be all i want...but i don't believe he is right now, and i know he isn't always. how can i love him better, and by loving him, learn from that love to better love myself, and from this love, learn to better love others? how? i don't know right now....


but i have to finish laundry and wake up early to drive back to canton and work. oh the differences between everything we want, and what we really need....