Living Outside the Photo

The other day, I brought up to Chris that he never takes candid pictures of me.

All of my life whenever I thought of my future husband, I envisioned the cute social media posts. The ones where I'm sitting across from him at the coffee shop and he snaps whenever I'm not looking, holding the coffee cup and gazing out the window. The one where I'm doing laundry and he gets me in the middle of folding a shirt.

I asked him, "Why don't you take pictures? Are you going to take pictures whenever we have kids? Or are you going to have a bunch of candid pictures of you with the kids because I'm taking them and there's not going to be a single picture of me?"

His response {to my sass} blew me away.

"I'll try my best to document the moments, but I'm going to be too busy living them."

It shook me. How much time do I spend making sure that every scene is just right? How many times have I shifted him to one side, held his hand in a certain way, ensured the lighting was proper, that I ended up missing out on the actual event that was happening? Did I spend too much time having people document our trip to Disney that I didn't enjoy Disney to the fullest? Do I spend too much time waiting for the next photo op?

What if we looked up from our screens more often? What if, instead of finding the perfect filter or making sure we get the picture at the golden hour, we actually took the time to witness the golden hour? What if we lived in the moment, taking in everything God's blessed us with, and for a second didn't care that the rest of social media wasn't going to witness it?

I acknowledge that there are some people (like myself) who want to document the small things as much as the big things. I want to get a picture of Chris laughing over dinner, of him playing video games while I work on my computer, of my family all talking over each other while at family dinner. I don't believe there's anything wrong with that. However. Talking to myself. What if I set my phone down and took part in that conversation with the family? What if I helped Chris out with dinner instead of editing the picture? Or picked up the controller and learned how to play the game he's so in to?

Again. What if I/we lived outside of the photograph? What would we find that we've been missing out on?

It's Not Your Fault

One of the biggest struggles I've yet to accept is that sometimes things are just not going to be okay.

Sometimes you're going to put in all of the effort -- you're going to show up, you're going to lay your heart out on the line, you're going to invest your time and your energy and all of your heart into making something worthwhile and true and real -- and it's not going to work. Sometimes it's inevitable that swinging the bat as hard as you can will only result in a strike.

And you know what? That. Is. Okay.

God has supplied me with some of the best companions to get me through this crazy ride. The other night, I'd reached full meltdown mode. I'm talking, I left a situation I'd been hoping was going to be butterflies and rainbows and magical in every way... That actually ended up being filled with anxiety and questions and hurt. When I say meltdown mode, I'm talking sitting-in-the-driveway-sobbing-so-your-roommate-doesn't-see-you-a-mess kind of meltdown. Bentley called me and, while I sobbed out my story and released all of the pent-up hurt that was playing around inside of me, he said four words that have been my game changer.

"It's not your fault."

 

You think you made a mistake? You think that just because your life took a dramatic turn and is winding up the rugged mountain instead of gracefully wandering in the meadow that you messed up somewhere? You chose what was behind Door Number Two when Door Number One was already open, and now your life seems to be in chaos and the only thing you can think is, "I royally screwed up that one?"

It's not your fault.

God and fate has you where you are for a reason, and that reason is you are becoming a better you. Door Number One may have looked like the more reasonable option, but little did you know that when you chose Door Number Two it actually led you into a secret hallway where your true path lay. You may have struck out the last time you were at bat, but the Coach didn't take you out of the game because He knew that the next time you were up to the plate, you'd hit the ball out of the park. Sometimes, as cliche as it sounds, those missed opportunities and moments you didn't take the path less traveled by are the game changers.

So soak it up. Revel in the fact that even in our mistakes, we're destined for greatness and joy. Don't be afraid to swing the bat, and don't be afraid of opening the wrong door. Keep your heart open, and even if you choose the option that doesn't seem to be landing you ten years after you answered the question in your senior yearbook.. You're still where He wants you to be.

To My Future Fiancé...

Let me preface by saying that I'm still praying for you. Whether we've met or we won't meet for another ten years, you're in my prayers each night, and I am so looking forward to the day that we are united together.

Now with that being said, let me get to my point.

Even though I've never been at the level that we're currently at, I've watched friends and even my sister go through the dating process that eventually led them to where we are right now. We know that God has placed us together and that we're going to one day stand before Him and all of our family and friends and pronounce our love for each other. We get that, and I'm ever so thankful for the road we've traveled. However, before you go picking out rings and planning a big to-do over popping the question, let me tell you this:

Make our proposal "our's".

I'm sorry for what society has made of proposals. Social media has made it required to have everything displayed and made into a show. Pictures and memes are plastered over single women's profiles saying, "Future Husband, if there's no photographer to catch the moment you get down on one knee, try again." For that, love, I am so incredibly sorry.

You have enough on your plate already. You're planning our future, you're planning how we'll be able to financially support each other, where we'll live, how we'll split holidays between our families... Why do we have to add one more stressor to the table?

I'm sorry that you've now got expectations to meet or else it isn't considered a "proper proposal." I'm sorry that you're now expected to have a photographer poised and ready, a flash mob break out dancing in the middle of Disney World, and the lucky lady's entire family on Skype ready to witness the moment you profess your love. I'm sorry that the only acceptable proposal is one that's broadcast for all of the world to see, leaving you with the pressure of not only having the love of your life accept your heart,  but now the rest of the world to worry about as well.

What I'm looking forward to most isn't a shiny stone on my finger (shoot, you could get me a ring from one of those twenty-five cent machines and I'd still love it). It isn't about the theatrics of the proposal.

I'm looking the most forward to being married to you.

So pop the question in whatever way feels "right" to you. Whatever seems the most "us". Whether that's watching football on the couch on a Sunday. Whether that's driving down the road, holding hands. Whether that's sitting in the DMV waiting for our turn. I have trusted God's timing for so long to get us to this point; I'm now trusting your timing in waiting for the right moment. Whatever that moment may be, however you decide to ask. My heart is yours.

Freaking Celebrate

Ahhhh, Valentine's Day. The day that many of us singles tend to dread from February 15th till February 13th the following year. If you're like me and have been single more times on Valentine's Day than you have been in a relationship, the day can be tedious. You log onto social media and can't scroll two pages without seeing an overabundance of roses, chocolates, or stuffed animals holding roses and chocolates. Grocery stores start preparing as soon as Christmas is over, and you can't even go to the store for a jug of milk without being bombarded by oversized balloons and frilly pink fluff. As a single woman on "Proclaim Your Love Day," it would be extremely easy for me to get down, to focus on all that I don't have and complain about those who do. Instead, I'm choosing these three things to focus on, and I hope they help you as well. It's time we stop channeling all of the negative emotions that this day can bring and instead celebrate with our peers who do have relationships and thank the ones we love for loving us back.

Stop focusing on what you don't have

Most of my Facebook friends are posting pictures of their gifts. I've seen everything from chocolates to engagement rings, from stuffed animals to live animals. Initial response for me is to roll my eyes and think, "You can't show her how you love her outside of February 14th?" I'm putting an end to that. Today, and all days after, I'm choosing to say, "Congratulations. I'm so happy for you!" Why does someone else's happiness have to be our pessimism? Don't talk about how much money someone spent on someone else, and instead choose to rejoice with those who are happy.

Stop calling it "Single's Awareness Day"

I don't know if it's me, but I absolutely hate when Valentine's Day is referred to this way. As if I need to point out the giant scarlet "S" on my shirt any more than it's already done. Stop using this holiday as a way to mourn your relationship status and instead choose to rejoice that you haven't settled for  less than what you deserve. In a way, calling it "Single's Awareness Day" is a way to downsize those who are celebrating with their significant other. I know three years ago (my last Valentine's as a non-single), I felt guilty for posting about my then-boyfriend doing special and lovely things for me because of all of the single women who were bashing Valentine's Day. I don't mean just posting meme's about Valentine's Day, but actively bashing the flower-giving and the chocolate-consuming people who were celebrating. Let's be more aware of what we're saying, encourage, and uplift each other, regardless of our relationship status.

Freaking Celebrate!

Okay, so maybe you don't have a boyfriend/girlfriend, wife/husband to celebrate with today. You do realize that you're not alone in this right? Stop focusing just for a second on the multitude of Valentine's Celebrators and look between the lines of Facebook and see all of the single friends that you have. Who says that you can't celebrate yourself? Whether it's going out with the girls, treating yourself to a massage, buying the largest pizza you can find and watching Netflix, celebrate you. Choose to love yourself on National Love Day, rather than choosing to be pessimistic about your single status. So you don't have a Valentine on Valentine's Day. Realize that some people don't have a mother on Mother's Day, or a father on Father's Day. Celebrate what you do have, and thank those who love you for loving you. I'm sure they'll appreciate it far more than you realize.

Tonight, I'm choosing to stay in my pajamas and watch the newest episode of The Walking Dead. And you know what? I'm really and truly okay with that.

Break My Heart

"This is something we've been praying for." 

"Who's been praying for this?"

"Everyone."

 

My mom told me these words, verbatim, about two weeks ago as I poured out sadness that didn't seem to ever have an end. My heart had been shattered about a month before, and no amount of time or well wishes seemed to be any sort of super glue to put the pieces back together. How could any sane person say that they'd wished for this? How could any mother honestly look her daughter in her tear-filled eyes and say, "We'd been praying for your heart to break"? Who would ever wish this upon anyone, even their worst enemy?

 

These were the questions that wracked my brain that night as I went to bed. My first response (which thankfully only occurred in my head and never reached my lips... Thank goodness for a filter!) was to blame my mom. "So this is your fault that I'm brokenhearted? You prayed for all of this to happen? How could you?" After a sleepless night and many internal battles, I got the nerves to question her.

 

What I expected was my mom's voice, which I heard first:  "We'd prayed for God to move in you."

What I didn't expect was the second voice that came next, still and small: "They wanted you to see Me."

 

I realized then, that my mom and our family friends hadn't been praying for my break up, for my heartache; they'd been praying that God would show Himself to me.

 

You see, last year I started to lose sight of who I was. I began to drift from everything I'd ever been taught about Christ and the Church, without realizing that I was moving down treacherous paths. They say that the path to Heaven is straight and narrow, but I'd found the larger path, the one that winded and took unexpected turns. I thought that this path was going to be beneficial to my Christian walk. "I can relate to people now. I can see why they believe what they believe. I can argue why it isn't beneficial to do XYZ." What I didn't expect as I wandered down the larger path, is that the more you allow yourself to wander, the larger the path gets. Your boundaries start to fade. Your faith becomes something that you used to be proud of, but now you're ashamed of.

 

So as I soaked in the still, small voice that told me that I'd been prayed for, that I'd been watched over and cared for, I began to see how His hand had been on me the whole time. While I'd done things I thought my "Super-Christian" self would never do, I was given a one-way ticket out. I'd been given the gift of heartbreak, rather than the burden, that brought me back to my Creator. Often times, we hear the prayer, "Not my will, but Your's be done," but do we ever actually realize the meaning behind that? Do we realize that whatever His will may be, might actually break us before it makes us? Fortunately that large path took a detour that had a toll booth, so I cashed in my heartbreak and realized that on the other side of the toll booth was the straight and narrow path I'd once traveled down. I never realized how much I needed the one-way road until I'd ventured off of it into the chaos of a road being walked on the way the streets are being driven in Port-au-Prince.

 

There's a line in "Hosanna" by Hillsong United that says, "Break my heart for what breaks Your's." I can't tell you how many times I've sung that line and never realized the intensity of the request. It's not saying, "God, I want You to do great things, but I want them like this..." It's saying, "Remove from me anything that isn't from You and give me a heart that wants only You." It's saying, "Remove all of the things that make me comfortable and put me where You want me."

 

My prayer for this year is to submerge myself in my Creator; to become so one with Him that people can't help but to say, "Her heart's been broken, but it's been broken for God." I want to be able to pray that prayer, to be able to give up my comfort zone, my plans for my life, my heart, and become so embedded in Him and that be enough.

One Month Later

Did anyone else ever go through Sex-Ed in middle school? 

 

I remember my eight grade year's Sex-Ed class more vividly today than I ever have before. The teacher did a demonstration with one of the girl's in the class. Teacher gave her a paper heart and described different scenarios. The heart started out as a whole heart, and gradually, as the teacher explained different dating scenarios, the student would rip parts of the heart off and give it to the teacher, depending on the severity of the break up/disaster. At the end of the scene, the student is preparing to get married and only has a one inch piece of the heart to give to her groom. Eighth-grade-Amelia thought that was the most ridiculous dramatization ever. There's no way I was going to give enough of my heart to someone to feel like I was anything but whole once we broke up... Or so my sweet, naive self thought at the time. 

 

Today-Amelia does not agree with Eight-grade-Amelia at all.

 

What do you do when you reach a point where you don't even know what to pray for anymore? When the pieces seem too shattered to gather off the floor, what do you do? I sit on my bed every night with tears pouring down my face and beg God to please, please give me just a sliver of peace, just a tiny moment where my heart doesn't feel like it's being ripped from my chest. But the words feel like they hit the ceiling and fall back onto the sheets beside me. I go through every day with flashbacks that leave me breathless and holding my stomach in an attempt to physically hold myself together... Flashbacks of sushi and pet stores, of Jimmy John's at 3am, of days spent laying around playing video games or watching Netflix, of trips to the zoo, of simple, menial tasks like grocery shopping and setting up bank accounts that would otherwise seem like nothing worth remembering.

 

But I remember. Part of the trouble being a person who feels too much, who takes everything on head-on and full force, is the part where I take everything in.. All of my senses kick into overdrive, and the filing cabinet in my head starts to burst with memories that don't want to be contained. As hard as I try, I can't fit them back into their respective folders and let them stay.

 

I think the worst part of it all, is knowing that this is how it has to be. Knowing that God had him in my life for a reason, but without God as our Center, that we wouldn't have been able to make it work the way it should work. Wherever we were, though, we were miles apart. Regardless of how close we were physically, we were distant psychologically, and try as you might, that's not something you can change on your own. That doesn't make the love any less real or the ending any easier.

 

I don't know what my purpose in writing this is. I don't want your pity, I don't want your words, I don't want your attention. I want to be real, and I want to own my feelings and acknowledge that I'm not okay. I want it to be okay that it's taking longer than I care for it to to move on. I want you to stop looking at me and telling me to find things to do to keep me busy, or to tell me that time heals all wounds. Stop with the cliches. Stop with the telling me to cheer up. Stop with it all.

 

Pray for me when I don't know what to pray for. Pray for him, that he finds what he's looking for.

 

This isn't a good way to end this writing, but I don't know how to.

Beginnings.

I can still remember what it felt like fourteen years ago.

My parents were cleaning the bathroom together. Dad was sitting near the tub and Mom was leaning up against the bathroom sink, both talking with quiet voices that even my ten-year-old mind would know meant serious business. I approached carefully, and when they heard me walk in, they both turned and focused their attention on me. "We have something to tell you, and it's going to be hard, but we're all in this together." I remember the heartbreak that my little heart felt as my parents explained that we'd be moving to Nashville that summer, leaving our little Texas town behind. Through sniffles, I remember telling them that I'd be alright, and then I left the room to call my best friend to have a good cry through it.

The first year in Nashville was the hardest. As the new kid in school and being as shy as I was, I didn't make any solid friends. I struggled with living in a town as big as White House and having 250 kids in my class as opposed to 40. It was an adjustment that took, honestly, a couple of years for me to get used to.

Fourteen years later, and I cannot imagine what life would've been like if I'd never moved to the big city. The end of a road trip is always exhilarating as we reach I24 and get to gaze at the Nashville skyline. Home. The skyline itself fills me with a sense of relief, knowing that my trip is almost complete and I'm back where I belong.

Belong for now.

Five years ago I made a decision to venture out of the nest and see what life is like on my own. I explored Virginia, making the choice to go to Liberty University and live in Fredericksburg with a dear friend I met on Tumblr on the long weekends. My first trip out to Lynchburg and Fredericksburg left me with excitement. I can remember walking in downtown Fredericksburg and thinking, "I'm going to be here. I don't know when I'm going to live here, but I'm going to live here." So as things fell through not once, but twice, in moving to Virginia, I never lost that sense of belonging there. A handful or two of trips out there, and it always felt like a dream. A dream that I was waiting patiently to become a reality. Until recently.

A few weeks ago I made the trip to Virginia to surprise Lauren for her birthday. I knew, just driving down Germanna Highway on the way into Fredericksburg, that my time was coming. It no longer felt like a dream world. It no longer held a sense of hopeful belonging, but more of a sense of arrival. I felt like I'd finally found my timing had come. A few days later at dinner with Matt, that feeling was confirmed. And I can't explain it as anything other than a quiet, still calm that filled my innermost being. 

So with that being said, here's my big announcement. I will be moving to Virginia in September. 

While this is an extremely exciting and exhilarating moment for me, it's also terrifying and unnerving. For a lady who has always lived at home with her parents, the thought of venturing ten hours away leaves me with a rock in my stomach. But the thought of doing something new, something I've never done before and waited so patiently for... It's almost more excitement than I can handle. 

The nerves and the sadness of leaving my people has been the hardest emotion I've dealt with. I've made so many new relationships within just the last month, not to mention the relationships I've had for years upon years, and the thought of leaving them behind hurts my heart like no other. The other night I went to a Sounds game with Bentley, and as I was walking through Bicentennial Mall and looking at the Capitol, I had a wave of emotion, from excitement to anxiety, from sadness to joy, sweep over me all in one motion. Walking down the street with the Mall on one side and the Farmer's Market on the other, I realized just how much I was going to miss this city. The city I dreaded moving to fourteen years ago has become my safe place, and with new adventures waiting for me, it's time to move out of my comfort zone and see what God has waiting for me. 

So, here's to new beginnings. Life is big and beautiful.