2013

As I sit at home counting down to the new year with chocolate and Netflix, surrounded by sleeping siblings on the couch and snow outside, I can't help but love my current life while reflecting on the past.

2012 was great and I learned a lot. 

Adjusting back into real life after Amman was fabulous, although since then there have been plenty of ups and downs.

Summer was amazing.

Fall was difficult.

Winter is right around the corner.

A new beginning is right around the corner.

Today a friend of a friend gave me a Tarot card reading, which I have always wanted to try.

Despite the fact that I went into the situation with zero expectations and 100% curiosity, something this friend mentioned particularly resonated with me:

"New is born with great upheaval."

Cryptic? Totally.

Did it make sense to me? Oh, in so, so many ways.

As mentioned this past semester was difficult, confusing, and tumultuous- full of anxiety and sadness about an unknown future along with doubt in regards to success in life (to name of few).

But recently something has changed and I have pinpointed both the source of confusion and the answer:

Me.

Howard Thurman, an American civil rights leader, author, educator, and theologian, once said: "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

Last semester I lost a lot of enthusiasm in my life. I stopped the process of coming alive.

I struggled to find happiness in my job, school, future plans, and sometimes even people, etc... because that's where I mistakingly placed my source of happiness.

But that's not where true happiness lies.
Although often affected our surrounding environments, true happiness emanates from within.

So my New Year's resolution is Me.

Not in a selfish way, but in a healthy way.

I will to get to know Me better. 

I will to be more intuitive towards my needs and wants, consequently becoming a better person to serve those around Me.

My happiness will depend on Me and my personal connection with God (my personal aliveness), not a job, or my level of popularity with teachers, or the amount of people with which I spend my time, or any other external factors.
I will focus on the wellbeing of my soul, both body and spirit.

I will constantly become alive so I can help others consequently do the same.

Because what we all need is people who have come alive.

What we all need is 2013.

And sometimes you just need to...

Take a Step

[Milo Greene]

Home

Despite any uncertainties about future plans, Home is a surefire cure.

Home.

For me, home is chaos.
Home is family.
Home is love.
Home is caring.
Home is comfort.

Home is kids running around in costumes screaming at the top of their lungs, begging to be paid even just a little attention.

Home is waking up every morning at 10:30 am and still having enough sleep in you to take a nap later around 6:00 pm.
Home is never wearing real clothes, never wearing real pants.
Home is refusing to leave the house because of the negative 10 degree expected forecast with a solid two feet of snow.
Home is acting like the respective ages of my siblings and consequently forgetting about looming deadlines and applications for adulthood.
Home is a glowing Christmas tree, its branches barely bending under the pressure of Scandinavian straw ornaments.
Home is listening to your Norwegian grandfather give the same geneology speech you've heard at least 20 times (sometimes more than once in a single sitting), all because you secretly hope you are indeed related to royalty from every continent as well as the fact that, deep down, you don't know how many more opportunities you'll have to hear such a lovely rant.
Home is watching your baby brother's face light up as you help him pick and purchase a present for everyone in the family.
Home is good food.
Home is realizing that no matter where life takes you or your family, a house full of loving people awaits to take you in the next time school burns you out, a job falls through, or someone breaks your heart.

Despite its multifaceted, never-ending definition, Home is exactly what I need right now, and I can't imagine being anywhere else for this holiday break.

Cat Power

Ode to Adulthood

As finals-induced panic sets in, I can't help but feel more and more pressure as graduation looms right around the corner.

Although I have another entire semester before I walk onto a stage for a diploma of adulthood/Middle Eastern Studies and Arabic, I can't help but feel anxiously nervous about the future.

Sometimes I know what I'm doing, and other times all I want to do is pack up my life and run away from it and all related decisions. While many people are content to stay put, build a life, remain safe in a comfortable environment, the idea of settling (down) terrifies me. 
Feeling trapped is my worst nightmare.
Doing poorly in school and missing future opportunities scare me to death.
I suppose that success, especially in school, is something that has been engrained into me from the beginning. Not that ambition is bad, but stressing about grades, building good relationships with professors, and obsessing over getting a good/meaningful job I love are sometimes very unhealthy symptoms that have taken over my life this semester. 
Unfortunately, I feel like this has come at the expense of a lot of happiness I could have experienced.
Not that I'm not happy, but I've seen better days, had better semesters, and definitely felt a lot more successful and ambitious.
This semester, however, has been different.
I feel quite burned out to be honest, and I realized the other day that I have let my life loose its savor. 
I have forgotten how to really live.
Like the kind of living that happens when school and studies fall into place, not because you spend so much time in the library, but because you are focusing on other, truly important things.
Because you are happy, and the rest is just details.
Not because all you think you need is a good job and superiors (teachers, bosses, etc...) who like you, and certainly not because school is the only thing you feel like you can control.
Would that be unhealthy otherwise? 
Is it bad if I feel like I'm producing mediocre work in school, the one thing I feel like I currently have control over, and hate it?
Is this what adulthood is?
Is adulthood having a job you hate because you need money? Or doing a job because it is "what you've always done," or "it's what i'm good at," but not necessarily what you love.
What if you don't even know what you love?
How crazy is that? You would think that the one thing I would know by now as a soon-to-be 22-year old would be what I want.
But I don't.
Instead, I feel trapped between "mature," "adult" responsibilities to settle down, get a Master's, and border-line hippy-flower-child desires to dye my hair blue, have a man with a beard as my constant companion, and/or move around the world endless whims.
Is adulthood going to grad school because you are too scared to try something else, something more risky and uncertain?
Is adulthood making your life so busy that you barely have time to realize how unhappy and stressed you are?
Is adulthood staying somewhere because you have nowhere else to go?
Is adulthood going somewhere new without fear of what you might leave behind?
Am I being immature when I say that, sometimes on a bad day, after an all-nighter and an oral exam that didn't go so hot, all I want to do is throw my life into a suitcase and leave?
Is not knowing what I am doing with my life just another dismal sign of adulthood or a result of lazy immaturity?
Is it possible to have everything I want?
Can't I be an adult, build meaningful, lasting relationships, and still lead an adventurous life?
One thing is for sure: I need a nap.