After a While

Can Music Save Your Mortal Soul?

"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one"

All my music junkies, this one is for you. I've been giving a lot of thought to the power of music for some time now and I have come to the conclusion that, why yes, music is the pulse on my life. You can take a cue to how I'm feeling by my Spotify rotation for the day, week, or month. I pride myself on my knowledge of music. And I think I can make someone fall for me with my mixtapes. Don't try me!

I've also got really caught up on the phrase "I feel infinite", which I stole from the marvelous book and now movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I went on a whimsical adventure with two friends to Atlanta a few weeks ago to see the 9:45 showing on a school night, and the night is now lodged in the top ten memories of college.

Speaking of the top ten list, I also got the splendid opportunity to visit my best friend in Atlanta to see the Script this past weekend. While the concert was top notch entertainment, and I died a little inside when I heard "For the First Time", I am more thankful for the time I got to spend with him singing to John Mayer on I-75 and having deep conversations at a greasy table at The Varsity and sleeping in the passenger seat next to him on the ride home.

All this to say, I have been having some pretty amazing days lately. I am realizing who to count among friends, and I am trying to wholeheartedly make a conscious effort to invest in those relationships right now. For too long I have been wrapped up so much in myself that I have forgotten the power of investing in another life. I have had some pretty great mentors here at Mercer, and I want to be that same amazing grace to someone else. I think that's when you can see God's love really in action.

I am on the up and up, and thank you for sticking by me.

So for this post, let's give credit where credit is due--to the music. So here is my playlist for you tonight. Hope you get some infinite experiences this week. Let's start living, people.

1. Augustana – I Still Ain't Over You Goodness be, I love some Augustana.
2. John Mayer – Slow Dancing In A Burning Room No way to get past a JM song on any playlist of mine.
3. Katy Perry – The One That Got Away - Acoustic You can feel her emotion like no other. So beautiful.
4. Shane & Shane – It Is Well One of the best hymns ever in my opinion.
5. Chris Tomlin – All My Fountains My wake-up song. Love this. So much truth to it too.
6. Miranda Lambert – Me and Your Cigarettes I just get this song.
7. Coldplay – Lost! "Just because you're losing, doesn't mean that you're lost" keep your chin up, kiddos.
8. Greg Laswell – Girls Just Want To Have Fun (Demo) Classic and classy.
9. Carrie Underwood – Good In Goodbye Feels appropriate.
10. Roy Orbison – You Got It A lot of people don't know this about me, but I want to walk down the aisle to an instrumental version of this song :)

Always yours,
K

Heavier Things

Aptly nodding to one of my favorite bad boys, John Mayer, I thought I'd call this post "Heavier Things". I think I have been covering in this blog plenty of "heavier things" lately, but I wanted to lay it all out on the line again. I've got a lot of heavy things on my mind lately, namely graduate school, the looming graduation date in 3 semesters that still calls for a good 50 odd hours to be completed (yeah, I don't see the math adding up either), how I am going to pay for all that; why I have so much (in terms of materialism) while others have so little, why my friends don't seem to understand why I feel guilty for my lifestyle, why I constantly am homesick for a place I was only in for 21 days, how salt and vinegar chips take me back to the inside of a rickshaw and the feeling of freedom; and why "In Your Atmosphere" and "Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall" can take me back in the blink of an eye to very vivid but sad memories. 

With all that swarming in my brunette brain, I'm certainly wondering what God has up His sleeve. In some ways I am very excited to see what all He has in store. God has certainly unfolded my life in ways unimaginable to me before. Coming to Mercer was unexpected. Getting a scholarship for Mercer on Mission was inconceivable a few years ago. Becoming a business major was an interesting wrench thrown in. All the people I have met along the way have added color and excitement and happiness and other times, tears and lessons to be learned and bitterness. I don't regret a single path I took, but I have come to the conclusion that I did very little of that on my own. Even in times when I was less focused on God than others, He was ultimately in control. I think God does a lot of setting things in motion when we least expect it. That is an awesome thing to trust your heart in. Where your heart wanders is where it wants to be most, and although my heart may have spent some time wandering to some "heavier things" lately, I think it is all for the glory of God's perfect plan for me. He is putting some hard questions in my life to see if I trust enough in him to just let the questions resound, without answer. What a strange thing--I mean, we often ask questions to find an answer. And it is true, we will get an answer--"seek and it will be found" (Matthew 7:7)--but maybe not on our timeline or in the way we wanted it. I love the way C.S. Lewis explains it in that:

"We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings...but by accepting

them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armor.

If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which

they should break, so be it."

I would love to imagine God draining me of myself and my sin and replacing me with an everlasting fullness and peace known as His love and mercy. I am eager to see how all this unfolds over the next year and in the coming years; it leaves a lot of room for growth that I am excited to see :)

Like a fine wine, this post goes well with John Mayer – Bigger Than My Body. 

Teeheehee. LYLAS readers.

Yours, 

K

The Day I Became In Charge of My Own Happiness

"And given half the chance would I take any of it back?

It's a fine romance but it's left me so undone

It's always darkest before the dawn"

What is happiness? Where can we find it and when can we stop chasing it? I think the best answer I've ever heard comes from one of my all-time favorite bands, The Fray. "Happiness is like the old man told me/Look for it, but you’ll never find it all/But let it go, live your life and leave it/Then one day, wake up and she’ll be home" is the last stanza of this song--one that almost always brings me to tears. I have been struggling a lot lately to find the happy in a lot of my crappies lately, but I think that comes from me ignoring one of the most important lines of this song--"live your life and leave it". I think too often I, like a lot of people, but an emphasis on the wrong things in life. We chalk a bad day up to one poor conversation with one person or someone not meeting our expectations and we write off the good parts of our day. 

I pay far less attention to the good stuff going on right around me to even appreciate it sometimes. I've got far more going for me than going against me. And there is such hope in that feeling. It can be a pretty broken place to put your faith in that which gives no return. Instead let me remind myself, and you all, what I can put my faith in:

First and foremost, God. Proverbs 16:3 instructs us to "commit everything to the Lord" and that under His guidance everything will be alright. I've got to believe there is a lot of substance to that. The idea of commitment to me is a binding contract on both ends. I've got to put in the work, too. For "where your treasure is, there your heart is also" means I have to invest my time and energy into what really matters (Matthew 6:21). "Where you invest your love, you invest your life."

My family. God-sends. My mom is best friend, and if you are reading this-thank you. For everything.


My friends. They surely are the sunshine of my day. I know I can be a handful sometimes, but they always bring me back to reality. And sometimes they don't mind having wild dreams, too. They keep me grounded but also don't knock me for being a dreamer. And I can dig that.

My education. I'm learning to appreciate my level of education even more so now. I ended up paying my summer school's tuition this summer and that hefty bill taught me a lesson I'll never forget. I can't take for granted the unwarranted opportunities I have been given. I also met a little girl in India who read from the dictionary every day just to learn English. I want to be that little girl when I grow up. I want to make her proud.

Music. I can't do anything these days without it, and I am completely enamored by it.

The good in people. I firmly believe that every day may not be good, but there is still some good in every day. I may be a little less trusting of people or a little more fragile but that is what makes me human. And I am convinced that people are the missing pieces God sends us in search of.

Shot in the Dark

"I got a vision for the life that's right in front of me
I got a right, I got a reason, got a destiny
I know exactly where I'm headed and I'm never looking back
Well, nothing's holding me back" 

Tonight, as I should be studying for management, I find myself longing to write. I have not had much time lately to devote to my sweet craft, but tonight I just feel compelled to. Or maybe I'm avoiding studying haha. But in all honesty, I always feel much more full of life after I write. It is like my own artificial sunlight up here on the third floor of Jack Tarver. 


I have been struggling a lot with the idea of friendship lately, and I have found myself asserting my own independence in a lot of my relationships. I cannot really pinpoint where this desire to be alone is coming from, but frankly, it is not bothering me. In the past I think I have used people and places and events and things to fill my time when I did not want to feel anything, but I think now I realize that is both unhealthy and unrealistic. Emotions and feelings need processing and in their time. I no longer feel the need to keep myself busy so that I do not have to be myself to think. Strangely, I am learning  to enjoy time to myself. Introspective time like that is time for God, time for me, time for eating a box of goldfish, time for watching TV (considering that I have used it probably twice this year), time for studying (new, I know), time for time well wasted. I am reveling in that kind of time right now. And while I am keeping busy and still having a social life (don't be worried--check the FB photos haha), I am learning to take time for me. I think it is okay to be selfish sometimes. Especially with time...we only get so much of it, so if you find something that brings a smile to your face I say it cannot be that bad. Junior year is looking a lot like: you do you. And I like it. 
Your favorite gypsy :)

K

The title and opening lyrics are from a little diddy called "Shot in the Dark" by Augustana. Good, chill music. Check it. 

Somewhere Between Cherry Street and Tattnall Park

True confession: I steal all my pictures from Pinterest :)

That's where you can find me five days out of the week, mostly in the dead of afternoon, hair half plastered to the side of my face and half pulled up in a high ponytail. Rocking the Nike shorts, my pride and joy Brooks (saved about $40 on them this summer at AJC's Peachtree Road Race aka baller), and a frat tank. Jamming out to a mixture of middle school era rap songs, good ole country, and of course Mister John Mayer. I am out there pounding the pavement with my trusty running partner, MB and loving every minute of it. Crazy. I know. But I think the essence of running is very much interwoven in the fiber of my soul. So deep. I know.

In all seriousness, running is what I like to call the purest part of my day. Though I do get some alone time during the day, I am not very drawn to seek it out (I'm like 95% extroverted here, people) and quite frankly, am too over-scheduled to demand it for myself. So the hour or so (let's be real, there's a lot of so added to that hour haha) I take to run five miles is the time I get to be inside my head and at the same time outside of it. I like to joke that it is the cheapest form of therapy, and for me it quite literally is. Though I naturally like to talk out loud--and God bless my friends they get to be on the receiving end of this habit--I think I need this time to talk inside my head too. One of my best friends wrote me a letter this summer before I left for India and in it said something to the effect of don't be afraid to ask the tough questions and don't be disappointed when you don't get an answer. I think that is a lot like my relationship to running. Maybe the question I am asking is how to study harder/how to make more time out of my day/how to solve a friend problem/how to get into grad school and I am met smack dab in the middle of the street with an reverberating GO RUN. And I never find the easy answer out there, nor do I want to. I think there is something so unadulterated about my time out there, and I do not want it to become a crutch to fixing everything. But it certainly is the best part of my day, and I feel much better (sweatier) afterwards. 

Running has always been a common love between my mother and I, and I am forever grateful she turned me on to the passion. We hunt down races months in advance and plan our family vacations around them (spoiler alert: we're training for a half in Nashville in the spring!). I am so glad we have between us a bond that nobody else can really get. This weekend she is hosting her cross country team's meet...and I ask for all your prayers for her! She is an amazing person and is putting her whole heart into this weekend. I could not be prouder. Love you.

Happy running (and if you're not yet, let me take you out sometime!)
K

Fix You

I've kind of been in a Coldplay mood lately (imagine that haha) and "Fix You" keeps creeping up. If you know me pretty well, you know I cannot hear the song without crying. There is something so beautiful and captivating about the lyrics, and I love to think "lights are guiding me home". So here comes the question and tonight I am met with a resounding answer. Question: What needs fixing? Answer: Absolutely nothing. As in, I will be fixing nothing about my life...

A window at the Red Fort in New Delhi, India. Totally been here. Totally one of my top ten places on Earth. Totally didn't take this picture, but stole it from this flickr :)

Hold your cookies, people. This is a big one. I repeat again, I will be fixing nothing in my life. Instead, God is doing all the work. Draw your eye over to Psalm 73, verse 26: "My flesh and my heart my fail, but my God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." My flesh and my heart--may fail?--definitely will. I can guarantee you it will. Hearts break and life ends. Sounds mighty depressing, but God meets you in that overwhelming moment and says, "BUT" wait for it, wait for it-- "I will be the strength (you know that renewing confidence that you cannot bottle or buy or find yourself?) of your heart (as in you!) and your portion (as in I am his, and he is mine kind of thing) forever (not until this semester ends or until he breaks up with you or until he gets bored of hearing you complain every day). No we are talking about forever. I cannot even comprehend forever. At twenty, I have no idea what thirty or fifty looks like much less forever.

And stole this one too...from this pinterest board!

That is a big feeling. A feeling that I think sounds a lot like God saying "I will fix you". And I cannot help but delight in that. There is no one on Earth or in heaven who I'd rather fix me than God almighty. He is lining things up exactly how they are to be, and He is molding me into the woman I am meant to become. That is something I cannot do on my own, and it is comforting to know my own limitations. I cannot do anything but turn it all over to Him. "Trust in the Lord will all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will your paths straight (Proverbs 3:5-7)," is not only a suggestion, but a downright commandment. I love that. I believe in it, "not because I see it, but because I see everything else by it". Hitting you with a little C.S. Lewis right there. That's all I've got for tonight, stay tuned :)


Because I think writing goes best paired with music, here ya go kind people: The Fray – Happiness. If you don't already love them, talk to me. I can make a believer out of ya.


Yours,
K