Random Compilation

• The hour is getting late and the night has long since been dark. My roommate is already asleep, just down the hall, in the room that isn't hers but has become her nighttime home for the last few months. I am tired and awake, a great contradiction but one that has become my new normal. I love sleep but it has also been an enemy recently. The power of dreams is far too strong, but I know there is something more powerful as well. The minutes tick by until its light again, until I can sleep in peace. The morning light brings renewed relief.

• When I returned from a month away, I grew convinced that the best friends new goal for 2010 was to get me back to church. So, I went and took the roommate. We found a new church, the one the best friend and her husband attend that has only been around since September. Church is good, at least this church is really good. There has been a lot of talk about community which has lead to more than one discussion between the roommate and I. Community is a great thing but it also sucks because it is vulnerable, real, and hard. Our pastor (can I call him ours is we have only been twice? Doing it anyway) was talking last Sunday about how we should live all lives. We all have baggage, things we carry around, trying to hide from, behind or with; regardless, we all have it. Its like when you go on vacation- traveling there your clothes are folded and neat, everything in its proper place in the suitcase. Yet, on the return trip all the dirty clothes are just thrown in there, underwear mixed with t-shirts in this great mess. Of course, it is then when your bag gets searched and everyone gets to see your baggage, dirty underwear and all, feeling like everyone is seeing those things you wished to keep hidden. But, what if we lived that way, lived in such a way that we didn't feel like we had to keep our dirty laundry hidden and instead aired our laundry out, not for judgement but for growth. And maybe, just maybe someone else can see our messes and stand up and say "me too."

• Life is hard sometimes and its okay. Its okay to not be okay. Its okay to need people even if you don't want to admit it. Its okay to not have life figured out or to be living the life you thought you would be living. Its okay to be vulnerable, whether intentional or not, with someone else. Its okay to not know what to say or what to do. Its okay. At least that is what the roommate and I have been telling ourselves and each other. And you know what? It. is. okay.

Midnight musings coming to an end while there is still some semblance of them making sense.

Peace

Jess