Love

Can I do the Honors?

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I found out last week that I made the Honors list at my college, and this week I got admitted into the program. Nice!

I never planned to try for Honors, but it started to seem like a good idea, and then I got the letter letting me know I qualified so why the heck not? But I’m still glad I don’t base my identity on grades.

College is teaching me about two things: Self Confidence and Anxiety.

It’s easy to panic when an assignment is due and you haven’t done it. I was watching this YouTuber talk about their anxiety, and they said the definition of anxiety is a feeling of inadequacy to meet life’s situations.

I suddenly understood why the doctor told me I was suffering anxiety.

True Confession, my dad has suffered anxiety consistently for years. My grandparents have suffered it (some of them) and I’m sure other people in my family have that I don’t know about.

I think folks don’t always realize that our attitude toward life and ourselves is learned. If kids hear anxious words constantly, they will have anxious thoughts, unless they are that rare biological sport who is somehow different without even trying to be.

I was anxious growing up. The person in the video described it as feeling like people were watching them constantly. While as a shy kid, I had that, I mostly worried about losing control of myself.

It’s funny, if you know me now, you’d know I don’t seem unstable or out of control. People say I’m refined. But I chose to develop that attitude.

My anxiety did not start to go away until I became a Christian, and at first it wasn’t a choice. I know I always say it is, but the first few weeks, I didn’t feel I was choosing to be at peace, it was just flowing out of me. As a new believer a lot depends on what you do right by accident. I remember I would keep chasing that peaceful feeling whenever it started to drain, I would pray, I would read the word, I would worship, all to get in God’s presence and feel close to Him.

And there was nothing better I could’ve done. I built a foundation for myself that lasted me through the time when the good feeling dies away. And now, it’s like marriage, I don’t feel good every day. But I feel happier in this the I ever would alone; and I think it’s worth it.

Over the last six months I had anxiety return a lot like it was before I was a Christian. And that bugged me. Maybe you can relate, you think you’re over something and then boom, it comes back out of nowhere. And it gave me some bad weeks..months… I am still coming out of it. But in the end, I found out my faith was stronger.

And what God showed me through that struggle was that I am stronger, because of Him, then I ever thought I was or could be.

Now I am taking a Self Defense class that’s working me harder then I’ve ever worked in my life.

I want those of you who’ve been reading my posts consistently to appreciate this: I was feeling sore and stiff all the time and having a hard time doing things, and I signed up for a class where getting sore and stiff is part of the description.

I consider this to be a flat out miracle.  It makes no sense why I would do that, and furthermore why instead of making me more anxious, it actually is helping me to learn this stuff. And it’s showing me something else I didn’t know.

I always thought I was non athletic, weak, kind of out of shape. And while to an extent that is true, I am not getting killed in this class. I’m slower then some of the more fit people, but I am not blowing it, and my endurance is more than I expected. I think the reason partly is now I push myself to do better because doing well is important to me.

Back when I played volleyball, I just wanted to have fun and be automatically good at it. And a part of me always starts out a new class hoping I’ll prove to be good at it naturally. But God in His wisdom hasn’t given me that kind of Leonardo Da Vinci genius. Which is a good thing, because I have to try. I have to work. And I enjoy doing it. I enjoy proving that I am made of something stronger than I thought.

And I enjoy getting to prove everyone who ever thought I was a wimp wrong.

But all this is not just to brag on myself. I have a point.

This doesn’t have to be my lucky experience. This can be you to. I figure, I am not the only one who underestimates herself.

It’s easy as a millennial or an even younger person, to believe that you don’t have the chops to handle life. We’ve been told so much that we have no understanding of anything, I think we all believe it.

Many of us are naive it’s true, but naivete can be fixed. here’s the thing, we need to stop whining. I hear other students all the time griping about how things are going. Never in their favor.

I get it, we want to blame someone. That would mean people were wrong about us. IT’s not our fault we can’t do life.

But the thing is, you are probably way more capable than you realize. It’s a fact. human beings are amazingly resourceful. And though we do stupid and clueless things, we learn.

Teens and twenty somethings are terrified of getting it wrong. Relax. You’re going to. But that’s okay. Age isn’t the factor here. we all get it wrong. That isn’t what counts . What counts is if you get back up and try again. Immediately. Don’t slink away in defeat.

I do plenty of dumb things when I drive. But I do a lot more things right. I know that one mistake is all it takes to sink you. That’s why we hate making mistakes. But we don’t have the luxury of letting that stop up. The daring accomplish more than the doubtful.

That being said, I am going to keep moving forward.

Until Next Time–Natasha.

The Pain Problem.

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I saw the movie Adrift today. IF you like survivor movies, you’ll probably like it, but it’s very sad I’ll warn you.

It does have some interesting moments where the main character Tami makes choices that would be hard for us to make, and its theme of love getting you through hard things is of course timeless.

And it ties in to something I was thinking about earlier today. About pain. ‘

How do characters in movies handle pain? 9 out of 10 times?

I’ll have to fire some shots at even my favorite superhero flicks for this, because without fail the hero and villain always have a tragic back story. The villain uses pain as a reason to be what they are.

But actually superheroes are not the biggest offenders here. Any melodramatic television show you like has painful experiences as the driving force of the character’s issues. Usually they give some speech about it. Often taking it out on another character on the show.

Am I the only one who ever wants to tell these characters to get over themselves? Like they think their lives are so much tougher than most everyone’s, when in reality, they are probably better, only so much can go wrong on a show, right? Some of you have lived with the reality of one thing going wrong after another every day, it’s not fun.

These shows might be praised for showing raw emotions, but it’s not very real to me, because people rarely act that way, and when they do, it seems blown out of proportion.

It wouldn’t be saying anything new for me to say that we all suffer pain. But have you ever considered why we accept this as an excuse for bad behavior? Why does the stuff our therapy is made of justify the stuff our prisons are full of?

The child who bangs their knee and take out that frustration by hitting their sibling goes to the corner, the adult who does that gets excused because they have a hard life.

I get it, we’re all human and we shouldn’t judge each other too harshly. But it’s not right to act that way regardless.

Is our pain a bad thing? I don’t think all pain is good. Everyone knows the difference between the pain of healing and the pain of damage, for instance. The pain of getting squeezed too hard in a hug versus the pain of being socked by your brother or sister. It’s not on the same level. So some pain is clearly bad.

But what about the pain that seems to come for no reason. The pain of loneliness for instance. If you’re a Christian like me, you may wonder why this happens.

I had lunch with a friend today and we both have had trouble retaining other friends. I imagine we both blame ourselves in part for that, and sitting there, I wonder if both of us were thinking “So where does that leave us?” Do we just repeat the same pattern over and over again?

I have started many friendships that never went very far, even when I really wanted them to. And the problem could very well be with me. But there are worse people than me who manage to retain friends. Haven’t we all met or been that person who never dumps that one friend who is clearly a bad influence and kind of a basket case? Yet they get stuck with.

Heck, what about our relatives who get stuck with, though they don’t deserve it. You ever wonder why the nicer though quirky people can be the hardest to stick with? I am not sure why that is. It could be that we feel guilty for minding their humanity when we know they are good people, while with bad people we can always just complain about them. Go figure.

Many lonely people wonder why no one stays with them. There’s many reasons I suppose. In my case circumstances never seem to line up for it.

How do we handle that pain? And is it bad? How could it be good?

Well, I can’t say when or how, but the age old answer of God’s Timing is the only one I’ve got.

That’s not just an excuse to do nothing, as some suppose, but it is the acceptation that once you have done all you know to do, the rest is up to God.

Pain is not ever going to seem right (unless you’ve got a masochist side) but it can come to make you right again. I have wondered why God uses pain to shape us. But knowing human nature, I realize that nothing else ever compels us to choose as much as pain does.

Think about it, major decisions usually involve pain. Even having kids is painful. But that pushes you to a decision. A crisis fuels you to make a change. Why do people wait till their health breaks down to adjust their diet and exercise habits? Because pain makes it real.

We all wish it wasn’t that way, and I warrant you, God never wanted it that way either. But it is that way. Because we’re stubborn.

But pain doesn’t make us a slave to God. As I mentioned earlier, pain is people’s excuse often enough to do what’s wrong. And though their anger is understandable, it is not right. Because we all hurt, and we can’t make innocent people pay for what we feel.

Pain drives you to do either the right thing or the wrong thing, but which it’ll be still depends on you. The promise God makes us is not that we won’t suffer but that our suffering will lead us to Him, and not to destruction.

And that is the greatest gift of all, from my perspective.

Whatever I feel when I suffer pain myself, I know it leads me back to God.

Check out Adrift, I think it’s a good story.

Until next time–Natasha.

Familiarity.

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 If I understood you

and you understood me

we could speak with complete familiarity

but since I just met you

and you hardly know me

we only speak with incongruity.

How pleasant and natural it would be

if at once we could see

each other plainly.

But I don’t know you and you don’t know me

so we have no real clarity.

 

I wrote that. It came to me yesterday in ASL class because I had been thinking about how we speak to each other.

Maybe this isn’t your experience, but I’ve noticed that people who know each other really well, they can be more honest.

I say things to mys sisters I would never say to a friend. Why? Because my sisters will know what I mean.

I won’t bother to be polite to siblings all the time, since I know they won’t get super offended. But I will be polite to a stranger or a classmate because they don’t know me well enough to know when I’m not serious.

I actually sometimes get taken seriously when I’m kidding and I think it was obvious that I was kidding. I know that’s not unique to me, doesn’t it bug you when it happens?

I might tell my sister to shut up and know she won’t be that bothered by it, but I wouldn’t say that to someone else unless I had the intention of making them feel I was angry.

C. S. Lewis observed in The Four Loves that when people have affection for each other, they can say offensive things and not offend. And that the deeper the affection, the better they will know what times to say such things.

Which is not to say we can just insult each other, there’s a time for it and a time when it will be hurtful. If someone in your family is pouring out their soul or crying their eyes out, that is not the time. Or if they’re angry and venting to you.

Usually it’s when we’re in a good mood that we can poke fun at each other and feel  closer and not father apart.

Why are we so polite to strangers? People often theorize that we are scared of what they will think.

But I submit to you that not everyone is scared. at least not of being disliked. Often when someone does dislike us, we feel that they have misunderstood who we are.

“He/she thinks I’m just a—- but I’m not.” Does that kind of talk sound familiar? It does to me.

The reason we don’t speak our mind to strangers is often simply that we know they will not understand us. They don’t know us. And they have their assumptions about people with our opinions that only knowing us better would change. They won’t want to know us better if we scare them off.

The are times when that doesn’t matter and we need to speak our mind regardless. But those are fewer times than when we need to understand each other.

The better you know me, the better you understand me, the better we can communicate. Lack of communication equals lack of understanding. Even if you hate someone, you can still understand them, provided you know  them. You’ve seen movies where the hero and villain understand each other perfectly, that’s why they are at odds.

I don’t me tat we understand English, or whatever our language is. I mean that we have a knowledge of a person’s character, quirks, and feelings about things. That is what tells us what they mean.

This kind of understanding can happen very quickly between some people, especially if they are alike in opinion and character. Others it can take twenty year,s or it may never happen. Some folks lack the ability or the desire to understand each other.

I think that we wish it were different. That we could speak our mind to strangers as easily as to our closest family or friends. In a perfect world we feel everyone would be able to communicate like that. It would be great.

But we need to beware the Tower of Babel. God in His wisdom perhaps has made it hard work to understand each other. A lot of people see it as the worst part of humanity that we have so much conflict. you might want to question that person’s motive.

Conflict is what keeps us pushing forward and it keeps us from corrupting each other completely. Where there is good, there will be conflict as long as men choose to do evil. You better hope so anyway. The most dead-in-soul people never argue with each other, they just sin. We don’t want that.

IF you understand the people around you perfectly, you are either dead inside, or a saint. Because only people who have extreme wisdom, or else just don’t care, are without conflict.

I hope to be saintly, bu I fully expect to have conflict on the way. Because I will meet with the unsaintly. And I won’t always be good either.

So while it would be nice to have total familiarity with each other, perhaps it is for the best that it is hard work. I look forward to the day when evil will not be a thing, and we will all be on the same page.

Until next time–Natasha.

Believer and Pain.

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You may have heard that song by Imagine Dragons, “Believer.”

I am not a huge fan of Imagine Dragons, but I still want to give them a shout out for having the band name I would want to have if I was in it. I freaking love the name Imagine Dragons.

But their music is a little to heavy metal/pop for me.

However, I’ve heard this song, who hasn’t of a certain age? And since I actually watch lyric videos to find out what a song is about, I watched one for it and found out the song is about something a bit unusual.

It’s become typical to have, pardon the word, bad-ass songs. (I really want a clean equivalent of that word to use.) The “in your face” song.

I like some of them. And this song is technically in that category, but it has a profound twist. The song is about pain. The pain, as the words say, making you a believer.

People love this song. In the past the idea of pain being what made you a believer would have seemed problematic to me. I’m a huge believer in beauty being an inspiration, love being motivation, and peace being what gets you through.

Yet, in the past few months, my most constant companion has been PAIN.

What does a dreamer like me do when pain seems to be taking over their life. For weeks I didn’t want to write or even read, or think about all the stuff I wanted to do with my life, because how could I do it? I felt crippled by something that was mostly in my head.

Now this song didn’t bring me any great revelation. But it has made some people decide to keep going, and I read one person decided not to kill themselves after hearing it.

And I can say it’s because the song is true.

The words “My life, my love, my God, they came from pain.” I don’ think it means pain makes any of those things, but it’s a honest realization that without pain we’ll never know if those things are real.

To be honest with you guys, I haven’t seen a flat out miracle in a long time. I haven’t seen the things that make people think Christians are doing LSD. ( we aren’t.) I haven’t seen a miraculous healing in a long time. And I’ve never seen happen to me.

Like I said, I’m a dreamer. I believe in all those things. Call me crazy. There are things in this world that cannot be explained away.

yet I still have no personal evidence.

And what do you do with that when you’re suffering for months for seemingly no reason.

I admit freely I got pretty mad at God over it. I gave him a piece of my mind. But in the end I always come back to Him. I guess you could say I’m addicted.

It’s rough too when people get tired of hearing you complain about what you’re going through. And the only response I got from God was “trust Me.”

You Christians who read this, you ever wonder why you trust God? What He’s done to make you so confident?

I have.

Yet, I began to notice there was a miracle taking place in my life. I was being plagued by fears about how I was feeling, and anxiety. Then gradually that changed. I started to be less afraid. I have a low pain tolerance, and do not handle it well, but now I was pushing on through it. Moving on with my life. Drawing closer to God.

And oddly enough, I came to see that pain can be a gift. It’s not one anyone wants to keep. (I would hope.) I wouldn’t take it. But if it comes, and you accept that, then it is a gift.

Pain jolts you out of your stupor that the distractions of this world can put you into.

I know Christians who ware waiting for the next revival, the next breakthrough, the next movement of God. I think they don’t realize that they are waiting for pain.

Because pain is a part of creating life in this world. from childbirth to starting a business or becoming a professional athlete, it’s going to hurt.

Pain sucks, and no mistake. I don’t enjoy it. But I know it’s necessary. I still wish it wasn’t when I’m feeling it, but looking back I don’t want to change it.

Pain can indeed make you a believer, because you don’t know where you believe till you’ve been through the fire, the rain, and all that.

Sometimes the miracle is not being saved from suffering, but in seeing yourself changed by it.

So, good for Imagine Dragons. They hit something profound.

Until next time–Natasha.

Language Barriers.

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Sometimes courage is not slowing down long enough for fear to catch you.

And sometime courage is staying still long enough for peace to catch up with you.

But I’d say the first one is my motto today. I woke up feeling achy, but upon getting up I felt better, and I’ve learned that my stress symptoms increase when I’m inactive. Inactivity can be just as hard o your body as hyperactivity.

So with that in mind, I want to switch subjects.

Some of you who’ve been reading my college posts know that I’m studying Language. Specifically English and ASL. (Guess which is harder.)

A few of my older followers probably remember that I went on a mission trip two years ago (almost three) to Cambodia, and there I learned a bit of Khmer.

Khmer (pronounced Ka-mai) is not an easy language to learn by rote. You have to hear it, and in my opinion you have to hear it spoken in real settings. My attempts to learn more of it since haven’t panned out well. I need a tutor I bet.

My ASL teacher wanted us to journal on a movie we watched in class about. Audism is a new term, probably not i most dictionaries, that refers to discrimination based on one’s ability to hear.

It’s a real thing. But it seems to bother people the most when their own families won’t include them in conversation by interpreting for them.

Welcome to my world, I would say. I’ve been frustrated many times over the years by being left out of conversations. I wish I could blame it on being deaf but all I can attribute it to is being young and not having common ground.

I guess being deaf makes it hard to have common ground and that’s the sting. Even if they did, they can’t talk about it.

But the problem between people of different languages isn’t really lack of knowledge. It’s a lack of heart.

Very profound things can be communicated between people who speak different languages. We’ve heard that love doesn’t need a language. It’s true. In Cambodia, the people were very welcoming and nice to us even though we couldn’t understand more than a few things they said. We didn’t need to to understand good will.

I’d venture to say the trouble between different groups of people isn’t about language or skin color, it’s about suspicion.

Remember when I talked about strangers? How we wish we could connect with them?

Oftentimes we build walls around ourselves so that we won’t have to deal with strangers as people. The don’t challenge us, we don’t feel guilty.

And that’s the real reason behind slavery I think. Slavery has happened many times between people of the same race by the way, just different divisions. Sometimes it’s not even between tribes, it can be between classes. They don’t talk about that when they teach kids that America is evil for having slaves.

Yes it was evil a lot of the time, but America is not the exception in any way except that it fought a war over it. You look far back enough into almost nay country and you’ll fine slavery. Often not between different races.

We don’t have to look different to make strangers of each other.

We don’t have to look the same to believe we’re kindred.

To be open to new and different ways is to be open to life. Life is constantly changing. People who recognize this are more likely to accept each other, I think. There is n o point in trying to live in a certain time while the rest of the world moves on.

And coming from a home-schooler raised to believe that the old ways are better, that’s a big concession.

I believe they are better. They were healthier, more in line with natural law. But I don’t believe you change the world by staying in the past. The world won’t stay with you. Solutions always lie ahead of us.

True brotherhood between nations always begins, and always will, with the laying aside of suspicions. The willingness to see each other as part of the same family. Just different looking and different sounding. (Heck some of us have that in our immediate family. I’m not exactly like anyone else in mine, my sister even observed that it’s hard to place who I look like.)

Suspicion is the killer of phileo love (friendship/brotherly love.)  You remember that part of Pocahontas? “They’re different form us, therefore they an’t be trusted.” But what led to that? Immediate suspicion.

You know, both the Native Americans and the White men were already determined to think that their ways were the only way and that they had nothing to learn from anyone else. Both of them. Is it any wonder that they were immediately suspicious of each other? While Pocahontas both in the true history and in the movie represented those of us who think we have something to learn from each other.

I will never be convinced that my religion is not the correct one, but what I like about mine is that it allows me to recognize wisdom in other cultures. There is no culture without it’s own revelation of God that it understand better then others.

Americans understand freedom, for example. Jews understand holiness. I think many Asian cultures understand the flow of the spiritual into art and lifestyle better then we do. I think the Native Americans understood a lot about the way God speaks through nature.

The list goes on.

And that’s not exclusive of course. It’s just a sample.

Language is a gap between people, but in God’s mysterious ways, He was made it one of the most powerful ways to bridge the gap between people, if we approach it humbly and with love and patience.

Memoirs of a Babysitter.

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So I just watched the Nanny Diaries. This won’t be a review so much as what my English Professor calls a “Development parallel.” That is to say, cause and effects that are similar.

I only babysat (regularly) once, it was for one family and I haven’t been employed in that way since.

I watched three children. In the beginning it was only two, but then the mom decided to pull her oldest out of school because she didn’t like her teacher, and to home-school her. So, me being home-schooled, she thought I’d be down with that. And I was. I was even willing to help the kid out. So far so good.

And trust me, if I’d seen the Nanny Diaries before that time, I would probably have thought it was exaggerated for comedic effect. I’m sure if you saw it you thought so, unless you’ve been in a long term babysitting position.

The only difference between being a babysitter and being a nanny is title and hours and you don’t live in the home.

The job was fine at first, I liked the kids, I put up with the temper of the baby, and I stayed calm.

Then I made the mistake of thinking corporal punishment was accepted in their house, the oldest told me it was, but it wasn’t. (I assume they told me the truth the second time but with them you never knew.) I know that will horrify someone, but when I grew up spanking was normal-ish and I never had a problem with it. Get over it people, not all of us had progressive parents.

Well, I realized my mistake (and I never actually spanked the kids just to clarify, I threatened it but thought better of it later.) But my fate was sealed.

Things went downhill from there. I really think my mistake had very little to do with it, but it started it. After that, I never knew what the expectations were.

I entered the employment with the understanding that housework would be appreciated but was not required, that I did not have to cook for the kids because the oldest liked doing it though of course I was to feed them. (They had stuff on hand naturally.)

I put the kids in time out when they sassed me and refused to do as I said (not corporal punishment right?) And then they told their mother on me. I’m sure claiming that it was unprovoked, but trust me, it wasn’t. I wasn’t locking them the garage for Pete’s sake, I made them sit in a comfy chair. Was that cruel? No! But their mom still wondered what my problem was.

Can you see where I’m going with this?

At fist the mom told the kids to respect me, but they continued to be disrespectful quite frequently. Especially the eldest one. The younger one never was a problem till her sister set the example.

Then it just got ridiculous. I’m going to list all the over the top things in the Nanny Diaries that actually happened to me:

  1. Getting spied on. No cameras here, no, actual people were at the house, no warning half the time. Completely strangers were just there, watching me and reporting back to the mom. Why? Because her little angels were saying I was dong such a bad job.
  2. Getting a consultant. I wasn’t told tot each the kids French. But I was subjected to a “training” to be a better babysitter. Training really meant I was being supervised and made to do the chores and cook meals. (Even though originally that wasn’t part of the deal. Something my employer conveniently forgot.) I was also put down in front of the kids constantly for not being a good enough babysitter.
  3. Having men around when I was alone with the kids. Yes, the men were relatives. But still, awkward. My dad didn’t like it either.
  4. Getting fired after I did everything my boss said but still didn’t meet some unclear standard. Of course, she didn’t call it firing, she just said she might need me later but for now someone else was taking over.

Ugh.

It drove me crazy. But honestly, I wish that was all in the movie I could relate to. Aside from my complaints, The Nanny Diaries actually shows a very real problem that caregivers like me have: Letting go.

Like Annie, I observed a lot about the kids that the parents were too busy or just chose not to notice. I noted how one of them didn’t get enough attention because the other two were louder and pushier, and how one needed to be treated with more firmness, and the eldest, though she was a pain, wasn’t a bad kid and if she’d been taught respect and shown some more gentle ways, she would have been exceptional.

Babysitters get involved because we can’t help it. If you don’t like kids to begin with you’ve got no business babysitting, and if you like kids you will learn to love them. It’s not hard, children are way more lovable then adults.

And babysitters, because we like kids, and especially if we like to mother them, will study the kids we watch and we will want to help them. It’s part of us.

And that’s why we don’t get along with the parents.

I suspect, secretly, the parents feel guilty that they even need us around, that’s why they keep firing and rehiring. but though it may sting to have your kids turn to someone other than you for comfort, if you can’t be there, then maybe the kids need that stability.

I have no wish to come down on working moms, or dads, nor do I think it can never work out being a babysitter, nanny, or Au pair, and their employer. There’s a delicate balance but it can be achieved. My grandma takes care of my cousins all week without becoming estranged from their parents.

but the truth is, it’s not easy. Often the best babysitters don’t last because the sad fact is the less involved ones make the parents a lot less uncomfortable.

I was no saint, but I cared. I expected that to mean something, it turns out it meant trouble. And it broke my heart to leave those kids. It’s something I haven’t really gotten over even now. To tell you the truth, like Annie, I’m kind of asking why. What was the point of loving them if I had to leave them? And is this kind of love even what kids need? Or do parents just need to be the ones who are there?

Again, not to come down on working parents, but I have to ask the honest question, what does my experience show?

I doubt I’ll ever get the letter from my former boss telling me I showed her something about her kids. I don’t think she wanted me to show her anything.

And I’m left hoping I changed something, just like Annie, but not knowing if I did. Not knowing if my love will mean anything to those kids once their older.

I never had a babysitter like me. I liked mine, but they only watched me a few times, and only once in a while. Not four days a week for two months or more.

I liked the job, but it costs you.

Those are my thoughts one that, sorry this ran so long but it was a memoir.

Until next time–Natasha.