Running Away @ MindSay

I hate being poor.

 

When your parents live from check to check, w. no extra money, in a house that no one should be living in. . .

 

When you grow up in a state of not getting everything you want. . . Where you wreck your car and you KNOW it'll be years before you get another one. And that one you will have to buy on your own.

 

When you bum cell phone usage off of your best friend.

 

When your power gets cut off at least once every three months for weeks at a time.

And always at the most embarrassing times (Like when your long distance amour is in town)

 

When your siblings get picked on at school because they have holes in their shoes.

 

When you own FOUR pairs of jeans.

And even those are wearing out.

 

When all you can dream about is getting out and starting over.

And never being like your parents.

 

. . .

 

I love my parents.

My mom busts her ass at a job she loves that pays her shit (teaching). She's the least selfish of the two.

My dad just thinks about his truck.

 

But she does w.o new clothes. Wears clothes from the Christian store down the street that make her look 20 years older than she really is.

Just so me and my siblings have new clothes.

Have what we need to start school.

 

There's got to be more to life than this.

 

Than this constant state of poverty.

 

Than the almost bare cabinets and the holes in the floor. The leaking ceilings and the wallpapers that's peeling off the walls.

 

Why do I feel like getting out of NC will save me from this? Why does running away from where I grew up make me feel better? Why does the idea, the planning, of going places no one in my family has been make me feel like I'm accomplishing my dreams?

 

My dreams have changed since last year.

 

I no longer just dream of being that successful journalist in a big city making lots of money and living comfortably.

 

Now I dream of escaping what I grew up in.

Of never being like my parents.

I want to place myself in a completely different setting. . . In hopes that I might make a life for me that my parents couldn't make for themselves.

Not in an attempt to shut them out, no.

 

I call it an attempt to become everything I ever wanted while growing up.

I want to give the children I might one day everything I didn't get.

I want them to be spoiled rotten by parents who would do anything for them.

To never be picked on (Even though I can't say I have been. I haven't)

To never feel embarrassed by where and what they live in and at.

 

My mom can say she's insulted by Nick asking if he's my ticket out of NC.

 

He doesn't have to be my ticket.

 

I'll get out regardless.

 

But I sure would love his company along the way.

I'm off! 

After two years, I am getting a vacation. A long-awaited, much anticipated vacation.  I have not had more than a few hours away from my guys (I love 'em, believe me, but this girl needs to be "off duty" at least once a year) since the first weekend of June, 2004. It's totally cool that I get to go now.

So, I'll be gone, ladies and gentlemen, for a few days. Yay!  Mums, an altogether admirable woman, sees her computer as she does her purse, and no one is allowed to tinker with the contents therein, even to blog. <smile> So I guess no 'Net access for me!  <smile>

Have a great weekend, all.  I'll be thinking of you, truly.

I watched a movie tonight on TV...can't remember what it was called but it made me think a little bit about relationships.

 

Every time you get out of one..whether it be that you got broken up with, it was a mutual decision, or you broke up with someone..it always feels bad. I know it does for me, I'm not sure about everyone else. It's usually me getting broken up with though......so I always feel horrible. Oh well. Anyways, sometimes it's better to just say goodbye and not really talk to that person much anymore, becuase you can't hold onto something you might never have again...and if you continue to talk to that person--it'll only make you fall further for them

 

Sometimes moving on with the rest of your life starts with goodbye...  That's part of a song by Carrie Underwood that I just thought of while I was writing that. It's kind of true in a sense. Sometimes the things that you think you need and want are the things you need to leave and start over with. There are things that can stay, and things that should go...others significant, and some not so important. It's kind of like you hold onto some things because you feel empty without them, but they make you feel awful.......it's hard to leave them behind and move on, but sometimes that's just what you need.

 

People run away from things a lot....if it's relationships, or problems, or emotions....we all try avoiding something at one point, and it's honestly not worth it because you still have to face it sooner or later. Like me--I avoid relationships and liking guys right now, just because I've been hurt so much, and I know it'll have to end sometime, but right now I'm feeling alright that I don't have to hurt......but I'm afraid now that when I break down my walls and start letting people in--I'll hurt worse than ever and fall faster than I've ever fell before. There are a few things I'm afraid of..and none of them are something I can talk to or face....it's all emotional or something on the lines of that. I'm afraid of failing, of disappointing my parents and relatives, of letting people get too close and getting hurt, of being alone all my life and never being able to find the right one for me, and of never achieving the goals I have for myself. I've never understood why exactly I get to be this way...but things just build up, and then suddenly I can't do some of the things I could before and I start to back away from things..close up, and shut people out. I don't like doing it...actually, I hate doing it. But I don't know how to stop. I'm always there for other people, but I can't seem to open up to many....and I want to be able to, because then things would maybe be easier, I wouldn't hurt so much.....I just don't know how.

 

Well, there's my rant for the day. G'nite.

 

<3 Nicole

Once upon a time, a man was told specifically what the Lord wanted him to do.  Very specifically. No room for misunderstanding or "oh, I thought you saids." 

Go here and do this. Period.

The man didn't like those instructions, and so ignored them. Ran from them.  Tried to remove himself from the situation as far as possible.  As a result, he entangled others, innocents, with his life and so endangered them, because sin -- the disobedience against the Lord -- usually backlashes against those who are not responsible for that particular sin.

Did the man ever figure this out?  He understood, finally, that only by accepting his punishment and ultimately turning to obedience could he save the others, but did he ever figure it out for the rest of his life?

Do we ever figure it out?

Sometimes, the effects of sin -- of missing the mark of perfection -- hurt others.  Sometimes that sin is just uncaring.  I know a boy in my Sunday School class who was hit by a car yesterday.  (Thanks be to God that he suffered only abrasions and fright, no major hurts!) Now, he was just buying ice cream from an ice cream truck, minding his own business. The man who hit him wasn't even speeding.  He just wasn't paying attention when children were present.  Is that a deliberate flouting of the law?  There are often "caution signs" on ice cream trucks, but no law on the books that says Stop or Slow Down when one is seen.

Still, though, my student was hurt.  No fault, the police report might say. But is it, ultimately, true?

A man might be having problems in his relationship with God because of some deliberate refusal to obey in some area of his life.  That lack of obedience can and often does affect his whole family.  Tension, plans, communication, even finances and standard of living can be affected while the Lord tries to get the fellow's attention.

I know, because I've seen it.

I do not advocate a "prosperity based faith." Far from it.  But I have noticed that if life is rocky, the first place to check is my relationship with my Creator.  Have I been listening? Have I been running away? 

I wonder if Jonah ultimately stopped running. When last we saw him, he was perched on a dry space, discontented and alone.

Got us an old fashioned cattle roundup goin' on the expressway this mornin'. A cattle truck jacknifed on the expressway and it seems that cattle are running free everywhere.  25 are still out there somewhere....  Wonder if they planned it....rocking the truck till it turned on its side...then making a break for it.   Now they're on the lam.....lol.