A pre-written post for ya

Currently listening to: Alexi Murdoch
Currently thinking about: going to sleep at 7:00 p.m.
Current city: Moberly, Missouri

I think the best thing to do right now is write. Typing away these letters seems to be my only option of expression at the time, giving me a technology fix and a way of communication which a girl like me enjoys from time to time. I am a few miles out of town, in a place where WIFI does not reside. I keep working to get on the neighbors’ wireless connections, but everyone has their security codes in action so people like me can’t hack off their system I guess. My connection to the world has been shut off. I sheepishly admit that I feel naked and insecure without being able to pull up Google and check my E-mail 10 times a day. So I guess this kind of technology abandonment is a good thing. And hey, you get a premeditated blog written on Microsoft Word with spell check rather than a spur of the moment post. Positive sides to everything, eh?

I feel like people expect you to feel a certain way when you graduate college. I think they think you should feel a certain way leaving to go to a really cool place. I don’t know that they even know what I should feel, but everyone knows whatever “it” is, it should feel significant. So when I don’t feel anything in particular, what an annoying disappointment. I talk through future plans with people like a robot. It’s not that I am not feeling excited, it’s that I have a thousand other emotions fighting for attention at the same time. So I freeze. In fear, I freeze. It’s like I am talking about it with my head, anxiously waiting for the rest of my senses to catch up.

Do you ever have moments where you see how much your parents have aged? It happens when you look at old pictures and see your dad 30 lbs lighter and with dark brown hair parted on the side instead of grey speckled hair and a receding hairline or you realize your mom didn’t stay age 40 all of these years or it’s when your parents can receive senior citizen benefits at Golden Corral (I don’t actually know if this is true). It’s when you think about how your parents have spent 36 years together and your grandparents married over 50 years. These days I value the wisdom, appreciate the commitment and am found astonished at such longevity in some human beings.

With the kind of stuff I read in health magazines, it doesn’t look like my body is going to see much on the side of longevity, and if so, it’s because of drugs that keep my body artificially functioning and age-defying shots to my face to cover the reality of all this. With the way we treat our bodies, they are already ruined. Our generation is going to be leathered skin, addicted, obese, impersonal and the worst of communicators, always plugged in to some form of the newest technology. We won’t believe in marriage because we couldn’t imagine being with only one person for all those years and commitment and loyalty will vanish from our vocabulary. Debt will be our middle name because we can’t say no and we want it right now.

It’s like if I just sit here quiet for a moment I can hear my body dying. I can feel it as my joints start stiffening, my varicose veins arise, my chest starts sagging, the fat on my legs starts curdling and I look to those in their mid 40’s right now and think, wow, is that really going to be me? It’s obvious that I have self control problems. I can’t stop from eating whatever form of sugar is in front of me. The problem with this is that while people in other countries die from not having any food at all, we die because we have too much and can’t control ourselves with it. We love to indulge and I hate that. I know about health, about risks, about good habits that I don’t have. I’ve read about the statistics and I’ve experienced little victories with temporarily developed healthy habits myself. What I can’t understand though is why I can’t stay in control. Sometimes I blame this on my extreme personality. I will either go one way or the other. There’s no balanced life here, it’s one extreme or it’s the complete opposite. Or maybe it’s not this, but this mediocrity that I am living that is driving me nuts. Who knows.

I find that the ultimate idea behind it is that we are completely mortal. How sucky….how real. Our bodies are dying and we are all stuck finding ways to hang onto them as long as we can. Yeah, it’s depressing for most of us to look in the mirror naked when we get ready in the morning, but heck, it happens to the best of us, right? My value as a woman is inside of me, not on the outside (praise God). I have to remember this…every single morning when I get up. And I thank God that I am an overanalyzing and over reflecting individual where I can ponder on these things and not an artificial and materialistic-minded person overlooking it. Because I think I can go somewhere with this mindset. I think I can use this as momentum for a richer experience here, knowing my focus is on a Hope elsewhere.

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day….so we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen in temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16