So, I think I need to full out do cash envelopes.  I need to feel the bills leave my hands, otherwise it's too easy--it's just a collections of numbers that I plug in and my transaction is complete.

It is time to diet, in all ways.
-Buying stuff (decrease):
---Pay off HWN card (~$7000).  Keep no larger than $3500 balance
---Pay off ON card (~$500)
---Start taking out cash from US Bank for personal use.  All personal items must be bought in person and with cash.  
---Eliminate online shopping

-Cleaning stuff (increase)
---20 mins tidying everyday--keep main areas clean
---Fix the bedroom.
-organize/put away all clothes (check weather and decide what stays out)
 -Get rid of unused coats (BR, ON red, brown puffy, maybe silver vest (try on), college black.  Keep fur and red or black for mom visit.)
-Wash and store snow clothes
---Fix the desk area
---Last: do all the hang laundry and put away

-Overeating & sugar/carbs (decrease)
Coffee with cream AM, salad & yogurt afternoon, 1 luna bar ok.  subway PM :(.  No candy or sweets.
-Oversleeping (decrease--wake up every morning and start day with light cardio workout)
-Exercise (increase)
Go in mornings and participate in classes when can.
-Mon-Fri = AM cardio downtown, evening optional zumba/UJam; Sat = Hula & UJam (Pearl)

-Also: PM: Library study.  Class is about to require regular focus again.

Early this morning I found myself trying to remember exactly what Noa was wearing that night we first kissed.

I couldn't do it.

I remember now there's a picture, somewhere, at Kayla's birthday party that should show us dancing together--and what we were wearing.

Today while riding the elevator down to leave our apartment, I was struck with the notion that I was not really living and I only have one short life to do so.  I thought, well I would go back to school, or take a class, or buy a piano, but those are costly.  And then I remembered looking at a $1200 beige purse on my phone for a half hour while sitting on the toilet last night.  And then I thought, I could have a purse, or I could have a life.

And then I thought, I would really like that purse though.

I would have totally eaten that marshmallow as a kid in that famous experiment.

The thing is, I think I would still eat that marshmallow.

So what now?

The fruit of the spirit is love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness & self-control. Against these things there is no law.

Self-control is a fruit.  Help, God.

You know what I love more than getting the thing?  Dreaming (asking myself, what do I want) the thing, and finding the thing,  Creating a target that I can lust after and even achieve.

So maybe I just need some real goals in my life.  Setting the bar as low as a $1200 bag seems like a wasted life.

Help, God.


So what do I want?

Where do I find it?

How do I get there?


I don't know.  I used to say I wanted to help people, but right now I feel so disconnected from You that I don't feel that anymore.  It's just a weird, guilty memory.

H.S. chills right now.  I confess.  I confess.

What do I want?

I want to write, with breath.  Alo-ha.

I also want to read.

I want to read soul.  Read powerful sounds and thoughts.

I want to find voices I can align with, including the Bible.

I want to live how the H.S. guides.

And I do want to help people, but only with You.

One more thing.  The caveat of good writing (from me): it must stem from true awareness, which can only come with an open, grateful, heart.  So He is indeed, still The Vine.

So it seems, which makes the past ten years feel wasted
That the only way for me to learn is to reflect
And the only way to appreciate what you are making inside of me
Is to write
So
I'm sorry for the last ten years.

I'm sorry I didn't write when I learned to love.
I'm sorry I didn't write about the sweet and slow breezes in Waikiki
Where human body met human body met stars
When my brother was still alive and I could hold him
When everyone I loved had a home, and the biggest struggle was hitting it big or getting a car or graduating high school or gaining the respect of a boss

How ironic, right, that those were the years that considered so carefully, surrounded by piles of dusty photobooks, the magical 20s, where my parents were beautiful and almost cool looking, where I didn't exist.  What will my children see?

This MBA program is not a writing program.  It's something else, it's interesting but not a purpose.  It's something else.  But I don't want the next ten years like the last.  I know now, I want to write.

And it is powerful to know a thing that is ingrained, predestined
But it is a north star, a map, and not an airplane--I still have to travel on my own.

I hate it when people call themselves writers.  Maybe I'll get there. I don't think I have to, though it may come.

I am really tired of reading bullshit, fb posts, news.  But I very much want to read something meaty, and of the heart, something poetic, rough, and real.  And not white.  I'm sorry, just can't right now.

TIL 1/4/17:

That love feels like grace

That love is a kind of faith

Or faith is a kind of love

Though I trudged through downtown

In 'feels like' 16 degrees F

Wide rubber snow boots stomping out a path

With a loud swish with each swing of a arm or leg underneath my double layered grey parka

I noticed, I was warm

I felt like I was floating, like I was gracefully sweeping a single 1' above the sidewalk, never touching

There are moments I feel like I am Mary

Where I understand the sweetness of the gift you are blessing me with

Monday Jan 2 afternoon in the diner downtown

Empty because it was a holiday

And it was freezing outside

And in those teal blue bucket booth seats

The white winter sun shone blinding bright through our section's window

We smiled at each other, fearless

Like that second date at the hamburger place in Kahala

With more faith in letting go than per usual, per ever, save a few religious holy-spirit moments of knowing

So if there is a baby, there is a baby, and it is of God, and be it unto me as you have said

Nothing is ready except our hearts.

almost funny

I used to watch Mr. Roger's Neighborhood  on TV as a kid.  My favorite part of the show was when they zoomed into a painting of a stoplight and then zoomed out into a 2 minute bit on how things are made.  It showed the behind the scenes of certain jobs, like a crayon factory, and blew open the doors to a dimension of the world I had never considered: that crayons had to be made, and that someone made them, and that there was a process to that.  

I feel like I am watching one of those bits again.  A portal opening to a world I was unaware of.  Instead of crayons, I am watching what it's like when your brother is murdered by gunshot.  

-The matter-of-factness of it: googling "how to get over a loved one's murder"

-The sick humor in it: my stepdad texting me a picture of my mom and a backpack from the airport: "mom and josh say hi".  Josh's remains are in an urn in the backpack.

-what a dead body looks like when it's someone you love, when it's someone that died young

I am desperate for meaning.  For some good work to do with my hands, with my brain.

In my desperation, I am ignoring the work in front of me, the job I have now.

Logically and slightly emotionally, there are two paths that I can see.

But neither path is lit ahead of me.

Lord your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.


If all this world is to fade, what is the point of saving it?  Of caring for it?  Why do I desire to do so, perhaps even more than the souls that you have given us?

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. --Isaiah 40:8

Why do I cry in Jurassic World when the Brontosaurus is dying but not when the humans are?  What is wrong with my heart?  Why am I so closed to the pain of other humans?  Why do I protect my heart so fiercely?

We are talking about kids.  I don't want to have kids out of giving up.  But if kids are the right path, then that's different.  

God light our paths,. please.

I am burying talents so hard.  And yet all I want is your approval.  Do we just move and ask forgiveness later?  I don't know where to find the balance of waiting and moving.  And I don't know which way is forward.

I still believe you're true.  That your promises, even the ones I don't know, are true and forever.  I believe that your son, Jesus, is real and will intercede for me.  I believe in santification and salvation.

I just want to know if what I'm doing is ok or not and where to go.  What is the point of a relationship with God if you can't hear him?  

If I am spiritually deaf God, heal me?  If not, show me, sign language something please.  Interpretive dance your message?  Do something you know I'll understand?

Is that all I am?  A mother?  Is it that the small things are really the biggest?  Is that the lie I've been following all along, that I have it inverted--where regonitioon and pay are more important that love and relationships? 

WHY AM I SO SET ON DOING SOMETHING 
ON BEING SOMETHING
AND WHY WON'T YOU LET ME???

i feel like you gave me all this fracking talent and then
no where to go
and just said no?

like a mute with a beautiful voice

are you doing something?

I need to feel that peace, that closeness, I need to feel you here, please.

If you made me an INFJ why the frak would you not let me do something
it just seems so cruel?  I get that it's not up to me.   

Where is the line of my part vs your part.  Why is that so hard for me?