I got promoted again today…that’s not why I feel blessed though.

Nine months ago, I found myself wallowing in a depression, the likes of which I had not experienced since before I was saved. In the passing weeks and months, He has blessed me time and time again, but…

I always found myself thinking back to that dark point in my life when I thought nothing would ever go right again and I thought I would simply sink lower and lower until the darkness consumed me. I often wondered why I had to go through all of that, why it had to be me, why I had to be brought so low before I was able to feel so high and, until recently, I had passed it off with the easy reason of knowing that one has to go down before going up, even though I never fully understood it. Today, however, it occurred to me why I had to go through my trial and why I will continue to go through trials as I travel through life.

To go through something is always worth telling or sympathizing, but to go through something, only to come out on top afterward is a testimony and this is what He wants. Not just someone to say, I’ve lived through X and survived, but a true light to the world who can I say I lived through X and triumphed!

Today, I was able to testify to someone, albeit in a more secular fashion than I would have preferred, and it was not until afterward that it occurred to me why I was made to suffer. Without my suffering, my doubt, my pain, I would have had nothing to tell this someone who so clearly was searching for guidance. With no hardship of my own, my advice would have been a lecture, not a testimony.

At nearly 26 years old, I have had a blessed life. I can’t remember ever going hungry a day in my life and, even though my mother tells me we were poor when I was a small child, I never once felt it. As yet, I have yet to miss a rent payment, even though I had gone four months without a job and, while my debt to income ratio is not where I would like it to be, I at least know it exists and can still make plans for the future without worrying about a seven-year black mark on name. I am an American who was raised during the 90s, who never saw life on welfare or drugs in my home or wanton acts by parental figures in my presence; I’ve lived a charmed life.

When I became saved, the first thing I wanted to do was bring someone else to Christ, anyone! But, few willing participants could be found. I won’t go so far as to say that I saved anyone today, but I love simply realizing why Jesus pushes us through trials and uncertainty: so that we can be lights to others wandering in the darkness.

I didn’t make it to church today.

This time last year, such a statement would have initiated a barrage of texts, e-mails and phone calls regarding my whereabouts that I would have felt it necessary to release a public statement to let my family know that I was okay. Nowadays, however, things are different. No one calls because it’s not such a rare occurrence any longer.

I’ve been telling myself for months, “I’m not losing my faith. I’m just going through some things right now.” What these “things” are, I don’t know and, as much as I pray about it, these “things” aren’t revealing themselves to me. All I do know is that has been getting easier and easier to skip that which held such an importance to me less than eight months ago and, when I woke up this morning, I had wondered if it was even “necessary” to go to church again. We’ve had another death in our family and, today especially, I just didn’t see the point in going to church.

Some time in 2008, I’d made a “deal” of sorts with God after losing Edrith and also MawMaw in such quick succession; I just didn’t want to go to anymore funerals until I turned 25. This entire time, I’ve known that I can’t actually deal with God, since I’ve got nothing of any real value to offer except my submission, which I should be giving anyway, but I’d made my deal last year, praying that I could just live life for two years without going to yet another funeral; saying goodbye to yet another person. I’ve experienced loss in the past two years, but I hadn’t needed to attend any homegoings. My birthday is not until the end of September and yet, here I am.

When I’d heard what had happened, I immediately thought of my deal and prayed for a very long time about what I’d done so wrong that I couldn’t have until at least my 25th birthday without having to deal with another loss. It wasn’t until this morning, however, that it occurred to me (really occurred to me) that there never was any “deal.” People come and people go as He sees fit and He had seen to it that I had the time I needed to grow up a little more before having to deal with it once again. But, what truly got to me this morning was the growing depression and thoughts that “none of this mattered,” that eventually I’d lose everyone I loved and no amount of church was going to change the inevitable. And, that’s when I started to cry.

I’ve always classified tears into three categories: “small tears” that occur when I shed a few over the birth of a child or when friends marry, “pain tears” that occur when I’m in such physical pain that there doesn’t seem to be anything else I can do, and then there are “real tears” that follow overwhelming depression and sadness. My tears this morning fell into that latter group and it angered me because I hate when I cry “real tears.” Joy or pain can be expressed, but mourning depression is something that I try to hold in as much as possible out of sheer frustration that I can be reduced to tears over something that simply encompasses my own thoughts bouncing against one another until I hit a low and I cannot pull myself out of it.

So, this morning, I lay in my bed, crying these real tears and thinking aloud that there really wasn’t a point to any of “it” anymore and I had no reason to even give “it” anymore thought because God hadn’t cared about my deal and He wasn’t answering me in the time that I wanted Him to answer and, even if He did speak to me, I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer. I must say, looking back hours later, it was very dark moment for me; one I used to experience all the time before I had first come to the church and had hoped I would never see again.

As complete frustration over these nonsensical real tears willed me to stop crying altogether, I lay there half-listening to a CD I’d made a couple weeks ago and wondered if I’d ever feel like myself ever again after recognizing that God doesn’t make “deals” with people. And, that was when the sappiest of songs started to echo through my boombox…

Now, I’ve been listening to Michael Jackson songs non-stop for the past three weeks and I know that’s a subject worth prayer in itself, but for this song to come on when it did… I felt a smile pull at my lips and I had to shake my head at the simultaneous “on-timeness” of God and simple coincidence. MJ’s “Keep the Faith” had come up on the CD.

Again, I’d been listening to MJ songs for close to a month straight and I’d probably played that song twenty times since I’d dug out my Dangerous album, but…when I lay wondering what the point of all of “it” was, when I lay thinking that no path I could take was ever going to bring me fully into Christ’s light, when I lay crying about God not answering my questions, the title of the song spoke to me: Keep the Faith. It sounds almost laughable when I write it because it’s not even a Christian song, but simply hearing the beginning of it and remembering the title right when I did felt like something only He could do for me in a moment so dire.

And so, in hearing this song that had both saccharine sappiness and inspiration weaved within it, I let out a laugh and rose from my bed thinking, “Well played, Old Man.”

I didn’t make it to church today, but I have this renewed vigor in my approach towards it, nevertheless. I began studying my Sunday School lesson for next week tonight, a feat I hadn’t accomplished since I started teaching again and, regardless of the fact that I know I’ve got greater and more painful losses coming my way in the upcoming years, I feel strong. The logical side of my mind is saying, “Dorienne, it was just a coincidence. The song comes on after ‘Give Into Me’ on your ‘MJ-Sleep’ CD. It’s just a coincidence.” but whenever I think of coincidences in relation to religious matters, I consider my favorite The X-Files quote coming from Mulder: “If coincidences are just coincidences, why do they feel so contrived?”

I was in a very, very low place this morning and God spoke to me in a manner, in a way that only He could and He told me, quite clearly, that even though the road ahead looks rough, I need to keep the faith. I can only chuckle to myself when I think about it. Well played, Old Man…

Today marks three years since I joined my church!

I sometimes mention this to some people and they either don’t care or just don’t find it terribly significant. For me, however, May 14th is like a birthday.

Three years ago, on a Mother’s Day Sunday, I decided to come to church with my mother because it seemed like the right thing to do; a gift, of sorts, for Mother’s Day. I had already been coming semi-regularly (because Christ always changes you before you realize it) and each Sunday I faced this inner battle when the pastor was inviting us to join the church. Part of it was my stubbornness saying, “No one is going to tell ME what to do.” Yet, another part, sounding far meeker and calmer, simply asked, “Why not?” It would feel like a burn in my stomach each time and the previous Sunday, it seemed like I had to grab hold of one of the chairs to keep from stepping out into the aisle and giving my life to Christ.

On May 14th, 2006, I didn’t have a response to the “Why not?” and so, I stepped out in the aisle and made my way to the front of the church, ready for a change in my life. I remember quite clearly Pastor saying, “I’ve been waiting for you, my sister.” as I approached and, as I sat down in the front row, I tried so hard not to cry. It wasn’t until I really “let go” that the tears started to come, not unlike they are now as I recall this event and, when I looked back into the congregation and saw my mother nearly sobbing over the fact that I had joined the church on my own free will, I really started to cry.

I can’t say that I changed from all my “evil” ways right there and then, but something was different in me from that day forward. Just reading back through the past entries of this blog can show anyone the difference in the person I was before and after May 14, 2006. Before I had joined the church, my friends and I would laugh at how ignorant all religious people were and how silly they all were to give 10% of their money to their churches and spend half their Sundays listening to “some sermon” every week. Before I had joined the church, Sundays were best spent lounging around, doing nothing and recovering from whatever I had poured down my throat the previous night. Before I had joined my church, Lincoln Park, the last time I had actively pursued a church, I left at the end of their service saying, “I don’t think I’m a Christian anymore.” Before I had joined the church, I was a floundering mess with no direction, no drive and, as sanctimonious and almost trite as it might sound, no future.

Like I said, the total change in myself didn’t come overnight. I still slipped up, but I was very aware of my slip-ups and desired to do more with my life instead. What stands out most to me, however, is what happened not even a full week after I had joined. My roommates were throwing a party that upcoming Saturday and, as I had an exam, for which I had not even cracked open a book, I told them that I would just go home to my parents’ house that Saturday so I could study and then get up for church the next morning. I remember quite clearly one of my friends looking at me quizzically and saying, “Well…you can miss one Sunday, can’t you?” Now, the friend who said this to me is not “evil” or someone who was trying to cause my downfall in any way, shape or form. In fact, we are still, in some sense, friends today, but the question she posed seemed simple and obvious. And, I had actually thought about it for a minute and let the words swirl in my head as I struggled with an answer. You can miss once. It’s just once.

The problem was it would not have been “just once.” Just once would have signified that the commitment I desired to make on May 14th meant nothing, that joining the church was no different than saying that I was going to go to the gym every day or put in three hours of studying every night or write more or call my relatives or try to reach out to old friends…when I never did. “Just once” was not just once. It was everything my life had been up to that point and I knew that if I was going to make a commitment to Christ, I did not want to face this particular “just once” on my judgment day. So, I told my friend that I really had to study (which I didn’t really do when I got home) and I didn’t want to be a downer for their party. They had their party and I went to church that Sunday and have felt like I was at least walking towards the path God had lain out for me ever since.

In many ways, May 14th really is like another birthday. I sometimes detest the term “born again” because I had known so many people who were “born again” and were the most mean-spirited, antagonistic and amoral people I had ever witnessed, but sometimes the term is fitting. On May 14th, I was born again in Christ. While I know I will still have struggles and countless slip-ups between now and the time my journey is over, my goal in this life is to never need to be “born again” again. My goal is to just stay on the path and to let May 14th be the only “born again” day I’ll ever need.

I experienced an incident yesterday that happened several months earlier in a similar fashion and, once again, found myself…for lack of a better word: pleased to find that Christ had delivered me from myself yet again.

I have a way of getting ahead of myself, allowing my emotions to take control of my tongue (or in this case, my typing fingers) to the point that I can no longer muster the common sense needed to interact with the rest of the world. To put it simply, when I hear or read something I don’t like, I sometimes respond before taking stock of what I’m saying and what the ramifications of saying could be.

Several months ago, I found myself in a situation where I thought I could not handle the people around me and was just about to say something abrupt and simply mean before exiting the scene, but Christ stifled my voice for just long enough for the situation to work out by itself and leave me looking and feeling like the person I’ve always been rather than the mean and embittered person who tries to come out every now and again. Yesterday, I once again was saved from myself.

Sarcasm is my preferred mode of interacting with others; people always seem to remember the witty, sarcastic girl they had met the previous day. While this can have it’s ups and downs, I know I can definitely “dish out” much more than I can take in return. When I allowed a series of witty snips to really get to me, instead of relying on my own sarcastic quips to take away the minor hurt, I prepared to retort with something that was downright arrogant and mean. In other words, I was prepared to be completely unlike myself in a minute of subdued rage over being incapable of bringing a “comeback” soon enough. The amazing thing is, I actually completed my rant and forwarded it for my quarry to see. It was only after the fact, when I didn’t receive an immediate response, that I took the time to re-read what I had written and realized that what I said could have been the very thing that ruined my friendship with this person. But, then God stepped in for me.

Even though I’d sent my message, it wasn’t read; we sarcastic run in the same circles and my recipient didn’t wait for a response, and so, my mean epithets were never even seen. The words I’d said were harsh and rude and make me feel ashamed, but it’s moments like these that help me realize that I have to work hard to keep that mean, embittered person from taking over my life again.

Christ has always shielded me, to the point of almost spoiling me. He spoils me with the people around me and He spoils me with gifts as well. I just find it rather amusing that God can find a moment out of infinite time to step in and save myself from augmenting or harming the blessings that lie in wait for me.

In the spirit of doing things because “everyone else is doing it,” and since I have been tagged several times with this, I have created one of these lists:

1.) I am a computer nerd. I love everything about programming and teaching myself new things through trial and error just gets me all a-tingle. I also love the idea that making one mistake can cause the remaining code to implode on itself. It takes the love of striving for perfection to a new level.

2.) I am a grammar nerd, too. There is something about the written word that fascinates me to no end. Watching languages evolve (eg: the use of chatspeak, WTF? OMFG! or lolcat phrases, I can haz new wordz nao! in everyday language) through new technology stimulates me and plays very well with the computer nerd that comprises me.

3.) I love musicians. Anyone who can sing or play any instrument captivates me. There is something about music and it’s ability to cross cultures and withstand time that makes me love those who create it. It is almost like a language of its own…a language I can discover more interesting things about on my computer…

4.) I find half the fun of writing stories in doing hours of research into the most minute of details. For example, in my fanfic novel, Flight, I have Olivia playing the cello because I love musicians, however, I don’t play the cello nor have I ever seen one in real life. The DAYS of research I put on my computer into learning minor cellist lingo gave me more joy than actually writing the two sentences that involved the detail.

5.) I flip flop between a desire to have children or not, often. There are days when I pray that someday I will be a godmother and only a godmother, but then I have these moments when I really, REALLY want two boys and a girl. Or just two boys. Or just one boy. Or maybe just one godson…

6.) I am a Christian, but I often feel more comfortable amongst atheists and agnostics. It is almost as if being surrounded by them reaffirms my faith. I wish I could understand the logic behind it.

7.) I detest things I cannot explain or understand. I think that is why being a Christian, ironically, works best for me. Without Christ’s blessings, I would never be able to have the slightest comprehension of death and would fear it right up until my last breath.

8.) I believe organized religion has done more to corrupt Christ’s work and teachings than any unbeliever ever could or would. I am very much a Christian, so I’m not sure if that makes a whole lot of sense, but it is how I view the church on whole.

9.) The imperfection of my human body disgusts me. I don’t mean it in a sense that my weight is not where I want it to be or I lack any control over my hair outside of braids. I mean it just irritates me that this body has to sleep or the mind just begins to deteriorate. The idea that I have to eat or else I get headaches that tell me, “Yo! Time for food!” or that I have to use the bathroom or take shower (gross, I know.) or, again, sleep, when there are so many other things I could be doing during at the same time is just very frustrating.

10.) The shows I “heart” most are the ones I scrutinize hardest. SVU is the only show I watch on television right now. In fact, this past summer, when SVU was on reruns, I only turned on the television once to see what was happening to the weather as a part of Ike hit Ohio. Since I love SVU as much as I do, it literally pains me when I watch an episode that is boring or just doesn’t make sense. It must be perfect. The acting, the writing, the cinematography; everything MUST be on point or else it is total FAIL.

11.) I admire intelligence before appearance. It took me a while to realize this. I found myself having these teen-like crushes on men who were three times my age with no hair and age spots just because I could see glimpses of how brilliant their minds were.

12.) I carry a chapstick on a “chapstick lanyard” on my keys at all times. That way, there is no chance that I will ever be somewhere and chapstick is not available to me. THAT would surely result in psychoses of epic proportion.

13.) I wake up every morning and tell myself the same thing. “You are the most intelligent and most beautiful person in the world. Now, go show everyone else.”

14.) I’m incapable of maintaining long-lasting relationships. If I haven’t called, e-mailed, texted, PM’d or poked or responded to you in a while, it’s not that I don’t care. It’s just not in my nature to carry on “knowing” people once I no longer see them on a day-to-day basis. Sad, I know, but such is Dorienne.

15.) As tech savvy as I am, I own a VCR. WTF, you say? I no longer have cable, so I if need to tape SVU, I’ll need TAPE SVU. Plus, I’ve acquired about 25 8-hour tapes of nothing but the mothership Law & Order and I need to watch them on something.

16.) @15 – I cried when Jerry Orbach passed away. For a very long time.

17.) I have a set of characters in a series that I have been writing since I was ten years old. I have literally grown up writing these characters. Creepy, no?

18.) There are some days when I forgot how young/old I am. I feel much, much older. Like I am actually about 43 years old instead. It gets kind of depressing when I feel like I’ve passed the 40th birthday milestone, but have accomplished so little in my life.

19.) Since I watched The X-Files religiously from age 10 to age 18, I can honestly say that show shaped me into the person I am today. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?

20.) I abhor everything about Micro$oft, which is why I spell it with a dollar sign. They are just crap and, while I use Firefox and had tried using OpenOffice (it just can’t keep up), it still bothers me that I have to use anything made them.

21.) I am currently going through this phase where I am totally “in to” webcomics. Right now I am reading Questionable Content, xkcd, Wasted Talent, Pictures for Sad Children and Jay Naylor’s Better Days. Google them! They are all kinds of awesome.

22.) @17 – I play my sims in The Sims 2 as one large neighborhood that evolves at the same time. I’ve been playing the game for four years and I am still working on the first generation. I’ve “known” some of my sims longer than I’ve known some of my friends.

23.) I don’t like fancy crosses. I have several crosses in my house and I wear one around my neck that I never remove. ALL of them share a common trait in that they are very, very simple. The cross on which Christ died for our sins was rugged, bare and simple in its own right, so crosses that are interlaced with diamonds or are so ornate that they qualify as “bling” just confuse me.

24.) There are currently 487 discs in my Netflix queue. If I have a new disc sent to me every single day for the next year, I will STILL not have watched everything I have queued. It is well worth it, though. Their service is full of win and I like just watching random movies or TV shows on DVD throughout my week.

25.) It took me a week and a half to find 25 random things to say about myself…sigh…

According to this article, making New Year’s resolutions often do more harm than good. What people mostly experience is that they can never live up to the high expectations they set for themselves and become depressed and embittered as the year continues because they fell off this bandwagon or went right back to doing what they had resolved to no longer do. I am quite guilty of making resolutions without having the resolve, willpower, whatever to stick to them and this year I just said, “To heck with it.”

My mother always told me the superstition regarding how one brings in the new year. Essentially, how you bring in the year is how you will live the year. In some regards, this is true. For example, I rang in 2005 drunk, a little depressed and drinking with people I really didn’t like and most of my year was spent drunk, a little depressed and around people I just wanted to punch in the face. On the other hand, I rang in 2006, not wanting to spend another New Year’s in some bar surrounded by people I didn’t like, in the church and ended up joining the church and discovering how awesome God is.

In most cases, though, this idea is all superstition and completely false. Every year since I can remember, I have spent the majority of December 31st cleaning like mad to make sure the house/apartment/townhouse/whatever was as clean as possible to ring in the new year and every year since I can remember, the house/apartment/townhouse/whatever ended up just as dirty throughout the year as it was on December 30th.

This year, rather than say, “Hurray! A new year! Let me make all these resolutions I’ll never stick to and such!” I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing; that is, going for my major goals. The house is a mess right now, but to be honest, cleaning it up on one night was not going to keep it clean all year. I have to be in the mindset to keep it clean daily. I don’t weigh what I want right now, but I’m very healthy and if I keep eating how I should and exercising regularly, my body will adapt. After all, I didn’t put on the weight in a week, so I can’t possibly expect it to come off in a week either. My novel is still not complete, but if I just keep writing something every day my ultimate goal of having a novel published by 9/26/2010 will get accomplished.

I still went to church tonight to ring in my new year, but I also still made sure my daily chapter of the Bible got read and I am still going to do my stomach crunches and light lifting before I go to sleep. There really is no difference between 12/31/08 and 1/1/09; I’m still going to keep doing Dorienne and still strive for my goals. Or, like my pastor often says, I’m going to remember to keep the main thing, the main thing.

Something like this happens nearly every day of my life, but rarely do I step back and really thank God for the small wonders He bestows upon me. Since I’m a bit too thick to remember the proverbial small things, He takes some of them and just expands them in front of my eyes so that I remember that even though I am just an insignificant speck amongst all His creations, he is still watching and listening.

I try very hard to find the something good out of everyone I meet, but of course, there are some people I just don’t like. While I make every attempt to first examine myself to make sure what irks me about them is not something they do and that I also do or worse, is something that I am just projecting onto them unduly. Once all these conditions are met, I chalk said person up to “I just don’t like them,” but again, work diligently to remember that Christ’s teachings are to love all my “brothers” and “sisters” and pray for them even when my “humanity” just doesn’t want to pray for them. That said, I have encountered a number of people through my job that “I just don’t like,” but it is amazingly through these people that God allows me to remember my own faults and issues and also reminds me to thank Him for the small things.

A few months ago, I applied for a new position within my job and was sore to find out that I did not get the position I wanted, only to realize that that same position would have put me in direct contact with one of these few people “I just don’t like.” That little scenario in itself was happy-dance and blog-worthy because it was one of those times when I had said, “Well God. I don’t understand why you didn’t given me what I wanted, but I’m sure this is all a part of your plan.” but the real joy comes from today. When faced with another one of these people that “I just don’t like,” I cried out an arrow prayer of sorts that I didn’t even realize I was making and was provided with not only the peace I was seeking, but also the ability to save face so that I could remain on good terms with someone who I really just want to punch in the face, but don’t because…well, there are lots of reasons, but I know I just shouldn’t.

The point of today’s ramble is simply that God is always listening and knows precisely what I need, and for that, I am thoroughly thankful.

I added this video as one of my YouTube favorites recently because it really makes one consider “insignificance” in a whole new light:

I am incredibly small when compared with everything else in God’s universe…and yet He still saves me from myself and answers my prayers.

…kind of brings this little diddy to mind:

I realized something fascinating this week…

Throughout most of October, I had made a strong effort to ensure that I read at least one chapter of the Bible every day. I started with Luke, then the Gospel of John, then read Mark. I am currently reading Matthew, but there have been large gaps in my reading in November. I took a temporary position at work that is a nice opportunity, but has thrown my schedule completely out of whack, making me feel the busiest I have ever been. The problem, however, is that somewhere in all of that busyness, I started to forget about my daily chapter. Interestingly enough, once I stopped reading my chapter-a-day, I started feeling stressed again; a stress that was reminiscent of the days before I came back to Christ. The house became messy, I did not seem to have time for anything and I started gaining weight…all because I had neglected to take time to ensure I had time for Jesus.

Over the past few days, I have been working diligently to make sure I took some “me” time somewhere in the day just so that I could make time for Christ. I am still not back into my normal rhythm, but at least I am aware of the root cause of my stress and know how to do something about it…and also ready myself to vow to never let it happen again.

On another note, my favorite author of all time passed away this week. My reaction to the news was with complete shock, though as evidence that I am living in a Post-Edrith and Post-MawMaw psyche where I am almost always “all cried out,” I did not cry. I may yet find myself needing to mourn him with tears, but at this point I don’t really know what to do.

When I was growing up, there was no “Young Adult” genre and so, I went from reading Berenstein Bears to Crichton and King. Crichton’s works have fascinated me more than any other author I have ever read and the thought that there will never be a new Crichton novel leaves me feeling rather…hollow.

There was a point in my life (actually a rather long span of my life) where I wanted to be a black female version of Michael Crichton. I wanted to go to medical school and then begin writing just so that I could take a path similar to his. The only reason I watched the bits of ER that I did was because he had created it and I had fantasized about what kind of show I could create after I was out of medical school and had published a few novels. I have greatly adapted this dream, but the fact remains that it was Crichton and his works that first put the thought of “I could be a writer” in my head. I still see myself years from now saying, “He’s the reason I became a writer.” I already feel the loss.

I have prayed for his family and also that he was at peace with his God before he passed, but I think that some time during these next few weeks, while carving out some “me” time, I will definitely need a moment. I know the older I get, the more often this will occur, so I suppose I should simply ready myself for the inevitable, but I think I may find a new fervor for re-reading each of his works that I have in my possession.

*Please note: Barack Hussein Obama is half Kenyan and half white and as such does not fit my definition of Black American, but I will use the term “black President” without this bias…for the time being.

I’ll say this first just to get it out of the way and make this clear: I did not vote for Barack Obama.

…however.

Throughout my high school years, I would read my science and history textbooks and say to myself, “I hope something new happens when I am alive.” or “I wonder what will make the history books in my lifetime.” Looking back, I cannot really remember on what I used to ponder when I answered these non-questions, but I know I can say, I never, in a million, billion years, would have thought I would live to see a black…er, um…mostly black president of the United States. I think I can remember saying in the not too distant past that the only way America would have a *black President is if he, emphasis on he, was a conservative to really help those who would only vote on race find themselves in a quandary, and yet…here we are.

Although am I still incredibly skeptical of his abilities and what he will actually accomplish in his time in the White House, I saw this image on my computer and almost burst into tears:

Wow...

To think that I…me…I would see a black president in the United States Oval Office at the age of 24 and not at 86 telling my grandchildren about the number of times “we came close,” but never saw it. It is quite easy to get caught up in the absolute glee that…I won’t say bombards because that word just doesn’t feel right at this time, but you get the idea… me right and left and I feel oddly conflicted by it. I’m “happy” it happened, but disgusted (once again) that my choice for a leadership position in my country has not been chosen. I voted for McCain/Palin, but there is something that is simply exciting at having a dark-skinned president and a First Lady who looks like me (except for those crazy, weird eyes of hers…).

At some point in the afternoon, I just said to myself, “You know, I don’t even care because we’re screwed either way.” but while I tossed and turned in my bed last night, I prayed for one thing and one thing only: “Jesus, please let America make the right choice.” Not put a Republican in the White House. Not put a black person in the White House. Simply that we, as Americans, make the right choice.

I still think the fact that we had our first female VP on the ballot will go utterly unnoticed, but I still think Sarah Palin is great and I’m glad she was cleared on those bogus charges. I still think that Hillary would have made a better candidate and, the more I think about it, I think the fact that she was not the Dem’s choice made me a little bitter, driving me from “moderately conservative” to “full-blown conservative.” I still think I did the right thing by voting for the person I thought would make the best president and not voting because of race. But, I will save all of that for another night.

I’ll save the rantings about the Dems cheating in key states, about how he could possibly represent the worst instance of affirmative action the nation has ever witnessed or about the fact that I’ll be singing the “Blue State Blues” for the next four years for another post. Tonight is just for…wow.

…I’ve missed an episode of SVU and, to top off everything else, I think my undying love for The X-Files is finally starting to take a downturn. I realized the latter a few days ago when I go through old files on my computer and saw I had not updated the TXF site in months. (As I write this, I decided to take a little break and post some kind of update and found that David Duchovny split up with his wife. Does any Hollywood marriage last!?!) It is a strange feeling for me to not have some X-Files story building at the back of my mind or to not have a bits of an episode playing in my daydreams. Lately, I have been writing more often and have had little to no time to watch anything at all, hence the reasoning for missing SVU.

I wonder if this is a sign that I’m getting older. A part of me says “no” since I still play the Sims like it is something I’m paid to do and I watch (emphasis because it usually just plays in the background while I play Sims) Daria and Futurama in non-stop loops as playlists on my computer. Then another part of me causes my head to nod and say…”yep, I’m getting old.”

I turned twenty-four last month and I let the occasion pass without much fanfare partly because I was bracing myself for the one anniversary (I hate using that word to describe this, but there really aren’t any synonyms for it) of Edrith’s passing and partly because I just don’t want my birthday to seem like a big deal anymore. All the “fun” ones have passed and only the old ones remain; 25, 30, 40 etc. I’ve got friends who are living together, friends who are getting married, friends who have got married and are about to start a family, friends who already have several children…I’m getting older and every so often I think about how far I have come, but mostly how little I’ve moved since I turned eighteen and became an “adult.”

Supposing I look at the positives, I am successfully living on my own first the first time. I say successfully because I haven’t got tuition hanging over my head and can actually focus on paying off some debt while still managing my apartment and preparing to add my college loans to the fold. I am also starting to figure out who I am: a writer. It has always been a part of who I am, but I’ve been sensing now more than ever that this is the path on which Jesus has set me, rather than something that I just want to do. When I think about any job or career path I’ve ever had, everything always came back to writing. I somehow found a way to write on the job or found myself working just to support myself while I write. I know it’s best to take advantage of these times now because I know marriage and children would never allow for that kind of behaviour…if I ever get married and change my mind about over-population and my general forecast about the state of humanity. I guess there were some negatives to add, but thank God (literally) they’ve been pushed away by thoughts about this story and that story I’m planning to write.

Something interesting I’ve experienced, however, that has got me really think is the idea of rejection. The closest I came to not getting specifically what I wanted, ie: entrance into a creative writing class at OSU, and the fact that my creations have been rejected multiple times from ModtheSims2 presents a completely foreign sensation to me. I’m not used to dealing with rejection, though I’m happy I haven’t resorted to tears or swearing over something I don’t care about too much, but there is something so unsettling about working so hard at something only to not have it well-received. On the other hand…perhaps this is Jesus’ way of telling me my time is better spent on other things…*rubs chin*

Oh well…this is my second completed written “project” in two days, so here’s to praying that this is one step in the right direction in the way of writing the “Great American Novel.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*

Original link

On a side note — Daggonnit, John! Why couldn’t you start later in the afternoon so that I could make it to Westerville after church!!! I guess I should be somewhat satisfied though because it if was both John and Sarah, I would have to be giving 11:00AM service “my best” as I flew across the city to see them both. Honestly, that is a once in a lifetime event and I met Bush when he was running. Of course, that’s not much to brag about, but still kind of cool on its own…