Monday, October 28, 2013

H O M E is wherever I'm with you : part five

I'd love to know just what you're thinkin'
Every little river, runnin' through your mind
You give and you take
You come and you go
You leave me here wonderin' if I'll ever know
How much you care or how much you don't

| somebody's heartbreak - hunter hays |

part one || part two || part three || part four

The next few weeks after my Lifehouse moment {It's yoooou and me, and aaaall of the people and I don't know whyyy, I can't keep my eyes off of you."} were interesting to say the least. 
The day after that long long into the night drive home from Missouri, a Sunday afternoon after church, my mom and I were laying on her bed talking while my dad was in the living room, watching something sports related I'm sure. I was telling her how I had felt at the funeral the previous day and how confused I was. I am incredibly close to my mother and can basically tell her anything. But there are some things I can't wrap my brain around enough to fully express to her and this was one of them. I did my best, however, to let her know how sudden and strange and wonderful and terrifying and magical it was...that split second of eye contact. Was I being nonsensical? Surely I was. Everyone knew he didn't want to get married anyway. Everyone knew that he himself had said numerous times that he felt like he was particularly called to lifelong singleness. Why on earth would he change his mind now? Especially about me. For goodness sake, I thought, I'm nearly 9 years younger than him and if he was going to get married he would have by now! The girls around him are by far some the dearest, godliest, sweetest, and definitely most gorgeous girls you could ever meet! My mom was not convinced that he would certainly, by common sense, be indifferent to me...nor marriage itself. "Didn't you see his Google+ post about Adam and Eve the other day? There's no way he's still positive he wants to say single. At least, he didn't sound like it." She said. I looked at her, puzzled. Adam and Eve post?! I open the app on the cell phone, went to his profile, and scrolled with such vigor you'd think I was trying to row a boat with my thumb...a tiny boat where tons of  minuature
 people's lives depended on getting from one side of the lake to the other. My search was in vain. There was no Adam and Eve post to be found. "He must have deleted it!" She exclaimed. "Just ask him what it said." I turned my head in shock to fully look her in the face to find her joking, or so I thought. But she was serious! "Ask him?!" She nodded. I took a deep breath and shrugged my shoulders. All I was doing was asking him a simple question. No big deal.
And so I shakingly opened up Messenger and typed out,
"My mom was telling me about a post you did yesterday or the day before that was really good and she can't find it to show me. She said it was something to do with Adam and Eve maybe?? Is it still on G+ somewhere? :)"
Within a few minutes he responded.
"I deleted it...impulsively. I'm not sure why I deleted it. But here's what it was: So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the thought I put with that was about Adam sleeping. He wasn't awake and worried about trying to find Eve and make something 'happen.' Sleep = no anxiety. Sleeping = trusting God. God brought Eve to Adam, and it was while he was alseep."
My jaw dropped open. It was so true! And deep! And hammered straight into the poor dents in my heart that were causing me to ache over being single and unsure of my future. It reminded me of the parable about the man who planted a seed and then fell asleep because He trusted God to bring the increase. He had left the growth to God. I had never thought about that same principle applying to Adam...and waiting on a spouse. 
I wrote back, telling him those things, and told him that the story of Adam and Eve had just gotten better for me. 
His response, "Yeah, just like the seed it wasn't something Adam made happen. As a matter of fact he couldn't even explain it. Kinda like the guy in the parable about the seed "how it happened, he does not know" Mark 4:27. Growth in the Kingdom, just like marriage, is something God does. And its a mysterious thing that we cannot understand. I mean...she was made out of his rib. It was his rib! Did you ever think about that? Like...what?!"
His thoughts on these things. They were so enlightening and rich and honest. And so in line with what I needed/truly yearned to live in light of. I couldn't get the conversation out of my head the whole rest of the night. The whole day after that, a Monday, I thought about it. I got home from work, tired and feeling frazzled. I was still busy trying to decide if my feelings at the funeral were a fluke thing and in a lot of ways psyching myself out until I believed I was back to being completely neutral towards him...until...this Monday night in November I was in my parents bedroom with my mom again....talking to her about the Adam and Eve conversation of course. She was standing around the corner and said, "What exactly did he say again?"
I opened up Messenger and read it to her word for word. I was standing in front of their dresser that has a big mirror on it. I looked pretty funny. It was getting late, I had my hair in a high frizzy pony tail, my makeup was a bit smeared because I had rubbed my eyes (why not, right? I was going to bed soon anyway...), and I was still in my scrubs. 
"Wow." I thought. "Here I am talking about this guy...this incredibly great guy...this incredibly attractive guy...and I look...pretty rough." I started making faces at myself. Nobody was watching, my mom still being around the corner talking to me. Some faces were funny, some were scary, and some were just downright ridiculous. One in particular was so horrifying I just knew I had to take a picture and show Mama. I quickly glanced down and saw the camera icon and took a selfie. For some reason it said "Enter" after I took it. But I was too busy laughing at myself that I didn't put much thought into it as I pressed it. Why was it asking me to push "Enter"? Who cares. I look terrible! 
I had crossed my eyes which is a huge accomplishment for me cause I can't do it very well. I had even done kissy fish lips subconsciously! It was like the worst picture of me ever. Which is why I was so glad my mother was the only one that was going to see it. I was bringing the phone to show her when suddenly I looked down and the picture wasn't there. In fact, I was still in the G+ Messenger app. What had happened? I barely scrolled and then all at once, the gut-wrenching truth dawned on me. I had not taken the picture with the regular in-phone camera. I had taken it with the G+ Messenger camera. And the most awful of all pictures had irreversibly sent to Trevor Ruby.

I almost conjured up enough courage to post the picture here....keyword "almost".

I could've died right then and there. I was literally, literally hyperventilating. I would've started crying but I couldn't catch my breath. Mama was begging me to tell her what was wrong. Somehow, in very few words and frantic hand gestures and terrified facial expressions I conveyed to her the horrible truth of my mistake. It was a very grave thing.
I landed face first on her bed and let out a half scream half mortified groan into the mattress. Then I flipped over and my words spilled out like rushing water, "Of COURSE it would HAVE TO BE the UGLIEST picture of me in the history of FOREVER and OF COURSE I would send it to this guy just when I'm discovering I might actually like him. SO MUCH FOR THAT! Oh dear...oh snap...oh...what do I do?!?! Gimme the phone. GIVE IT TO ME! I have to try and and tell him it was a mistake."
Up to this point this whole traumatic event had transpired in about a minute and a half. I didn't know what to say but I typed, feverishly trying to fill the awkward silence that had to be happening there in Kirksville. The little envelope beside the picture {that was even more horrendous at this point because it only showed a preview which just HAD TO BE a close-up of my lips for crying out loud!!!} was still unopened. He hadn't seen it. Yet. Perhaps he never would. What if some wild beast came and destroyed his phone and he never...OH WHO WAS I KIDDING?! He was going to see it...he would see the preview and no doubt open it to see the whole thing in all its...glory? and I, though there was no way out of this, knew he had to be given some explanation somehow. I let him know (almost entirely in all caps) that it was an accident....meant for my mother, NOT HIM and that I was so painfully embarrassed I couldn't imagine ever recovering.
His response?! A smiley face. Nothing more than a colon and a right parenthesis.
I repeated my outburst of sorrow into the mattress. He's probably so disgusted he's speechless....he, having nothing else to possibly say, put a smiley face in an attempt to try and be polite if it was even possible in such a case as this. That's it. That's it. That's it. I'll never be able to be friends with him again. It'll never be the same. The awkwardness will never disappear.
Our friendship was officially scarred for life and my smidgin of a slight hope that maybe he might one day like me back was CRUSHED!
WAIT!!! He was typing....
While I was waiting for the his message I was so tense I felt like I had a knife in my stomach and my head was swimming....

"If I was a frog I think I might've just turned into a prince."

I don't think any sentence, no matter how poetic or eloquent, in history could've affected me like that very sentence. My face suddenly flushed and I was hotter than a fire cracker. My mom read it and gasped. I could not speak. I was pondering whether I would ever regain my ability to put words together.
"How! Sweet!" she said, to finally break the choking silence. I stared blankly at her. I continued to send franticly jumbled up exclamations of my absolute humiliation while he kept reassuring me that it wasn't all that bad. He even sent me a picture of himself in a super hero mask with the caption, "Here's an embarrassing picture of me."
Maybe I could get over these breath-taking random feelings I couldn't explain if he would just STOP being SO ADORABLE for 5 seconds!! Good grief Charlie Brown!!
Big huge emotions scare me. I'm a deep thinker and I'm achingly passionate but nevertheless I notice myself doing all in my power to convince myself that I am indifferent when I start feeling such hard to grasp things. With every conversation that followed throughout the weeks afterwards there was an increased amount of hidden endearments that I refused to see. I didn't want to admit that I was "falling in like" hard and I certainly was NOT going to say I suspected he was doing the same. I just didn't know for sure. I think my biggest fear was giving in and starting to believe something only to be found wrong and miserably disappointed.
Around the middle/end of November, the amount we talked and the increasing sweetness of his personality was overwhelming me. His YouTube videos were more and more "tug-at my heart-strings" worthy. We had had a conversation about Adele songs and I mentioned I liked to belt her song called "One and Only." He asked if I would video myself singing it if he videoed himself doing a cover of "Rolling in the Deep." I knew for certain he wouldn't do it but the thought of it was a bit enjoyable. However, later that day I had an email sitting in my inbox from him...it was a link to a new YouTube video of his titled "Rolling in the Deep Cover Singing."
I freaked. DID HE REALLY?!?! Ha. You can see for yourself what the video is. Nothing but his big ole' dog Buck laying there looking pitifully at the camera. Two days later he emails, "Guess what song I woke up singing in my head? 'I dare you to let me be...' But I'm sure I'll never be able to belt it like you. :)" 
{Yes. That would be him quoting the beginning of the chorus of One and Only.}

The week of Thanksgiving His mom posted a picture of him on Facebook to show he had made it to Illinois, where his grandmother lives, for their family get-together. As I looked at it I could feel the fondness in my heart. Like a quote I've seen on Pinterest, "When I look at you I realize I just might like to hang out with you for the rest of my life." Though I wouldn't let that thought venture outside of my subconscious....it was there. Plain as day. Being masked under my dark stubborn cloak of doubt, denial, and fear. I wasn't in love. You can't be truly in love with someone you don't really know intimately. I knew some deep personal things about him and I was starting to become pretty acquainted with his personality but compared to having enough knowledge of him to "be in love"...it was next to nothing. But interested? I was that. Very very exceedingly much so. I was blind. I intentionally let myself be blind. I pressed on with 1,000,000 feelings in my heart while my head ignored every one of them.
I feel compelled to stop now and give a word of exhortation and caution to single girls. The impending fact of whether or not you like, find, or marry a guy shouldn't be the North on your compass so to speak. There is SO much more to live for. And if you feel something for someone "take it to the Lord in prayer!" You cannot ever exhaust God, no matter how many times you bring it before him. One of my biggest regrets is that I did not consult, and petition Him enough on this whole matter. Mainly because I viewed it as a "non-issue." But the truth is, I did have strong feelings that did need to be dealt with...not just ignored or pushed away. They needed to be processed. I was fooling myself and causing anxiety that was not necessary. As usual. Be open with how you feel...if with no one else, be it primarily with the Lord! Hey, if you don't end up with him...who will be there to comfort you? The same One who was there to hear your cries and who has a far greater plan for your life! That may be a different guy or a different life than you were expecting. And that is not only okay, IT'S THE BEST! I just...don't want people to get caught up and think all this that I was dealing with was the right way to handle these kind of emotions.
I was at my grandmother's house curled up in a recliner staring at the picture of him on Facebook...pretending I wasn't. But I was. My cousin Kelsey came and leaned over me and poked her head into my fetal position to see what was lighting up the phone screen. "Psssh. So that is obviously the guy you like..." I unfolded and looked shocked. "No! Of course not! It's just...a friend of mine...and its a good picture of him!" She rolled her eyes. "Puh-leeeze." She crossed her arms as I sat up trying to not look like a deer in the headlights. "That's like the fifteenth time I've seen you looking at that picture today." Whoops. Busted. I bit my lip and looked down, my face turning bright red. Mam-maw heard from the other room and said, "Well! Come show me the picture! I have to know if there's a young man in your life." Super busted. I slumped into the kitchen and held the phone up. She looked and slowly began to smile before nodding her head decidedly, glancing up at me and teased, "Well, he's pretty good-lookin' so I guess I approve." Face-palm.
We were in and out of Mam-maw's house all week because she only lives about 5 minutes away, all the family was together, there was constantly amazing food cooked/being cooked/or being eaten, and it was just the place to be.

{While he was with his family looking adorable, I was walking on Mam-maw's roof with my cousins cause we're crazy like that.}

The day after Thanksgiving, the 23rd, I was feeling a bit light-headed....cloudly. I was getting a little congested and just seemed worn out. Maybe it was from all the festivities (food) that had transpired in recent days. Either way, I really just felt like sitting down. So I did. I went full couch-potato style in Mam-maw's living room and Tyler, Kelsey, and I watched every T.V. holiday movie that was showing. That evening there was a new YouTube video on Trevor's channel. (Go figure.) It was a self-taken video of him and his little brother singing along in the car to "Sara Smile." Let's just say I got a burst of energy. I squealed. That couch must've magically turned into a trampoline because I literally bounded off of it and ran, still squealing, outside where my mother was sitting on the front porch. I was hopping vigorously up and down like a kangaroo banished to live a life in a single square-foot and I was smiling so big my face should've broke. I handed her the phone, she watched, smiled smugly and shook her head. She can see through me like I'm made of a clear piece of glass. She knew what I was feeling...what I had been feeling for a while. She knew that it was bubbling up inside of me and spilling out like Mentos in a Diet Coke. I couldn't keep it in any longer.
That next morning I realized why I felt so crummy the day before. I officially came down with the flu. I had super high fever (like over 105!), energy completely drained, horrible cough, chills and aches...it was all suddenly my new reality.
The day before, the couch had been a luxurious preference; now it was an absolute must. I couldn't move without feeling like I had been run over. I sent him a message and let him know his singing video was really cheering me up as I was incapacitated and already tired of T.V. for entertainment. He expressed that he was really sorry I was so sick and I suppose decided it was his mission to do something else to continue to cheer me up. Within 30 minutes he sent me a video of him sneaking up on his brother, who was sleeping. It was just plain CUTE. I'm sorry. There's no two ways about it.
The next several days were a muddy blur of me being completely downright ill. But something that shined through that foggy gloom, though it was somewhat funny, confusing, questionable, and overwhelming; was Trevor sending messages every. hour. asking how I felt and if I was getting any better. For the first time I let myself stare it straight in the face...the the truth that this guy must actually like me back for really reals.

My Mamajama brought me a lemonade to brighten up my fourth sick day in a row.

Midday on the 27th I sent him a gorgeous cover of "Killing Me Softly" by Colbie Caillat because he had shared The Fugees version earlier in the week with some good thoughts about viewing the chorus like Jesus and the woman at the well. (Ohhhhh I loved his perspective on things. melt.)
My existence of lump of couch goo didn't seem so dreary with the thought of his mind, his concern for me, and this resolve that he must actually care for me as much as I cared for him. It was such a lovely high that made my sickness seem like nothing. That evening I got a reply. Hooray!
But. It was nothing to do with the song. I could hardly believe what I was reading. All at once my eyes couldn't focus properly and my thoughts crashed together like a train wreck. Seriously, what was I reading?! 

He felt like the Lord was convicting him about idolatry. And he felt like his idol was...me. He said it wasn't my fault. In fact, he said he thought I was wonderful. (HE THINKS I'M WONDERFUL?!) He felt like the best way to deal with an idol was to irradiate it altogether. He just felt like he didn't need to talk to me anymore or least for quite awhile.....until he got things straightened out in his head, heart, and soul.

The utter sorrow that swept over me was sharp, the ground beneath me seemed to be crumbling and I was drowning in shock. I felt raw. Like my heart of hearts had been left out in the sun and had been burned to the core. I might as well have been a china doll shattering into a million pieces. My heart ached bitterly and all I could do was cry. And then weep. And then sob.

to be continued...

Monday, October 21, 2013

Carolin Alexis : senior portraits // mt. pleasant, tx senior portrait and lifestyle photographer

"What a revelation it was when she realized she didn't need to settle." 
|| Pinterest ;) ||

Carolin. 
She is bold. She is wild. She is a musician. She's graduating. She is one of those classic, timeless beauties. Yet, she is modern. She is eclectic. She is a vivacious city girl from San Fran. She speaks French. And the list of radness goes on. I admire that there is a soft, graceful, classy, poised, refined touch to her rocker chick persona. 
That's a Cliff Notes version. A Reader's Digest, if you will. I could talk for days about how she has a pleasant, sweet, gentle, interesting personality. How the few hours that I spent with her were genuinely super fun even though I had just met her! Hope y'all can tell in these pictures she and I made that afternoon that was dripping with honey golden light. :)
{+ maybe I get some cool points cause this is my electric guitar featured here. could that be a yes?}





















~Through Christ's Love