Blog

Dear Blog,

I have changed your name.  You already know this, I'm sure.

It was time.  I wasn't thrilled with the shaky translation of the former title, and I think this one is a little more descriptive though perhaps egocentric.

We'll try this one out and see ...

Fondly,

The Author

Grad School

Dear Grad School,

Hmm where to start…

I love you. I loath you. You allude me. You overwhelm me. I idealize you.

Okay. I should clarify.

I’m not so much talking about you as much as I’m talking about the idea of you. We’ve never actually met, so I really can't speak from experience.

Anyway, due to interaction with “the Covenant” as most in it call it (wow that sounds creepier when actually written down, like we’re all going to go drink some grape juice together or something…) and North Park University, I’ve come to be skeptical of you. It seems in some cases you’re just a convenient and familiar next step for recent college grads who don’t know what else to do. I find this especially hard to swallow with seminary, because, you know shouldn’t the stakes be a little higher there? In my idealistic mind, the copious amounts of money and time that you required should not be taken lightly, and should be held in a certain level of reverence. Instead, in this day and age of directionless grads and a poor economy – you seem to be a really good option for those who, well, need an option.

Do I sound critical? I thought so. And you know what they say about criticism....


Well ok I don’t really know what “they” say about criticism, I just know myself well enough that most of the time my criticism is actually rooted in ... jealousy.

Ugh. Yes, I admit it. I’m not proud, but this is a safe place, right? (of course it is – it’s the internet!) Please no judgment...

Anyway, back to you. Mostly, I write this letter as an official goodbye. At least for now. I'd been hanging on to the idea of you for about 18 months, deferred enrollment once, and have (finally) given word that I won't be attending this fall. Not surprising, just sad. I'd found that I had put off the decision of officially saying "no" because I like the idea of you and I desperately want to go back to school. I knew you weren't going to happen - at least this time around - but I certainly liked hanging on to my acceptance letter and putting off sending the official "no". But alas, the time had come: I can't live in limbo, I had to make the decision.

I hope we meet someday. I actually pray for that. And maybe then I'll be eating all my jealousy-rooted judgmental words.

See you soon,
Julie

Baby Steps

Dear Baby Steps,

Sometimes I don’t blog because I don’t have anything to say. Or I don’t have a good idea of anyone to write a letter to.

Most of the time, however, I don’t blog because I have too much to say. (hard to believe, I know) A jumble of topics, recipients, ideas, questions flying through my brain seemingly simultaneously that there seems to be no reasonable way to organize all of them to create something coherent and readable. When I do attempt to sort through them to find a blog-worthy topic, I usually only get a sentence or two in before I determine that there is a more important recipient or that the letter isn't turning out well enough (read: perfect), so I abandon that idea and search for the next. Ideas like:


Dear Burger King. You sound exceptionally tantalizing today, exactly which parts of the cow are in your whoppers?

Dear Pope Benedict XVI. You’re on Twitter?!?! Well at least you praised Jesus in your first tweet. So I hear. I've never actually twitted, because to be honest it seems awfully …

Dear Smoking Loon. You are my new favorite Cab. De-lish! Let’s be friends forever (butinareasonableandresponsiblewayofcourseidonotwantodevelopissues).

Dear Minnesota State Government. What the hey?! Y’all better getcha selves together over there and do what you were hired to do. The current emotions that I’m experiencing due to your lack in workplace performance are as follows: disgusted, enraged, aghast, annoyed, …..

Dear Laurel, Warren, Kate and Josh, Eva, Kendra. Please move to South Minneapolis. Pronto. Josh you can come too, NE is still kind of far …

Dear Marriage. I was told you would be hard. But you failed to clarify exactly how hard.

Dear Expectations. Let’s reasonable. Seriously. I need a heavy dose of reality when it comes to you…

Dear Popcorn. I.love.you. I think I could eat you every single day. Oh wait, don’t I already do that?

Dear Hope. Donde estas? It feels like it's been a while...



This process of beginning/abandoning usually last for a few hours/days on and off until finally I’ve exhausted my mental capacity and entertain the idea of abandoning writing all together.



BUT.


I have a plan.



You ... Baby Steps.



I've realized how much I enjoy writing and how it really is a life-giving discipline for me to sort through thoughts and emotions to put them on paper (so to speak...), so in an attempt to continue doing this, I must start somewhere: with baby steps.  I'm being gentle with myself (one of my favorite lines of encouragement when I'm feeling overwhelmed).... and will attempt to lay my expectations of perfect-blogging aside, because, well that's just impossible.  And the best news? God chose me as his own on that exact precedent - that I would fall short. Even in blogging. Sweet. 

Here's to the first (baby)step,
Julie