monsters under my bed

You know how some music takes you to another place? I turn on my computer, click on itunes, plug in my headphones...Frou Frou is all that I can hear...and even though I am still sitting at my own kitchen table...look out the window in my very own house.. I feel like I have just been transported to another world. Its magical.

If you don't own this record, buy it. Seriously. I know I am always forceful with my 'suggestions'... I am a first born child, what can I say? *grin* I am forceful.

I have been in a strange space these last couple of days since I posted. Kelly Clarkson doesn't know it but the song "Miss Independent" is really about me (minus the 'miss' part) and yet for two days I haven't wanted to be alone at all.

(In the dead of night, I speak) "Babe, I have to pee." Our bedroom is about 3 ft from the bathroom. Silence. "Babe..?" (Shawn rolls over and sighs) "You want me to go with you?" "Yeah."

Its seriously been that silly. I don't know what my deal is... When I was younger I would always be afraid to open the shower curtain because I would think 'what is someone is hiding in there?!?!' I hope I am not regressing to that place. geesh.

So Shawn went downstairs last night to play some video games and I made it about five minutes upstais in the dark. I tried to do something constructive (dishes) but this weird sensation came over me. I grabbed my book and bolted downstairs, regrouped just outside of the studio door, and calmly entered. Shawn looked up 'what's up, hon?' Sheepishly, 'You care if I read down here?' He shook his head and I laid down on the blue shaggy rug in the studio and cracked open my book.

I have been reading the book "A Million Little Peices" by James Frey. Its well written and in a former post I kind of suggested it as a good book to pick up. I would like to revise that statement. I finshed the book last night around 10pm and I need to revise my suggestion. I am not going to tell you not to read the book or to read it. I simply want to put out this warning: it has a lot of cursing and it ends very tragic...actually the whole thing is tragic. Very tragic. Its a book about a man's 6 weeks in rehab and its a real story...and it will break your heart. If you choose to read it, you have to be prepared for that.

Words, like music, have the power to transport you somewhere else. Maybe that's the reason I am feeling so nervous and fearful... that book. hmmm...that just occurred to me. ...hmmm...I guess that is entirely possible. I felt very depressed after reading "White Oleander"...for a month...and that was a fictional story! So I guess the moral of the story is: be careful little eyes what you see/be careful little eyes what you hear...

No, there aren't monsters under my bed, but sometimes fear stalks me. Silly fears about people hiding behind shower curtains and going to the bathroom alone at night... fears of the less silly kind have been making themselves known since Sunday.

I posted and said that God woke me up early and began speaking to me. He did. I said it felt like the sun was rising over our lives. It is. Have you ever noticed that as soon as God speaks and moves, other things come into play all of the sudden? Suddenly, you find yourself tempted to snap at your spouse or child or coworkers. Your sleep is fitful and you wake tired. All of the sudden your heart recoils from intimacy. You are tempted to second guess the good you have just experinced. Suddenly, everything seems to have plummeted from the high ground you were just standing atop...

hmmm...coincidence? I don't think so.

When I was a little girl, I loved to read. (still do) I once won an award for reading the most books of any 4th grader in one year. Almost 200. I am not kidding. (Yes, I was a nerd. I have admitted that a time or two before. You know that if you've been reading this blog long!) I have always been a reading fiend. That same year in language arts class we had to write a letter to ourselves about ourselves that we were to receive upon high school graduation.

My letter was hilarious. I got when I graduated and it was hilarious. It told about everyone in my class...the secrets, the squabbles, the crushes. Very typical little girl writing. We were supposed to write about what we thought our lives would be in the future. "I am going to be a writer, an author" mine said.

I went to college on science scholarships, with the full intention of being a biologist. I wanted to get a further degree in Genetics. My english 101 teacher, Debbie Bertsch, tried to convince me to change my major to English and to study writing. I never did. I could not iamgine that I had what it takes to actually make a career out of writing. I did not want to have a worthless degree. A year later I changed my major to Psychology. I love people, so my classes were interesting. But Psychology was never my passion. I am not patient enough to be a counselor and I can't imagine being a case worker. So much for not getting a worthless degree! *grin* I have never used mine.

A couple of quarters before I graduated from college, I had the opportunity to speak to a group of people...to share with them not unlike I share in these blogs. I felt alive. My parents came and when we left, my dad squeezed me and said 'this is was you were made for, kate.'

That was 3 years ago. Occasionally, I have had the opportunity to do those things that make me feel alive...speaking, writing, teaching in one form or another. But I have never gone after it. My husband, who is the King of chasing after dreams, cannot understand it. Its so simple in his heart.. if you feel called, go for it...if you fail, get up and go at it again... His confidence should be anything but intimidating...but I am intimidated.

I started to write a book a couple of years ago. I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote the skeleton of it in an hour..it just poured out of me. When I reread it in the morning, it scared me. I put the papers into a red folder and put the red folder in a box. I have moved three times and the the papers have stayed in that red folder and the red folder has remained in that box.

I woke up Sunday morning thinking about that red folder. I went into my office and opened the only unopened box. I pulled the papers from the red folder and it scared me. Not monsters-under-the-bed scared, but the kind of fear that comes from living the dreams in your heart...the fear that if you chase them, your dreams won't somehow be real or really for you. I was scared as I retreived my little white mac and scared as I opened a new Word file and scared as I started typing. Frou Frou drowned the ordinary noises around me and helped take me to another place where the fear wasn't so loud. It wasn't so loud, but it was there. The fear hasn't subsided yet.

It even scares me to write this blog...but I know if I don't the papers will go back in the red folder and the folder will go back into the box. It scares me to let you know that I am 24...a long way from the 4th grade...and I still want to be a writer, an author. When you are little, its easy enough to say what you want to be when you grow up...everyone asks and delights in the answer, whatever it is. At 24, most people don't bother asking about dreams anymore. Its always been hard for me to admit I wanted anything...hard because of the possibility of trying hard and failing hard.

I guess the question becomes, how are you going to spend your life? Am I- are you- willing to waste dreams that quite possibly were given to you by God? What if the things we are most afraid to do...what if those are the very things God is willing to do in us to help bring about His Kingdom and His purposes? I am scared to fail, but I think I am coming to the place where I am more afraid to miss the 'works He has prepared in advance for me' (ephesians 2:10).

Let's chase God's dreams for us together...I pray you will and I covet your prayer...