Through My Eyes: A Journal

By Liz Root

Contact Liz by emailing her at liz@vagrantcafe.com

Click here for weekly archives

10/13/2001
the morning blog is so much different from the evening blog. i haven't spent an entire day thinking about Stuff yet. right now my day consists of taming my hair, waking jessie up, and heading to the diner where we'll have some breakfast or lunch, depending on the mood i suppose. joel gets here today. so exciting. too bad i'll only be here for a month and a half before i have to move.

last night jessie and i stayed up late reading to each other stuff from random stuff we've written. we did it once before back when we both lived in charlotte, and it was really good and releasing. last night was the same. we had a good day yesterday. i found a small little triangle end table at the Why Not store for six dollars. we had pizza at Zio's, and went to a few other places. then around 6:30, she, kelly and i all went to lincoln to just hang out, and ended up running into some friends at a coffee house and five of us girls went to go see Serendipity. First time in a loooong time i've gone w/girls to a chick flick. it was enjoyable though. mostly b/c of john cusack. i mean, it's john cusack.

ever have those days where you wake up and you already have a good feeling about the day? that's today. it's gonna be a good solid, meaning filled day, and for that, i am thankful to God.
- liz r. - 10/13/2001

10/12/2001
jessie flew in yesterday. her flight went smoothly, and she arrived on time and everything, which is more than i can say for all the flights i've taken. (okay, so i've only ever flown twice. well, two round trip flights, anyhow.) i took her around some of omaha a bit, but she was pretty tired, and i was, too, so we ended up just chillin' out at my house for the remainder of the evening. today is when i think we'll try to cram a whole lot of stuff in. the Why Not store, The Afternoon, The Antiquarium, the botanical gardens, trip to lincoln, etc.

it's so good to talk with her again. i feel like my worlds are colliding a bit right now, but i expected it. she and i have already been discussing plans for the coffee house a bit, but i'm sure we will a bit more. it's all very exciting, and it's a good possibility that farrah, her roommate in charlotte, and best friend, and probably one of my best friends i made in charlotte, will be moving down there for awhile as well after the beginning of the year. so exciting. jessie brought pictures for me to look at, and one of them was this group picture, and it had a lot of people i knew from last year in it, and it made me so happy and sad at the same time. i miss all these people so much, but i also know that it won't be long before i get to see them again.

this next move is going to be so much different than the first one, in that this one is so much more permanent. this one is going to require much more faith. at school last year they always told us that Faith is spelled R.I.S.K. too true. this is a risk, but one that feels right, and i'm ready to dive in. i will definitely miss a lot of things about omaha...friends, new friends i've made this summer, all the great concerts, downtown omaha, stuff like that, but i know i'm not supposed to be here anymore. who would have thought that *i* would end up living in the south. it makes me want to go up to all of my horrible high school teachers and be like, "see? you didn't think i'd do anything with my life because i didn't make an A in your precious little math class, but ha!" i suppose that's not the right attitude to have though. i've got nothing to prove, because all of this isn't b/c of me but b/c of God working in and through my life for his glory and not my own.

anyway...i'm going to go wake up jessie now, and we're gonna get movin' on our day.
- liz r. - 10/12/2001

10/11/2001
october. it will always remind me of him. the only "him" i've ever really had. i "dated", for lack of a better word, a guy two years ago, and either i've never really gotten over him, or as much as i'd like to deny it, he was pretty darn close to everything i love about guys, yet wasn't the guy for me. maybe there's no new information about someone dating someone and it not working out and one of the people involved taking awhile to stop thinking about while the other goes off and gets engaged.

all i know is that although i'm "over" the guy, i am a female. and since he was pretty much my only relationship in life thus far, it's going to be a difficult thing to just forget about until whoever's next comes along. so i don't know...maybe no one wants to hear about these types of feelings, but maybe they do. or maybe i don't care and i'm gonna talk about them anyway.

the fact is that i miss both him and the relationship, but in completely different ways. i can honestly say that i wouldn't want to date him again. and i can honestly say that while we dated, i was pretty happy. but who we were then and who we are now would never go together. not because we're incompatible...personality wise, we're probably still very much compatible. but we just weren't right. i miss him because he's a great person, someone anyone in this world would be privileged to know, simply because he's the most unique person i've met. most people would agree that he's the most unique person they've met, too. and i miss the relationship b/c well...while it was there, it was good and everything i'd hoped a relationship would be for me. very non-physical, very much focused on our relationships with God, very much communicating. very very long distance. that part i didn't like so much.

i won't tell you how it ended. it didn't end with a fight, but more just a realization that our futures weren't heading the same direction. he realized it before me. i knew something was up, but was so committed to this thing, i didn't want to admit defeat. this is what has possibly kept me from being able to let go. who knows if and when it will finally be let go of. maybe it already is and i don't know it. honestly, it's easier for me to realize how totally through it all is when i see him, but i haven't seen him since may, when he announced his engagement to a girl i've never met, and i didn't even know he was dating in the first place.

when i see him, it's 100% obvious how not meant to be it all is. when i haven't seen him in awhile and all i have is memories, it's harder to keep that at the front of my mind. and while all hope is let go, and while in this matter, i most definitely follow my head and not my heart...well, how can i forget how he made me say, "good morning, beautiful" to wake him up in the morning? you know, it's the same things for everyone that make it hard to forget a person. the way these guys look at us girls. the way they tell us that we're beautiful. the way that they tell us they miss us. the way they say goodbye on the telephone like they could live solely on the sound of our voices. it's that stuff i miss. the stuff they make every romantic comedy flick about. the stuff i hate to discuss b/c i'm admitting that i'm somewhat girlish in nature and don't really mind the schmoop all that much. (it's not schmoop i hate, it's thoughtless schmoop. the kind that people steal from books and movies because they're not smart enough to think it up for themselves.)

so because it's october, you get a long chapter about boy stuff. don't worry, next month it will probably be about how i hope i never ever date anyone, and how content i am being single and all of that kind of thing. but for now, i turn to chocolate.


- liz r. - 10/11/2001

10/9/2001
tomorrow is my last day at my current job, and next week i'll be working at subway. maybe not my first choice, but it's a job, and one that i will pick up on easily, and one that knows i'm only going to be around for a month and a half. i just wouldn't feel right getting a job somewhere and having to quit almost as soon as i start, not to mention the whole application process.

jessie will be here in a little over 36 hours.

an old online friend and i have started emailing again. although our emails aren't the novels they used to be, somehow, i feel a sense of solidness in the both of us that wasn't there over a year ago when we were first exchanging them. i get an email, and for the first time in a long time, feel a connection with someone. and the friend is female. which if you knew me, i have a tendency to have more guy friends than girls, but lately, God's like, "you need women, liz." and i do. sometimes i think he takes all us younger women who really don't like other females at all, and sticks us together. and the cool thing is that all the girls i'm getting paired up with are these really cool artistic people with all sorts of vision and stuff. i'm getting to the point where i'm actually enjoying female company more than male company. this is significant.

my car has an exhaust leak. going to get it checked out tomorrow. probably will cost a load of money, only b/c it's me. if it was anyone else it would be like, 20 bucks. so, we'll see. for now, my car is slightly louder than usual. vroom!


- liz r. - 10/9/2001

10/8/2001
if i'll be able to walk tomorrow, it will be a miracle.
i went to the gym this evening. every time i go the gym proves to me what a huge wuss i am. that i have no muscle, and the muscle i do have is a joke. a very funny joke. however, i will continue to go.

third day in a row my room has been clean. anyone who knows me would wonder what has come over me to make this possible. maybe mom was right all these years. if i just pick it up every day, taking all of five minutes usually, i won't have to spend an hour on it later. smart woman.

ever get post-road trip depression? i do. a quote from a book.
"the weekends were our saviors. our trips were mad dashes with quick stops for nutrition in convenience stores. our diets should be written up in some junk food cookbook for kids looking to have heart failure by age 35. in most cases, we'd show up in whatever city we were aiming for an hour or so before the show was to start. we'd sweep through some record stores and then sit in some 24-hour restaurant, eating fried appetizers and drinking gallons of soda."
"Bridges With Spirit" by Adam Voith (www.tnibooks.com)

i prayed last night. and i realized that it had been awhile since i'd done that. too long in fact. and the more i prayed, the easier it became, and the more i realized what i've been missing out on all these weeks. i get so good about knowing a lot of stuff about God and gradually find myself further and further away from Him. i suppose i just get to a certain pattern of existence, and so when something happens last night, i once again realize what a dunce i am. *sigh*

i then went to the store in search of chocolate and oatmeal. both things that have recently become staples to my diet. especially the chocolate. i suppose it shouldn't be surprising, considering i'm a single 21 year old female. naturally, chocolate should be important to me.

people really are odd. you can look at a newborn baby, and watch him grow up, and the whole time, from the day of birth, he's always been *him*, in the sense that there are just certain things about ourselves that always stay the same. in which case would be argument for the line "people never change." but every day people are changing, for the better or worse. i feel myself changing all the time. yet staying me. i guess what i'm trying to say, not so eloquently, is that there are parts of us which will never change, but the other parts of us can, and often times...should change. Just like God...to make us this way.


- liz r. - 10/8/2001

10/7/2001
(lots of blogging today)

he doesn't have the words i said,
he has the way i said them.

lately, i've been thinking a lot about committment.
and about how i'm afraid of it.
but then i thought, maybe i'm not.

maybe i just have seen so many people commit to the wrong thing. the wrong school, the wrong person, the wrong diet, the wrong career, etc. a muscian once said, "my mom used to say i couldn't commit to anything. so that's when i started getting tattoos." i don't think i'll be hitting the nearest tattoo parlor any time soon, but i can understand his sentiment.

you see, if i'm going to commit to something or someone, i put all of me into that committment. i don't leave any of me out. and while I realize not all of my committments in life are going to turn out perfectly, and maybe i will (and already have) committed to some of the wrong things and people, well, I'd just rather not.

because you see,
it's not the words i said,
but the way i said them.



- liz r. - 10/7/2001


i am wearing entirely too much black today. but black is such a cool color. (actually, i suppose it's technically not color at all, but whatever) i'm not sure if my subconsious is feeling down or something and so chose to wear, black shoes, socks, jeans, t-shirt and jacket today. i just kind of enjoy the outfit is all. did i mention i have black hair as well? and almost black eyes. and the palest skin in the world. anyway...i'm sure tomorrow i'll be wearing yellow or something.

yesterday was a good day. between kelly's "Max Arousal" pills (1200 mg of siberian ginseng) she got in some bathroom at a bar, jill taking prescription muscle relaxers for her whip lash, jason's late night vocal's to "you've lost that lovin' feelin" on some iowa oldie's station...it made for some interesting times. me...all i got was the worst stomach ache in creation due to a plate of pita and hummus at a coffee house in des moines. the denison witmer show was lovely. i'm not entirely sure what separates him from all the other lone guitar players in the world, but sheesh. i could listen to that man sing all day. i think i like it b/c his lyrics have nothing to prove. he doesn't spend all this time trying to be abstract, he just tells it like it is, except much better than i ever could.

well...it's officially war. i'm not sure how i feel about this. i am not an anti-war person, and so i suppose what's going on is good and necessary, it's just well...i mean, who enjoys war? nobody. funny that it's been happening since like, the creation of the world. the first two offspring couldn't even get along. me, i tend to think...what if you were on that submarine that's actually launching the missiles? be anti-war all you want, but man...i have mad respect for those people.

in all of this, i think it's brought out an issue that i might need to deal with. i think i have an escapism complex. i'm sure everyone does. i suppose everyone escapes to something, hence drug usage, alcoholism, and many other addictions. me...i tend to just ignore things, or go to sleep. i don't watch the news programs, i don't generally talk to people about what's going on. i really am careful about what viewpoint i let influence me. it's times like this that i understand why people go crazy and start talking about all the "voices in their heads." think about how many different voices we hear every day about every last thing imaginable. it's a miracle we haven't all gone crazy. i'm glad i have freedom of opinion, but i become weary of having them shoved through my eardrums all the time. and this whole afganistan/attack on america/we're at war now/fight terrorism to the death thing is prime ground for it. all i know is that some bad people crashed a couple planes into important american buildings, that pandora's box was opened, and that however anti-war people want to be, as a country, you can't really expect us to just sit back and take it. so, the war is on, and that's all i know, and that's about all i care to know. give me the bare minium of important facts, and i'll be content with that, thank you very much.

in the mean time, people are still dying of cancer and aids and starvation and murder. yes, there is a war that is being televised, but there's a lot of other wars that have been being waged for some time now, and so i don't want to forget about those either. it's funny how my music selection changes in times like this. it tends to lean toward the more abstract music or the more epic in nature.

anyway, me and my black clothes are going to go get some chinese takeout and maybe pick up a used book somewhere, so i end this for now. go pick a flower.

- liz r. - 10/7/2001