Through My Eyes: A Journal

Through My Eyes: A Journal

By Liz Root

Contact Liz by emailing her at liz@vagrantcafe.com

Click here for weekly archives

8/1/2003
today i trained some more at the coffee house. good times. in a half-hour, i have to leave to go to my last night of work at Subway. so exciting! tomorrow i'll be going to des moines, iowa to see unwed sailor. i'll be going in the same car as three guys, so that should be interesting to say the least.

one thing i've been asking God lately, is to help me take more emotional risks. i'm not exactly sure what this even means, but i've just felt led to pray it. i'm not the most emotionally expressive person in the world, and i just want to be better at it. i know i'll never be the type to get super excited about things, and i'll probably never be someone who cries very much, but i think i could do better in the area of just general communication, letting people know how i feel about them, etc. yeah.
- liz r. - 8/1/2003

7/31/2003
if i didn't have to work today, it might be one of the better days i've had in awhile. i woke up at 10, walked downstairs to realize it was raining, which is basically the most enjoyable way to wake up. i had a bowl of cereal and made some coffee. i checked my e-mail, and then i sat down to read for awhile. i started off with the bible, reading out of numbers, psalms, and luke. i then started reading Annie Dillard's "Encounters with Chinese Writers" which is turning out to be pretty amazing. Annie Dillard can do no wrong, if you ask me. ("Liz, can Annie Dillard do any wrong?" "no...no she can't.") the Amelie soundtrack, and some Red House Painters have been my background music. as well as the music from upstairs in Ben's room (he's one of my two male roommates). the last three days he's been playing choir music...the heaven-sounding kind they play in movies when people die and well, go to heaven. he's a writer, and has very odd things that inspire him from week to week. so this week it's the heaven-sounding choir music.

a few thoughts i've been having the last couple of days:

i sometimes wish i was better at expressing myself emotionally. it's not that i'm not emotional...it's just that it's so internalized. there are precious few people i feel comfortable with enough to be emotionally vulnerable with. i think a part of my problem is that being vulnerable with my emotions opens me up to rejection and failure, two things i try to avoid at great lengths. however, i think this may end up causing me more problems later in life if i don't learn some kind of balance (as elusive and unreachable as it may seem). i think in shutting myself off to rejection and failure, i've also shut myself off to a lot of joy and adventure. as much as i'd like to be, i'm simply not much of a risk-taker. i've got this great facade of independence and freedom, but the fact is that i'm still incredibly bound by fear. so as much as i'd just like to step out there and take a risk, there's always this incredible internal battle going on. i don't know if i'll ever realize that i can't expect to know how things are going to turn out before i even enter into them.

(completely unrelated: roommate Ben walked thru the living room, and saw me typing this on Blogger. "Blogger, huh? i'm thinking of using that for my newsletters. Plus, Blogger rhymes with frogger, so immediately you've got an establishment of trust.")

anyhow...i may post more thoughts later. but one more thing- i sometimes feel like i'm still waiting for life to really begin. as if there will be some profound event that occurs that begins it all. i don't think that moment ever really happens. that makes me step back to think about whether or not i'm proud of the way i'm living, if i'm really making the best use of my time. most often, the answer is no. i feel inadequate and ill-equipped for this life, and i feel like i'm ignoring the tools i've been given, simply b/c i want a bigger and better (easier) way of arranging my life. i think it's john eldredge who says, "we must have life, but we cannot arrange for it." this is both a hopeful and depressing thought. it involves a lot of trust, a lot of faith. almost needless to say, but because i'm so fearful of failure, i think i struggle more than most with the area of faith, because it requires me to take my hands off a situation, and to let God take care of the results. as much as i hate to admit it, i realize that i tend to think of myself as the potter, and God the clay. Jesus, help me. rest this soul, quiet the voices, until all I hear is Yours.
- liz r. - 7/31/2003