living without, pt. 2

Okay, as promised an explanation for my extended absence. However first, some background. My laptop is my life. No, I'm not kidding, my life. It has tens of thousands photos going back to high school, countless articles needed for my professional portfolio from all four years as an undergrad, all my personal spread sheets, THON documents, receipts, passwords, everything! Not to mention, the real heart-wrenching part, all my beloved music. All of it.

And no, none of it has ever been backed up, as common sense would advise one to do so.

A few weeks ago, my computer started acting up - blue screening and all of that yucky stuff. It would randomly shut down and would take about 45 minutes of boot up time and 3 no-warning shut offs to even access the internet. I was lucky, if I could check my email before I left for the day [let alone try to blog... cue the two-and-a-half-week absence]. I knew my computer was on its final days and I knew that I had nothing backed up.

I called my wonderful and always supportive parents and explained my dilemma, they told me to not hesitate and to buy an external hard drive asap. But I did delay, I waited a few days. And I waited too long.

As you can gather, it crashed, I lost everything and have been completely heartbroken for the past week about it.

My parents were great, encouraging me that they know a computer guy who might be able to recover my stuff and I had a nice, shiny new computer in less than 24 hours after my old one crashed.

Again, I find myself in this place. The same place I was when I blogged two and a half months ago when my car died on me, hence the 'pt. 2,' part one. Living without, living where I've had great things and have had them taken from me. It's pretty dramatic to say about a computer, but looking past the material things like my pictures and music, I feel hopeless for finding a job. I don't have any work to prove that I know how to write. If finding a job was tough before, it just got 10 times tougher. Fantastic.

But, like last time, something has brought my perspective back to where it needs to be, and made me realize that a computer crash doesn't leave me living without. Not even a little bit. Last time this came in the form of watching the riots begin in Egypt. This time, it was going to a THON recognition reception for the year and hearing a Four Diamonds Family speak about their beautiful 5-year-old daughter who has lukemia.

Suddenly, a computer crash didn't matter so much. Suddenly, I found myself praying that my computer would continually crash if it meant never having a child who has cancer. A computer, a car, a ____ whatever of mine will break soon, is made by the world. It's from the world and for the world, and worldly things have no value. They have use, but not value. They have purpose for phases of our lives, but don't matter in the grand picture of our lives.

And through these lessons I am continually learning about the process of letting go of things of the world, the have no meaningful worth in my life. My faith, my family, my friends... now those are things worth fighting for, those are the things worth valuing.

"The world and its desires will pass away, 

but those that do the will of God will live forever." 1 Jn. 2:17

So I'm slowly learning. I'm not there and probably won't be soon. But through these small but important life lessons I am trying to be a person who values the things in life that really matter, not laughable things like a hard drive, and itunes filled with music.

And so, dear friends, that is the story of why I haven't been blogging and the story of the last days of my precious computer. It's also the story of the birth of my new laptop [which is actually pretty amazing], a new iTunes filled with music, and a renewed perspective of what's important.

Please learn from my lessons, particularly from my mistakes in valuing material things more than I ought. If you can get it right, let me know how you did, and if you struggle like me, let's walk through this together.

On another note, it's APRIL. How on earth did that happen?! I have exactly one month and one week until I graduate! Ah!

Go out and enjoy the spring, and here's a little love. From me, to you.

living without

The past few weeks I've been quick with YouTube videos and slow with using real words on this blog. It's mostly out of selfish lack of motivation. I haven't had the best last few weeks and was in (still coming out of?) a terrible state of self-pity.

I turned 22. Lovely. Really though, I love birthdays.

However, I always knew that I would turn 22 in the January of my senior year, and for me that marked a very important deadline. Since I was a junior in high school and figured out the current age and month and time of my life -- 22, January, Senior -- I had made a vow that I would be securely employed by now.

"My 22nd birthday is the perfect deadline.. the start of a new year, the middle of a school year, with a few more months of college left.. the perfect deadline for being employed with a 'real person job." 

-my thoughts over the past few years. 

But here I am, two and a half weeks into my 22nd year -- not only without a job -- but without any prospects. My industry, journalism and media, was one of the ones hit the hardest in the economic downturn that came about my sophomore year of college. But still, I was hopeful. But still, I was naive. I've been lucky, with adequate effort, I've been able to get everything I wanted in my life so far. But now, I'm fighting hundreds of applicants for one 30K (if I'm lucky) reporting job.

To add insult to serious injury (name that Hugh Grant movie), two days after turning 22, my car broke down. permanently.

I've been set all my life, yet on the cusp of entering reality, I find myself jobless and unpredictably car-less.

blerg.

So, you see, the past few weeks I've been thinking in terms of 'me.' 'I'm' living without. Poor 'me.'

me, me, me. I, I, I.

Then, all the way across the world, something happened in Cairo, Egypt. In political frenzy, the dear citizens of that nation turned against each other. Against their neighbors and childhood friends and brothers.

Violence spread like wildfire and within a day the entire world became painstakingly aware of the sadness that has overcome this most infamous nation. However, the causes of these violent acts and revolutionary mindsets are not what I'm here to preach.

While watching redundant footage of the Egyptian men clubbing each other and hurling fire across the streets of Trafalgar Square in Cairo, all I could think about were the people they left behind. Their wives, jumping at every noise as they anxiously wait for husbands to return, alive, for the night. Their mothers, undoubtedly worrying themselves sick as they watch the same coverage that I, 3,000 miles away, am watching. The sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, who spend the day in their bedrooms praying for their fathers and brothers to just be safe.

They are a people group in suffering. I, I soon realized, -in my warm apartment, my family safe and intact a short drive away, nearing the end of an amazing education, my friends not out sacrificing their lives for a cause but doing homework beside me - I am not suffering. Not even close.

So what. I don't have a job yet. But I will at some point. I don't have a car for the next few months. But my roommates do, and are happy to chauffeur me to and from the grocery store.

I'm not living without. I'm living with one of the best circumstances that exist on this earth.

If I were telling this over dinner, I would ask that you bow your head and we would pray for Egypt. Then I would raise my glass, and you would follow suit.

I would say 

'Here's to our blessed lives, here's to the safety of our loved ones, here's to remembering that life is about more than jobs and cars, here's to possibility and here's to hoping that one day we'll all get it right.'

Glasses would clink, we'd take a sip, and remember that in this life, we are never without.

moments

One of my best friends and I take a class together,
this video was shown and we were both left speechless.
Speechless at how beautiful the simple moments are that make up our life. 

Enjoy not only this video, but every moment - memorable or insignificant -
that is your life. 

Also, check out my friend's blog here. :)