Trouble Sleeping

For the second night in a row I just can't seem to fall asleep.
So I get out of bed (or in this case - the couch, because my roommate has the stomach bug) and make myself a pb&j on the frying pan (because we don't have a microwave) which I know, has got to be the worst habit ever.

Why can't I sleep? I have so much on my mind. You see, I have been holed-up in my apartment for the past four days straight. I had a terrible cold and after much encouagement from my parents I forced myself to rest the entire time. No skiing, no hot tubbing, no nothing. Just rest. So I've done a lot of reading and even more thinking. And even after all this thinking...I don't know what to think.

I don't know why I'm here. Recently it has become very clear to me what I want to do with my life, and so for now, I feel like I'm wasting my time.
But Katy darling, we must remember that it was you who said "I'm going to take some time off to figure out exactly what I want to do. I'm not going to go back to school until I am 100% positive of what I want to study."

Well, I'm positive alright. I've been pretty positive for about seven months now. Need I wait longer? Apparently I do. Because as restless as I am here, I have even less peace about going home. I just can't. I still believe that God has me here for a reason. I just have no clue as to what it could be. I stand by my feeling that people here are just so dense. Dense and apathetic. Dense to the fact that you are trying to love them and apathetic to the fact that this love comes from Jesus.

I also know that some of these feelings are arising because I've almost finished reading Chap Clark's "When Kids Hurt". Although by definition I am still considered an adolescent, I am hurting so bad for my fellow adolescents. I want to badly to go back to school so that I can be better equipped to help them. Which is why I feel like I am wasting time here.

I don't know, maybe I just need to chill out and step back. The Lord has his timing and I have mine. Apparently mine is at a much more hurried pace than His. Which, by the way, is a big problem with adolescents nowadays - we are too hurried. You see?! It is precisely these kinds of questions that arise in my mind and just sit there like a midnight pb&j in my stomach. I have nobody to digest, er, discuss these questions with and they just sit there in my brain and create for a very quiet, very introverted Katy. Yes, dear friends reading this, I can and should call you, but I haven't been able to talk for the past few days without hacking up a lung. Please forgive me - I'll call you soon.

Anyway. I'm no more tired than when I began this post. Perhaps I should try to sleep though. Seeing as tomorrow is my first day back at my hellacious job and we are supposed to have about 200 kids. AND I've been getting pretty worn out just by walking to the bus stop. Woe is me.

Even though everything is more expensive here, I would pay just about anything to have my Starbucks coffee in the morning. The days that I take the time to sit, sip, read and journal before work always prove to be better days. Thanks for reading. I hope to soon be able to post some nice, uplifting stories. Until then, midnight-snack-quiet-introverted-a-little-bit-pissed-off-Katy is going to try to go to bed. Sweet dreams.

Christmas

I had a lot of plans for today, but I am sicker than a dog. So instead, I just have a lot on my mind.

...mind if I blog for a bit?

These posts always take me a long time to write because I type a sentence and then I sit back and think. In this case I am eating caramel rice cakes with nutella (one of the best snacks ever) while watching Scrooged (one of the best Christmas movies). Oh and I'm wearing the snuggie that my brother bought me for Christmas. It has been the most perfect Christmas gift for such a sickly day. Thanks, Dan.

So what's on my mind? This place isn't cutting it for me. I ran into this problem this summer, living in another vacation destination. How I see it is that there are a lot of people out there who move to the places where people vacation and they think they have made it. "Hey! I live where people come to have fun! What could be better?" The problem is that this could be true if the entire goal for our lives was to have fun; and for many people it is. But it isn't for me. Obviously, I'm human so I want to, but it truly leaves me feeling empty.

Since being away from Young Life and just middle schoolers and high schoolers in general, I have begun to ache for them more and more. Not for just those that I know, but the age group; all of them, everywhere. I think it's through this ache that God is beginning to show me some of my true passions and what he designed me for. I want to work with these kids. I want to help them. And I want to go to school for it. I want to expand my mind and my heart as much as possible as to help theirs.

So that's the first point. It has beginning to be more and more apparent that I am supposed to go back to school sooner than later. I've been thinking about it seriously now for about seven months and it's almost as if I'm thinking of it as the time when life gets to start again. I think that's because I know it's when I can have solid community again. I'll have something to do, to work towards and an end goal that will allow me to start helping the kids I want to help.

I think right now I feel like I'm in limbo. I am TRYING to do what I can here. I be a light for Christ here in Vail, but more recently I have been labeled as "really religious".
It's tough because that's as far as you get. You mention that you're going to church and they offhandedly ask, "oh so you're religious", not really listening for an answer; they've already made an assumption. And unless they have a longer attention span than most people, you just have to say yes.

So anyway. I want to go back to school. I was wondering if it would be this coming fall or the next and I think it will be the fall of 2011. When my dad was here in Aspen we talked about possibly staying out here for longer and he said something that stuck with me: "Nothing is as good the second time around". This, for the most part, is true. If Vail is not cutting it for me and I'm craving going back to school, I should. There are just a few things I want to do in the meantime. I want so badly to stay out here during the summer. So more recently I've started thinking about a position at a YL camp for the summer. It would allow me to stay here, and it would give me community. Which I think would be a nice in between step from this place and seminary. And the thing is, I love being in a leadership position, especially at camps. One of the best months I ever had was when I was on assigned team at Southwind. There were a lot of things that made the month less than ideal, but I have never felt him working through me more consistently than that month.

So, if we look at this summer and this winter and my lack of community and my general attitude that arises, am I just useless if I don't have people around me pointing me towards Christ? Is my faith so weak that I can't not have other Christians around me? I don't think so. My wonderful friend Kylie has been assessed up and down for mission work and she has been put into the category as someone who needs to work in a team. They figured this out soon after she teared up, for the first and only time during her interview, after talking about how much she loves her 418 roommates. Ky-y, I think we could be put into the same category, as I'm doing the same and I'm just typing.

As of right now, this is what I want to do: stay in Vail through April 24, go home to Gainesville for a while, maybe work at a CO young life camp for the summer, Seminary in the fall. And if not the fall, I'll go to Europe for a bit in the fall and then seminary in the spring of 2012. I like this plan a lot...I just need to start saving money.

Hm, one more thing. Someone recently told me to stop taking myself so seriously. Do I take myself seriously? I think so. Is it a bad thing? I don't know. I do know that I'm rarely content these days. Mostly because of the aforementioned paragraphs, but I just also just feel like I've heard it all. Moving from new town to new town this year I see and hear so much of the same stuff. Maybe I'm just being overly pessimistic because I'm sick, it's Christmas and I miss my family a ton. That is all, I need to nap.

Best Day Ever

I am particularly excited that this post gets to follow my previous post about how sad I've been, because...

I had the best day ever!!

And it went as follows:

7:30 Woke up and enjoyed lox with cream cheese on my gluten free bread (Yes, I finally went grocery shopping...no more rice cakes for breakfast!)
8:15-8:45 Arrived in Vail, got my skis from my workplace, which makes me enjoy my days off even more because I get to see what I am [not] missing. On the bus ride I was completely encouraged by emails and texts from friends and my mom. I felt looked after and cared for. Thanking God for the love I was receiving I trekked over to the gondola and took the beautiful ride to the top of the mountain.
9:00 I get two free ski lessons a month and I was placed in a group with 4 other ladies which I just love! It's like getting to have 3 moms for a day.

10:00-3:30 I got SO MUCH BETTER AT SKIING! Yesterday I was able to go down any green comfortably. I could do blue's, but only at a very slow speed and with much trepidation. By the end of the day I could go so fast down really steep blues! I was faster and more coordinated than everyone else in my class (not that it's a competition...) and was loving it. I also made a friend! She's from South Africa and so easy to talk to. We had a great time talking on the lifts and we are definitely going to ski together in the near future. The day ended on a good note as my instructor said that she couldn't believe that I had only been skiing for a few weeks. One more reason to believe that I am a natural. Wahoo!

Skiing was so much fun and it pumped me up so much I had to all I could to not dance on the bus ride home. But as soon as I got home and remembered that I had all sorts of delicious groceries to cook I couldn't help but dance to Techrotonic's "Pump Up the Jam" and other dance-y songs for a good hour in my kitchen.

I called Kylie to tell her about how God just continues to bless. Even when I'm down and I don't choose to find joy in Him, He still provides in the most remarkable ways. To be able to notice all my fun and encouragement as gifts from him is a blessing in itself.

Wearing my long underwear, kickboxing to Ke$ha in my tiny kitchen, cooking sweet potatoes and chicken while singing with my roommates was an amazing way to end such an incredible, uplifting day.

Recently

I never know how to start my blog posts. In middle school they nail it into your head that you have to have "a grabber" as your first sentence. Alright well how's this:

I've been sad recently.

I'm currently in the process of figuring out exactly why this is true. I think it has a lot to do with the lack of variety in people. Everyone here is pretty similar. I was writing a friend just now and I mentioned how I missed our in-depth conversations. We would debate everything and analyze why things are the way they are. Here there are two main points of conversation in Vail: skiing and drinking. It's hard for me to go in-depth with either. I'm a novice at the former and don't do much of the latter.

Also, the boys here are just plain awful. Ok, overstatement, but not by too much. It's really interesting - they act as if The Ratio is in their favor. They're so aggressive in asking girls out that I'm just over it.

Lastly, and I know this is pretty fickle, but I'm cold. I'm already tired of being cold. I'm ready for shorts and bathing suits again. This however is just something I need to suck up and deal with. I'm still against tanning beds, but I looked them up the other day because I just want to do something that resembles the beach.

Please here this though: I like it here. I'm generally happy and I am LOVING skiing. I'm officially able to shred up all the greens. I've begun to move onto blue's and I'm proud of this especially because I didn't ski at all before coming out here.

Oh! I get to see my Dad this time next week!! I'm taking a shuttle to meet him in Aspen for a day of Daddy + Katy time. I can't wait to ski, eat, talk and just spend time with my Dad. Twenty-four hours will indefinitely feel too short. But right now I'd give just about anything to see my family. Spending the holidays out here has been a little tougher than expected.

Just know that I'm keeping my chin up. How else can I take the in beauty of all that is around me?

Powder Day

"Ooohh it's a powder day!" "Ah man, I hope my next day off is a powder day!" "You know what they say - no friends on a powder day!"

I've heard all this for three weeks now. Last night it snowed about 12-18 inches. So of course, I was psyched that I didn't have to work today and I could actually ski My First Powder Day.

What.
The.
Crap.

Skiing in powder is HARD. Hard as in I came home early and had to lay on the couch for about three hours before I would even consider moving any one of my limbs.
Call me a baby, but seriously?? I didn't expect this at all. Yesterday was great. I was really pushing myself and feeling like I was really starting to get the hang of everything. Today I felt like someone immersed me in water and said "ok now go do the same thing".

Listen, you.
It was tough. Really tough.
But I still liked it.
Or, well, loved it.

More bloody noses and Justin Bieber

Yesterday I played parametric.

I got a call that a little three year old boy took a fall and got a bloody nose. I immediately put on my parka, filled the pockets with tissues and tromped out onto the snow, looking for a bloody boy and feeling very much like a mom.

I found the only kid that had blood streaming from, well, his forehead to his chest. This was quite the bloody nose and this little boy had quite the set of lungs. Have you ever tried to walk on powdery snow in tennis shoes for more than a couple of yards? It's tough, especially when you are carrying a 50 pound screaming boy in the most awkward way possible as to not get blood on your own clothes. So I plopped this little boy in a sled and pulled him all the way to the edge of the snow where I then felt like a paramedic, a mom and a fireman as I carried this wailing, blood-streaming boy up a hill in the Colorado altitude. When I got to our building I wasn't wailing but I was wheezing.

A half hour later of "You're okayyyy" and "You're so brave!" and "I just need to wipe your nose just one more time" the boy stopped crying and started coloring. He then started bragging about his bloody nose.

That evening the roommates and I took a trip to Wal Mart and got all sorts of Christmas decorations...and a Justin Bieber poster. Which, by the way, is pretty much just a joke and used to deter any boys from liking us.

And then today I think I've made two friends who could be really good friends. I'm able to be real with each one and hold solid conversations. And if you know me, you know that that is the way to my heart. So thank you God, for good conversations with good people.

Oh, and of course, thank you God for the beauty of Colorado. Here is a picture of where I was skiing on the other day.