reverie

If you look closely, beyond the rain and the dirt on the window, you can see a rainbow here. It's faint but it's there. I wish I could see it for you. If you can't get past all that mars your vision right now I'm not sure my promise that it's there is enough. But even if you have to wade through a monsoon before you can see it, I'll be here waiting with you for a tiny sliver of sun to break through and offer you a ray of hope. I've been feeling a lot lately that words fall horribly short. I can only say I'm sorry so many times, offer hope so many times. And despite the fact that it's always uttered in sincerity, I know it begins to ring hollow. But the words I feel I most need to say, the beckoning to stop running from God, the one thing that would make all the difference in the world, those are the words that get trapped in my throat. I'm afraid of saying them almost as much as I'm afraid of not saying them. Oh that I would have the...

I need a change. I need something profoundly good and surprising to happen in my life. It seems regardless of my circumstances, the end results are always predictable. I want to be wrong. I want to be so wrong. I can't explain specifically what I mean. Or rather I won't right now. All I can tell you is that I'm feelin' so stir crazy right now- emotionally, mentally, physically, locationally. I wanted nothing more today than to go to Starbucks with my mom. I just wanted to talk to her & maybe cry a little & get a hug. I didn't even call her. I didn't want to pour out my heart & at the end have no one to hug me. Or buy me coffee. ;) How can this be? How can it happen that after over 2 years in this city & after having built up an amazing community of friends I can still feel so alone, like I have no one here I could talk to?

As for the car, I think I've decided to wait until I turn 25 to get a new car. Either that or I plan on winning a Saturn Sky from the Target survey I just filled out. :) The next few months are sure to be expensive. I'll have to buy a plane ticket to Houston for Christmas. Nicole & I will once again be hosting Thanksgiving. Then there's our famous Christmas party that will take place only a couple weeks later. And of course Christmas presents to buy. And a nephew on the way means I can be on the look out for cute baby boy items to purchase. Right now is probably not the best time to be tightening my budget. Plus it will be wise to wait until I get a raise so I know for sure what I will be able to afford. I am happy with this decision. Now I just have to hope the Neon will back me up on it. It is just a little over 6 months that I will be turning 25. 25! Seems old kind of. Seems like an age I should have a lot more figured out than I do. But you know I th...

There are some really great things about being an adult. I have a lot of freedom. If I want to stay out until 4:30 in the morning, I can. You know it's late when you get home when the Sunday paper arrives before you do. If I don't want to eat green beans (and I don't let me assure you) there is no one who will make me sit at the kitchen table until I finally give in. And if I don't want to get a flu shot, I don't have to. But there are some really difficult things about being an adult too. For me I think the most difficult thing is trying to figure out finances. I'm not horrible with money, but I have decisions to make that I don't feel prepared to make. And to be fair I never thought I'd be making these decisions alone. The time is nearing for my car to say its goodbyes and be replaced by a younger, more spry (spryer?) model. But so many questions go into such a big decision. What do I buy? Can I afford a monthly payment? And how much? Do ...

Seems as though I've been a victim (as many of you have also) of the summer blogging lull. This week's been kinda rough. Not for any one specific reason but enough small-ish things have conspired together to weigh heavily on my heart. I've been feeling really alone lately & that's beyond difficult. Raj was out here over the weekend which was fantastic. But he didn't get into the internship/grad program for which he came out to interview. He says he's cool with it. I'm really sad about it. Maybe it's our shared middle child syndrome, maybe it's that we're the closest in age out of the 4 of us, I don't know, but I feel like I have this special connection with him. And even though we have our little tiffs sometimes and we manage to frustrate each other with the stupidest little things, I was really looking forward to having him out here. I know I can be my worst self around him and in a weird way that actually encourages me to be my...

Wow I cannot believe how messed up my head can be sometimes. Maybe it's because I dwell in hope. Maybe it's because I actually do believe that one day life will sweep me off my feet in an incredibly unexpected way. I don't want to go through this stupid dance again. How can one version of clarity come across so cloudy to me? And why do I keep putting myself in this place?

Shauna's here! Hazaa! Hooray! And all other manner of celebratory words! On occasion I like to think back on what my life was like a year ago. Aside from looking forward to Shauna being here, very little is the same. The friends I most regularly hang out with now, I did not know a year ago. My job situation is far better than I could have ever hoped for a year ago when I was still dependent on my parents' help. And I have found a church home. It's funny how I say I don't like change because I can't tell you how happy I am that my life is so different from what it was a year ago today. The journey's pretty amazing. Tonight was a fun girls' night. We ordered pizza, watched some Gilmore Girls, and made collages. It's nice how simple things and great friends can make for such a wonderful night. :)

I met Kathy, my Bible Study leader, last night for coffee. I told her what had been going on in my life and how I was sad that my parents had left & that I was having a harder time with it than I expected. I told her that I really want to be a wife & a mom and that's been on my mind a lot lately. She had some very wise things to say. And as I drove away from Starbucks I took a few deep & cleansing breaths and it was as if my lungs were getting oxygen for the first time ever. I can't quite explain it and I don't know why it happened, it's not as though I felt particularly breathless before last night, but as I drove down Foothill Blvd in Sunland on a bit of a trek back toward my home one of the main thoughts in my head was, I can breathe again. Strangely amazing.

I'm not a particularly superstitious person, so when I woke up yesterday morning and saw that it was Monday the 13th (which should seem more ominous than a good ole Friday) I quickly dismissed the thought that something strange or bad would happen. I'm not blaming it on the day, but such a thing did happen last night. I received a call from a friend and he told me he'd been in a pretty bad accident earlier in the day and he felt fine but his mom really wanted him to go to the hospital and get checked out so he wanted to know if I would take him. Of course in complete disregard to our "no hospital" policy I said yes. Thankfully aside from some soreness and pain he is fine. Still when I got home and thought about posting the Valentine's stats as I had intended to do, I thought how could I post something so ridiculous when something so serious had just happened? But this is the kind of friend that heartily embraces such things as made up statistics and he w...

Many a day hast waned since I last bestowed upon my fair readers the gaiety of the middle of the week, so without further dawdling I wish you a very happy hump day! I've been thinking recently about how soon I will be turning 24. I will have lived a year for every hour that is in the day. It's quite a strange notion. And as I've been reflecting on this I thought back on the post I wrote last year about how soon I would be turning 23. It turns out that post was written last January 11th. I can say with such joy and confidence that I have come so far in the year since I wrote that. A friend asked me this weekend what I am looking forward to out of 2006. Even though there are specific things I am hoping for and expecting out of this year, I didn't really answer him. Instead I told him that I got everything I needed to out of 2005. This year I am excited to see where God will lead me next. I plan to do more in my church- to volunteer to help out with kid's church and m...

2006. 2006. It doesn't feel like it fits yet. so this is the new year and I don't feel any different The New Year - Death Cab for Cutie It's been a really good time here in Omaha, but in some ways I am so ready to be back in LA. It is only the impending goodbyes that make me wish for the remaining days here to take their time in passing. Sadly Ravi had to go back to school tonight, so one goodbye was already said. I didn't like it. But that aside this trip has done something very good for me, it sort of closed the one remaining door here that I still felt my heart clinging to. I sat in church this morning and realized that even though there are still some things that have not changed in the 19 years since I started going to that church, there are many things that have, such important ones that I know I don't belong there any more. It's a strange realization, but mostly not a sad one. I really think of my church in LA fully as my home church now. That's actua...

There are a million things on my mind right now. My thoughts and anxieties skitter about refusing to be contained. A lot is coming up this week with work. And in life in general thoughts that I had let go of like child losing grasp of her red balloon are now floating back to me. It took awhile to be okay with their departure and now they want to return. I don't think I want to deal with that again. Okay probably this doesn't make a lot of sense unless you're Nicole as I talked to her about all this stuff tonight. If you want to know details feel free to email me though I cannot guarantee any sort of prompt response. Anyway, I guess at the end of the day/early beginning of a new day all I can say is that I am thankful for Nicole and her willingness to listen to me ramble on about work and the red balloon thing. I'll be glad when all of this is over, but I feel better than I did.

I feel as though I am not updating frequently enough, this being by my own gauge and not by comparison to say Raj who is happy if he writes a new post before the previous one is a month old. By that gauge I am way ahead of the game. ;) I also feel that I do not comment enough, so if you're sitting there thinking, why doesn't Azina comment on my blog more? all I can tell you is that your words do move me and/or make me think. There are things I wish to say here and there sometimes, but I feel too often that words are inadequate. So much happened this past weekend, and it was tiring but ever so much fun. I could give you a list of what I did, but it would look rather similar to the list that I gave you for what I intended to do this weekend. I could tell you how this weekend made me feel, but happy doesn't quite seem to capture it. Imagine a brisk night, the rain has recently ended. Moonlight glimmers in the puddles gathered in the street, or at least you pretend it is moonli...