Starting over

Before you read this post read Note to Readers

My dear Anne,

So my dearest Anne, first of all let me tell you some things about myself. I am in grad-school and it is my last "traditional" semester of Grad school and in the fall I will be writing my thesis and doing a long internship. I am looking forward to doing research (as I actually find it fun) but I feel like I am trudging through this semester. It is like grad school senioritis. I'd rather be doing anything but my homework. Actually what I want to be doing is writing my own stories. I sometimes wished I had pursued creative writing instead... though maybe if I had pursued it in school I would not like it so much. Writing is my escape... but right now I feel like I want to escape a lot. Not that anything is seriously going on, I just don't want to be doing school work. I know school will soon be over and I will be able to write and read whatever I want (oh what a glorious day that will be).

Glorious
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Some other things about me that you should know are my obsessions. If you want to get close to me you should know I get very passionate and hold somethings close to my heart. I love being an aunt and probably might have a little unhealthy addicted to my niece and nephew. I don't think it is unhealthy but I am sure my friends/co-workers who I talk to do.

Some time being an auntie over Christmas

I am also a hopeful romantic. I not only love love stories but I have idealistic views of the ideas of chivalry and  men purely pursuing a woman. I think in that I have a deep love of historical fictions. I get very swept in the idealistic view I have of the past. As I mentioned in my post below I just love the idea of wearing fancy dresses, going to balls, and attending eloquent dinners. I think I want to crawl inside and live in a Jane Austen novel or Downton Abbey. Of course having read Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict... I know it is not so glamorous as  I think. Also Mary Crawley talked about how women don't have a life and that they are just stuck in the waiting room for marriage. So maybe the past is not as great as I imagine it to be but I still hold this idealistic view of the ages gone by.

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Sometimes I think if I were to be a character in a Jane Austen or Downton Abbey-ish story I would think I would be an Edith (but nicer) or an Anne Elliot from Persuasion (maybe that is where I got your name). I am the middle daughter with both sisters married and I the useful aunt. I feel that is a role I could do well... if I wasn't a 1,000 miles away from my niece and nephew. I have tried writing a story like that but it seemed "too woe is me" so I didn't want to continue it. I think I am Elinor but I want the passion of Marianne but heck if I could get a man like Dan Stevens to marry me that would be great.

Dan Stevens as Edward Ferras
in the A&E version of Sense and Sensibility
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I do think it is quite obvious that I have a love for the idea of love. As Carrie Bradshaw once said "a deep consuming, can't live with out you love" and that is what I seek after. So I will probably fill my letters with my hopeful romantic ideals and all that is entailed in that.

Besides my niece/nephew, grad-school, and my romantic ideals I will also use this time to write about my faith. To fill you in lately I have felt somewhat of a void in my life with grad-school, going home for Christmas and then having my mom visiting I could cover it up but then when things slowed down a bit I felt empty. As much as I felt I was keeping God in my life somehow I had floated away from Him. I don't think I was letting Him in to the real stuff and keeping our relationship at a very surface level. I am also trying to keep remind myself that no matter how I feel He is here with me. To do this I am trying to memorize scripture I did not do so well last week so my verse is the same...

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
my hope comes from him.
 He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
My salvation and my honor depend on God;
he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge.

-Psalm 62:5-8 (NIV 1984).

I think this has been a pretty good letter so I will let you go. Thank you for reading my letter Anne. Please write and tell me how you are doing.

Yours,

Blaire

P.S. I will write more and share with how my writing is coming along. Sharing my writing with you on my last story kept me quite motivated in finishing it. Thank you for your support.

Note to readers

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Dear Readers,

I don't know who is actually reading my blog... but I am changing it. I have decided to write fictitious letters to a girl name Anne whenever I want to write about my life. I do not know why I decided to name my character Anne. But I have decided I have wanted to change my blog around a bit so now all my "Dear Readers" post I will write write to this Anne character. In some ways it seems more personal. I don't know if this makes sense but last night instead of falling asleep I was thinking about this blog and how I want to make it more personal more about my life and not just fluff (as I feel it has become). As I was thinking about it an idea came to my head that I should write these as letters. I have tried to be a pen pal once and I love the idea of writing long handed letters but it didn't last long. So I want to write letters. But instead of writing letters to this unknown group of readers(as I am not exactly sure who reads this) I decided to name my readers Anne. I don't think actually know any person named Anne so I am not writing to anyone in particular.

Hope you enjoy the letters,
Blaire

My first letter to Anne {click here}

Fictional Obsession and Confession

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Dear Readers,

I will admit I get emotionally attached to fictional characters. If you can relate please let me know if  because sometimes I feel alone in my obsessions. For example I get overly happy every time I watch Emma and the scene where Mr. Knightley proposes to Emma and she says "Now I need not call you Mr. Knightley, I can call you my Mr. Knightley." Oh it just tugs at my heart strings. And I lost it when Matthew proposed to Mary on Downton Abbey.

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While yes I do like happy endings and I am totally a hopeful romantic. I look to these books/movies/shows as a way of escapism. I like the idea of getting lost in fancy gowns, balls, and I guess my idealistic view of chivalry. I think that is why I got into history, I wanted to escape into the past and live in the times and places I could only live in my imagination. 

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But it is not just historical stories I mean when Peeta confessed his love for Katniss I hugged the book to my chest because I was so happy. And today when I watched the newest episode of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries I cried... Maybe I am just super emotional. 

I guess I just love getting lost in stories. I hope to one day be an author that writes stories that people will get lost in and will fall hopelessly in love with my characters. I mean I get lost in my own stories but sometimes I think they exist better in my head. (Is this common for writers?)

Any way I just wanted to share my obsession. Hope you, my lovely readers, will understand my posts when all I want to do is escape the realities of grad-school.   

Just a pretty picture of escapism
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New Year's Resolution

I know I am a little late on my New Year's Resolutions but I have done a lot of thinking about this and I don't want make resolutions without thinking about them.

1. Make time for friends... I know that sounds easy but I actually have a hard time with this. I get bogged down with school and work and then I hole up in my room. That leads me to feeling lonely and oddly when I am lonely I have a hard time reaching out to people. So I am going to put hanging out with my friends/talking to friends as a top priority.

Okay these aren't my friends but I like this picture. {pic}

2. Try different food. I eat a lot of chicken and usually I just eat what I know I will like. However my mom and I are going to Paris in May and she seems so worried that I won't be able to eat anything there... so I am promising to try new foods. Tuesday night I had duck for the first time.

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3. Probably most important is I am trying to memorize scripture. Scripture that will keep me strong in some rough spots of life.

Last week it was...

"being confident in this that He who began good works in you will carry it on till completion until the day of Christ Jesus"- Philippians 1:6

This week it is...

"Praise the Lord, O my soul and forget not all his benefits"-Psalm 103:2

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God's little reminder

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Last May I wrote a post called "Things I am afraid to tell you" in the post I shared this poem...

I hear a voice

I know it well

   it tells me over and over

I am unworthy

I am unable to be loved

and when I look in the mirror

   it tells me 

I am ugly.

This voice is closer to me

   than a friend

and been around me 

   since I was a little girl. 

I hide my face 

   admit defeat

and walk with shame.

I hope no one else 

  can see these failings

I hope today my mask

  of goodness stays in place. 

When I am strong

   I pick myself up

and tell the voice "no"

  I am worthy

  I am loved

  and I will prove it. 

So I do my best

   on my own 

   to fight against it

   but I fail.

I hear the voice

I know it well.

It mocks me for trying

it points out my scars

   and my pain

it points out the wrongs 

   I commit 

   and how I will always keep failing.

Because of these

it tells me over and over 

I am unworthy 

I am unable to be loved 

and when I look in the mirror

    it tells me

I am ugly.

So I continue with my mask 

    of goodness 

always adjusting it 

so people see 

what they want to see. 

They see a smile

   and that's what I want

because who loves a girl 

   who curls up in bed and cries

who loves a girl that is 

   falling apart

   lonely,

   and scared. 

They see a smile

   and that's what I want. 

But I hear a voice 

    and I know it well

a voice that is quick to cut

a voice that is louder than all others 

and a voice I would die to silence.

I hear it

bury my head in shame

admit defeat

and curl up in a dark spot.

There I sit

but there I hear a whisper 

it is very soft

"my child", "my love"

"my beauty", "my creation."

"You must have me wrong"

I tell the whisper.

But it repeats

"my child", "my love"

"my beauty", "my creation."

I open my eyes

see nothing there

so I doubt its existence.

"My child","my love"

"I am here for you

in darkness to be your light,

to be your hope

when you feel hopeless,

and to be your strength 

when you can't pick yourself up.

Remain in me 

and I will remain in you."

When I cling to that whisper 

the voice softens 

when I concentrate on that whisper

the shame of my failings 

    go away

and when I take in that whisper 

I feel blessed and loved.

But the voice is always there

always quick to cut

and some times louder 

   than a battle cry.

But so is the whisper

it remains too.

I have to listen harder

  to hear it 

  but it is there

it calls to me over and over again.

"My child", "my love"

"my beauty", "my creation"

"I am here for you

I am here with you

   and I love you." 

Well today as I was listening to one of my playlist and I heard this song... All the Beauty (Kati's Story) by JJ Heller. 

The song reminded me of my poem and how much I still need to remember the words of God...

You call me lovely

You call me friend

You call me out of death and let me try again

You call me beloved

You call me clean

Then you show me all the beauty that you see in me

 

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I love the way God reminds us of His love for us.