Thursday, May 26, 2011

What Defines Me?

What if our lives weren't lived, silently, loudly, apart from the world and yet constantly in it...what if our lives were, instead, written??

What if the things that we say and do were recorded in a book? What if your story was actually a story - would you be the villain, the bully, the controller making things happen? Would you be the one lost in speculation and thought, filling pages with your questions and answers? What character would you be?

Okay, what if your life wasn't a book? Not a story, not really anything...but a life. Yet your life had a room dedicated to you. Just one room. Every person's room was different - some small, others huge, some without any windows. And across the walls, scrawled in different colors of ink and paint, were words. Words that you wrote. Words that just screamed you. Words that you thought in your head.

Words that you thought, but never said.

What if someone could peek into the room, after you were gone, and see you in full force, like a movie character on a screen? It was something to return to, over and over again, and just look and admire and learn...

My reason for creating this idea of a room that equals a person is to try and discover something (haha! my D word!). That something is this: What makes you you? What makes me me?

If you took away all the defining physical characteristics (blond hair, gray-green eyes, skinny arms, fair skin), what would I leave behind that would be me? Is it the way I think? Well, if that's it, then I'm rather put-out; you see, there are some people who think like me. Alright, not exactly like me (ha, I'm sure no one is quite that psychotic), but if you took each of my different trains of thought separately, I'm sure there would be another person to make each one up to.

Okay. Let's hypothetically say that it isn't just our thoughts that make us us. What's left over? Our personalities. A personality is "the visible aspect of one's character as it impresses others."

Wait. Our personalities are defined by how people see us? For some reason that is very disturbing. So then, according to worldly opinions on the matter, WHO WE ARE IS DEFINED BY THE WORLD.

Sometimes, by what we do. Mostly by what we wear, where we work, and who we know. It's all subjective to others ever-shifting opinions. Where do our own opinions come in? In defining others.

What a crazy, silly circle.

Cut out personality and thoughts. And physical features. What's left is fashion, hobbies/talents/skills, paper certificates that are supposed to mean something ("you have graduated from such and such a high school"), your friends, and how much money you have.

Is that really what describes me? Am I Caitlin because I write words all over the place and I am relatively poor? I can't decide what style I like best, so I dress both punk and vintage. Does THAT make me Caitlin?

I've always wanted to be me...plus something else (see the I AM NUMBER FOUR blog entry). But the thing is, I can only ever be me, even if I try to be something else, even if I try to change.

I'm still Caitlin. Still here.

The real answer to all these questions is sitting right in front of my face. I've been staring at it - and not wanting to see it. Because it's too simple. And...I've been seeing things through the world's eyes lately (a very bad habit, I know). I keep reaching for these insignificant things that everyone else is going for and I think I need them.

I don't.

Because I have God.

He defines me. He defines all of us. HE MADE US.

It's annoying, that it's so easy, so dependent upon only Him...and yet it's also a relief. So calming, so perfect, so right. And I guess I needed to hear that. Needed to think through all of this and realize that ME is whoever He wants me to be.

I am His.

That's who Caitlin is.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

D - the letter of the day

I was thinking the other day (rare, I know) about how many “D” words I like. It seems like a great thing to bring up in my blog – vocabulary and all that jazz. Anyway, here are my favorites:

1. Duck = not the animal. I’m quite averse to quacking. I mean the verb, “duck,” as in trying to escape from bullets ;)
2. Dredged = oh, the image of something being dragged or pulled up from somewhere way down, through darkness and deep water…till finally, it’s dredged up to the surface.
3. Dude = okay, I’ll admit it: I love saying dude.
4. Disco = it’s just fun to say! Blaring music, flashing lights, people full of energy…
5. Delve = this is what you do when you’re going deep down to dredge something up :P
6. Dampen = don’t drench (although that is another great word), don’t moisten – just dampen the rag. Like dew drops.
7. Dew. Bahaha ^
8. Dismal/Dreary = makes me think of days of rain without ceasing, or castle dungeons, or going hours without seeing people.
9. Droll = I should really have put this one at the top. It’s the best “D” word ever! Listen to the definition (oh-hoh, it’s soooo awesome): “amusing in an odd way; whimsically humorous; waggish.” Go and look up the “waggish” – I assure you that you will be amused. And I have just decided that I am a wag.
10. Delete = don’t you just love that little button on the keyboard that says DELETE? I wish there was one of those for my brain. And my life. Oh, I don’t want to remember that – delete. I’d like get rid of that annoying person – delete.
11. Departure = something I’d rather participate in than merely “leaving.” If you know what I mean.
12. Disinclined = quite self-explanatory in its awesomeness.
13. Dastardly = meaning cowardly, sneaking…Dastardly deeds are always done in medieval novels. Quite.
14. Dysfunctional = oh, how this word applies to me…At the moment, my computer is making me dysfunctional in anything but cyberspace ;p
15. Discover = my major life pursuit. My life-motto. All of my dreams in a nutshell. My…ooookay, I’m being prolixly again.
16. Discard = throwing away things has its benefits. Especially those books I buy from library booksales that are labeled DISCARD in a most appealing way. Although, I don’t use this word very much because I’m an, ah, packrat *cough*.

Do you have a favorite "D" word?? I'm always willing to expand my vocabulary!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

I changed my blog. Again.

Change is so...so...agh. It's late. I just posted something long and thoughtful, so please scroll down and take a look at my inky scrawls:) There are ink blots and wrinkles and spelling mistakes all over the place. (I know you're being nice and pretending not to see them, but they are there, hiding underneath the cyberspace screen. A journal is meant to be full of mistakes anyway. And this one certainly is.)

Bon appetit! That can apply to reading, too, right?
_Caitlin_

I AM NUMBER FOUR

I just got back from watching I AM NUMBER FOUR at the theater. It wasn’t quite what I expected (at first, the whole alien thing upset me – I’m not a big fan of alien-related stories *groans*). But I like surprises. And the characters in this movie were very…eh, enviable to me.

Yeah. Not going to go into that right now.

But one thing that really came across in that movie is the whole feeling of other-worldliness. It’s a prevalent theme in media today. Supernatural, paranormal, inhuman, mythical, alien – all words that describe this feeling inside that we need something outside of our “normal, ordinary lives.”

We all want to be something…more…than what we are. It’s a part of who we are. To remedy this desire, we search for the things in nature that seem to be beyond us – or at least beyond our words – things that are outside of our control. Inversely, we sometimes go the opposite direction and do everything humanly possible to be in control: we up our speed, strength, talents, intelligence, and reflexes till we seem invincible.

But we’re not.

So for those of us who are lazy and don’t know how to achieve this supernatural-ness, we watch great movies and read awesome books that allow us, for a few hours, to become supernatural. We can fly, we can understand our friends completely, we can rise above all obstacles, we can shoot rays of light from our fingers or pull fantastical stunts or see the future or become fireproof. It’s quite the experience.

For me, there’s a slightly deeper desire…beyond the yearning for impossible beauty or strength or intuition…it’s a desire to be my own person. Those characters are so well-crafted that you don’t just see their faces and their clothes; you see their persona. They have a little life that’s completely unique to themselves. And I’ve never really had that.

I’m more of a mixture of things. I don’t stick with the same thing for very long – I like to bounce around and dabble in – well – everything. (cough.) My most defining characteristic is that I laugh easily and loudly. Seriously.

So the girl in I AM NUMBER FOUR was so spectacular to me. She was ordinary (in a way) but she had this image. Her image was a photographer.

Her room was plastered with photos, her decorations were photographs, cameras, and film. She carried a camera everywhere, snapping photos every ten seconds or so. She had a blog/website full of interesting pictures. That camera was what she put her life into.

She did other things besides take pictures, she still paid attention to how she dressed, and she had a family life. But that camera was so her. I loved that.


Anyway, I’m not trying to knock myself, cause I hate it when people do that. (Okay, maybe I was a little, but it’s okay to feel slightly insignificant when you find someone that you think is a role model, okay? :P) I just really want the spectacular right now. I want to be…known for who I am. Sometimes I feel as if I’m not really, entirely, truly myself.

And that sounds completely ridiculous. Sigh.

But that yearning we all have is because of the void of God. He’s the supernatural we all need and want! He’s the defining force that gives us our identity. Fame, money, pleasure, material possessions, fashion, college degree – none of that really defines us. I mean, who are we, but God’s creation? What do we have that He hasn’t given to us?

So right now I’m longing to “create” myself anew and become what I think is a cool person (huh, sounds fun, doesn’t it?). Yet I think to what the Bible says…what we are through Jesus’ death on the cross…we are all new creations. Born again. Washed clean. Ready to start over.

This life that I want so much to create…He’s trying to create it for me. But I keep getting in the way. Buying a camera isn’t going to set the stage for an amazing life. But following Him is.

_Caitlin_

Monday, May 16, 2011

Corn

Let's meditate on corn for a moment, shall we? Corn is a wonderful, tasty thing. It grows from the ground and we pick it and we eat it and we save it and it is YELLOW like sunshine!!

A couple things I'd like to note about corn though.

1. It starts out as a little seed. There could be thousands of them sitting in a bucket, and they'd all look virtually the same. So small...and yet so ready to burst into life.

2. Those little seeds get a whole lot bigger. Knee high by the Fourth of July and all that. Predictable, maybe, but nonetheless wonderful to see corn grow.

3. There's a certain type of corn that is perfect for making popcorn. [And I loooove popcorn! <3] The seeds all start out the same - looking the same, reacting the same - but with the right amount of heat, they start to burst open and reveal their fluffy little insides.

Now, we all known what a kernel of popcorn looks like. It's not that hard to distinguish. But have you ever really looked at those kernels? Each one is different!!!

I don't know, I was eating day-old popcorn today, and I sort of had a "corn-epiphany." {Don't go knocking epiphanies :P} I just thought, hey, we're all like those corn kernels. We're all the same, really - human bodies, faces, arms, legs, the general amount of body parts - but when the heat is applied, when the pressure is on, we just sort of pop...and you see who we really are.

This is not a fool-proof theory or anything. I'm no psychologist. Which reminds me: I was reading about psychology today. Oops. Guess that's where this came from. Isn't that sad? I didn't just randomly decide to start thinking deeply...lol.

And that is the end of my corn meditation. Hope you enjoyed the little journey:) And remember: you can be a big, puffy kernel of popcorn, one that just had to burst open...or you could be one of those kernels that barely opened at all...and those kind don't taster very nice.

Heh heh =]