Kunst

I love going to art museums and looking at all the beautiful and not so beautiful pieces of art. The idea that little pieces of people’s hearts, minds, or even souls are put up for display is beautiful and often awe inspiring. This is also why art is scary and risky to make, it is putting something from you onto a piece of paper or canvas or clay or any other wide array of mediums and allowing the rest of the world to view it. It is a scary, dangerous, and often messy thing to make a piece of art. Creating art makes us vulnerable and that is always risky. So why do we do it?

I think it is because God created works of art as well, and whether we know it or not we strive to be more like our creator. God made the universe and He also made us; He took a piece of Himself and put it out there, it was dangerous, messy, and risky. He knew He would face pain, criticism, and many times be completely rejected.

When God created us, unlike our works of art, He didn’t just face criticism from others observing His art, His work of art criticized themselves. We don’t often think of ourselves as a piece of God’s art so putting ourselves and others down is often treated like a good humbling practice, but in all reality is it criticizing God’s art. He put Himself into making us, and a lot of time, thought, and love went into our creation. He knew we would not appreciate His art always, but He loved us anyways, and He constantly looks at us and says, “What a beautiful work of art.”

Victoria's Way of Having a List, Without Having a List

I think I should make a public apology to my hypothetical husband. Why? Because he has to be the most (hypothetically, speaking of course) crazy man alive.

I have so many qualifiers. And they are ridiculous. Warning: drinking warm liquids during reading this may cause you to spew quite a bit onto yourself.

1. You're going to be a lumberjack.
2. You're going to love flannel.
3. You're going to forgive my cigar-smoking, beer-drinking, sometimes swearing mouth and accept that I am classy (mostly).
4. You're going to love little children.
5. You're going to have a beard. (Insert the Love My Lips song from the Veggietales here because every time I hear the word beard, my inner chorus begins singing "She had a beard and it felt weird...")
6. You're going to love that I can sing the theme songs to most every show I adored as a child.
7. You will embrace that I like things a lot or I just don't like it all. I will eat vegetables, fruits, mac and cheese until I cannot stand the smell of the, go on a hiatus, and then start back into my love fro them.
8. You will not drink Pepsi and will embrace that red can of Coke like it is your very own.
9. You will accept that beer-drinking me really prefers hard ciders and fruity drinks (well, mostly).
10. You will sing along to my stupid songs or you will sing your own.
11. You will love animals, but won't make me love dogs because sometimes I really don't like them.

And, things I will never apologize for..

1. You will love God, more than me.
2. You will love people.
3. You will love children. (You don't have to want them; I will convince you of that.)
4. You will love cupcakes, because I love to bake them.
5. You will love laughter and laugh at jokes of all varieties.

You better exist hypothetical man or I will be sorely disappointed.

*This is spurred out of my temporary discontent with being single. I just know there's a bearded, flannel-wearing lumberjack waiting for me to call his lady.

One good quality =perfection

The other night a friend and I went out to get some dessert and a drink, when we were served by a man with a gorgeous Irish accent. We sat and admired his accent the whole night even to go as far as to stop talking whenever he was off talking to another customer. We agreed that although he wasn’t all that physically attractive his accent made him, all that (ok so I know that the term “all that” isn’t really used anymore, but in my head it is at least a step up from da bomb). So here I was picturing a life where I would just listen to this man talk, not really about anything in particular, for the rest of my life. However, I am pretty sure the awe of his accent would have faded quickly after I had to listen to 20 straight hours of him talking about futball and my “perfect man” would soon become flawed.

This situation may be different if it wasn’t for the fact that I tend to do this with any guy I like, I find one or two things I like about a guy and I only see those good qualities. I look for the things to cross off a check list of my perfect man and if he fits even one, I think ding ding I’ve got a winner. Now I know I am not the only one to do this, it is an epidemic sweeping the singles nation. How do I know this? Well I attended a Christian college, where the phrase, “I love Jesus, You love Jesus, let’s get married,” actually became a reality. So many times I have fallen into the trap of believing that just because a guy loves Jesus just as much as me, we are destined to be together forever. True it is essential that two people be at the same level spiritually for marriage, but just because that weird guy at my church gives his all to Jesus, it doesn’t mean God wants us to join forces by default.

So what am I to do to overcome this mindset? Well I need to take a step back, not just go all googly eyed, ask the people closest to me their opinions, and most importantly ask my heavenly Father what He thinks.

What are your opinions, why do you think we pick one thing about a person that we life and automatically think they are the one?

Creepy Neighbor Chronicles Continued

I think that I have finally reached the point in my life where I have been single for so long that it's almost as if I have never dated anyone. I have encountered enough creepy men as of late to make me realize that even if someone with no obvious potential creep factor (OPCF as we shall call it from here on out) were to approach me I would probably reel in disgust.

I don't know what the appropriate response to creepy men is, period. I am not a woman of little words and I am not a woman that is usually without a snarky comeback or one-liner. However, men with OPCF have approached me (creepy downstairs neighbor, for example) and I clam up. The moment I begin to feel even the slightest bit awkward, I stop talking. The inner dialogue is rather comical in hindsight, so I shall share that with you now:

(Creepy Neighbor =CN)

CN: Hey how about you sit down here and talk with me a bit.

Me: *Silence*

Internal Me: How about not. How about I punch you. How about I call Jerry Springer and explain to him that my drunk crazy neighbor keeps setting up propositions like he wants to have an affair with me and I am fairly certain his wife would chop me up into tiny fragments if she knew the truth.

Me: Uh no thanks.

CN: How was your day?

Internal Me: It was wonderful until I came downstairs and you were drunk, half dressed, and listening to bluegrass music (which I even used to like) and tried to get me to sit down with you and swig out of that unlabeled bottle of alcohol, where is your chloroform?

That's how every conversation is happening between the two of us. How do I make him not so creepy? What do I need to say to truly disengage him? How about you? Do you have a OPCF sense? Do you know when you are running into someone who is going to turn out to be a real creep?

The Renewal

This new found air is like breathing for the first time, awkward and clumsy. Vulnerability is giving way to a strength not found in me. Sometimes I feel I have been asleep and comfortable for most of my life, but there is a jarring inside my head that is resonating to the very depths of my soul. I cannot pin point the exact aha, where God’s wisdom shone through the dark attics of my mind, those that once were so content to sleep in mediocrity are now awakened by a trumpet blast of fresh cool air.

I am alive and this is my gift of life, so why am I simply letting it go by without any consequence? This is my life which I’ve chose to ignore hiding my head in the clouds or was it the sand, at some point they both mix together in a beautifully awful distraction from the truth of the life given to me. I will not sit still any longer, I will not hide any more, I will not let myself be controlled by anything other than the One who gave every single thing He had including His life to me. This is my declaration, my awakening, my freedom, my passion, my love, my all!

Nice Syndrome

There is one large problem with being Nice: when you’re single at the same time. If you’re a nice person and single, you can’t talk to people with them trying to think of someone they can set you up with because, well, you’re nice.

I mean, who has never used that phrase when trying to set you up. That is the go-to description when a set-up is trying to happen.

And then there is the fact you can never talk to the opposite sex, because if you’re nice to them, then you must be flirting with them.

Why can’t you just be nice?

Because I’m a nice girl and out going, I’ve given up being friends with guys, because since I hit the swan stage* of life almost ever guy I was “just friends” with has eventually wanted more.

And then when you start telling people this they start encouraging you to the contrary of your instincts. You see I know myself well enough to know when a guy is strong enough to keep up with me, and so far there have been very few I thought would be able to and even they have never made a move. And because of this I don’t settle. I know what I want and I’ve never been the girl for trial and error, which seems to be the philosophy of our culture, so I hate when people try to talk me into guys that are definitively not for me.

So what’s the solution? The only one I can come up with is to dress ugly and hit people with a big stick with nails jutting out of it.

But then that hardly the nice thing to do, is it?

*I was totally an ugly duckling growing up. I didn’t hit my grown up stretch until college. And even then I still didn’t feel like a grown up till a couple years ago, and even that’s negotiable.