time

I missed my extra hour of sleep, because I was worried about missing Mass.

Birthdays went very smoothly yesterday; someone was very heavily medicated.  I toed the line a few times, and barely got a look.  But it's fake, its a veneer.  Some things were said in jest and if it weren't for the meds, lolz.  She just about flipped her biscuit when my sister joked that she and 'T' were considering certain things for when they get married. Holy friggs, the look on her face, you could see the meds working overtime, like a switch flipped.  At least I didn't get any crap this time about not having a boyfriend; I got jabs over not having a job, though.  Not sure which one is worse.  Just a few more days to go until the actual birthdays pass, then we can all let down the guard a bit.

---Post Edited 11/07 at 3:27pm ---

What a weekend. I'm tired.  Can I get a do-over?
This is one weekend I'm really glad that I don't have to teach.

to post or not to post

so I wrote this huge brain vomit post & then deleted it  =)

chocolate ice cream and gchat is helping

and my big stuffed neon orange elephant...just one of those weeks where everything shuts down

even my sense of grammar and formation shuts down sheesh

just gotta let it roll on through...no wonder they call it urge surfing

enough bitching i'm gonna go write

Life so Far

Classes are done for the summer, back in May, actually. Since then I have looked and looked for a job. I finally was employed at the end of June at two retail stores. However, sales are so low and business slow that my hours have been cut and I'm lucky to even work two days a week at one job, and get 4 hours paid at the other.

In the meantime, I'm working in the small vegetable garden or sewing. What am I sewing? bits and pieces of many different quilts. I'm in the process of quilting the one for grandma, sewing the one for grandpa and a bunch of other projects. Why the rush? Well, if I get accepted to the SMMEs, I won't be able to quilt any longer. I've got a lot of quilts to finish up for family members and fabric to use up. There's a clear possibility that I wont be able to make all the quilts with the fabric I've planned, so tonnes of little scrap quilts are being made. For grandpa I've made a scrappy Double Wedding ring; grandma an "amethyst" in green tones; mom Cathedral windows, which she doesn't know is for her but has declared that she does not like it. Too bad, its all in pink and cream colors for her. Dad and my sister I still have to figure out. Dad will likely get the kalidescope and monkey, I'll scrape something up. The one on the right, is just a scrap with blues, greens (melon is the light one), and browns. I thought I would use up all the fabric I had, but I didn't. Will probably make a second scrappy one. This one pictured is only 38" x 38".

Going camping this weekend and then in August will be going to Cancun with the family. On Aug 18th I'm due for jury duty and on the 25th classes resume.

Vocation-wise: I have registered for the fall retreat Nov 8-9th with the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist (SMMEs). I've told my dad about my discernment now. He seems ambivalent about it. He appears to be hoping that I'll go in November to the convent retreat, find out what it's really like and get back on track (date, marry, have kids, etc). In the meantime, I'm hanging out with a seminarian since he can't find work and my work hours suck. We talk about God, screwed up families, etc. all that fun stuff. Mom found out about it last week after we walked a couple miles on the beach strand and made fun of me the rest of the day ("why don't you hang around someone you can actually date?" "you don't want to be a nun, do you?"). Ha, good times.

I've also switched parishes. I no longer attend Mass at St John Fisher unless I can't help it. I now attend Ss. Peter and Paul Church which is much more conservative, in union with Rome, adheres to the GIRM, and well, actually looks like a church. I may even give and buy a chapel veil (not necessary), but it'll come in handy for when I do attend the TLM. I try to attend Bible study once a week at St James, and I have a spanish classes that runs once a week for six weeks (this week will be my last).

And that's my life in a nutshell.

What Momma Oughta Know, but Doesn't Want to

These last few posts are among the first vocation-related in the last 2.5 months that I have written. I did not intentionally decide to ignore the discernment process. Between midterms in March and until graduation two weeks ago, I many different things going on. There was the Conference in Anaheim, which did not help me at all; there was one Sister to whom I should never have spoken with; her words felt like spiritual poison, saying that I would never properly discern and enter a community/convent if I did not take at least 6 months off of academics and work and just discern (what a luxury that must be!). I tried to ignore it, but didn't work too well. I had graduation pictures to take a few weeks later, and I had to take off my medals (one of our Mother, and another of St. Benedict). I did not put the medals back on for a week. I've since learned that spiritual attacks get disgusting and nasty when I take my medals off -- the kind that make want to not sleep at night. Self-induced insomnia wasn't too fun. prayer didn't work.



~*~

Returning to the present, it wasn't until the Pastor Emeritus at my home parish celebrated his 50th anniversary of his ordination as a priest that I was happy again to be in discernment. Prayer's good, but it'll gradually become better. I'm pulling the vocation mail out from under my bed again, although it's still hard to think of myself as possibly becoming a sister. I had a lot of introspection, a lot of indepth consideration of a friend's doubt.



The majority of what stands in my way of becoming a sister is the stark reality of my personality, my emotions, and quirks. I wrote draft posts, then never posted. My friend said that until I could love my blood relations like I treat the homeless I fed on Skid Row every week, I wouldn't be able to be a Sister. He said that religious life was hard work, and draining, and unless I could unconditionally love, I wouldn't be able to take it. I see his point. He also told me a week later, in person, that there's a lot of passion, a lot of energy in me, but also a lot of anger. I need to work on that anger.

I know that I need to forgive someone in particular, but I don't see a consequence in her life at all. She's blessed: a family, a wonderful neighborhood. She's got friends and people inquire of her when I go to Mass every Sunday. She's got more than most people have, or would think to ask of. There's no consequence. She sins. Doesn't care at all, and throws God out of her life like you throw the garbage out on Monday morning for the trash collector and his smelly truck. Replaces God with mimickry and falsehood. Then has the nerve to yell at me last November that the RCC is a cult. Woman, I know what a cult is better than you ever could.

But she doesn't care. She doesn't want to understand so many things. so many things.

Like the way she's fanantic about her idols, I am like that towards God. The way she's concerned about the status quo and the perfect life, I'm concerned about eternal life/damnation in the same way.

She gets upset with my attitude and tone of voice; woman now you understand what it was like to be the brunt of your disgust back when you had that job and that boss, and all those late hours. You couldn't stand my bad grades; I can't stand your blithe attitude towards sin - like it all don't matter.

Two say its up to me to repair the relationship. Their idea of repairing the relationship is to just go along with whatever she says. She might say "you don't have to go to church, you're already saved," I go anyway. She might drag me to her voodoo and make me participate, but you could read the ridicule and disbelief on my face. She might not like the rosary, the chaplet to St. Michael, and the statue of Mary surrounded by dried flowers, and I just add more flowers, prayer cards, and holy water in vials.

~*~
I don't care about what you want, desire in this life. It's not about you. It's about God. God gives and He takes away. You cannot decide to just take, and think there's no consequence. But God's forgiving, and I'm not. Maybe judgment day will come and He decides that He loves her, and there's no consequence for her. So I don't like her, I don't forgive her, I don't love her very much. Hard to love someone who thinks abortion's okie-dokie and only Catholic on paper, a mere technicality, a blip on a baptismal record and a confirmation record and a marriage license.

There is a Hell.

There is a Heaven.

I'm trying to make my way to Heaven, but woman you make it so darn difficult with your sin and your idols and your concern for the World.

You love the status quo. I fear what you'll do and think and say when you find out that I don't want a part of it. All I want is your approval but I'll never get it.

I'm Catholic, you think it's unattractive.
I'm Catholic, you think it's a cult.
I'm Catholic, you think you don't have to make sacrifices for Faith & Love.

I'm Catholic, and I believe in a Hell and a Heaven that is more than just a symbolic removal from God. I'm trying to work towards one, and you just blindly slide toward the other, but you don't care.

You don't care.