Still searching for an identity… part 2

~ K ~ Leave a comment

Guilt.

I suffer from the guilt of existence. I’d feel guilty if I had a child before some of my friends I know who have desired children for years. Especially since I also know they desire children so much more than me.

And the ability to stay home and live primarily off my husband’s income so I can devote my time and attention to my novel (which I have no idea whether it will be any good or be able to earn any money). I have so many friends and family members who do not have this opportunity. I feel bad. Something tells me I must work full-time like them to make life fair even though I don’t have to.

It’s not fair that people who want to live must die when there’s someone like me who thinks so little of herself that she would trade places with someone who was dying.

I wait every night, you know, to die.

I’ve given up on suicide because I’ve tried numerous times and I can’t succeed. People tell me it’s because God says it’s not my time to go.

So every night, I wait for God. I wait for Him to take me. I anticipate “my time to go.” That final breath, that final gasp of air that God won’t let me recover from. I wait for it nightly.

But then I wake up each morning, somewhat stupefied as to why I’m still alive. What’s God’ s purpose for me? Am I meant to accomplish something monumentally great or simply exist to bring a smile to my husband’s face each day for the next 60 years?

And what’s wrong with that? Why can’t I be content simply to exist only to make other people happy?

“I tend to be of the mindset that in order to be pleasing to God, I have to do something big, something that leaves an evident footprint in the world. I think deep down I know this isn’t a true philosophy, but when I just live everyday life, I feel useless.” –Sizzledowski, “Sometimes I talk to myself… a lot“

No, I’m not content because I’ve been taught that “bigger is better.” (Well, except when it comes to weight.)

Servant leadership.

My father used to work in the maintenance department of a large ad agency and sometimes he’d get whatever leftovers were no longer wanted. One time, the agency developed (or recycled, I’m not sure) a slogan and printed up more T-shirts than they could use so my dad brought a bunch of them home. The slogan has stayed with me to this day:

“Good enough is not enough.”

So I’ll always feel like a failure. Because once I achieve that one “great” thing, I’ll always be looking for the next great thing. It’s a vicious cycle–always looking to outdo myself. This was also part of Michael Jackson’s downfall. As a perfectionist, he was always trying to “top” himself. The “Thriller” album sold 26 million copies worldwide back in the 80s, immediately becoming the best-selling album of all time. In fact, it is STILL the best-selling album of all time with more than 100 million copies sold worldwide. (The next album that comes even close is AC/DC’s “Back in Black” with 49 million copies.)

“Good enough is not enough.”

Jackson wanted to continue to break records and continue to top the charts even after “Thriller” but was never able to relieve that kind of success again in his lifetime.

So where does it stop? A person can’t always be number one.

Jesus said the first shall be last and the last shall be first. (Mk. 10:31, Matt. 20:16) As a Christian, what does this mean to me?

It means the only way to truly lead is by serving. That is what Jesus did. And not to minimize my Lord in any way but that is also the example all the great human heroes followed: Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa. Not self-serving but serving others. Who will have had more of an impact 100 years from now: Madonna or Martin Luther King, Jr.? God bless Madonna if history textbooks mention her musical impact from the 1980s but MLK, Jr. has changed the lives of many people in this country. From the White House down to little ol’ me, he continues to have a lasting impact beyond his death. As a result of MLK, Jr.’s tireless work, I can write a blog post with fairly good grammar and spelling that reaches a multicultural audience because I had the opportunity to receive a stellar education from Kindergarten through college. (Let’s just conveniently ignore the fact that the last sentence was atrociously written, though.)

The world says to be number one and never settle for last place. My Lord says the first shall be last and the last shall be first. The world says take the lead; be a leader. Jesus says, “Follow me” (Matt 4:19); be a servant (Jn. 13:12-17).

With things like pride and self-sufficiency (really a subset of pride), being a true, consistent servant is difficult:

  • Never seeking glory for yourself.
  • Always doing things for the benefit of others.
  • Constantly knowing your limitation so you can ask for help for the sake of others.

Not easy.

Still searching for an identity… part 1

~ K ~ 6 Comments

Topics running through my mind:

1. Motherhood
2. Writing
3. Blogging
4. Career
5. Job with contract company
6. Faith/religion/God
7. Lack of consistency/discipline
8. My personality–always desiring to be someone I’m not

My mind is all over the place so let’s cover all of these topics–though not necessarily in the order listed and definitely not all in this post. I ended up handwriting this post first (over the course of 2 hours) which amounted to about 22 pages on 7″ x 10.5″ paper. So this will end up being a series posted during the next couple of days.

Desiring to be someone who I’m not.

So I follow all these pastors, read their works, and am a HUGE fan, ie, Driscoll, Piper, and Packer. And sometimes I find myself wishing I could be a pastor. But it’s not a dream I can entertain myself with since I’m a woman and believe the Bible says only men are called to be pastors. (Yes, I know female pastors exist but I don’t agree with them.)

I find myself thinking, “Lord, why didn’t you make me a guy?” But then I realize guys don’t have it easy. My husband has to answer to God for the spiritual direction of our family. No, thank you. It’s hard enough being responsible for myself!

I used to look at other women and wish I could be them–wish I could have their lives or attractive personalities. For example, my older cousin whom I love to pieces. I used to look up to her. In a lot of ways, I still do. She’s strong, she’s a leader, she’s independent, and she’s self-sufficient. But she’s not married and doesn’t have any good prospects in the wings (that I know of). Do I really want to trade my husband just so I can have all those awesome qualities I am so envious of?

Funny like one of my friends. I wish I was like that. I wish I was sweet and likable like my former co-worker. I wish I didn’t care what anyone thinks of me like my hairdresser. Who looks at me and gets envious? But I guess we can all find something to envy about each other, right?

Materialism.

I’m not incredibly materialistic but hoo boy am I definitely tied to the things of this world. Money–something I use, not necessarily for material possessions (although my current obsession is IKEA), but to make myself feel worth something.

Yes, I tie my worth to whether I make money. Problem is, I don’t know how to “untie” it.

When a month or two go by and I haven’t heard from the company I contract for regularly, I self-deprecate and get negative:

“What if they never call me again?”

“What if my work from last time was sloppy and they just don’t want me back?”

“I’m not earning any money so I’m worthless and useless and my life and existence is pointless.”

But when I work, I suddenly have worth again. I feel I can legitimately complain about how the government uses taxpayer money because 30 percent of what I make goes to state and federal taxes each quarter. (That’s what happens when you’re self-employed in the U.S.!)

But what will happen when my full-time job becomes mother? How will I assess my worth then? Will I be worthless as a citizen of the U.S. with a purposeful existence as a mother? Will I be more useful than I’ve ever been?

My husband argues that his money is my money. I don’t see it that way. I have access to his earnings and he can have access to mine (I make significantly less than he does so he rarely has any need to) but I treat our earnings separately. I tithe off of whatever I make and don’t ever touch his. I don’t feel right taking his money–that he worked 40+ hours during the week to earn–and acting like it’s mine. I didn’t earn it. I never showed up to code a software program; he did. It’s not mine. And buying a gift with his money just seems so lame; I’d rather buy nothing at all. I can inherit it if he dies–just like I inherit my mother’s house–but it’s not mine until then. I’ll use it with his permission but I’ll always feel indebted to him. (Out-of-context verse time!) The borrower is slave to the lender.

Motherhood.

I don’t like to publicly discuss this in detail since I never wanted kids before last year and still really wrestle with the prospect of being a responsible, mature mom. As a result, I’ll be brief: I’m impatient, I’m disappointed every time I find out I’m not expecting, and I wonder if motherhood is what God has for me.

NaNoWriMo: An excuse for writers to be totally insane for 30 days

~ K ~ Leave a comment

www.nanowrimo.orgThis is my fourth year of participating in National Novel Writing Month, aptly shortened as NaNoWriMo (www.nanowrimo.org). (It’s also my third consecutive year.) The time I’m taking to write this is time I’m taking away from my novel. But that’s okay. As far as word counts go, I’m at least 9 days ahead (around 15,200 words). But I am also functioning on 7 hours of sleep for the past 48 hours so that’s not good. Call me crazy, call me an insomniac, but you can’t say I haven’t been productive.

So let’s break it down:

What is NaNoWriMo? Well, it’s a contest ambitious (and brave!) writers undertake during the month of November. The goal is to complete a work of fiction with a minimum of 50,000 words within 30 days. You start at midnight local time on November 1st and end by 11:59pm local time November 30th. You don’t start any earlier or finish any later.

What’s the prize for winning? Patting yourself on the back. The gratification of knowing you accomplished something that huge in one month. And a virtual certificate. Yeah… that’s pretty much it.

Why do people do this? NaNo is the cure for aspiring writers who say, “One day I’ll write a novel” but never actually get around to it. November is now a designated month to get that out of the way.

Why do YOU do this? Because I love it. And I love writing. NaNoWriMo gives me the freedom to simply write. It also challenges me to shut off my inner editor and just KEEP WRITING. It challenges me to reach a very difficult goal in a short period of time that would normally take me a long period of time. (I wrote my very first novel by hand in 6th grade and left it unfinished until 9th grade. And that was when I had more time on my hands [so to speak]!) When it’s not the month of November, I’m working on revising and polishing my 2007 NaNoWriMo novel for eventual publication.

I popped my NaNo cherry in 2005 and began writing a suspense novel. Due to various circumstances and hitting that annoying middle point of the novel where the creative muse runs dry, I never finished it. I skipped NaNo in 2006 due to poor health and re-emerged for a return in 2007. That year, I had a clear vision with a rough outline for what I wanted to write by October. I was dedicated and determined to pump out a complete novel and meet the minimum requirements. I did hit that dry spot that occurs in the middle of the novel (and the middle of the month) but trudged through it with gritted teeth to emerge victorious by November 30th. And why, yes, I did hold down a full-time job at the time, thanks for asking.

Working during train commuteHow was I crazy enough to do it? I worked on my novel every day:

  • morning and evening commutes on the train,
  • a full hour of typing for lunch (so technically I took an hour and a half—wouldn’t recommend that), and
  • slaved for hours over it during the weekends.

In 2008, I decided that I had a story dancing around in my head that I wanted to write but wouldn’t be for anyone else’s eyes. So I got to it and wrote it. The story came easily and quickly but finished 2K short a few hours before the deadline on Nov. 30th. So I continued the story by drafting an unnecessary 2,000+ words to meet the minimum requirement by the deadline.

Another successful NaNo year gone by, it’s now November 2009. And I intend to win yet again with my coming-of-age Young Adult novel that I’ll probably never see the light of day since it’s far-fetched and a broken off-portion of a series that I haven’t penned. Yet. However, you can feel free to read the “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad” excerpt here (click Novel Info and scroll to Excerpt).

I’ve created a writing-related account on Twitter, @kassiella, in which I follow a host of editors, literary agents, and published and aspiring authors. Reading about the publishing industry and getting tips on writing has really inspired and encouraged me to continue working and plugging away at my work-in-progress (WIP). So when I discovered Alexandra Sokoloff’s post, “Nanowrimo Day 1: Your First Draft is Always Going to Suck,” I nearly cheered at my computer desk. It’s a blog post bursting with truth that should encourage all NaNo writers to mentally banish their inner editor and JUST WRITE. Here’s an excerpt:

Your first draft always sucks.

I’ve been a professional writer for almost all of my adult life and I’ve never written anything that I didn’t hit the wall on, at one point or another. There is always a day, week, month, when I will lose all interest in the project I’m working on. I will realize it was insanity to think that I could ever write the fucking thing to begin with, or that anyone in their right mind would ever be interested in it, much less pay me for it. I will be sure that I would rather clean houses (not my own house, you understand, but other people’s) than ever have to look at the story again.

And that stage can last for a good long time. Even to the end of the book, and beyond, for months, in which I will torture my significant other for week after week with my daily rants about how I will never be able to make the thing make any sense at all and will simply have to give back the advance money.

…

manuscriptsEven though you will inevitably end up writing on projects that SHOULD be abandoned, you cannot afford to abandon ANY project. You must finish what you start, no matter how you feel about it. If that project never goes anywhere, that’s tough, I feel your pain. But it happens to all of us. You do not know if you are going to be able to pull it off or not. The only way you will ever be able to pull it off is to get in the unwavering, completely non-negotiable habit of JUST DOING IT.

Your only hope is to keep going. Sit your ass down in the chair and keep cranking out your non-negotiable minimum number of daily pages, or words, in order, until you get to the end.

This is the way writing gets done.

Some of those pages will be decent, some of them will be unendurable. All of them will be fixable, even if fixing them means throwing them away. But you must get to the end, even if what you’re writing seems to make no sense of all.

….

At some point you will come to hate what you’re writing. That’s normal. That pretty much describes the process of writing. It never gets better. But you MUST get over this and FINISH. Get to the end, and everything gets better from there, I promise. You will learn how to write in layers, and not care so much that your first draft sucks. Everyone’s first draft sucks. It’s what you do from there that counts.

Read Alexandra’s brilliant post in its entirety here. If you’re a writer, this should encourage you. If you’re not writing but want to, really, WHAT are you waiting for?

(typing photo from Elmine)

Newsday.com begins to charge for content… and why it will become free again

~ K ~ 4 Comments

So the owners of Newsday have decided that beginning Wednesday, October 28, the majority of content on its website, Newsday.com, will only be available to subscribers of OptimumOnline (Cablevision‘s Internet Service Provider), Newsday, or those who are willing to pay $5 per week.

Although I have a mother and other relatives who live on Long Island, I’m not so desperate for online content about Long Island that I’ll be forking over $5 a week. How about you?

However, nonpaying customers will have access to some of newsday.com’s information, including the home page, school closings, weather, obituaries, classified and entertainment listings. There also will be some limited access to Newsday stories.

Newsday described the move as one that would create a “pioneering Web model,” combining the newspaper’s newsgathering services with Cablevision’s electronic distribution capabilities. About 75 percent of Long Island households are Newsday home delivery or Cablevision online customers or both, according to Newsday. Optimum Online customers total 2.5 million in the New York area, the paper said.

I’m not very business-minded so perhaps I’m missing something here. It seems that Newsday is essentially closing off most of their content to anyone who isn’t already funneling money into its parent company, Cablevision. A grandmother who lives in Des Moines, Iowa and simply *has* to know how her granddaughter’s lacrosse team in Patchogue is doing might be willing to pay for weekly access. Most people will see the prompt for payment as nothing more than a minor disturbance that can easily be rectified by clicking the X in the top right-hand corner of the screen or typing a new URL in the address bar.

We’ve seen this before, haven’t we? Remember the now-defunct TimesSelect?

TimesSelectIf you don’t, let me refresh your memory. For 2 years, The New York Times wanted to take their revenue streams for a test drive and see if they could charge for some of their popular content such as op-ed columnists and any articles older than 30 days. Subscribers paid either $7.95 per month or $49.95 per year. Or one could pay to access a full, archived article. According to a 2007 Reuters article, TimesSelect generated $10 million in revenue each year. That’s certainly nothing to sneeze at. Especially when ad revenue is tanking. (And currently, circulation revenue is up above ad revenue for the Times.) So what happened that the Times was willing to forfeit $10 million in annual TimesSelect subscriber revenue?

During the TimesSelect years, site traffic plunged to new lows. Unique visitors plummeted. The people who needed access to TimesSelect (ie, students and media professionals) already had access to it. But the average consumer wasn’t willing to pay for it. Especially when aggregate sites such as Drudge Report and Yahoo! News would link to sites that offered similar content for free. The earlier-reference Reuters article summed it up beautifully:

The move is an acknowledgment by The Times that making Web site visitors pay for content would not bring in as much money as making it available for free and supporting it with advertising.

Since the disappearance of TimesSelect, the number of unique visitors and regular traffic has skyrocketed. But that hasn’t kept The New York Times Co. from losing millions upon millions of dollars every day. The ad revenue generated from increased traffic and readership unfortunately just hasn’t been enough to cover it.

But let’s take a step away from the Times‘s dilemma now and back to Newsday whose content is much more focused and much more local. Newsday‘s target is to people who are either on Long Island or are interested in Long Island happenings. Since at least 75 percent of people on Long Island will already likely have subscriber access to Newsday.com through OptimumOnline or their Newsday subscription, I suppose Newsday is hoping the other 25 percent will be willing to fork over the money to access their content or sign up for one of the two subscriptions. (I feel pretty safe saying OptimumOnline practically holds a monopoly for IS providers on the Island and only recently has Verizon FIOS begun slightly breaking into their market. But not by much. The triple-play deal [cable, phone, Internet] has given Islanders an incentive to stick with Cablevision.)

Media industry analysts will be eyeing Newsday.com’s subscriber model with a careful eye. Newsday.com hopes to be a model of the future but I’m afraid it’s simply a repeat of TimesSelect’s past. Newsday.com will make money during this period; that I don’t doubt. But they’ll find that their number of unique visitors will drop so low that the subscriber model will begin to render itself worthless and Newsday.com will be forced to make its content free (with ad-supported revenue, of course) for all once again.

Until media companies figure out a way to generate decent revenue from web advertising and consumers decide what’s valuable enough to pay for, I have a funny feeling we’ll all be stuck in this ad-supported free content limbo for a while.

(Image from Huffington Post)

My messed-up imagination

~ K ~ Leave a comment

Because I am doped up on cold and flu medicines, my equilibrium is off, and I’m feeling rather spacey, I’m going to use my blog here to just rant about nothing. Nothing that makes sense to anyone else anyway. And if it’s really bad, when I come to, I may take this down. I don’t know.

In any event, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve got a really messed-up imagination. By Christian and non-Christian standards, you wouldn’t believe some of the stuff that I’ve written. Some of it’s so far-fetched that it simply boggles the mind that I could have come up with it to begin with. Some of it’s incredulous. I need to go up to the loft, dig up some of the stuff I wrote (as in literally—wrote by hand) when I was a preteen, and type it all out. I’ve written 200-300 looseleaf pages of a novel. None of it will ever see the light of day because the stuff rivals L. Ron Hubbard’s books for believability. And they’re so embarrassingly bad. Want to blackmail me? Get your hands on some of that stuff. I’d turn darker than an a red delicious.

I have a storyline running through my mind. Different stories have been running through my mind at different times since I was 12. I may take every NaNoWriMo that comes along and actually put it on paper. Heaven knows I have the characters, plot, subplot, and conflict to keep it going to 50,000 words. Ending it may be the difficult part.

It’s October 22 and I’m not working steadily for the ad agency. Last year at this time I was so it’ll be interesting to see if I can crap out 50K words by November 15. (Although I doubt it.) Last year, I finished my novel just under 50K and had to keep writing nonsense to hit the 50K word mark. It’s a novel no one will probably ever see or read but it’s part of that running storyline I have in my head.

NaNoWriMo 2009 Participant BadgeSo I may just take some time off from revising my current novel to do NaNo. I’ll probably go it alone this year instead of attending write-ins like I’ve done in the past. But I’m rambling out of a head filled with DayQuil and Theraflu. Writing a chapter in my novel should prove to either be interesting or a challenge.

Now that I know what I want to write for NaNo, I can’t wait to get started. A coming-of-age story about a 14-year-old rich girl on Long Island. (Not autobiographical at all.)

November 1 can’t get here soon enough.

The Magic Eye of Christianity

~ K ~ 2 Comments

It’s pointless.

I’m worthless.

I’m useless.

Those are the things running through my head lately.

What’s pointless? Life.

Who’s worthless and useless? I am.

I’m very aware of my humanity and frailty. I’m aware that my beating heart could stop. At any time.

I’m conscious that my last breath could be. Any moment.

I am enduring a mild depression. Without medication. And it’s scary.

I have given up on suicide. I’ve failed at my multiple attempts. I obviously won’t succeed anytime soon.

I’m enduring a crisis of faith. I still believe in God but wonder about Christianity. Continue reading “The Magic Eye of Christianity” →

My position on gays and gay rights

~ K ~ 17 Comments

An opinion piece ran in The Onion called, “If God Had Wanted Me To Be Accepting Of Gays, He Would Have Given Me The Warmth And Compassion To Do So.” Although I know The Onion is satire, I sometimes get this vibe off of other Christians.

I am unequivocal about my position on gay rights. Although I’m a Bible-believing Christian, my personal views don’t always line up with God’s. (Bad, I know.)

pride flagI’m not sure why I’m so passionate for gay rights. I don’t have any close gay friends who I see struggle with discrimination. I’ve come into contact with gay people at various points in my life (I’m friends with a few on Facebook) and always wish I had that token gay guy friend (think: My Best Friend’s Wedding).

The closest reasoning I can come up with that makes sense is that my favorite uncle (and godfather), who passed away from complications due to AIDS in March of 1994, was gay. My uncle was married to a woman and had two kids but for some reason, never felt the freedom to openly be who he was. In some wacky family drama, he brought his lover, Gus, into his life (and his home) and a few family functions. Gus died not too long after my uncle.

I guess ever since, I’ve had this hang-up about homosexuality. Not only with other Christians but with God. Within the first six months of becoming a born-again Christian by accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, I seriously questioned whether I wanted to be part of a religion that didn’t allow two consenting adults—regardless of gender—to love each other. As a Bible-believing Christian, Romans 1 is clear. Homosexuality is sin. But so is unrighteousness, evil, coveteousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossiping, slandering, atheism, insolence, haughtiness, boastfulness, disobedience, etc.

So yes, I know the truth of God’s word.

But when I look at two men or two women who genuinely love each other and want nothing more than to spend the rest of their lives together, I have to stop and think, “God, why would you want to keep two people who love each other apart?” Continue reading “My position on gays and gay rights” →

Music Monday: All the Right Moves

~ K ~ Leave a comment

I love OneRepublic. I loved their debut album and I love their new single. I’m excited for their sophomore release on November 17.  And I also love their video. Apparently, I’m full of love for OneRepublic. I’m also ridiculously pathetic because I’ve been listening to this song on repeat on Grooveshark all day. I finally caved an hour ago and bought the single off of iTunes.

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Spiritual paralytic

~ K ~ 1 Comment

Sometimes one of our friends or loved ones becomes a spiritual paralytic. The affliction or trial he or she has undergone has virtually immobilized the person spiritually. He is unable to help himself. Not only that, but the spiritual “mat” he is lying on — that is, faith in God and trust in His promises — is no more than the equivalent of a thin, straw-filled mattress. If you try to encourage him through Scripture, he will look at you blankly and tell you Scripture just doesn’t mean anything to him anymore. he has tried to claim God’s promises, but nothing “works.” God just isn’t there.

This person has become an awkward, heavy spiritual burden. You cannot pray with him, you can only pray for him. But just as the paralytic’s friends persisted until they brought him to Jesus, so we too must persist in bringing this person to the throne of grace until God heals him spiritually. — Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace (p. 234)

Bridges is describing me right now. If you’re reading this and you think of it, pray for me. Thanks.

Beatles Love

~ K ~ Leave a comment

I absolutely love Beatles music and I enjoy Beatles Rock Band just as much. (Okay, maybe singing “Helter Skelter” sucks.) Beatles Rock Band sets are divided up into chapters in chronological order. Watching these little intro snippets always fill me with delight and wonder for no particular reason other than the fact that I enjoy seeing the Beatles every chance I get.

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The business of Black hair

~ K ~ 2 Comments

I don’t like to spend a lot of time on my hair. I’m pretty “hair dumb” for a black woman, which really sucks because I spend a lot of time and money on getting other people to make me look pretty. Not as bad as the woman in the video, though, who spends 40 hours a week and upwards to $25K a year.

An interesting stat: Black women make up 6.5% of the American population but purchase up to 40% of ALL haircare products. What a demographic!

If you can’t see the video, click on this link.

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