in real life

here's shauna in my head: she likes to take long runs to relieve her stress and doesn't ever complain, doesn't let anyone run over her ambitions but kindly speaks her mind with boldness. kids love her and people want her in charge. she can strike up a conversation with anyone and bring it to God within the first few sentences, and knows how to make a statement without saying anything at all. her words are usually few but delicately valuable. she knows when to listen, when to say little and when to comfort with carefully chosen words that soothe. she's practical and happily silent except when words are necessary. she loves with a careful consideration of the costs.


here's shauna in real life: she likes to take runs, usually punctuated by frequent walks, and will usually complain of the heat when she's finished. she has ideas in her head which are spoken boldly to third parties but are carefully and apologetically molded to suit the fancies of others. she believes children are a true blessing and longs to have a family of her own... but finds it difficult to take charge of other children due to chronic pushoverness. people put her in charge because she is easy to agree with (considering her own ideas are usually moderated to suit others) and she finds organization, responsibility and agreeableness to be her strong points. sometimes she avoids casual acquaintances in public because of her distinct dislike and fear of casual conversation (if the conversation can't begin with a hug, you can count on it being extremely awkward). she believes herself to be a good listener and usually has good advice to give, but also seeks advice on every remotely important decision she makes. she loves indefinitely, immeasurably, without boundary or practicality. she possesses a hopelessly romantic spirit whose sole purpose on this earth is to love and be loved with the best she can give.

i find me more and more every time i do one of these

knocking down walls

spring break cannot get here any faster.
is that the expression? or spring break cannot get here any slower... because that one makes more sense but i feel like the former is the more conventional phrase. i don't suppose it matters but in my mind things that don't matter sometimes matter more than with the average person. i think it means i'm an analyzer. or just ocd.

i'm kind of an organization junkie. i collect things that are supposed to organize my life and usually they don't. like tupperware boxes in my closets turn into big trash cans that store random stuff i never use but don't want to get rid of. i use my calendar religiously, though. i bought one that has the time tabs on it so i can actually write exactly when something will happen during the day instead of just a big mush of everythingihavetodoontuesday. i like that system a lot better. organized things make me feel good. it's like medicine for my mind.

today i went to a mary kay party and i don't think i've ever had so much fun in all my life. i had my make-up done and bought make-up and hung out with some of the women from church which was just fun in and of itself. i love grown-ups so much. i feel good when i talk to them.

now that my random thoughts have been released i'm ready for something actually kinda deep...

i wish self-esteem weren't such a dependent variable in my life. i wish my confidence were more sturdy. but today it's actually sky high. and i don't think that's cocky at all.

sometimes i try to put conditions on happiness. like i think that if i can make everything around me perfect, then i'll finally be happy. if i can just get this or that. if i'm liked enough. if i'm smart enough. but on days like today, i know everything isn't picture perfect. but it's okay. i'm happier than i have been in a while and it has nothing to do with what i have and everything to do with who i am. happy is waking up in the morning and being alive. happy is being a lover and a giver. happy is seeking to please others before yourself. happy is having Jesus to show you how.

i want to always be happy. and i am. but sometimes the devil builds walls between me and my happiness. he puts up insecurity and jealousy and heartbreak to keep me separated from God and happiness. my life consists of knocking down those walls. and one day, i'll break through the final wall that separates me from eternity. and i'll never ever worry about not being happy again.

"Let not your heart be troubled! You believe in God, believe also in Me. In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also."
John 14:1-3

bucket list

This weekend was possibly the two best consecutive days of my entire life.
Event one: Tyler Garrett was baptized into Christ on Saturday. My best friend, other than Hannah. The person I tell everything, even the things I'm ashamed of. The one everyone assumes I'm dating even though we're not and that gets on our nerves, but not too much. The one who heard my cousin preach about Jesus at my birthday party and began attending worship with me and then the past Saturday night, he heard a sermon and it just clicked, and it was the most amazing thing I believe I've ever witnessed. I don't in any way take credit for it... it was all part of God's masterful, wonderful plan. God is so almighty. At times like these when I try to put characteristics upon God, I can't do it. Because He just Is. He is All and in All. And His word touched Tyler's heart and upon hearing a few lessons, he was already convicted and convinced and CONVERTED to serving God. I can't wait to serve together. I can't even put a level of happiness with this. It's immeasurable. Thank you thank you thank you Lord.
Seeing his face reminded me of what it is to be new. To feel completely whole. Like you were wearing a scarlet robe and you arise white as snow. Clean and pure. Fresh and new and perfect, in God. IT'S SO AMAZING to see that look in someone's eyes. I want to talk more about this but I have so many things to say. I'm overloaded with lack of blogging.

This is named bucket list because I spent a lot of my weekend with Chris and Melissa, they opened their home to us and were so hospitable and I had the most amazing time. I wanted to load up all their books in Estelle and drive home with them. Thoreau, Jane Austen, Shakespeare, numerous biblical references, philisophical books and books just for fun... Melissa and I are definitely going to start sharing because we seriously talked for about an hour about just books. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a conversation so much on that topic.
When I went into their office (Melissa will see this and so yes, I was nosy and found this so I hope you don't mind) I saw they had both posted a bucket list and several points were highlighted which they had already accomplished. I was touched to see that 99% of their lists had to do with their relationships with God and each other. I came home in a frenzy to clean my room and organize everything all cutesy and put all my books on the shelf, and then I decided I needed to do a bucket list of my own since I've had a mental bucket list for quite a while I suppose. I don't have that best friend who just so happens to be my husband, and I don't get to be a housewife yet and spend lots of time reading books and cooking and being a youth minister's wife, but that life seems to be so amazing and fulfilling and I really hope and believe that Melissa loves it. I'm sure sometimes it isn't easy but I'm in love with the idea.

Shauna's bucket list.
1. write a book
2. convert someone to Christ
3. marry the most godly man I know
4. be the best wife that he could ever dream of
5. write for a Christian woman magazine
6. own a super expensive camera
7. read the whole bible
8. maintain organization wherever I live
9. be able to compare my life with that of the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31
10. keep my house clean and welcome unannounced visitors
11. visit Italy
12. develop the art of home-cooking
13. learn to sew
14. read every classic novel
15. go on a mission trip
16. read a book twice
17. be a cool mom
18. learn to play guitar well
19. own a great dane
20. have the same best friend for 20 years
21. be a maid of honor
22. get paid to do something I love
23. be a housewife
24. have a home library
25. write music that brings someone to tears
26. learn to play piano
27. be a role model to someone and completely unaware of it
28. do something truly good for someone without seeking any recognition or praise, but only for the sake of doing it
29. experience life from the eyes of someone less fortunate
30. adopt a child

I had so much to say but this takes up so much time and I'm on a reading and organization kick

making polite conversation

Why do I spend more time obsessing over how this page looks rather than the actual words?
Oh, right, because when I'm in a bad mood sometimes I go mad OCD.
Like when I just cleaned the whole house like a madwoman.
I got to my room to clean that, sat down to rest, and decided to tweak and tweak and tweak for 2 hours or so.
So I hope everyone appreciates the size of my font and that my post titles are now in Georgia font, which is apparently direly important to the success of my life.
Hmph.
I think I'll just go strum guitar to death and wait for the motivation I need to finish what I started.
I haven't played guitar in months. Probably because everything else in life is haywire so why should my hobbies be normal?
Why don't I just quit band and unorganize my room and paint my walls black and drink a Coke? Not diet, just regular old coke. The kind with sugar and guilt packed in the little concentrated can.
Then everything will be upside down and maybe things will make more sense.
The thing is that I'm afraid to not be normal. Actually that doesn't even decribe it; I'm afraid to not be the Shauna everyone is used to, because if I change something, what if no one likes it?
What if a Shauna who isn't in band isn't Shauna at all? It's all these little details that defines us.
Now, don't misunderstand; I'm not quitting band. This is just my example. I'm known as band kid. What if I'm not?
What if we all were defined by values instead of facts? Making polite conversation wouldn't be "hello, I'm Shauna. What are your interests? What do you do in your spare time? Where do you live? Where do you plan to go to college and make of the rest of your life?"
Not saying that I don't ask these questions all the time when I don't know what else to say to the person. It's polite conversation. But sometimes I begin to think of why I'm asking these questions, and most of the time it's not because I truly want to remember whether this person likes Basketball or Football better or AL v. AU or where they want to go to college. I just want them to think I'm nice. I want everyone else to think I'm nice, too, so then they'll like me and I'll feel like a nice girl. That's the motivation and it's so off.
I guess these questions are necessary sometimes to get the conversation started. That's true. People need time to get comfortable. But after a polite introduction, usually I walk away because I don't know what else to say and I feel that I've made my point of trying to be friendly.
But those aren't the conversations I'll remember in 30 years and say "ahhh, yeah, that girl sure was a rock hard Alabama fan".
If I were truly concerned for this person, I'd walk up to them, introduce myself, and after polite introduction talk about truly intellectual things. "What is your position on abortion? What is the current state of your soul? Is there a God and why do you believe that way?"
If I hate polite conversation so much, I don't see why it's so hard for me to break away from using it myself.
But maybe I'm crazy and maybe those are ridiculous conversations to have in an early friendship.
But still, when I've known a person for 16 years I don't think it's a crime to ask serious questions that require intellectual thought.
I don't want every day to be "Hey, how are you? What did you do today? Yeah, that's fun. Yeah I'm tired. Bye." I don't want to have that kind of relationship with anyone, because they aren't getting any encouragement and I'm not getting encouragement from them and so the effort of making that connection is otherwise pointless. Neither are gaining. It's a lose/lose.
This is probably one of those posts I'll look back on in a few days and wonder what in the world possessed me to type. But I'm stressed stressed stressed and I think this will help. Maybe.
Everyone I used to pour my heart out to is either busy or already stressed enough or just flat out gone. They're gone. And the thing is they're gone from me but no one else. Anyone else could strike up a conversation with them right now, and I could do the same thing I suppose but I'm just scared.
I'm scared that they don't want to talk to me at all and they want a break from me altogether.
Which is scary because if anyone wants a break from talking to me then maybe they don't appreciate talking to me at all, they just endure it until they cannot stand anymore and then they take a break...
I don't want to find out, truly.
Now my brain is out of thoughts so I'm gonna play guitar and drink a Coke...Zero.

follower

I'm not entirely sure what makes a person truly qualified to have a blog. I've been reading a few, and those people are the truly unique, sometimes bazaar. But they act like being bazaar is the only way to be, and so it works. They're the people you can't imitate because you feel like to take their originality would be a sin. If I could have customized my personality, I would have checked the box that said "originality." I know those who are truly wise will continue to preach to the young that "you can be whoever you want to be", but I'm starting to think that isn't the case. It doesn't matter how much I try to make every word I type sound like I'm a true gift to humanity and everyone should hang upon my every word and opinion, sometimes people just aren't gonna want to read everything you're thinking. And so I've decided that if I indeed decide to publish this, it will be as an escape for myself to put down all those weird thoughts I've had on reserve, and not to try to impress anyone with my eloquence or whatever.

Now I'm gonna even gonna try to lie, I've been trying to convince people for 16+ years that ohhhhhh I'm sooooo unique and different from anyone else you've ever met, but it's totally not true. I'm probably a whole lot like a lot of people you know. But that's okay to me, because if I can pick out the best traits in other people, maybe I can adopt some of those super good traits and make up a somewhat good personality. I've got some traits that I truly despise. Like stressing, and imitation, and sometimes a touch of jealousy. But they came with the whole Shauna Blake Baker package, and I've recently discovered that you can't just get rid of your bad traits forever. They're part of you. You have to learn how to manage them. Such as keeping a schedule of every single thing I want to do during the day, week, month, to manage my stress. Yep, that makes me a nerd, and I like that. I even have a calendar in my favorite color. I'm not sure what it's called, but it's some shade of blue. Kind of tealish I think.

So this post is beginning to sound a whole lot like a "Dear Diary" entry, so I decided that just for reminiscing purposes I should pull out the old diaries. I'm looking at one now that is pink velvet and bedazzled on the outside, with BRATZ written huge at the top of every page and four girls at the bottom dressed for a slumber party. Listen to this.


August 9th, 2004
Dear Diary,
       Today was the day Daddy went for a checkup in Birmingham. Then, we went to Chuckie Cheese's. We went to eat at Ol'Charley's. I got a kids steak & fries. It was really good. We got a 5 layer cake which was DELICIOUS! We watched Indiana Jones AGAIN! It was really scary.
(Here I have drawn a picture of two hands, with the right hand circled + 2 fingers + morrow. I'm assuming that is supposed to read "write tomorrow.")
Love, Shauna Baker


August 10th, 2004
Dear Diary,
      Today we went to meet my teacher for 5th grade. She was nice. But she didn't greet me like a kid. She held a meeting for us & the parents to lay down the law & everything. We only have recess ONCE a week. But it last for an hour. Jessica has Mrs. Abernathy. She was Haley's teacher in 1st. Oh, by the way, Daddy was in Mrs. Sharp's class in school. She said he was smart. Period. I thought she'd go into detail.
Love, Shauna Baker


January 30th, 2005
Dear Diary,
      Yesterday night the most important thing in my lifetime happened. I was baptized into Christ on January 29th, 2005! It was really cold! It was Saturday at about 9:30. They didn't have time to heat up the water! Chris baptized me. It was his second time to baptize someone I think. He baptized Gabe, too. I partook of the Lord's Supper for my first time this morning. Everyone was very proud of me. I am 11 years old
Sincerely, The New Me


May 1st, 2005
Today was church day. I was going to hear Chris preach, but my parents got confused and I couldn't go. I invited Kristin to come over today & ride 4-wheelers. Hannah had a thing yesterday for her band. She sang a duet! She was super. After we went to Subway to eat. We had a lot of fun. Hannah is my absolute BEST BEST FRIEND!
Talk 2-Ya Later, Shauna Baker


Surprisingly, I haven't changed very much in the past 5 years. I still think Indiana Jones movies are scary, I'm mad that we don't get recess anymore, I'm proud to be a christian, and Hannah Elizabeth Cooper is my best best friend.