about love and decisions

I am starting with this but if you hate reading and despise even the word "book" then have no fear, I actually have time to express deep thoughts tonight so just skip right on down

3. If you want to know what the book is about and all that then you can go read a review because I really don't get any thrill from writing a whole synopsis but honestly just READ IT because it was adorable.
If you plan to read the book, please skip down past this paragraph because I would hate to spoil the ending for you: I love the unconventional romance, the one where boy and girl don't meet date kiss get engaged have a fight but make-up get married the end. That's very sweet and all but it isn't realistic that all love is that way in the real world. Life doesn't always let us live our ideal fairytale. It has its own story to write and you just have to settle with being the character. Love doesn't follow a pattern. I love the fantastic idea of a man who grows to love a woman unconditionally, even after she has moved away married and had eleven children. He visits her home and befriends her husband and tells her children how in love with their mother he once was (the reader knows that he most definitely still loves her deeply, but perhaps the children didn't notice this). He is never bitter, he is happy simply having her memory, having his past growing up with her and running through the cornfield and down abandoned paths together. That's wonderful to me. Magical, even.
My absolute favorite line from the book is:

"Do you know, Antonia, since I've been away, I think of you more often than of anyone else in this part of the world. I'd have liked to have you for a sweetheart, or a wife, or my mother or my sister- anything that a woman can be to a man. The idea of you is a part of my mind; you influence my likes and dislikes, all my tastes, hundreds of times when I don't realize it. You really are a part of me."


I believe at that point was when I was the closest to tears. To think of how someone can love so much, in no particular sense, as in a friend or lover or any other stereotypical relationship between people, but simply for themselves. To simply know that someone is such a part of your life, not because of who they are but because of who you are because of them. It's beautiful.

Okay, so that's book number three this year. Time for a subject chance.
I'm very indecisive. You've noticed, I'm very sure. I change my mind constantly, it's quite scary to tell you the truth. I've made it a point to wait at least one week after forming an opinion before I make any life altering decisions. I think this system will work quite nicely. If I made rash decisions based on my fleeting changes of opinion then I probably would have quit band during marching season and I'd be miserable now. I could be homeschooled and I would miss school and the people there terribly. I would either be dating someone I really didn't like or I'd have to break-up after realizing that I was completely crazy at the time of initiating that relationship, and I might lose great friends in the process. So you see that this is a very dangerous characteristic that I possess. It's powerful. I feel like I'm holding a lethal weapon and I have to handle it very carefully. But that's a bit dramatic I guess.

I'm not on the tennis team anymore. That was a very scary decision to make. But I waited a long time, I thought about it forever and ever and asked the opinion of pretty much everyone I knew. People I was close to like Matt was just like "Shauna, you need to quit" and I really appreciated that honest opinion that he gives me. I don't like "listen to your heart" or "just do what makes you happy", though I'm very thankful to those that gave me that advice. It just wasn't quite the kick in the rear that I needed.

So now I have time, and I get to do new things with it, and that excites me. I want to take pictures read books go to youth days play guitar go to soccer games and all those things I really don't have a lot of time for. It's very very exciting to have time.

I love my mom. I respect her opinion more than anyone else. She can see right through me, and I don't like it sometimes but she knows how to tell me exactly what I don't want to hear but I know is true. I really appreciate that. Tonight we went walking and talked for an hour about her high school boyfriends and I laughed until I thought I would cry, those are my favorite chats. Anytime I am feeling indecisive I talk to Mom and she always gets it right. She can give me the facts of the situation without having to give me her opinion, and that way it's all my decision but she helps things be so much clearer. I don't tell her enough that I love her.

I think my random thoughts have ceased

about blogging

I think sometimes I psych myself out with this whole blog business and think I have to sound intelligent and serious and not overuse smiley faces because that will take away from the philosophical value of my words but that's pretty silly of me, because the only person who will really judge this is myself and the other two (perhaps three) people that actually take time to read it, and so it really doesn't matter if I sound intelligent or if my words are completely unintelligible because it's coming from my head so I shouldn't have to provide commentary on my own thoughts and feelings because I know what I'm talking about. But this is also contradictory since one could argue that since I know my own thoughts I shouldn't have to type them out, but it helps me to understand myself so I guess I'll keep typing things I already know and those two or three people might eventually get tired or reading all that random thought vomit but at least it helps me not go crazy. 
I like blogging because I don't have to use correct punctuation if I'm not in the mood (not correct grammar, I have to use that or I spaz, except in the case of run-on sentences), or if I want I can use the most ridiculous word in the dictionary that I didn't know the meaning of until I googled it just minutes ago, there is no universal standard and nobody can be offended if I use words they don't know the meaning of because I think it's enjoyable to use new words. It makes me happy. :)

I now have a deep obsession with National Geographic and I know exactly what I want to be when I grow up and that's a photojournalist. It's photography+writing+traveling to beautiful places all over the world, purely the best combination in the universe. I want to GO places and SEE things that the average person will never see, and then write all about my adventures and capture the beautiful moments with an extremely expensive camera and share it with the rest of the world so they can go there, too. It excites me to think about it all. The future is so exciting because it's all open to my own judgement and I get to form it from scratch like a sculpture, except sometimes everything won't be chiseled exactly how I'd like but still, I have an impact through every decision I'm making to formulate my own destiny. THAT is just cool.

Right now I'm reading a book entitled "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" which you would think would be completely silly, but it's actually already one of my favorite books and I'm only about 3/4 done with it and it isn't silly at all, in fact I've been close to tears many times (never caving, but probably will because I usually do), but that usually for me means that it's a very good book because I get emotional when I really love things and especially books and movies. I don't want to ruin it for the < 3 people that are reading (since you obviously like to read if you read my extensive thoughts, and you might like to read this book because like I said it's pretty great), but I will say that I've learned a lot already. The book is about a journalist living in London and trying to decide upon a topic for a new book, and she receives a letter from a man living in Guernsey and they become pen pals, and he tells her the story of the Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society which formed in defense during the Holocaust, and so she becomes friends with all the society's members through letters and learns all their personal stories of the Holocaust. Now she has visited the island and is learning everything firsthand and growing closer to them all, and she is probably (I'm catching onto some serious foreshadowing) going to end up writing a book about Guernsey. It's one of those books that I don't want to put down and I don't want it to end, either, so I'm really in quite a predicament but I'm going to keep reading and maybe one day I'll reread it (I've never reread a book in my life, there's always something else interesting me more).

BUT to the actual point in writing about that book- I will never, hopefully, understand the kind of pain that those people endured, and it makes me feel so pathetic for the little bitty things that I complain about.  I think it was Thoreau who said that "there are those who starve day after day who express the same amount of anger and resentment as the fortunate man who becomes angry when he receives a hamburger with onions when he specifically ordered one without" (that's a horrendous quotation because I really don't remember but look it up, it's one to remember). But the point is that when every little disappointment in our lives is compared with that of others across the globe it absolutely cannot be paralleled, and it's quite ridiculous of us to believe that we have the right to complain when the wrong proportion of condiments are put on the greasy food we get to have when there are people right here in this country who would love to have the onions or tomatoes right off your Big Mac. I really need to work on this I think. I read about people who were tortured and went through so much more than I could ever endure and it's so completely obscure compared to the luxury that I live in, and I just don't think I or anyone else for that matter truly realizes how blessed we are. I am SO blessed that I have my family to play games with, even though sometimes I complain because I absolutely despise the game swap but that's what Haley absolutely loves to play, and I should be more agreeable and play it with her because lots of people don't have my kind of loving family and they don't have the kind of relationships with siblings that they would actually want to play games with each other. I'm so glad I do. My life as an only child would be pretty much boring beyond belief. 

Me and Hannah took this picture at Exposure. It's pretty much the best pun EVER

I honestly did not intend for this post to be so extensive. I think it's because I'm watching the national championship simply to be socially accepted and not because I'm pulling for either team, so I've been blogging the entire time to pass time since I don't really care and obviously watching football is very good for thought stimulation because I've remembered pretty much everything I want to write about on a regular basis but always forget about. 

Christians make the best friends in the universe. I will argue this to my death because I seriously don't know what I would do if I had to rely on people that don't love God to be my friends, because that one fact is so very important because otherwise we will never be able to discuss my faults and how I can be a better influence and how hard it is to resist temptation and how excited we are that _____ is coming to church now and nobody can compete with that kind of relationship. I've always had that in Hannah and this year I've grown so much closer to so many wonderful people, including so many lovely older ladies in the church that I would die for, they're so precious and I wish I had gone to them for advice more in the past. One is my sweet grandmother who is probably the best advice giver in the world. The other day we were having lunch and drinking coffee (I definitely got that obsession from her) and we started talking about high school and how much I hate it, and she said it was the same way when she was in high school, but after I get out then I'll feel like my own person again and that I shouldn't worry, and I was so thankful to her for helping me to catch that little glimpse of hope that there IS an end in sight, and even though sometimes I'm completely miserable I know that one day I'll be a free spirit in the world and I won't have to worry about those things anymore. I know it makes me sound like a pessimist, and I hate that it does because I'm actually a pretty big optimist, I love education and I love to find out new things but sometimes the social side becomes tiresome, but at any rate everyone has to go through it and even though I don't exactly appreciate the whole premise of high school I have to go through it too, and I'll come out a better and stronger person and ready to take on the world. Luckily I have the best Christian friends in the universe who help keep me sane. I think it's Aristotle who said "A friend to all is a friend to none" (I've been on a pretty big philosophical kick lately), and even though that sounds a bit rude I find it to be very true. I still love everybody because everybody's a soul and deserves love and appreciation simply because of what they are, but being "friends" means spending time together and appreciating each others company and sharing stories and secrets and troubles, and there's absolutely no way that you can have enough in common with every person you meet to become close friends with them, especially if they lie or cheat on tests or don't want to do anything with their life, I'm not going to mesh well with that person. But that doesn't mean I can't be nice and sweet and all. I've also heard it's better to have a few close friends rather than a bunch of semi close friends, which I also whole-heartedly agree with. I have that and I'm very very thankful. Not that I don't enjoy meeting new people and making friends, but I don't have to go out and spill all my life's secrets to someone I barely know just because I need someone to confide in, because I have a lot of people that I can confide in. Basically I'm blessed, a whole whole lot. I like my life a great deal.

That's all for today, over and out.

lately

First of all I would like to say that to anyone who listened to me cry and squall and complain and tell you how hard my life is for the past few days, you're my hero. And I'm sorry for turning into such a downer. I've truly never experienced a time in my life that is this hard before and I feel the need to blog about it because by tomorrow I plan to have it all gone and be back to normal Shauna again.
The first thing you should probably know, in case you don't, is that my Dad has been in the hospital.
Woah.
The last time I was this afraid for my Dad was when he was in a car accident and was taken straight to the ER and we had to wait in the waiting room for like 2 hours before I knew anything.
Except this time, I've waited 5 days and they still don't really and truly know what's causing my Dad to have so much pain.
But luckily it's controlled now, and he can hopefully be home tomorrow. I really hope so. It's one of those things where I truly love my Dad, but maybe in the past I didn't always hug him before I left for school, or just say I love you for no reason, or ask his advice when I'm having a hard time. And now that I can't do all those things it's made me realize how much I really need my Dad, and I don't know what I would do if this was forever.
But luckily it's not, and I know for some people they aren't lucky enough to say that, and to them I am truly sorry. You are much stronger than I will ever be.
Lately I've been thinking about how much my Dad and I are alike. We really are. See Mom and Haley are the detailers. When they hear a story, they want to know everything about it. What time you got there what was the person's middle name what shirt were you wearing how did they say it why? All of those things. See me and Dad, sometimes we just really want to know the ending. We like absolutes, simplicity. We're more of 'sit there and listen' rather than ask questions about it. And it's not like I prefer that over the personality of other people because I love Mom and Haley and love talking to them, but it's just like me and Dad have that connection. I got that from him. I have his hair and his doubts and love for tennis, although his ability surpasses mine tenfold even with all the ridiculous surgeries he's had. He can whoop me anyday. We aren't always good with expressing our feelings, we're afraid to let our emotions show and sometimes we hide it when we're upset. We can't always put feelings into words but writing comes like breathing. My dad can write a letter that will bring you to tears, and he has many times that I've read them. He loves Math and chocolate, and he hates to feel that he has let himself down by not accomplishing his full potential. All these things he has instilled in me. Sometimes I let myself dislike something about myself and then I remember oh, I got that from my Dad, so I smile and all of a sudden I like myself again. :)
So yes, I love my Dad and that's been causing me stress that he isn't at home and nothing is normal.

Sunday I cried all stinkin' day long because Dad wasn't home and Mom wasn't home and I didn't have a boyfriend to cry to and my best friend was busy and my other best friend was gone and I just had to cry. I cried and cried and cried until my stomach just hurt and was in knots and I didn't want to eat.
Then about 1 A.M. I "got sick" (that's my nice word for throw up because I don't particularly like any other word people substitute there). After that I went to bed and felt better but then at 4 A.M. I was wide awake again with that same feeling. It was like something was taking everything in my insides and flipping it all backwards so it didn't fit quite right inside of me, and I thought I would get sick again but I didn't.
I didn't go to school that morning, and Mom left again to go to be with Dad.
I slept and slept and woke up and felt better, so at 11:40 I took the pre-written note that my mother had given me and checked in to school thinking that everything would be okay. I ate graham crackers for breakfast. I was feeling okay.
I got to class and sat down and felt all the eyes on me and the feeling was back. Everything that was so common place in my life had been thrown around inside of me and I couldn't be comfortable there. At 12:00 I said I was sick and went to the nurse. At 12:30 I went to Wal-Mart to get advil and sprite, and I went back home.
(p.s: sprite gets really old when it's the only thing you drink for 24 straight hours. just fair warning.)
So I thought well I must have a stomach virus and so I stayed home and didn't go to band practice after asking and making sure that was okay with Mr. Prather, which it was because of course he wanted me to rest and I'm pretty sure he probably didn't want the whole band with a virus on Saturday for competition.
Yeah, let's add a little bit more stress. I've missed two practices and competition is Saturday. We have one practice left.
So Monday I stayed in bed and just took it easy and thought well, by tomorrow this stomach virus will be gone and I can go to Youth Leadership Thing and it'll all be okay. I'll get caught up. (I had to also get caught up from 2 days last week when I was at the orthodontist/dentist, so that's a lot of catching up to do.)
I also cried a lot on Monday. I cried because I was just lonely and sick. Maybe that's why I was crying.
One time I opened the cabinet and smelled bubble gum candy smell, and almost fell down with the upside down feeling.
My grandparents came over and brought some pretzels with peanut butter in the middle that's good when you have Upset Stomach and "ohhh, I hope you feel better..." I really did feel better because people were here and I love these people and these people really care about me.
This morning the alarm went off and my stomach literally cringed at the sight of the clock. I sat up in bed. Felt queasy. Went back to sleep. 7 A.M. "Shauna, are you feeling better?" "Nnnmmmm..." Slept until 10.

Wake up. Go downstairs and my mom is actually still here, so I sit and talk and we laugh. I eat more of the wonderful peanut butter pretzels and drink a Diet Dr. Pepper, because Sprite just makes me cringe at this point.
Then I started to cry again...
Guys, I'm serious. I've never cried this much in a consecutive order in my entire life. It got to the point where I couldn't even pinpoint the cause anymore, everything was just upside down and nothing could be right.
I had the open book on my lap to study for the three tests I would make up and I just couldn't look at it.
It would help if I weren't an extreme perfectionist who hates making bad grades ever. It's a sickness.
It was just i'm gonna make a bad grade daddy's not here i'm lonely my stomach hurts mom please don't leave why am i such a pessimistic loser my stomach hurts please come home Dad.

And this is the really really really sad part.
My Dad left me on Friday.
I read my Bible.
I said my prayers for meals and before bed.
Mom and I talked about needing God to help us through hard times.

...

I didn't lean on God.


And if I had truly leaned on Him, given Him all my burdens to carry, maybe I wouldn't have made myself sick.
Maybe I could have made a few more people happy instead of making everyone feel bad for me, when truly my Dad is the one they should be truly worried about.
Maybe this break-up wouldn't be so hard if I were more accepting of God's will.
Maybe I'd be a better best friend.
Maybe I wouldn't let my Mom down.
Maybe I would be a better example to my little sister.
Or maybe, I would have been able to see the example of my sister, who has taken everything in stride with God in mind.


I'm ashamed to say that yes, I did think about these things before now.
But I was wallowing in self pity.
I thought well Shauna Blake Baker doesn't have hard times like this. She doesn't deserve to feel this way. Why is everything happening to me? Why can't I just be happy anymore? Why won't God let me be happy?

And truth is, I was the one making myself sick and miserable all the while.







Even looking back on this blog I'm overwhelmed at my uses of personal pronouns.
I would delete it now but I want you all to see that yes, I can be self-absorbed sometimes because I'm human.
But that was wrong.
Everything for the past few days has been I FEEL SICK and I AM LONELY and I NEED ATTENTION. But truly all I needed was to mend my relationship with God.
All I needed to do was just breathe, and relax, and stop stressing over things I can't change.
And STOP thinking I'm the only person in this whole world who deserves to be happy.

My mom deserved to be happy, but she has to drive back and forth every day to see my dad with tubes coming in and out of him, and then see my crying over my little problems.
My dad deserves to be happy, but HE has to be in Birmingham away from his family and in tons of pain and not able to play tennis for months.
My grandparents deserve to be happy and not worry over whether their son will be home anytime soon.
Everyone who has called me, everyone who has checked up on me and my family, everyone who has prayed for us, they deserve the satisfaction of my thanks. Not my pessimism. They haven't done anything wrong.

So I'm sorry to everyone and to my Heavenly Father, who deserves so much more praise and glory than I have given Him. He is forever in control.





And now that all this is behind me, I love my God and I love my family and I just love life and all it's many glorious blessings. I love that trials make me stronger and sorrows always have a way of escape.

And finally, I love myself and that my God made me in His own image. I make mistakes and I've made a whole stinkin' lot these past few days but I'm ready to go into the world and be different and be a soul winner for the cause of my Lord. =)




I've also decided that I will not date until I am married, and that I will never touch Sprite again.

"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
- Matthew 11:28-30

two hearts with one beat

So tonight we had a thing at church where all the young people from all the area congregations come together and sing praise and eat pizza and watch The Little Rascals, and it was the complete highlight of my day. I love youth stuff. I love just coming together with people that think the same way that I do and have the same struggles, so I feel like I have my own little Christian friend army and we can stand strong together. The world is a beautiful place but it's also really easy to get lost among the crowd and forget. Those times are when I need Hannah because she's like my strength mechanism when I get really weak and tired of being different than the world. She pushes me and makes me feel beautiful, and so I love her and love being her best friend a great deal. Matt led the song "Our God, He Is Alive" which if you've never heard sung before, get a group of kids on fire for God and sing it acapella from the bottom of your hearts. That song can bring tears to your eyes. It's my all time favorite forever and ever amen.
Nights like tonight really make me realize how truly blessed I am. Seriously. I have the most wonderful life ever. Some people say that during good times you forget about God. I disagree. They say that you need tough times to make you remember God and appreciate God and seek guidance from God, and I believe that's true. But my mom tells me that she grows closer to God in the good times because she realizes how blessed she is and that all blessings come from God. My mom is the most wonderful woman on the planet. I feel blessed that I surpassed the generic I-hate-my-life-and-I-hate-my-parents-and-I-just-want-to-stay-in-my-room-and-never-speak-to-my-family-ever stage of teenagerdom. I truly believe I would have been the most miserable human being alive. I think I might have entered the stage for about an hour, and then realized I hurt my mom's feelings so I cried. But back to the point - my mom is completely wonderful. I'm happy to say that we have a good relationship. I need to do better though. She's always there to give me the best advice I can receive but stupid pride makes me want to put on my big girl panties and handle it on my own. But I'm still a sixteen year old baby. I need my mom. I realize that more and more every day.
I'm finding myself to be more and more unlike teenagers. But that's okay with me, because to put it quite frankly I've known some really stupid teenagers... Stupid meaning making totally dumb decisions. And I don't really feel sorry, because part of being in this free country is that we have the opportunity to gain an education and make something of ourselves. And that may be free to us, but it wasn't to the soldiers who fought for it. So I don't feel sorry when you choose to waste that.
I'm in a great mood because I just finished a 30 minute skype date with Taylor. We hadn't had one since Thursday and you would've thought my world was ending, forreal. I'm pretty pathetic, not gonna lie. But I don't think he minds. He loves me but he loves the lake, too, and I'm okay with that as long as we get skype dates and occasionally I get to go, too; it's a good deal.
In other news, tonight was also epic because I got to watch my favorite scene in the entire spectrum of children's films, which is Alfalfa and Darla in the boat floating along and Alfalfa says "Oh Darla, we're two hearts, but with one beat." HOW PRECIOUS. My heart just melts every stinkin' time. And one day I will sit my boyfriend down in a cutesy little boat with lots of hairspray so he's got the do going on and we will reenact this scene. He hasn't been informed of this will but you can bet it'll happen.


I'm not sure I could really pinpoint what this blog was supposed to be about, but I think I got said what I needed to say. Mostly I think I just wanted to tell you how wonderfully blessed my God has made me, and that I love my boyfriend and Alfalfa, but Taylor a little bit more. That'll be all.