Dear Hormones

This past week has been a mess, medically and emotionally.
I'm crampy, moody, emotionally unstable, laughing at everything, crying at everything else, my mood swings are that of a pregnant menopausal women, and I really dislike the human race as of Thursday. And my doctor is running an underground vampire harvest... I mean really, 3 vials of blood for 2 tests? Something's up.

But on the upside of things,  I'm so blessed to have my two best friends.
When my hormones insist on having a party and my brain is freaking out as the result, they never fail to come to the rescue. MB armed with Ben and Jerry's Cheesecake Brownie ice cream and 500 Days of Summer, allowing me to do whatever needed to be done to feel human again (digesting sugar, not the best thing for me, but it was incredible at the time.) And then there's Nate who earlier in the night, accidentally knocked me up the steps trying to hug me...or was it a tackle? And continued to tell me that love hurts and as they picked me up and hugged me, while I remained stunned. But I know he had good intentions and at least MB tried to catch me.  However, after all that wreck of my emotional wants to cry at the Lawndale Orchestra and Choir Retreat, because they were playing A Baby Changes Everything. And the fact that when I can't hear myself think, I get a little freaked out. And between all that there was the insane high point where Mr. B, our orchestra director went on stage to rap about snow, my body was on complete remix from the confusion of emotions.
So what better way to end the night than to watch indie films past midnight with MB (even if we both fell asleep by the ending scene)? Except when all of your guy friends back in your dorm have gone home and you know for a fact, that Nate is asleep. But because it's dark and no one is on campus and you're desperate, you call Nate and anyway. And what does he do? Sleepily tell you he's on his way to pick you up in five minutes. Sweet, sweet, Nate. Sweet, let's me get away with anything, but still holds me accountable, MB.

I love how no matter what happens, no matter how upset or how much nonsense I'm talking, God still allows them to stay in my life. Blessed, so, so blessed.

Ramble. Ramble. Ramble.

Well my friends, I don't know where to start, truly I don't.
So I suppose I should start with letting you in on a little secret, I think I'm having a quarter life crisis, yes a quarter life crisis, and I'm afraid it's among the most terrifying things I've ever dealt with.  My emotions are running high, like out the roof high, worse though, so are my hormones, which is never good.
I'm way on edge and probably driving everyone around me absolutely insane. I'm surprised MB is even speaking to me after the depressing, four-nights-in-a-row conversations with me crying for no reason. So let me start the jumble of junk that's been bobbing around my head the past few days.

• So my latest guilty pleasure is watching Real Housewives of New Jersey, it makes my life look so normal! It's terrible, I know, but I can't help it. 
• So the second family is having some unresolved issues. I woke up the other morning with the cruel realization that I'm never going to get to be normal and most normal people are never going to understand me.  This is all thanks to my ovaries of steel, aka the ovaries that hate me and don't work properly. So thank you PCOS, for causing multiple breakdowns, angry outbursts, and random panic attacks over the past week. I blame you, ovaries of steel, I blame you! However, MB keeps reminding me that this is the way I was made and that's why the people who love me actually love me.  So I guess because I'm a work of art made my God, I cannot hate myself the way most people would.  Although I have come pretty close. Zach has attempted to keep me sane although he's having problems as well. We're good at balancing each other out in times like this since we're both emotional wrecks. Alex and Corbin are off roaming their own little world, coming back to rescue me on my really bad mornings.  I feel like we're all out trying to figure out who we are, and we're all failing miserably. I think I've done something to cause Nate to ignore me? I say that as a question because I don't know if that's actually the case.  Zach tells me that because Nate and I are brother and sister, we have to love each other unconditionally, but also hate each other at least 60% of the time we spend together. After some prayer, I decided last night that I guess I shouldn't be too worried about Nate "unloving" me or kicking me to the curb because we've been through much worse, however, it still annoys and hurts me to no end to feel like I've done something wrong when I actually haven't (at least I think.) But then again if anything is going to hold this family together, it's gonna be God, and I just have to keep telling myself that. I get really tired of feeling like I dissapoint people, like I have really high expectations and everything, I also get tired of apologizing in general because I know it makes things worse most of the time.  MB kept me on the phone for 3 hours last night trying to keep me calm, sending me Bible verses to get me through the night. It's so funny how you can be perfectly happy then all the sudden God brings you to this point where the sky is falling and waves are crashing and you can't breathe, it's like your lost, but your not. I keep seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but the more I try to reach for it, it gets farther away.  I suppose this time, is actually supposed to be God's time. I pray He'll get me safely to that light of happiness again. But for now, we'll just learn from the journey to the end. 

• My brother has been acting strange, as if he knows something that I don't. I take that back, more like doesn't have a clue what's going on.  I'm saying this from the standpoint that he's acting stranger than usual. Which of course the broken ankle is probably not helping much. I feel bad because he doesn't understand why I'm upset all the time or why he had to delete certain people off facebook, but it's hard for me to explain it to him. I don't want to hurt him anymore than I have to. 
• Part of my quarter-life crisis has been saving the world from the comfort of my own home. I went out and bought Eat Love Pray the other day.  I really think Elizabeth Gilbert is like my long lost twin who happens to be much older than me. So many of the thoughts that she has put on paper has run through my head at least once.  I also bought an organic Iota tote, made of jute, best 20 bucks I've ever spent, seriously! I took up yoga and meditative praying yesterday morning, it's been rather rejuvenating to say the least (also kind of sore as well, but worth it.) I'm also trying my best to drink out of my camelback and not out of plastic bottles, that's still a major work in progress though...
• I've decided that my quiet time needs to be focused on one topic at a time, sometimes even the same thing two days in a row. Everytime I read the Bible I feel like the way it's written changes. I want to get all I can out of what I'm reading, I mean I've read the Great Gatsby over eight times and I always seem to miss or forget something. I think the Bible should be same, read it until it hits you, that beautiful smack in the face, when you really get it and you can really apply it to your life.  
• I'm fasting from my facebook fast, yeah, I know, sue me okay? But really, I only have 53 followers on Twitter and over 1,000 friends on facebook.  When I really need prayer, where do you think I'm gonna go to get the most prayer, not twitter (although I still ask on there as well.) So until this depression departs my heart, facebook will be intact. 
• If you've read this far, I congratulate you, I've hardly had the attention span to write all that's been on my mind. Thank you for reading this far my beautiful readers! 
• My addiction to Bones is horrible, so is that fact they referenced Sailor Moon on today's episode and I got all giddy inside. 
• I keep having nightmares, last nights was about ninja cats. 
• I have an appointment with Diana Carter to look into changing my major this Thursday, prayers for a good decision would be awesome please!! 
• Work today was interesting? I tweeted that I wished Lowes Foods would stop playing the country remakes of my 80's music. They tweeted me back saying their sorry and they hope the remakes aren't too bad. Win or fail? I also checked out the band parent who flipped on me at a football game for "losing" her sons uniform hanger (I was the band captain and the uniform room coordinator.) She told her son to steal someone else's hanger, so then someone else stole another person's hanger, and so and so on, causing a large group of angry kids wanting to know where their hangers were.  Apparently this was all my fault and she came down to yell at me. Great memory, oh yeah! Well, today I checked her out and her strawberries fell off the counter.  I really just wanted to duck and cover, but I distracted her with much horror stories of dropped fruit in the store until Shawn could get a new box of berries for her, close call. Thank goodness she was my last customer of the night. 
• Tomorrow I go to Boone! So excited to get out town, get to the mountains, and see my amazing grandparents!! 

So I believe that is all of my ramblings for the night. What crazy stuff has happened in your lives recently? 

xoxo

-anya:)

Hope.

It's been a really hard day. My past has suddenly come back to haunt me, and my mind once again got ahead of my heart.  But in the midst of all that pain I've been feeling, a glimmer of hope set my heart a flutter at work today.  

MB has been at work and Nate is off to camp and hasn't been able to pick up the phone, which is hard when you're in need of prayer.  When things like this happen, when people can't get in contact with me, I worry. It's part of my nature, I'm a very emotional person, very motherly person, and I owe my body for that one.  For those who don't know, I was diagnosed with the disease, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, my senior year of high school.  It's a disease that targets the female organs causing growths to develop and chemical and hormone imbalances.  Nate calls it permanent PMS, and along with that is a combo of Type 2 Diabetes, Thyroid Disease, and a lot of emotional and physical self-conscious problems.  But the biggest concern in my life, though I’m only 19, is that PCOS remains the leading cause of infertility in women and that's been one of my biggest struggles. I love children, always have, always will.  I don't dream about getting married, I dream about having children, but I know that there's not a very good chance of that. 

My health has seemingly only gotten worse since I was diagnosed. However, as much as I hate this disease, I must also thank it.  It has brought me to God. And the day after it brought me to God, God brought Nate to me-- while  in the middle of a hormonal breakdown.  But Nate didn’t care, he helped the strange bassoonist with the disease anyway and now look at us, attached at the hip, loved and loving.   And because it brought me to Nate, it’s brought me to MB and the night that the two of them sat in the practice room holding me and telling me it was going to be alright, that my health was going to get better.  I knew MB for only a few days before that night happened, but it didn’t matter- she sat there anyway and held me until I stopped crying.  It has led me to a church that accepts me and a bassoon studio that understands.  PCOS has led me away from my once-was, angry feminist beliefs, and into the arms of the Lord who loves me, just the way I am.  

However this knowledge sometimes disappears when I’m stuck in an emotional whirlpool of feelings and hurt.  Mostly because the hurt comes from myself because I can’t control it. Earlier today I was a wreck of tears for no real reason at all.  And upon the realization that I didn’t know why I was crying, I got even more upset.  This vicious cycle led me to thinking, who could ever love this mess of a person? But it’s silly, I know who loves me, God, my family, Nate, MB, Zach, Alex, Corbin, Ally, they all love me. So if that’s the case, then why can’t I love myself? My cats even love me, what was wrong with me? 

These emotions went on throughout the day and eventually into work.  As much as I didn’t have the nerve to go into work today, I know there was a reason that God sent me anyway.  I stood there for 30 minutes voiding out an order that a woman decided she didn’t want anymore, consisting of over 100 items.  She was frustrated, I was frustrated, my bagger boy was frustrated, but I refused to let my anger show, so I smiled as much as possible.  Behind the angry customer was a boy about my age waiting patiently.  I looked up at him and he smiled at me, I could tell he was a special needs child.  He came over to where I was standing and asked if I had seen his mom who was standing with him a few minutes ago.  I told him no, but if he waited I would help him find her, he interrupted me to ask my name. I told him it was Annaliese and his face lit up.  
“That’s a beautiful name!! Such a beautiful name and it fits you perfectly Miss Annaliese! A beautiful name for a beautiful girl!” 
I smiled at the sweet boy, speechless, not knowing what to say.  How could he ever understand that something like that was what I needed to hear? Something as simple as accepting me for who I am, was what I needed to get me through this battle with myself. He looked right past the physical problems, the acne, and the fact my eyes were still swollen and makeup-less from crying all day, he saw me. Me. It seemed so simple after that moment.  “Me” is how God created me, and how could I nor anyone else not love that? There is no other person in this world quite like me, quite like you, quite like him or her, no other.  And because of that, we must love ourselves, that’s the way it is. That’s the reason God made it that way.  

MB talked me through tonight as I faced a different battle, one that I hadn’t faced since sophomore year of high school but one that I continue to remember and hurt over.  She sent me a text before she went to bed about the Bible verse she was studying that night. 

Isaiah 9:1

But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish....

I’ve marked this in my Bible along with the verse Nate found for me a few weeks ago while doing quiet time. 

Hebrews 10: 32-39 

32 But recall in the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings 33 sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. 34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted to plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.  35 Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised. 37 For,  “Yet a little while and the coming one will come and will not delay;

38 but my righteous one shall live by faith, my soul has no pleasure in him.” 

39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those  who have faith and preserve their souls. 

Both these verses give me the strength to go from day to day, no matter what my troubles are, not just because they came from the two people who love me unconditionally, but because the verses speak right from God’s heart.  I pray that you all will find something that inspires you the way it has inspired me. Something that will help you conquer that last rut you’re afraid to cross over, that last obstacle holding you back, or that last person telling you that you can’t.  Because with God anything is possible, His love, conquers all.  Because all you need is love and love is all you need. 

So tell me friends, tell me your stories? You’re all inspirations in someway so now tell me who, where, what, inspires you to make it through?

have a beautiful Tuesday, friends! 

xoxo

-anya:)