i am changing, trying everything i can, i am changing, i'll be better than i am

thats a line from dreamgirls, the musical, which describes me pretty well right now, or at least what i'm attempting..i saw dreamgirls tonight with my parents, and it was awesome. i'm always amazed when i've seen the movie of a musical and then the show on stage, and how creative they have to be to get the same effect. thats why i love theater, you have to be creative and talented enough to be able to be convincing in one take as a whole different person. its so epic. it tends to get me thinking about my own life, or maybe when 12:50 comes around i start thinking about my blog, because i started it when i was having serious sleeping problem. so here i am needing to be asleep so i can get up for church in the morning, with a headache, probably from thinking, writing yet another entry in the blog. most times i have no idea what i'm going to write when i click "new post", i just figure i haven't probably evaluated my life much this week so when i start writing, my feelings and thoughts come out without much prodding, which is nice...sometimes. i feel kinda lost right now, in a lot of areas. a fair amount has happened since my last post. my brother graduated from northwestern university with a b.s. in journalism and is settled a liking his job in arizona a lot. i couldn't be more proud of him. the courage it takes to close a huge chapter of your life and dive into the next one with an open mind takes a super duper sense of self and i really respect him for taking advantage of all of his opportunities. we had a great weekend with our family and it was just a great trip, but the family's last hurrah all together as the family i've known for 19 years. but change is inevitable and he's moving on to great things, so i'm trying my hardest to look at it like a positive. its difficult when mom has moved all of the taxes stuff into his room to the point where you can't even walk in the door. but anyways

i feel lost intellectually for a start, i'm considering a change in majors from english lit to social work, but i'm taking a class in social work before i decide, but thats not all of it. i spend my days with two 4 year olds and a 6 year old and i feel like my brain is turned to mush, its literally difficult for me to have a conversation with a "grown up" without stumbling and stuttering like an idiot because i'm not used to using normal words with normal sentences. i work hard enough at academics without slipping into toddler speech. i just feel like i should be doing something intellectual, which i guess will help me have a positive attitude about school, until like wednesday when i realize...its school.

i'm lost emotionally in the transition after my first year of college. i don't know what to feel anymore, and with medication its not super much of an option ha so i guess thats kinda taken care of for me. i'm having awkward interactions with my parents who are still trying to parent me and keep holding the we can take away the funding for your very expensive college education anytime we want so you better abide by our sometimes ridiculous rules. its like something they pull out for like the dumbest stuff, like brenna if you don't unload the dishwasher you're not going back to baylor. really?! oh okay dad, i'll hop to it. not. just because you have the upper hand on someone doesn't mean you should use it just because you can. thats something my father taught me ironically. i'm in between being a kid and being an adult. good god i feel like the stupid britney spears song, " i'm not a girl, not yet a woman". wow thats what my life has come to, a britney spears song. haha but its kinda true. there are times when i act like a kid, and feel entitled to because, i'm only 19 and can't be expected to act like i'm 40 just yet. that happens on your 20th birthday. just kidding, i hope. but there are also a lot of time where i could act like a kid, and people would expect me to, and i don't.

like medical stuff, i had a fever for about a month and was super exhausted all of the time, but was testing negative for everything. given my new diagnosis of my stomach disorder, they ran some extra tests, which were awful and required things i wouldn't dare type about. that i handle. the fact that as much as my medicine does balance me out, i still have a lot of anxiety everyday and sometimes it really really gets to me. that i manage. i guess i feel like since i act adult about those things and power through, sometimes i should be allowed to act like a kid and just have fun, without getting a 20 minute lecture about my over use of the word "like".

romantically i'm lost too. i get lonely a lot. i have my friends who are fantastic, but mostly girls, and yeah, no matter how much we joke about it, totes never gonna happen. with the stuff i go through on a daily basis, i would like to have a companion to help me get through it. another place i tend to be mature is in relationships, not to say that i'm very good at them, but to say that i don't like games and i don't want to waste my time on someone or invest myself in someone who's going to be wrong for me or disappoint me or who i'm wrong for. meaning to say that i don't want to waste my time, but don't want to think about finding the person i'm supposed to be with because i'm not planning on getting married before i have my law degree. but that leaves me alone for the time being. which isn't the worst thing in the world by any means. i'm in no way saying that i need a boyfriend, or that i even want one. i don't know, hence the lost status. i do tend to feel lonely though.

i'm struggling physically, emotionally, and mentally but of course, it wouldn't be life if i wasn't, generally i have my days with my boys, try and see dallas friends during the week, and leave during the weekend. or have someone come visit, LIKE SASHA. who came to visit last weekend and it was awesome, and just what i needed. i'm counting down the days until i get to see her when i go visit memphis in 2 more weekends!! so i'm getting through it and have plenty of enjoyable experiences, but need to get back to baylor soon. everything tends to make more sense there, and there are people there who inspire me and help me get through the chaos that is my life with much more grace and composure than i would on my own.

i hope your summer is going well and relaxing. i hope that you're tanner than i am, actually no i don't i hope you're lilly white so i won't look like casper next to you, and that you're having a blast this summer. enjoy it and soak it up, so to speak. all my love and best wishes for a great week!

i am changing, trying everything i can. : )

pissed off puerto rican

if i could pick one word to describe the way i feel right now, it would be angry. i have no idea why, but i just find i'm pissed off in and at various parts of my life. i'm angry because i'm not at baylor. i'm angry because i'm angry about not being at baylor. i'm angry cause i want to be happy i'm home. i'm angry because i'm not. i'm angry at whats going on with the world. i'm angry with whats going on with people i know. i'm angry with living a passive life. i'm angry about being confused. i'm confused about what i want in life, what i want to do, who i want to be, what kind of life i want. i don't know why i'm just so angry.

i feel like i need to be doing something. about everything. thats such a big weight. i always feel like its my responsibility to take on everything and i'm disappointed in myself when i don't. i don't know i'm just confused. sometimes i feel like being a civil rights lawyer isn't going to be enough. i'm not going to be in the thick of it. and i so so want to be in the thick of it. i don't want to be processing the papers for the people who did the actual work. i don't know. and i don't know where these doubts are coming from either.

what do i do? how do i calm my doubts? the first thing is getting my butt into shape. its been suggested that i take up kick boxing, or boxing boxing, i know, me with training in hitting? good combo, but it would let me release some of anxiety in a healthy way. i also need to be doing weekly volunteering or something. do something. i need to figure out where my anger is coming from and how to deal with it healthily. right now i'm just bottling it up and taking it out on my family, which isn't fair at all.

add to the fact that i've had a fever for 6 days now...and got diagnosed with yet another stomach disorder...just adds to the anger. i'm a mess. surprise. i'm stumped. i'm gonna get my act together though promise : )


best wishes for a happy and successful summer. : ) let me know if you have any suggestions

home is where..your dogs are? your friends are? your heart is?

home is an interesting phenomenon for a college student. i'm struggling a lot with it right now. first of all, my dogs are so awesome. i may be a 100 percent total nerd for saying this, but my street rep be damned, i was most excited to see my dogs when i got home. after seeing my dogs, my parents, and a few friends...thats about it though. i feel horrible. i've been in dallas, a city that i love, for 2 weeks and i'm dying to go back to baylor. i know, poor brenna loves her school so much that she wants to go back. this time last year you couldn't have paid me enough to go off to college. so thats a huge blessing. but i've lived in dallas for 19 years. i was born here, grew up here, graduated from here, experienced everything i know here. there are people i've know for 17 years here. this is supposed to be my home. but its been an awkward transition. where i'm feeling drawn to is a place i now can't consider spending extended time away from. its weird though, cause when i lived in collins with veronica, i never said i was going home. i always said i was going back to the room. home was still dallas. home still is dallas...kinda. i still wake up and look over to see if veronica is awake...turns out my extend-o eyes don't see all the way to houston. i expect to be able to walk 10 minutes and see people who are currently all over the country and am instead seeing people who for 9 months of the year are all over the country. i couldn't imagine being without my dallas friends everyday, but i adapted. now i can't imagine being away from my baylor friend, and i'll adapt. it just hasn't happened yet. but regardless, i'm going to have goals for this summer. i'm going to get into a regular exercise routine, learn to eat fruit, and work to save money. i want to enjoy people and life. i need to learn to enjoy myself...that sounds awkward. i mean i need to learn how to get enjoyment out of life where ever i am. you know when you go overseas, you have to buy an outlet adapter for your blow dryer and phone charger? i need one of those for my life right now. unfortunately, radio shack is fresh out. i'm having trouble making home where my hat is, because my heart is with my baylor friends. i love so many people in dallas so much. i couldn't be the person who misses baylor without them. i don't even know what i'm feeling. take tonight for example kate and lauren, my two best friends from home, came over for a how i met your mother marathon. i had a blast. i loved every second of it. these are dallas nights i cherish. but i also almost did a toe touch when sasha, one of my best baylor friends, and i were discussing dates for her to visit. i'm really torn between two worlds and need to transition better, or come to terms with transition, eventually i will consider baylor my home and dallas where i came from. i'm still clinging to where i came from. i'm not quite ready to let it go. i feel like i should be able to just be happy in both dallas and waco because i have great friends and support systems in both places. maybe thats what i'll try and work on this week.

on a sadder note, one of the janitors at my high school, an incredibly good nice man who always went out of his way to help us with anything we needed passed away this week. my family is going to his service tomorrow. may he rest in peace.

my best wishes for a relaxing and fun summer : ) a positive attitude is the key to improvement, but even if i weren't i hope you're having a great break!

next post will be more positive, promise : )

final.....ly

well its finals season. everything is packed and ready to go. I'm waiting and waiting for Monday to come, which only seems to make it further away. I have really mixed feelings about leaving. On the one hand, I need to get the heck out of dodge and be done with school because i'm going crazy. I want to be home with my dogs and friends and tan. On the other hand, I couldn't have imagined a better freshman experience. I absolutely love my friends. I love my teachers. I love my sorority. I love my school, so so much and I am so grateful for this year and the amazing people I got to meet. Leaving them, even thinking about leaving them makes me want to throw up. I wish I could combine my two worlds...boy would that be an epic mistake. they are so different. I know I've talked a lot about this recently, feeling like I'm in two worlds. Stuck in between the person I was and know and the person I want to be. Its really confusing. I had the opportunity to take an internship with habitat for humanity, but turned it down for different reasons. It didn't feel right. That worries the crap out of me. What if I'm not cut out for what I want to do? What if I can't handle it? What am I going to do if I don't do that? I hate questions like these, I've always known what I wanted to do and the thought that I could have been wrong for 19 years is not only unsettling but super upsetting. Maybe I don't know myself as well as I thought I did.

All of these thoughts are swirling around in my head while I'm supposed to be completely focused on school. I've been facebook free for about 3 weeks now, and I got an email from facebook telling me I had 8 friend requests. I can't wait until Monday when I let myself get my password back from my roommate, who by the way is leaving Saturday. I am not staying in the room without her, so I'll be couch surfing this weekend. gah. even typing that makes me teary eyed. i hate hate hate transition. most change sucks and I'm just really worried about my ability to adapt. It took a lot to get me here, a lot. A lot that I don't think I even realize how much it took to get me to baylor. but I'm here and I love it and it is so much more than I ever expected it to be.

i'm babbling but i'm just feeling really conflicted about....everything. which isn't fun at all. but i have more studying to do for my last 2 finals on saturday and monday, both at 9 in the morning, like thats fair. then i'll be on that dreaded I-35, trying not to get a ticket and most likely crying my eyes out in a car full of my belongings. can't wait.

hope your finals season is going well and that you finish before I do. If you don't, know I empathize.

whoops

i should also learn how to spell...might help with my paper.

sink or swim...sinking sounds pretty good right now

I was determined to write on my blog at least once before midnight, and I only have a 10 page paper due tomorrow that I haven't started, this seems like the perfect time. I am drowning. No sleep, and way too much work is one crappy combination. I'm not feeling particularly drawn to...anything...right now, not academically anyways. and I'm just disappointed in other areas of my life.

I thought that i'd have my stuff together by now. It's been over a month since I started my new medicine and I thought it would be the start of me really getting back on track. lie. crutches really really messed me up. I got really behind on all of my school work because anytime I wasn't hobbling somewhere, I was passed out from pain and exhaustion. The farther behind you get, the less hopeful you get of ever digging yourself out of the hole. I feel like I'm in a 30 foot deep hole right now. I'm just disappointed in myself. I am a person who thrives on being an over achiever, and its just not happening. I don't have enough time to pull up some grades that really should be A's. I don't like to make excuses for myself, and yeah, while i did have a fair amount of stuff happen to me this semester, I really don't see that as an excuse. Stuff happens. I doubt I'll have a single semester, or time in my life really, where something isn't going wrong, and thats fine. If my life was all stepford wives-y I wouldn't ever grow, I wouldn't ever learn. So I know that hardships help, thus I don't count being on crutches or losing a cousin to cancer or having to put my dog down or having to experiment with different medications for sleeping an excuse. I'm just supposed to be better than that stuff. I'm supposed to cope better and rise above it. And I really haven't seen myself do that this semester. I am by far my toughest critic and I'm getting like a 4 out of 10 right now.

I really need summer in some ways. In other ways I think it would benefit me much more to stay in my Baylor bubble.

I want to be able to go to college with out having to go to school so badly. So many people here inspire me and motivate me to be the best me I can be. That's incredible to me. I still marvel at what amazing friends I have. How supportive, funny, and fun they all are and how even in this short amount of time have become a staple in my life. I can't imagine not seeing them everyday, but I supposed I couldn't imagine not seeing my friends from home everyday and I got over that. I'm scared to go home. People at home are amazing in a different way. I know those people so well and love rehashing memories and laughing with them for hours, but its a very different world from Baylor and I almost feel like its a regression. I in no way want to end my relationships at home, I love my Dallas friends so much, but Dallas has a lot of drinking and a lot drugs and a lot of romantic drama that I just really don't like. I don't have to worry about that here most of the time. I'm worried about being able to keep the lessons I've learned in this past year and the personality I've adapted and grown into at home. I don't want to move backwards and I don't want to change. It scares me that I'll change. Its going to be a battle for me this summer, and I kind of feel like I fight enough battles on a day to day basis already. I know that God will never give me something I can't handle, I have figured that out first hand, when I thought that another thing couldn't go wrong, it did. and I got through it then, and I'll get through it now, but its frustrating at times not to know the plan.

Socially, I have great friends and they are absolutely helping me get through all of this, which is such a blessing. I still get disappointed by people though. Not them, my closest friends are incredible people for whom my unconditional love is far reaching. I get nervous making new connections because I have been disappointed so many times that whenever I meet someone new that I feel like I can get attached to, I do my best to manage my expectations and try and make expectations that are reasonable of people or at least my interactions with them, and it still doesn't work. Yes, I have standards, and I have expectations. Is that wrong? Should I not expect things of those closest to me and vice versa? Am I too hard on them because I'm trying to protect myself? Or am i just looking in the wrong places? Or am I wrong to look at all right now? I'm lost on this one. I really am and I need some guidance, feel free to offer some, give me your God phone, cause I'm thinkin he and I are going to have a come to Jesus meeting soon.


I hate being in waiting. I don't think I could ever have been a lady-in-waiting...I would just get really mad and impatient. I just really really need to get through the next too weeks without drowning so I can start to work on other aspects of my life that desperately need attention, unfortunately right now its all school.

I had my roommate change my facebook password yesterday and I'm already suffering withdrawal pain, but its necessary...now if i could only find a way to stop myself from going to MLIA...


gonna start on my paper because I'm resolved to go to bed before three. good call brenna, good call.

hoping your situations are far brighter than mine, and if now, know that I empathize.

Moody library: my home away from home.

Why don't I ever write during a reasonable hour? yeah that time management thing I mentioned before still hasn't taken. pulled another hamstring. same leg different one. I'm an idiot. I mean, yeah, but not really. Stompfest has been an interesting experience, and a good prep for sing, but can be really frustrating at times, especially physically. but i'm sitting at the library...where I have been since 11, and have accomplished....nothing. I need to get two english papers and some logic reading done. Instead I've been on facebook, mostly stalking basketball players. I just have no motivation, and I really need to find some. I'm dropping a lot of balls. a lot.

one thing that's really frustrating about having an anxiety disorder that requires medication, is that many times I feel nothing. No sense of urgency or frustration or hurt or even elation. When something happens, when someone says something upsetting, or criticizes me, I feel nothing. I have an intellectual response, I know I should be angry or upset or outraged even, but nothing. I miss feeling anxious, man that sounds wrong. When you go from being anxious and worrying about everything to have a much more level response to everything within a couple of months, it takes a toll on your personality. They warn you that when you start taking medication, that you'd lose parts of your personality that were driven by your anxiety. For me, that was my work ethic. So right now, being medicated sucks. I want to feel more often. I want to be sad sometimes, I want to get mad, I want my heart to race, or to feel the wind go out of me. I want to feel. And I don't. And that sucks.


What I do feel, however, is my stupid ankle and my stupid leg hurting. I love performing, I miss it like crazy, so I'm excited about stompfest in that regard. My lower half is screaming, lay in an ice bath for like..ever. I'm also excited to have some free nights, where I can start studying and doing homework before 11 or 12. Cause I need to hit the books hard the next couple weeks and pull and 4.0 outta my butt if I can.

I feel like I'm rambling but this will be my 3rd all nighter in a week, so my mind is kind of boggled. boggle is such a good game. wow sorry. I'm going to try and get something. Something needs to kick my butt into gear, I just really don't know what that is. I haven't quite had my rude awakening yet. Let's hope it happens soon.