Alison is overwhelmed (in a good way.)

Oh man. I can't even convey how good my life is right now.

I'm sitting in a quiet house, filled with sleeping family members, all of whom are mostly healthy and definitely happy. Even more of them would be here, but they had to head out earlier today to their various homes. My family members are the coolest people I know. For real.

I have great friends who are genuinely interested in my well-being.

On Monday, I head in to work at my very first job as a Social Worker. It's about as close to my dream job as I understand it at this point. It's tough work, but this job is such a miracle. I worked my butt off for months trying to get it, and then about a week and a half ago, I was told that I couldn't get it. There was a hiring freeze in the State of Kansas, and I was preparing to move home and live with my parents. Not the great "independent adult" move I was hoping for. But, I was resigned, and going to make the best of it. Then, Wednesday, I was at the movies, watching the new Harry Potter movie with my cousins, and got a call from the supervisor at SRS, and she asked if I was still interested. I definitely was. It could only have been a miracle, the odds were that far stacked against me getting this job. Things could only have worked out this way.

I am just overwhelmed. It's like my life recently has been this song, and it was building and building, and then there was this abrupt drop in the music, and then suddenly a breathtaking burst of sound. I'm trying to express this feeling, but it's just difficult to describe. I feel like my heart is so full, that it's the end of a chick flick and the fireworks are going off, that the bride is walking down the aisle to the groom and tears are running down his beaming face. I guess romantic love is the closest to how blessed I feel. God is so good.

Life isn't always easy. Not by a long shot.

But sometimes it works out, and things overwhelm you with joy. I have a lot to be thankful for today, the day after Thanksgiving, but even if I hadn't gotten this new job, I'd still be thankful.

On Monday, I embark on a new adventure. Where does it lead? I have absolutely no idea. I'm really excited about it, though!

Alison is feeling the stress of impending graduation.

May 15th is just around the corner. That's when I graduate. Ready for a blast from the past? Here's an excerpt from my xanga blog back in highschool, fairly shortly after graduating highschool.

July 8th, 2006:
When I graduated, everyone kept asking me how I felt. I didn't know then, because it kind of didn't feel real. Like I was just a junior or something, and would just be there next year, so I wasn't sad. But slowly it has dawned upon me that I'm done with highschool for good.

Sure, I'm looking forward to the future, but does it scare me? Oh, heck yes. I keep getting these moments where it's like those times when I was younger and on roller blades and I would start to go faster than I wanted down a hill or something, and I got that split-second realization that there was no way I could slow down. And the roller blades would start to slip right out from under me, and I would flail my arms around and hope that maybe, just maybe, I can regain control, or at least not crash painfully.

Life feels like that sometimes, slipping right out of my control, going way faster than I intended, and the best I can hope for is to stay upright.

As you can tell from my elaborate analogy, I wind up feeling like that alot, and have had many chances to connect it with a similar feeling.

The phrase "Stop the world, I want to get off." keeps coming to mind.

Back to now. I survived this stress before, it can be done again..

The real world is out there, and I am so scared. I've had my life revolve around my education and school schedule since I was 5. Over 3/4 of my life has been in a classroom, or completely governed by when school was going on, or when we were on break, when things were due, what people I was around and when... What is life like without that? I'm excited to find out, but also just nervous about the uncertainty of it.

I guess I worry that I'm stepping off the edge of that stage in my robe and wacky square cap... into a great void that I can't see into, and only hear vague descriptions from people who have gone into that void.

Alison's slow descent into madness, er, I mean, hipster. (I really meant madness.)

The other day, Sunday to be precise, I made my first pair of jorts. Jean shorts. Cut about 2 inches above the knee and then rolled into a small cuff.

What have I become?

I find myself wanting to build up a fixed gear bicycle and get a tattoo. I want to dye my hair strange colors and wear it long and messy. I want to wear stupidly huge glasses, just because they make my face look alien. I want to be skinny and androgynous and wild. I want to shuck off the self-centered, greedy, capitalist-whore mindset that I have been culturally socialized to have, and live like a gypsy, but buy expensive clothing that looks like it was thrown out in a bygone decade and dragged under a truck for half a block.




Okay, only the first two things on that list are true, the bike and the tattoo. But how far behind is the rest? The lifestyle of reckless abandon of the hipster appeals to me. To just bail on all my responsibilities, and live for the moment. I think that maybe they will regret these moments someday, like that stupid tattoo that prevents them from getting a job later, or the liver failure from their drunken youth.

Back to the jorts. They are so comfortable, yet trendy. And dare I say it, practical? They re-purpose my jeans with the ripped knees into something I can wear. Are they really that bad? Do they really signal a descent into hipster? I don't really think I could even be hipster, not in Manhattan, KS. It's too small and far removed from the meccas of the hipster populous: Chicago, Portland, some places on the East Coast.

Also, I don't find myself having the attitude of a hipster. I feel like, more than anything they wear, the attitude of the hipster is what defines them. More-aware-than-thou, more-trendy-than-thou, more-different-and-unique-and-special-and-oh-please-god-someone-notice-me-than-thou.

I think it's a product of the fact that our generation is just tacked on to the end of many influential ones that had huge defining events that formed the portrait of it's members. Generation Y? What do we have? Affluent parents who didn't give us a reason to strive for anything, no reason to get out there and "make something of ourselves", no drive to achieve because we have things just fall in our laps. We follow up Generation X, our parents, who are characterized by a love of money and a lack of art, and do the complete opposite. Liberal arts colleges filled with film majors and philosophy majors, getting their tuition paid by well-off parents. Hipsters are a revolution touting their love of having nothing but art, funded by financial excess.


But yeah, jorts are neat. I might make more.

Alison: needs to go nightdriving.

I need out of town, just for 20 minutes.


I love that I haven't talked to one of my best friends in over a month. Not really. I think that's throwing me off. And that things keep popping up, important things, that I'd like to talk to said friend about, get said friend's opinion. Being married is time consuming, I guess. And being married means you can't be friends with singles of the opposite gender, I guess.

It really isn't fun.

Hold on.

To me, the phrase "Hold on" means to either "wait" or to grab ahold of something because things are going to get rough.

I don't know which has been happening for me more. I'm waiting for the future to arrive. I'm waiting for things to even out. And I'm tying down my safety rope like a sailor in a storm and praying that it holds.

I guess that's fairly cryptic, allow me to explain some.

Yesterday, I took a leap of faith, hopefully for the right reasons. I have been a lousy friend to someone, and I prayed and prayed about how to fix that. I can't be the type of friend they want to be. And, hard as it was, I had to give that one up to God. The message that I got while praying yesterday morning was "Get out of the way, you're blocking the light." I had always been of the mindset that if God was going to work in this person's life, it was going to be me, because I was already there. But it seems that I was taking on God's job, trying to save them myself. Not my job, I need to back out, and give him the room to work. And have faith that he will, even if I am not the one doing it. And for me, that is difficult. But, it's a lesson I'll have to get good at, if I'm going to be a social worker.

Next up, waiting for the future to arrive. I don't know, I stress out alot about where I will be this summer, next year, in 5 years. By the grace of God, I will be doing social work. But, I guess that could change, which is something I don't often consider.



Anyways. I am off to try to figure out where I am living next year. Then homework, and hopefully getting more sleep. Being just a little bit sick (like I have been the past few days) is not fun.

I don't watch sad movies. Other people like them, because "sometimes you just need to cry." I don't get that at all. Life is sad enough on it's own, I watch movies and read books for the happily ever after. Real life gets so few happily ever afters, because our lives are so fragile. Our tenuous grasp on life, it can be snatched away at any moment, and by the most seemingly random events.

My heart cries out with sorrow for my friend Nicolle. Her boyfriend Brock was just given a few weeks to live after a hard fight with brain cancer, over the course of which he couldn't recall her name at times. I can't even imagine that. Her strength and faith are a testimony to God's strength and faithfulness.


The fact that I cry harder for other people than for myself, it makes me wonder if I am going to be a better or worse social worker. I tend to become more upset over things that are out of human control, because they just seem so arbitrary and without greater meaning. Social problems, I understand that they are difficult to deal with. But those can be fixed. Terminal cancer... I can't fix that. And so I just cry for the loss of a love, a son, a brother... In the death of a young person, I always think about the mother, and how it would feel to have to say goodbye to your child.

So I'm praying for strength for Nicolle and for Brock's family, his mother in particular, as they prepare themselves. God, only you could be a comfort for them in this.

Alison: is getting poured on.

"When it rains, it pours."

Oh man, I'm just exhausted from getting repeatedly shafted. And then when life goes crazy, I get angry. People get in my way, let me down, leave me out, and I get pissed.

I'm just tired of being angry lately. I can't get my group members for vital-to-my-grade group projects to cooperate. They're sick, their kids are sick, it's a mess, they can't make school a priority like it is for me right now. I need these grades to be good. Because I need them to graduate, and be a social worker, and have a fulfilling career. Basically, by missing class, and not doing work, they're screwing with my future.

So you can see why I've been mad lately.


Oh, but it gets better. My jeep went all to hell last night, and then all to Schram Chrysler/Jeep this morning via tow truck. Never done that before, as Kilroy has always been such a good jeep. Also, they don't have an opening to work on him until Monday.

Awesome, right?


So, plan of action. Breathe. Refrain from hurting others, via words or sharp objects.