December was probably the most exciting month of my life. Everything happened all at once. I finished the best internship ever in November (which I count as part of this everything). December 18, I graduated with my master's in criminal justice (4.0, too, which I am obviously proud (read: boastful) about), and the next day, I got married to my Pangga! Then it was Christmas, and I arrived in Tennessee with the husband in tow. Surprise, everyone! It was certainly the most interesting month in terms of significant life accomplishments and changes.

Since everything happened at once for me in December, January has been the month of nothing happening at all. Except worry and impatience and doubt. I've applied to pretty much everything in the Southeastern United States, and not an ounce of interest in me. I have a master's degree, my two most recent work history entries have Federal in the title of employer, and the three experiences before that were China, South Korea and Japan. I feel like my resume looks amazing, yet, for some reason, no one wants to hire me. I'm at a loss for why.

It's not just the great jobs I'm applying for either (like Special Agent, Research Analyst, Criminal Investigator). I'm also applying for the crappy ones, too (like Security Guard and Secretary *cringe*). At every turn, I'm being passed up, and I can't understand why.

Alas, my current full time job is looking for jobs.

In other news, two days ago was my one-month anniversary with my husband. We did nothing special at all (no car currently, and I'm so stressed about not having a job, but we will hopefully be celebrating in some way this Saturday). It's been the longest and the shortest month ever. It's gone by so very fast, I can hardly believe it's already been a month. And yet, we are so comfortable together, so in tune with each other, that it feels like we've been together since before time. (Yes, I am that corny).

In fact, he may end up finding work before me (we better get on this green card stuff!). Mac may join the media team at our church, Celebration Church. It would be great, and he could probably find work through them (if not with them). We need to get him a good computer though. It's that catch, though. We need work and money before we can buy a computer, and he needs a computer before he can work. But as long as we get the green card soon, it'll all work itself out.

When everything happens at once, you get the next month off to process it all, I guess.

Love is real. Sometimes that’s impossible to believe. Most of the time, probably. It is sometimes referred to as a feeling attributed to little more than a chemical reaction. If you asked me years ago, I would have had to agree with the world – that love is fleeting and not something fully attainable in human form. Love is just an emotion. There is no such thing as unconditional love, I would have told you. It is, oddly, just one of those things you don’t believe in until you know it’s happened to you. I phrase it like that for a reason.

Love is not a feeling. It is a state of being.

It’s so easy to get caught in the world of fear. What ifs and what if not’s controlling our every move despite our inability to accurately predict them. Trying to control your own destiny when destiny is relative and isn’t even real. Fate, luck, cast the lots. Control the uncontrollable; plan your future from the past.

As for my Pangga (a word of endearment in the Ilonggo dialect, somewhat like “my love”), I felt a super-like for him, and he a super-like for me. It was kind of like the feeling known as love. Kind of. I didn’t really believe it for a very long time. “He can’t possibly love me,” I thought. “Not for me and me alone.” I didn’t believe he really, truly, fully loved me. And so, for a very long time, I couldn’t fully love him back.

The “what ifs” of life and love circled cerebrally. What if he changes his mind and decides he doesn’t heart me? What if he cheats? What if, down the road, he realizes how not-good-a-catch I really am? Doubt ever present.

My analytical nature naturally pessimistic, I was certain that I was not truly loved and that I could never truly love back. And I had settled, for a while, with a semi-superficial good enough kind of love.

But good enough is never good enough. And when you catch a glimpse what’s beyond, there’s no going back. So, I let myself really fall. Forget the unforeseeable consequences; you can’t remember something you don’t know anyway.

Risk it: go all in.

Now, we have this epic kind of love that no sea can part. Love without conditions, without limitations. Time cannot fade it; trials have not broken it. Corny, yes. Beyond corny, I will certainly admit it. But a high, higher than any other love between a pair of meager humans. An intangible love so real, you can poke it with a stick. Hehe~ The silliness which runs through my veins also run through his; and you can see how this is a plus.

Love is real? Is it, really?

What about God, though? If love is real, and God is love, then it can easily be philosophically argued that God must be real, since it has been established that love is real. Mouthfuls of logic try to define the indefinable. And that’s wherein the problem lies.

I cannot logically believe.

But logic can be defied. It is defied. Daily, by me; wherein I speak and twist persons’ minds into knots, and the result is confusion when they try to interpret my logic. (Side effects may include headache, nausea, eye pressure and the inexplicable urge to shoot yourself in the foot. Please do not try to handle logic uttered by me if you have high blood pressure or are on medications for asthma.)

Doubt ever present.

How do you believe in something so completely out of your mind’s reach? How do you trust intangible arms to catch you? How do you know what cannot be known? How can you feel a state of being? What if I’m not believing enough? What if I’m too far away? I fear what I do not know.

How do I escape the doubt?

Go all in. I went all in before. For a man, no less. I can go all in for the God then, can’t I? I am loved. I know this. It’s happened to me, though it’s still somewhat impossible to believe.

So, how do I let myself believe?

Just let go of all the chips, risk it. Go all in. Don’t look back. Jump. No flinching. Nike: Just do it. Overanalyzing never got anyone anywhere. They all just stood there thinking about it until it was over.

What if, what if. What if nevermore. There is no fear in love.

“There is no fear in love” (1 John 4:18).

I’ve recently taken to eating better as a general rule, and cooking healthy is a main part of that. Changes are slowly becoming routine. Fast food is no longer the last resort, but the non-option entirely. Snacks are now fresh fruits or cereal bars rather than candy bars. Chocolate and ice cream still make an appearance in my daily intake, but they are no longer my base food group. ;) I’m not sure exactly how long this “phase” will last, but since I do have the time to enjoy cooking well, I shall.

Though healthy meals are the goal, good taste is paramount. I refuse to eat raw celery sticks, ever. Celery has its place: enhancing gumbos, soups or casseroles. It’s a garnish, not a snack to be garnished with dip. No amount of dip can overpower the extreme un-yumminess that is the cold, horrible celery stick.

The point here is that healthy need not be associated with unappetizing. There are extremely delicious options that just so happen to be not-so-bad for you. The following examples support this case.

‘Mazing Mango Salsa

1 mango, chopped into mini-boxes
1 large orange, peeled, sectioned, and defleshed of the connective tissue, if you have the patience
½ red bell pepper, chopped
Juice of 1 lime
2 tsp fresh basil, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix it up, taste it, add something it needs, mix again, taste, enjoy. Serve with Tostitos chips or on top of chicken or a boring salad. Eat it straight from the container when you run out of stuff to put it on.

Eggplant-Tomato-Basil Super-Pasta

Pasta of your choice
1 eggplant, chopped like little sugar cubes
1 pkg grape tomatoes, halved or not, whatever
1 tsp olive oil
Salt and pepper
2 tsp fresh basil, torn
2 tbsp shredded Romano/ Parmesan Cheese

Preheat oven to 400. Mix chopped eggplant and tomatoes in olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast until tender. When it’s finished, assemble pasta, roasted stuff, basil and cheese in a bowl. Take a pretty picture. Eat.

Deliciousity abounds.

For the umpteenth time, I’m on the verge of making a change for the better. Quitting a bad habit, initiating a good one, it’s keeping it up that is the hard part. But you knew that.

Because I’m so often here, in the ‘ready, get set’ mode, making it to just after ‘go’ before I quit, I seriously hold out little hope of lasting long. A list of goals longer than my arm each await my initial start just before their inevitably failure only what seems like moments later. In no particular order, a brief list of the most-popular returnees.

1. Eating healthy and exercising regularly. This has been on my ‘to-do’ list since New Year’s resolutions were invented. I’ve had, got annoyed with slow loading time, had, got bored of, had, fell out of use of, and had again a SparkPeople account, which I am, from today, had-ing again. It’s an incredibly useful site, and I even have both of the apps for my phone. I printed out today’s simple and easy workout routine and tracked my calorie intake, which is currently fine but it’s only midday. Today will hopefully finish without an overindulgence in mint chip ice cream or the too-lazy-to-bother-working-out resolve. It’s a start… again…

2. Studying languages. Japanese, Spanish, Korean, Arabic and Tagalog. I have enough books to start a library, and yet they sit gathering dust. Self-study is admittedly more difficult to keep up with, but again and again I try and I break. Sometimes I last weeks, only to forget everything the week after I stop studying for no apparent reason. Starting up again from scratch, ending the same as before. Ready, set, I’ll study tomorrow.

3. Writing. I have, in fact, written three potential novels, but I have let them sit without revisions enough to make them even remotely readable. So, I wrote them, but no one will read them, ever. I’m actually quite embarrassed at how suckitudinous they are. And these days, school-work gets my time, I defend, but there are countless hours wasted on watching TV that could be devoted to writing (or studying). I know that I’m not exactly best-seller material, but writing does have the uncanny effect of making me feel great. It’s the creation of it, even if it will never be published, that I prize the most. I’m a creator. Sometimes.

4. Stop stressing about what cannot be controlled. With this, I fear I am somewhat at odds with popular culture. I’m not talking about world-goes-round stuff, but more about my lack of luck in the job circuit. Application after application sent, all of which I knew I was not only less qualified than most applicants but also that rarely is anyone even hired into such a position. I stress that I will never find a decent job – one that is both interesting and pays enough for me to support myself.

Some people would have us believe that we can attain anything through hard work and determination. Not quite so. They go far, but not always far enough. Some of us are born untalented, and no amount of training will suffice to help us compete with even the slackingest of those with the natural predisposition. Some have the right connections, and as somewhat of a loner, my outlook is grim.
I know, but still I stress. My goal is to work hard and try, but learn to settle with less than ideal. Ideal is for people who don’t know what reality is. Reality doesn’t have to be as dismal as I make it out to be either, though.


So is the plan. However long the goals may last in their respective instants is only up to how long I can hold the “o” on “go.”

Where is the path?
I can't find my footing

I'm lost and it's dark
And I'm all alone.

I can't hear if I don't listen
I can't see if my eyes are closed
Stumbling through on my own
With nothing behind me and nothing ahead

This self-preservation; keep the self safe
It has become my prison
I can't know what I won't learn
I can't see if I never look

I sit and I wait for the nonexistent knight
I stare out my boarded window and lament

I stay, I wait, I wait

Where is the path?
I'm going nowhere

I'm lost and it's dark
And I'm all alone.

I don't know how far to go
Or if the next step is up or down
I won't know until I leap
And it's time to jump

Will you catch me?

Hope is a word that gives me pause. Because it is so powerful, yet somehow so unattainable. Like faith, it's just something that can be so easily perceived, to me, as 'false thought.' A sort of self-deception, where believing in the impossible is just setting oneself up for an even bigger fall. I may not have been born so pessimistic, but it is how I now see the world. A series of useless attempts to be really real, to be useful, to be worth something, to be somebody at all. Instead of hoping for this, I absorb myself in fiction, the escape, though what I truly want is truth. Reality, though, isn't nearly so pretty as the stories I retreat to. Reality, for me, is pointless. So little good, so little advancement, so little to live for, so little to even bother hoping for.

Hope - the impossible emotion that makes reality livable. Who are these people who can so freely hope and how do they do it? Is it a gift? Inherent; in their DNA? Is it a learned attribute? Something to be attained through trying?

I can't hope, but I can try. Can't I?

I can't hope to have hope unless I consistently try to have hope. However hopeless the situation, however futile the task, it's no need to give up. And I'm not giving up, but I don't really have any 'hope' to make reality easier to join. Contradicting myself, as I always do, I will not hope but try anyway. What else is there to do?

I may not have hope, but I hope to someday.

I’m not the best chef, and anyone who’s had to suffer my cooking would agree. But last night followed in an increasingly continuous string of decent meals prepared by yours truly. Fake-fried baked fish, a simple and easy dish to make. Fish! Of all things, I made decent fish! Though it was admittedly due to the fried-mimickery going on with the batter, it was still fish that turned out completely edible.

Creel’s Amazingly Edible Fried-Like Fish

Tilapia filets
Flour/Salt/Pepper/White Pepper, Mixed
Cornmeal/Creole Seasoning, Mixed
Egg whites, beaten
Cooking spray

1. Preheat oven to 450F.
2. Dip fish into egg, then flour mixture, then egg, then cornmeal mixture and place on the cooking-sprayed-down pan.
3. Bake for 10-15 minutes, turning once if necessary.


This follows a successful Pork and Pineapple Stir-Fry-esc dealio, as well as various other stir-fries, which I’m told doesn’t count as cooking, but for me, it definitely counts. I did learn the flour trick this year – it’s the way to thicken sauce without corn starch. Just mix a tablespoon or so of flour in a little water and pour it in. That way, it makes sauce rather than just stir-fry juice.

Pineapple Pork Chops

3 cloves garlic, sliced
1 or 2 onions, sliced
Pork
1 (14 oz) can chicken broth
1 Tbsp vinegar
2 Tbsp brown sugar
6 Tbsp soy sauce
½ cup pineapple juice

1. Sautee garlic and onions in olive oil. Add pork and brown.
2. Mix soy sauce, pineapple juice, vinegar, brown sugar and chicken broth. Add to pork and simmer for 20 minutes. To thicken the sauce, do the flour trick. Serve over rice.

“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows; it empties today of its peace and strength.” ~ Corrie Ten Boom

One cannot know what tomorrow will bring, so why is it we try so very hard to see it?

Good education, applying well in advance, yet continuously shot down for my inexperience. My impatience, trying to secure a future prospective career before I even finish with what I have now, is useless. Futile attempts to control my own life only tears me down more. It is not in my hands that the world molds to me.

Is it not in human nature to be selfish? But now ask: is it the human part that has us so, or is it just the nature? Do we not have souls? Do we not have cognition? Are we not greater than the simple animal nature of eat/sleep/reproduce? Can we not love? Can we not feel greater emotion than ‘happy/sad/hungry/mad’? We can feel compassion, modesty, hurt, sympathy, mourning, joy, peace. And, we can worry.

Selfishness is the core of our being; we must have some measure of it to survive. But selfishness, like worry, can be cognitively displaced. To force out ‘mine, mine’ and, in its place, share. To force out ‘what will I do’ and replace it with just ‘doing.’

How is it such a simple idea can be so very hard in practice? What we have now, we should have now, without worry about whether we will have it tomorrow as well. This is not to say, go now and spend every penny you have on what makes you ‘happy.’ It is only to say, don’t deny yourself of present peace when you have today by worrying about whether or not you will have tomorrow. What we are now, we should be now. We cannot know, and we cannot control. So, just let go, give up the reigns as you try to direct the future, and just plain… be.

This journal has seen many years and many sabbaticals. I start anew only to fizzle out again when it seems I have nothing to say more than 'woe is me.' But that's just it. I spend too much time talking, which, to those who know me, might tend to disagree with considering my short- and soft-spoken ways of shyness. Though, I must confess that I am not nearly so shy as once I was.

The past cannot be changed; the future cannot be seen. But I must remind myself daily not to dwell or become overcome with worry. My selfishness is high and my optimism nil, but it is now that I stop fussing and just start listening. Can habits of the soul be broken?

So here I sit, contemplating the indecipherable and attempting to know what cannot be known. This journal may take a different road from that before. Perhaps with more reflection: of life, of love, of faith. Maybe I'll explore experiments in cooking. Information and a funny story to mix. Blend well, and there you have it. Retitled and rethought, renewed and rewritten, reworked and retried.