Kintsukuroi // beautiful ending {the final chapter of 2015}

"Oh, why do I let myself let go

of Hands that painted the stars

and hold tears that fall?

And the pride of my heart makes me forget

It's not me but You, that makes the heart beat

I'm lost without You, Your dying for me

So tell me, what is our ending?

Will it be beautiful, so beautiful?"

-Beautiful Ending by BarlowGirl

// 2015 was a whirlwind. 

It was a tsunami that has left me stunned, numbed and speechless. I still can't believe it's nearly gone, and I still can't believe all that happened within these 365 days. 

Not gonna lie, I've had pleasanter years. 2015 was exhilarating and bombastic. It was full of beautiful moments and wonderful memories. 

But I also made mistakes, had my heart broken a few times and cried myself to sleep more times than I can count. Along with the good memories, there are plenty of times I wish I could forget. Things I wish I hadn't said, bad choices I made. I wandered away from God many times. 

I feel like I was a prodigal child this year in my relationship with the Lord. Still, as I draw back closer to Him, His grace and peace only becomes sweeter. 

Even amidst those painful experiences and messes I got myself into, there is still a silver lining. I learned valuable lessons which I will never forget, and you can mark my word, I won't be making the same mistakes again. I am a stronger person for having gone through 2015. Parts of me may have been broken, but I know these scars do not define me. When you look at me, don't think that I presume to know everything or imagine myself to be immaculate. Don't look surprised when you find out I've taken some hits and botched things up. 

I was just a shattered vessel that the Lord pieced back together with love and patience. I'm no longer broken because He has won the victory for me and He has pulled me out of the ashes. I'm not the same girl you knew last year. I'm a work in progress. God is writing my story, and I'm just trying to go where He leads. 

So, from this perspective, 2015 was like a piece of kintsukuroi - broken Japanese pottery that is pieced back together with gold. In the end, the pottery is even more beautiful for having been broken.

Some of the highlights from 2015 included but were not limited to -

♪ many amazing reenactments and improving my reenacting impressions vastly

♪ taking up snare drumming for reenacting, creating my female soldier impression

♪ my very first individual piano concert

♪ lots of piano teaching

♪ lots of instruction with my own piano teacher 

♪ lots of adventures traveling and exploring new places with people I care about

♪ lots of trips to get coffee with mom 

♪ starting a beautiful courtship with my best male friend

♪ revising The Rebels of Florida, to be completely historically accurate

♪ started brainstorming other new book ideas

♪ got to go to lots of dances

♪ started up my own local monthly contra dance group 

♪ got my first car

♪ went shooting, canoeing, camping, and hiked everywhere possible

♪ got paid to do my biggest art commission ever 

♪ got to meet two of my distance writing friends, Lauren and Carilyn in person

♪ our family had a cow for a little while

♪ got to hear/see the Piano Guys in person

from when our dear friends visited

reenacting memories

McIntosh contra

Gainesville contra, for the first time together

my ride!

before-Maygan's-wedding girls' day out

My best friend's wedding happened <3

With one of my piano students at the first recital I coordinated 

playing with the Morses at Ocali Country Days

possibly my favorite picture of the year

canoe trips with him are the best

My favorite commission yet 

 Southern Lights playing at the Micanopy festival 

Southern Lights playing at the McIntosh fall festival

from the visit with my dear friend Carilyn 

teaching my brothers their anatomy got kinda crazy

he's into daredevil, i'm into river tam and shiny 

korean writings - i think this will be my motto this year 

Anyways, there you go!

It was a memorable year. Here's to twenty-sixteen being remarkably better, and much more full of Christ. ♪ ♥

//when dreams turn into reality

Life is pretty crazy amazing right now. 

I mean, I am not sure what exactly happened this year but THINGS OCCURRED and here I am, writing to you guys with some incredible experiences to recount. 

Geez, that was super vague. I can't write any more. -_-

Well, I kinda officially earned my rank as a concert pianist. 

(*insert endless exclamation marks here*)

(*and here*)

(*and here too*)

Okay screw that. Who am I to try and hide my excitement over that statement, when it was pretty much one of the most monumental experiences of my life????

I'M GONNA USE ALL THE BLASTED EXCLAMATION MARKS I WANT TO, THANK YA VERY MUCH. 

I PERFORMED MY FIRST CONCERT EVER!!!!!!!!!! (there!)

Not just a recital. Not just a cameo in another artist's production. 

My own, full concert. (with a cameo from another conservatory included.)

It was intense, it was amazing and it went by so very fast. I loved it so much. 

I was asked to play at Dunnellon Presbyterian about five months ago, through my conservatory teacher Ms. Leslie. In five months, I had to pull together a full program of musical literature. It was a tight squeeze and there were times when I seriously thought it wasn't gonna work out. 

Ms. Leslie and me 

God is so gracious though. I don't know why He allowed me to have this opportunity and not somebody else, honestly. I didn't deserve it. 

All I can express is gratitude. Thankfulness to Him for this chance that took 2015 and turned it into something so unexpected and marvelous. 

Now, admittedly, I don't know if I've ever been so stressed in my life. During the whole practice stage, and the month leading into the concert, I was stresssssssssed beyond stressed. It might sound silly, but heck. I was bursting at the seams with excitement and pressure to succeed with this event. 

I wanted to give it my all, and make good impressions with my audience since it was my premiere event. But most of all, I wanted to glorify my Maker and point back to Him.

Honestly, I was so looking forward to being done with the event so that the pressure would be relieved and I could exhale again. 

It's so strange. All those weeks of practice and missing practice and killing myself for missing practice and wishing I'd gotten more done before the big day rolled in. All those days of dreaming about the concert, all the days of dreading it, and all the days of in-between where I honestly didn't want to think about it at all because my brain was fried. 

Now those days are gone. 

And now the concert is behind me, too. 

What. Happened. To. Time. 

Mommy & me 

The longest wait was actually 30 minutes before the concert started, when I was forced to sit and do absolutely nothing backstage in the choir room. The funny thing is, those moments of build-up seemed to drone on for an eternity, while the actual concert flew by at a remarkable rate. 

Some friends, Daniel and Anna

My program consisted of a myriad of pieces. Some of my own compositions, a little Chopin, a little Joplin and everything inbetween. 

Hopefully I can get some videos up soon, but that's gonna take a while because eesh videos take agesss to edit on my computer. 

But anyway. 

//

One milestone down. 

One step closer to my lifelong aspiration becoming the real deal. 

One dream turned reality. 

I can say now that I'm a true concert pianist because I've done the thing. I can say now that I know what it's like to perform over an hour's worth of music with an audience entirely at my disposal so to speak. 

I've felt the struggles that came with it all, and learned the lessons it offered to teach. 

Thank you so much to my extraordinary teacher Ms. Leslie, because without her, I would never have been able to accomplish this. She was the one who pushed me on. It wasn't pleasant sometimes but she knew what kind of thing I was getting into, and she treated it with according severity. I truly needed that kind of pushing. 

With this event in the past, new windows of opportunity are continually opening. Life is a thrill, even when there are days that it's just the usual grind. 

I can't wait to see what God has in store next. 

 

// theme song for this post: "Do or Die" - 30 Seconds to Mars 

When You Look Back On the Future

When she recounted the moments of her past year, the past three-hundred-and-sixty-five days, she saw answers to questions hidden in plain view. Her eyes saw them now, but they had been invisible back when she was living at that exact moment. She couldn't see it then, but now it was as clear as the cerulean sky above her head. 

What caused her former self to be shrouded from understanding the things she now knew? When does a soul ripen, transforming from a naive acorn into a discerning oak? 

She still didn't know the answer to that one. The wisdom she craved and the spirit of understanding which she desired so immensely were always things of mystery. Far more valuable than any physical object, and rightly so. 

But now it all made sense. 

She was now living in the future - the future her former self didn't yet know. A year ago, she was a different soul. A little less seasoned. A little less knowledged. A little less wise.
A soul who allowed herself to be deceived into thinking she knew what love was.
He hadn't been her first choice, no. But she was willing to give him a chance just in case God had plans for them. She liked him, and for a time she even thought that she was in love.
Alas, no. That wasn't true love.
It wasn't meant to be.
When God revealed this to her, she changed. She realized the truth.
When she learned a secret she hoped she'd never have to know, everything came apart. The afternoon she learned something far more saddening than she ever wanted to imagine, was the afternoon that changed her life forever.
But it was the hardest month of her life.
She dissolved into an ocean of solitude and misery, a swath of confusion and protest. She tried not to let anger and bitterness take root in her soul. Only God could count the number of tears she wept in confusion and pain.
But when her world was turned upside down, she felt the embrace of Christ himself.
In that time of perceived tribulation, she lost a bit of herself and gained something even more grand.
She gained experience. A jewel of wisdom. She experienced a tiny taste of the fires of God's refining.
And she learned to cherish those flames.

-

It's a beautiful thing to look back on the past, and see how the Lord's mercies work together like pieces in a giant, universal puzzle. To think that, I, just a small fragment of that grand puzzle could even be allowed a place in the picture at all is gloriously humbling!
When I look back on what was, at one time, the future to my past self, I see things that weren't possible to understand then. It's as if I were driving down a pitch-black highway at night, with only my dim-lights on so that I can merely see about forty feet ahead in the darkness.

Of course, on one hand, isn't that what faith is? Walking by TRUST, HOPE, and BELIEF, not by sight. You have NO idea what's yet to come but you know it will all make sense at some point!

Even thinking about what I considered tribulation, earlier this year, is interesting. The truth is? I have no clue what a real trial or tribulation is like. I may have experienced pain, and my soul may feel awful raw and cut-on. But that doesn't mean I've truly suffered. By Jove, gracious, no! Have I been persecuted for my following Jesus? Have I been tortured or my family arrested because of our faiths? No! Am I still alive, thriving and breathing? Yes!

I'm going to be totally honest with y'all. This isn't pretty, but it has to be said.
There were months when I wanted to die.
You might find that hard to believe, coming from a girl with high self-esteem and an incredible amount of drive in life.
*sigh* But it's true. As many days as I've had where my emotions soared and I felt I was truly amazingggg (see, I definitely have tendency to struggle with pride!), I've had just as many where I cursed myself as being a horrible excuse of human, never good enough and always failing and disappointing the ones I loved dearest. It crushed me more than any physical burden could.
When the voices screaming in my head wouldn't be silent and I wanted to end it so I wouldn't hear them, or have to be stuck with my shell of a monstrosity. I hated myself so, in the times when I hit extreme emotional lows that sunk to levels of depression.
I was a mess, I was worried for other people's safety when I was out in public. I never knew when my next meltdown would be. I had a few panic attacks out of nowhere. I couldn't focus, and I was crying every day for no reason other than nothing made sense and I was so sick of myself.
I heard voices saying I was an alien, a monster, and that nobody could understand my condition of being. I was an anomaly. A girl whose emotions were off the charts. Bipolar. Out of control.
The voices wouldn't shut up. I couldn't find peace in my cranium no matter how I attempted to seek it. I prayed in desperation for rest from the chaos enveloping my mind. It just wouldn't come.

I want to say that some of those days were like hell on earth for me. Obviously that is a major exaggeration, but if you've ever experienced any form of depression or manic-depressive symptoms you'll understand. It's truly grotesque, what your mind does when subjected to this kind of crippling emotional...whatever you call it. Actually I reckon the scientific answer is that it's merely an chemical imbalance in the brain. Still, it is crippling.

I don't really know what happened, but for the past several months I have experienced something that has been much prayed for, and almost too good to be true, considering the mental madness of earlier in the year.
Mental clarity, and internal peace. 
NO VOICES. No screaming voices. No slanderous whispers in my ears. No endless tears and meltdowns every single day of the week.
Tears are welling up in my eyes as I say this. (what can I say, I'm still very emotional and this subject is not one I bring up much.)
I've never felt so incredibly FREE. I'm like a wild horse running free on the prairie, with nothing between me and the horizon. The bars of my mental prison vanished. I'm a bird released from its cage.
There are no chains on me, not any more.
I am free.
The only answer I have for this is one word. One name.
Jesus. 
People say you can't recover from mental illness. People say that you can't wipe that kind of thing from your DNA.
My answer is, thank God that the Supernatural Almighty doesn't listen to the scorn and disbelief of mortal humanity!
I don't know if I still have the potential for those bipolar-syndromes to return - maybe it will always be there. But maybe not. Maybe it won't.
 I will say this. My God is powerful, and so far, He's not failed me yet.
He answers prayers, in ways I don't expect or envision.
So if He takes this completely, I won't be surprised.
I will just be immensely grateful.

Anyway, so getting back to what I was saying earlier, I have experienced pain and there were times I thought I wouldn't be able to handle it any longer.
But all in all? Have I suffered? Have I truly suffered tribulation?
No.
No amount of bipolar-symptom trauma or emotional tornadoes could change that.
And even if I lost everything I have, I would still not know true suffering.
No, real suffering isn't anything I'll ever know.
Jesus suffered when He took my punishment on the cross. When He laid down His life to be brutally murdered in one of the most painful deaths a human could experience.
That was true suffering.
So yeah...can I complain about anything I've gone through?
Never.

When I look back on the past, I know that it was a beautiful one. Why? Because even scars and broken pieces are beautiful, when they are redeemed and refined by Christ. 

Just Around The Riverbend

 Oy, it's sad when you forget you even have a blog. I mean on one hand I feel bad for not keeping up with this thing, but on the other hand, I don't, because seriously, I just haven't had time to keep posting on any of my blogs. I mean, I /could/ make time, but I would rather spend it on other things you know? 

Gah, life is such a roller coaster. That's old news though, isn't it? 

These past several months have been utterly mind blowing. Some days I feel like a leaf on the wind, being blown all over the place and having no idea whether my next moment will be spent plummeting towards the ground or soaring back up into the sky. 

Confession: I've allowed myself to get lukewarm in my relationship with Christ. It's scary how quick it can happen, and how subtlety satan can get his foot in the door. So many temptations that weren't overcome, and battles that weren't won. The victories seem so small sometimes, in comparison.

So many reasons to thank God He's even given me a second chance. And a third, and a fourth, and a hundredth. And a thousandth. Sometimes I wonder how He can possibly forgive me that many times. It's truly beyond my comprehension.

"Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free..."

My days have been spent both in productivity and slackness, I have to admit. I've spent too much time on social media, but I've also done more piano teaching than I ever have before. 

I organized a contra dance for families in my area, which was a new thing. And I also put on a recital for my piano students - another first. Both had tremendous results, I would say! Super exciting. I love starting new things!

I submitted The Rebels of Florida to a bunch of different publishers and agents.

I experienced my first break-up.

I've been searching for my first vehicle. 

 I got to have a dear friend, Cari, from Washington, stay and visit for several days. (we may or may not have done lots of hiking, and gotten ourselves lost on an equestrian trail...)

I've gone no-poo. (no synthetic shampoo or conditioner, only natural alternatives)

I went on a literal roller coaster for the first time. 

I've started looking for a new church to go to. 

"Why do all my dreams extend, just around the riverbend?" 

Some of my dreams are ones I am living, and I am pretty darn happy with that fact. 

But there will always be dreams and ambitions that are 'around the riverbend', yet to happen, Lord willing. I feel like if a soul gives up all hopes and dreams of their own, they lose the essence of what it means to be truly alive. God didn't make us to be creatures of ritual, always stuck on a single track of eat, sleep, work, repeat. At least, I don't think He created us like that. 

Because whenever is stagnation healthy, or desirable?  

Never.

That's why life throws us curve balls, as some people say. We need change to thrive. We atrophy without it. The waters of our soul become lukewarm and putrid, without the heat of tribulations and tests to set us on fire for God. The flames can either be the straw that breaks the camel's back, or it can be the best thing that ever happened to us. 

I don't know about you, but I think I'd do just about anything for the latter. 

Seriously, every time something big happened in my life, that I wasn't expecting, spiritual revival was right down the road. And once you've tasted true revival, you can't get enough. 

Urgh, I'm random. But at least you now know that I've not vanished into thin air, or been sucked away into outer space. *cough* 

 Tomorrow I begin a pretty time-intensive summer piano course at the conservatory, which will be very exciting. I'm so thankful to both sets of grandparents for sponsoring me! 

Well, time to depart for now. It's late as usual. What's been new with y'all peeps? 

Ciao,