Nostalgia, my choosen disease.

Okay, first point of conversation; I have failed on the commitment to keep a new post each week. It's been what, a few months? Yea, I failed badly. So here's a tidbit about myself, I'm bad at keeping time commitments (and I suspect the amount of blogs I post once I start school in the fall with go down majorly because of all the papers I'll likely be writing). So let's just say that I'll post when I get the time and the inspiration.

Now, onto the meat of the post. The past couple days I've found myself longing for things and for people and for times from months and years past. Nostalgia. It's my chosen disease, which only afflicts me occasionally. But I had a very bad case of it this past week. And I happen to know that I am not the only human being to suffer from this.

For me, I can sometimes find myself (as was the case this week) looking back on a time when I felt happier and more secure than I do now and automatically I long for it; to be able to go back to it. This past week I was trying to downsize on my "stuff" (as my disease has a side-effect of pack rat tendencies) and unpack/repack/organize some of my stuff still in boxes from my move two months ago, and I came across some old journals and scrapbooks and before I knew it I was caught up in them. I found myself reading a journal entry and thinking "I remember when that happened, I wish I could go back to that day" or looking at a picture and saying to myself "I remember taking that photo, it would be nice to relive that". And the onset of nostalgia began...

Then my brain jumps to related dates and people and things of the such and I just wish I could have it all here, right now. I think of the few people that have heavily influenced my life in a positive way and are no longer "in my life" (because Facebook and Skype don't really count), and I wish I could gather them all here and have them as my neighbors, roommates, and people that I share my life with regularly again. I think of times when I had a set routine that worked for me, that made my happy, and that I flourished under; and I wish I could somehow have that same kind of routine in my life again. I think of different places I've lived (5 provinces, somewhere around 20 "homes"), and wish I could somehow take the best part of each and jam it all together to make this one awesome place.

So all in all, I've looked at each part of my life over the past few years and wanted to bring it all together here and now, where I'm at. But it doesn't work that way. I can't take three completely different worlds and smash them all together. Nothing will come out of that, it just won't work.

So in light of that, I think of what to do with this disease I have (again, referring to nostalgia). Do I deny myself the memories of the past? No, that would be silly; memories are good as long as we don't constantly bring them to the forefront of our minds. Memories are fun to look back at; that's why we journal, and take pictures, and record history. Because a lot of good can come out of the past, like learning from our mistakes and our victories. So then, do I hoard my memories and live in the past? No, again that would be silly. As an example, look at Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite (one of my favorite movies!). He's so caught up in his past, his "glory days", and what could have come out of them, that he's practically incapable of living his life that's right in front of him. I can't do that, I need to have my mind present with me, I need to be able to live the life that God is continually placing in front of me.

So what do I do? Someone once put it this way: Life is like driving a car, the past is in your rearview mirror and the future is the road ahead of you. You can't drive with your eyes glued to your mirror, otherwise you'll crash. You won't be able to effectively drive if you're constantly looking at where you've come from. On the flip side, you need to check where you've been to make sure you're on the right path and to see if anything from behind to coming up. You need to drive concentrating on the road right ahead of you and planning for what is farther ahead, keeping in mind where you've just been. It's all about balance.

Philippians 3:13 gives a good picture of this. I really like the way that The Message translation puts it: "Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward --- to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back." You see, God is beckoning us, calling out to us to move forward. To move with Him into the future and into what He's doing in the here and now, not to what He was doing yesterday.

So, in review, being nostalgic has it's time and place but it can't been constant. We're to "keep moving forward" (a reference to another favorite movie, Meet The Robinsons) and walk into our future, the future God has for us.

That's it for now. 'Til next time,
-B


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My Epic First Post...

So I've been putting off writing my first blog post because I wanted it to be something really epic and awesome, ya know?  But then I realized that my life isn't exciting enough to post anything like that, so my first post is going to be about 4-5 sentences long.

"Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia"... anyone know what this is the fear of? Ironically (epically so...) it's the fear of long words!

That's it. My Epic First Post.

-B

(PS: I'm committing [tentatively] to updating at least once a week... we'll see how long that commitment lasts for. Ha.)
Here is what I wrote originally as the description for my blog... it was so good that I didn't want to delete it. So instead I just edited it into my first entry:
So I've finally bit the bullet and caved in.  I, Becca Whynacht, have a blog.  I've come to notice that, overall,  the western world has this mindset that what we have to say is important and it needs to be heard, NOW.  And, though I'm not quite of that thinking, I do believe that I have a few valid things that I would like to share with whomever would like to listen to me.
Before you start reading my blogs, it may be helpful to know a few things about me as a pretext to why I think what I do:
1) I am a Christ-follower (I will tend to use that word, as the word "Christian" has a very bad connotation attached to it).  I believe in the One True God and try to live my life accordingly, though I don't always succeed in doing so. 
2) I have had my ups and downs in life.  I may only be in my early twenties, but my life experience is beyond that (as I've come to accept and have been told by many others, including my psychologist and counselors).  So although by the world's standards I'm still just a "youngster" with little life experience and a lot to learn (which I agree with, I like learning), I know a fair bit more than the average person my age.
3) People who complain drive me up a wall and therefore I will try not to use this as a place for me to rant or complain about the world at large.  I want this to be a place for me to creatively express my ideas about the world around me.
4) I am an aspiring writer, and therefore may post snippets of my hopeful books on here... (fyi: You copy my work and I will hunt you down and tear your spleen out with a spoon; k?)

Well, I believe that's all... You'll learn more as you read the random thoughts that I record on here.

Happy Reading!
-B...

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