Hello? Hello? Is anybody out there?

As a wee child, I had the reputation in my family as being something of a chatterbox. Apparently, I just talked, and talked, and talked. Hard to imagine for you all, I'm sure. But all this chatter wears on a mother's ears and most days my mother would smile and nod and have no earthly idea what was coming out of my mouth. Every so often though, I would get that sense that all my babbling was being ignored, and I would ask my mother: "Are you listening to me?"

Being the wonderful mother that she is and not wishing to lie to her daughter, she always replied with: "No, I'm not." I would then continue to talk as if the exchange had never occured.



I just wanted to talk. I was curious if mother was listening to me, but I did not really care if she was or was not.



So often I catch myself asking people questions and not listening to the answers, or finishing a conversation and realizing just how much I talked.



So often it seems that we care more about the quantity of our words than their quality, or we're just throwing out empty words to avoid silence.

And, even more often, we care more about what can we say instead of what someone else could share. You know those people - the ones that have their next sentence/story/response ready while you're still trying to speak.



This summer in my Bible readings I noticed so many writers calling out to God: "Are you listening? Do you hear me?"

We want to be heard, to know that our pains, struggles, joys, and triumphs are being acknowledged.

It seems to me that we talk about talking quite a bit. But, how often to we talk about listening?



My question is this -

in all the jumble, are we listening?

Or do we hear words and never take them in?

Are we listening for God or are we just yelling at him to listen to us?

Are we straining our ears to really listen to people?

my young self didn't care about being listened to - I was all about the sheer quantity of things to say, but in all my talking, I was never listening. I was not even hearing anything around me. Maybe it's time instead of barking at God to listen to us, we take a moment to try and even hear Him.

Fresh Start

As a wee child, my elementary school posted the list of students in each class a couple of weeks before the beginning of the year. I think - I'm not completely positive because all I remember is begging my mother to take me to look for the lists on a daily basis starting sometime probably in July. I loved the first day of school. Something about packing fresh boxes of crayons, tidy bags of supplies, and stacks of blank, untouched paper just got me excited. I could not wait to pack up my bag and head to that first day of class and meet my teacher and see my friends.

Now, a decade later, I'm not quite as excited. Do not get me wrong, I still love school. My inner nerd still comes out sometimes eagerly finishing my homework. I still want to learn and discover, but I no longer enjoy that first day of classes.

I hate having to get new supplies, meet new teachers, meet new peers, and readjust. (Maybe I'm just becoming old and stuck in my ways already. Probably not the best scenario. Anywho.)

Christmas break was a glorious four week holiday. My new and improved schedule usually involved a minimum of 10 hours of sleep and a maximum productivity of about two tasks being accomplished. Tomorrow, since it is already almost 1:30am, I am facing about six hours of sleep and having to complete at least four classes (and the homework some determined teacher will inevitably assign).

To say the least, I am not excited.

On the flip side, I am pumped for a few aspects of tomorrow.
Here's what I am excited about:
Tomorrow is a fresh start. Tomorrow I am not behind in a single class. Tomorrow is a new semester with new opportunity. This semester I have more hours, harder classes, and a job. Oh, and I have a thing called a social life. This spring is looking a little rough. Just a smidge. If we're being honest - which I suppose the blog title implies we are - I am a little nervous. To say the least, I'm a little overbooked for this semester. But, I am so excited to see what happens. I also have big plans for this spring. People have come in and out of my life in a way that I can only describe as a God thing, and for that I am so thankful and so excited to see where that takes me. Tomorrow starts a new semester. It starts my life as Kelsey - college freshman semester two. Kelsey- the RA. Kelsey - the ambitious double major. And, Kelsey - the friend.

I know it's a long night my dedicated readers. You probably have class tomorrow too. I have no clue what the day will hold, or the future, but that's the beauty of life. We never know. So, I am going to go to bed and hopefully awaken with some of my youthful peppy-ness and tomorrow might just be an excellent day. Tomorrow, my friends, is a fresh start.

Hum Along

Hey there folks. See? You knew I'd post again eventually.

Actually, I'll pause here for you to let out your sigh of disappointment: this is going to be a pretty short post. I'm working on other posts, promise, but the exciting world of sleep and relaxation has kept me from doing much of anything lately.

Moving on...we have little to get through, but none of us want to listen to me ramble off excuses as to why there aren't more posts on here. I mean, would it be so hard to have thrown a few words, maybe a picture, a thoughtful song lyric, something up here? No, no I suppose it wouldn't have been, but this my friends, this is how life works. Think of it as a poorly planned cliffhanger - just waiting to see what topic I'll come up with next! See? Aren't we all much more excited now? Now, seriously, on to my (very) brief point...


Tonight, I was surfing around the internet (as every good college student does on a nightly basis), and I came across one of my friends. (Okay, so we don't talk terribly often now, but at one point we were pretty good friends, anyway - not the point) He is trying to make it in the music industry. I listened to some of his music, walked away, and continued to Hum Along to one of his latest songs.

This made me happy. So, tonight, let's celebrate the small successes in life - like finding a song that's a little catchy and different. Enjoy.

Feral Oath's Hum Along