I used to let Shyness be an Excuse.

I was the girl who could easily go a whole school day without saying one word to anyone.

My classmates probably thought I was stuck up. Nope, I was just terrified of...well, everyone.

Fast forward seven years. That shyness is starting to border extinction. I've shed little particles of it in various seasons of my past...Hansel and Gretel style. A little bit got left in my freshman dorm room, probably somewhere near the candy jar that was always filled with Jolly Ranchers and Starbursts. Or maybe next to the fishtank where my roommate and I came back to upside-down, lifeless fish after spring break. (RIP Loretta and Oliver)

I left a little more in the various Minneapolis apartments (5 in all) I lived in after the dorm experience. I'm sure there are lots of shyness shards lying somewhere amongst the numerous calls to set up and cancel Comcast service, (Nothing is worse. NOTHING.) transferring energy bills, learning to cook more than Mac and cheese every night (but mom, what's wrong with that??), and navigating the many different roommate dynamics.

Now lets talk jobs: in my experience they don't take away shyness, but rather they add in the self confidence in the new empty spaces where shyness and timidity used to exist.

Can't forget about boyfriends. Oooh boyfriends. The highs and lows of dating relationships are the best (yet sometimes hardest) ways to learn about yourself.

By the time December 2011 came around, I was ready to move to Denver, by myself, not knowing anyone. And I was actually pretty excited. Take THAT, high school Kirsten.

And a year later I did it again by moving to Washington. Where, yes, I knew people...but barely. And I've loved it.

But guess what? Just because Ive grown out of my shyness, I'm still very much an introvert. Yep, it's possible. And with my current jobs here in WA, I'm talking to and interacting with hundreds of people a DAY.

So what happens when a natural introvert is forced by circumstance to be an extrovert?

Social exhaustion.

I love talking to people. I enjoy teasing all the old men at the hardware store and I even sort of enjoy solving customer service issues with members at the gym.

But here's the difference between introverts and extroverts. Extroverts GET energized by being around people. Introverts eventually get drained by it.

So after work (especially those 12 hour days)...I realized I sometimes have zero energy to talk to the people in my personal life that I deeply care about.

But that's where God meets me. Yes, I'm wired as an introvert, but God is bigger than that. He's stretching me and preparing me for something ahead.

Yes, we should lean into our natural strengths and build on them. But don't use your weaknesses as an excuse to not try something new in front of you. Allow those "out of your comfort zone" situations to mold you into the person He wants you to become!

Believe me, it's kinda fun to look back and see where all of the remnants of doubt and insecurities have fallen. And you'll be amazed at how God steps in and fills those empty spaces with some sweet new boldness for your future encounters.

If you do it right, you'll maybe even be used to change a few lives while you're at it.

Now, go!

Happy Easter!!!

This is one of the first Easters I won't get to spend with my family. AND I have to work. But at least the Pacific Northwest is giving us sunshine and 70 degrees this weekend! Maybe I'll hide some Easter eggs for Quincy.

Here's a few Easter pictures from past years. Love and miss you, mom and dad! Happy Easter!! Christ is Risen!!

Whimsy.

I've lately been obsessed with the word whimsy.

Well, no...not just the word. The idea of it. The expression of it. The art of it.

The life of it.

I wish my life had more whimsy in it.
Whimsy is playful. It's fun. It's sometimes odd and even daring. Daring...and not caring. It's going against the grain, skipping along with a smile on your face and therefore--maybe even unintentionally--inviting others to come with you.

And they will probably want to, deep down. But most people will play it safe and default to their original plans. Whimsy isn't always practical.

Yes, plans are good. Goals are even better. We need them both to drive us forward.

But don't forget, this life is short. Life is also meant to be a little whimsical.

Whimsy is spontaneity. Whimsy is being free. Whimsy is colorful. Whimsy is creative. Whimsy is inviting others to "enjoy" with us.

Whimsy is artsy. But you don't have to be a painter, graphic designer, or fashionista to be artfully whimsy. Art has infinite mediums. Art can be humor. It can be sports. It can be personality. It can be love.

I've been reading Love Does by Bob Goff, and I think he mentions whimsy in every chapter.

"I get the invitation every morning when I wake up to actually live a life of complete engagement, a life of whimsy, a life where love does. It doesn't come in an envelope. It's ushered in by a sunrise, the sound of a bird, or the smell of coffee drifting lazily from the kitchen. It's the invitation to actually live, to fully participate in this life for one more day." --Love Does.

So this is my new challenge to myself: Get out of "autopilot" mode and into a little bit of whimsy.

And I dare YOU to come along :)

P.s. Guess who is coming to visit me soon :)

Joy.

Where do you get your joy? 

No, not the dish soap.  The joy, joy, joy, joy...down in your heart! [::Where?!::]

Completely unrelated, but Gum Wall in Seattle! 

Do you try to get it from your circumstance? You can find happiness in certain circumstances, but once things stop going your way...then what? I'm not going to get into the whole joy vs. happiness thing... but joy isn't as fleeting as happiness.  Joy sustains the ups and downs.

So, where do you get your joy?

From your friends and family? Yes, they are awesome. But people will always let you down -- and if you haven't experienced that yet, you're lying.  We are all broken and although we do our best to care for and support "our favorites", you just might get ditched by a friend once in awhile when someone else offers them Seahawks tickets.

Completely unrelated again, but...Hedgie burrito!

And PLEASE don't hope to get all your joy from a marriage or relationship.  That is way too much pressure on one person to try do that for you.

I follow Graham Cooke on Facebook and one of his quotes has stuck with me all week:

"Be of good cheer! You are the living embodiment of Glad Tidings of Great Joy.  You must find your happiness from Christ within."

Of course, at first all I could think about was Christmas. We always hear about joy at Christmas.  Because Christ IS joy.  And because of that, joy is an everyday experience that if you don't have....you're missing out.  Big time.

I've had to do a serious attitude and joy check recently.  I was relying on getting joy too much through my circumstance.  (More specifically my current job situations). But that just caused me to be disappointed. And complain. And carry around a spirit of negativity.  No one likes that. So I stopped.

And really I don't know why I was like that.  I am blessed to have an income!! I live in an INCREDIBLY beautiful state with an insanely awesome boyfriend and new friends. Also, my friend Emily just came to visit....which I think was the turning point for me.  Because showing her my new city/state made me realize how blessed I am to be living here in the first place.

I like the beginning of Cooke's quote.  "Be of good cheer!" You can have joy even if you're not necessarily happy. But being happy always helps.  And like they say, happiness is a choice! Be friendly to everyone you come in contact with.  Not just nice.  Try being almost overly friendly and engaged with people.  Get your eyes up and away from your phone.  Contribute to real life conversations going on around you.

Also, take time to be by yourself.  Some people are honestly afraid to spend time alone in the quiet.  But just try it.  (Hey, that rhymes...) See what happens. And like I said before, Christ IS joy.  You can't have true joy without Him.  So take out that Bible and read a verse or two or thirty and ask Him to teach you something.

Break out of your normal routine every once in awhile.  Take a drive out in the country or into the city. With a friend or by yourself! See what the Lord shows you.

That's what I've been telling and forcing myself to do lately.  Because for me personally, I know I need to spend more time in the Bible and less time on my phone.  More time in prayer and less time complaining or worrying.

By doing that, the joy is already coming back (and to be honest I don't believe I ever really lost it, I just wasn't living in to it).  And actually this post was inspired by a customer at work just yesterday because after some simple typical hardware store small talk he said to me with a smirk on his face, "You have the Joy, don't you?" and I said, "Why yes, I do!" and he said, "I can tell. Because I have the joy of the Lord, and I'm guessing that's what you have, too!" as he winked and walked out the door.

It's evident. And contagious.

So go on, and be of good cheer!

It's way more fun.  I promise.

Finding my Solid Ground.

It happened while I was looking for iPhone covers, of all things.

Frustration, confusion, and oddly enough even a bit of panic.

What's my "thing"?!

Everyone has their thing. And everyone else knows that about them. Their obsession. Cars, a sports team, photography, dogs, cats, crafts, tattoos, cooking, stamp collecting, figurine painting, lawn gnome collecting, etc.

I was bothered that I couldn't think of anything that I identified with in that context. [Except....collecting gnomes could be fun...] But a gnome iPhone cover just didn't seem to suit me either.

They say that your passion is that thing that you cant go a day without thinking about. That thing that makes you feel like you shouldn't be doing anything else when you're in it.

What's my thing!? The only thing I've strongly identified with lately...is moving alot. But that cant be my thing anymore or else ALL of my mail (instead of just most of it) will be lost forever in the sea of Kirsten Melvie's mail forwarding history.

I don't have hardly anything in my daily life that is familiar in that it has been with me for years. I still only have the very few of my possessions that could fit in my Subaru for the move from Denver. All of my old friends are in different states. My jobs are new and not-so-fulfilling. Everything in my life lately is just still so new and so different.

Except running and writing.

I guess those are my things. No matter where I am, those are familiar to me. They are mine. I can take them anywhere I go.

Running makes me feel the most myself. It clears my head and keeps my emotions in check.

When I remembered that, I realized I've totally been slacking on running, so I signed up for my 3rd half marathon in May. I guess I just needed the motivation--because I've ran 9 miles this week and it's only Tuesday. And I already feel more myself.

And I also know that writing is my way of processing and expressing things. Otherwise it's just a jumbled mess of ideas floating around in my head--not really meaning anything until it's typed out.

Those are my familiars.

And yes, my faith is my familiar too, but even my faith is somehow different, which in this case is good--it is changing and growing. Same God, but new churches, perspectives, and situations.

(Kirsten analogy coming up now...ready for it?!)

Sometimes when you're in those parts of life that are filled with newness and mostly void of the familiar---it feels like you're standing still in the middle of a shaken up snow globe.

You become disoriented. Confused.  Maybe even progressively more and more lost.

People keep telling you it will get better and everything will fall into place and become familiar again. And it probably will. But here's the choice we can make. We can sit back and hope that things settle again on their own, or we can be proactive and DO something to orient ourselves instead of just wallowing in our frustrating confusion.

I'm finally realizing I need to do the latter.

Plan of attack:

Grab onto the solidness of a familiar routine.
Run! My favorite love-hate relationship!

Intentionally and consistently spend time with my familiar God.
The tried and true solid rock in my life.

Give myself time and space to processes it all.
Pray! Talk! Think! Blog! 

I'm hoping this will help me realize that my situation isn't really as chaotic and overwhelming as it sometimes seems.

Because really, that's just life. It gets shaken up. Things get messy. It might get a little blurry at times. But we will figure it all out and it will settle again. And then we wait for the next big shake up.

Because what ultimately makes a snow globe beautiful and interesting?

Shaking it up.

I Found Love in a Hardware Store.

Yes, I found love in a hardware store. 

But, it's probably not what you think.

Yesterday I woke up to a bad dream.  So starting even before my first waking moment, my mind was filled with negative, worrisome thoughts. Specifically about now living in Washington, so far away from my family and friends who have known me longer than just 10 months. 

What if my grandparents get sick and decline fast?

What if my parents do? 

I'm missing out on seeing all my cousins' little kids grow up. 

Once my friends all start having kids, I won't be an active part of their children's lives. (This one honestly brought me the closest to tears)

This will be the first Easter -- and even my first major holiday -- that I won't be with my parents and extended family. 

These, and hundreds of other similar thoughts were flooding my mind yesterday morning, before I even ate breakfast.  

Two eggs, scrambled.  With spinach and tomatoes. And cheese. 

Somewhere between washing my dishes and brushing my teeth, I finally prayed about it.  Not a petition prayer, I didn't necessarily want anything.  But just expressing it to Him. Letting Him in on my hurt.  On my worries.  On my frustration and how much I missed everyone.  He already knew, of course, but there's something He loves about us telling Him ourselves.  

So I drove to work, and the negative thoughts stopped, but I was still feeling that heaviness on my heart.  

Shortly into my shift the manager took me away from being Cashier, and had me doing some inventory stuff in the aisles.  (I work at a hardware store, by the way.) 

And as I was doing that...I started praying again.  This time my 'expressing' was filled with a little bit more 'praising' and thankfulness.   The Lord led me here with all green lights and open doors--and He's Faithful. He's provided a place for me to live, and two part-time jobs for me almost right away once I moved here. He's given me lots of new friends here, through a wonderful boyfriend. And I live in an age of Skype, texting, and Facebook.

And suddenly that heaviness went away and I felt so LOVED.  I had that peace that only comes from Him.  I could think straight about it all again.  Yes, I still miss everyone terribly.  But I didn't just recently make this choice to move, I made that choice over a year ago when I first moved to Denver.  And if I'm honest with myself, even if I hadn't met Josh, I wouldn't move back to Minnesota. 

Don't get me wrong, I love Minnesota. It will always be my home, and I'm even a little jealous when my Facebook is blowing up with "SNOWSTORM!!" statuses and pictures.  (Only jealous for like, a second though.) But I'm here now, and this is where my path has led me.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a forest, following bread crumbs. Constantly looking for those little affirmations that I'm still on the right path.  Once I find one, I get super happy, but then freak out because I can't see the next one yet.

But the more crumbs I find, the more hopeful and trusting I become that yes, there WILL be another crumb soon.  No, I can't see it right now, but I've been through this before.  I know one will come soon.  And there's no point in turning back, because I've already been down that path behind me, and picked up those crumbs.  There's new ones waiting for me.  

I just have to keep going forward.

And yes, sometimes you just have to be patient, and praise Him in between the crumbs.

photo from photography.nationalgeographic.com

Time is Weird.

Time is Weird. 

It just is.  When you're living in a different state from your boyfriend and you have one hour left of work before you hop on a plane to go visit him....that last hour is the slowest, most frustrating hour of them all.  You can't speed it up.  You can't just fast forward.  The only thing you can do is sit back and listen to Call Me Maybe on repeat while you're forced to be patient.

I'm so glad to be done with long distance, by the way. I now have no idea how we did that.

It seemed like it would never end.  But time is crazy like that, it goes so slow while it's moving so fast.

And did I really live in Denver for a year? Because I'm starting to doubt that ever even happened.  When people ask where I'm from, I say Minnesota.  Which, of course, is true.  But I'm starting to forget to add on the, "...but I lived in Denver for the past year" part.  Not because I don't believe it was a significant time in my life, because it absolutely was.  But because....well....hold on, are you SURE I lived in Denver for a year?!

Time is Crazy.

So...total subject change.  Today is Valentines Day.

This is my "most bipolar, mixed emotions, happy and sad, tears and laughter" - filled day of the year.

Eight years ago today, my first Valentine died in a snowmobile accident.  I still remember the last time I saw him.  We were at his basketball game, and as we left he smiled and gave me a salute as I walked out the door.

The day of the accident, I ran home after school and frantically looked through all of my things for anything I still had from him.  We weren't dating anymore and I had thrown away everything I had from him...or so I thought.  But then the tears came when I realized I had completely forgotten about this one gift I still had from him.  A huge red box of chocolates he gave to me a previous Valentines Day.

The irony of that hit me so hard at that moment.

But that day we were all reminded that death for believers isn't Goodbye.  It's See Ya Later.

Because next time I see him will be in Heaven -- where he will be filled with even more life than I saw that day on the basketball court.

Because time is funny like that.

Time is also a blessing.  It helps us heal and move forward.  Valentine's Day gets easier and easier every year.  Of course we all still miss Jak and I'll always think about him on February 14th.

But time is a gift to us to heal from tragedies and allow us to continue to thrive in the newness that each day has for us.

It has allowed me to still be fully present in celebrating this cheesy, Hallmark, overpriced-flowers holiday with Josh--this wonderful, Godly man I get to call my boyfriend!

When I got home from work last night, well after midnight, I walked in my room to see this:

Flowers and all of my favorite snacks! He must want a fat girlfriend...

On this day especially, whether you're single or dating or married or whatever...always remember that the One who created time itself not only loves you more than anyone else in this world does, but He literally IS love.  He's the perfect example of Love that none of us will ever live up to in our earthly relationships.

So go and buy some flowers for quadruple the price, or go out with all of your girlfriends, or just relax and enjoy your Thursday.  No matter what you've been through, who you are or aren't dating, or where you're at in life today, remember that our God adores you.  Absolutely, all-out adores you.

And there's nothing you can do about it :)