Change – Page 3 – Chloe J Sayers

Cereal and Salads

Cereal. Salad. Salad. Cereal. Salad. Cereal. Cereal.

With an occasional injection of coffee, that nicely sums up my diet from the past few days. I’m not complaining though, I am honestly just very happy to know where food is located and when I can get it and where I’ll be sleeping tonight.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve slept in 7 different places. I have mastered the art of living out of a trunk of a car. Looking back, it really was an adventure. During my most dramatic moments, I felt homeless and rejected. It felt like an over-privileged extension of the poverty simulation.

Confused yet? I’ll clarify my references. This summer, I am interning with HOPE International, a Christian non-profit providing financial services to the poor across the world in a Gospel-centered way. When I first arrived in south central PA, I attended the HOPE International 2014 Leadership Summit. It was a great time of getting to know the staff, the other interns, learning about HOPE and God and life, and getting thrown into a simulation where I was feverishly making paper bags and giving out hugs in order to provide for my family (a group of 5 HOPE staff partners and staff). It was an intensely emotional 30 minutes and gave me a very small dose of what it feels like to be trapped in poverty.

Needless to say, my home hopping of the last two weeks comes no where close to the kind of entrapment and powerlessness that millions of people experience worldwide every day.

This is a post of gratitude. I am so thankful to be working with such a genuine and effective organization this summer. I am also blessed with the surprise of a very good part-time job that allows me to do things I love and get paid for it. I am living with some incredible young people that are constantly giving me examples of how I want to live and view life and I even have a closet all to myself now.

So long, suitcase living! Hello, breakfast munchies and leafy greens!

Until next time,
Chloe

About Me, Change, God, Life Lessons, Maturity, Writing

I Didn’t Know

I have officially written as many drafts here as I have actual blog posts. The fact that this blog has has over 10,000 views also seems remarkable. Yet what really caught me off guard when looking back through this blog’s history, was that I started scribbling thoughts here 5 years ago.

I don’t feel like I am old enough to have been doing something for 5 years. I’m sure some hobbies can claim that longevity, but in my mind, I started blogging when I thought I had something worthwhile to say which is when I thought I had achieved some standard level of maturity and adulthood.

5 years ago, I was a freshman in high school. I knew nothing. But I also knew that I knew nothing, which helped a lot. I knew that I was the product of society and my school system and The Town and my family. I didn’t do much about it, yet I knew it.

But there were a lot of things I had no idea about.

I didn’t know that I wasn’t going to be an engineer. I didn’t know that I was much weaker in some ways than I thought. I didn’t know how many people that I would see die. I didn’t know how much brokenness there was in this world and how little I could do about it.

But I also didn’t know how much of a help I could be if I looked beyond myself. I didn’t know about the sleepless nights and tired days. I didn’t know how writing would simultaneously save me and destroy me. I didn’t know that God was truly my only Savior. I didn’t know that I would go to a Christian college, or even that I would still be a Christian at this point. I didn’t know about the incredible friends and memories I would find here. I couldn’t have anticipated the amount of mental strain I would have to learn to overcome. I didn’t know that I would see lives fall apart and God piece me together.

While I’ve never put much stock in who I am, I have an inexhaustible source of confidence of what can I can do. Even so, alone, I am nothing. With God, I am still nothing but I am with God. Being able to say that is more astounding than 5, 10, or 15 years of life-changing experiences.

Change, Friendship, Happiness, Life Lessons, Pain

Things To Remember

Every once in a while, I make a list of the things in life that I hold strongly to. Some of them are based on experiences and wisdom from those around me. Like many things in my life, a lot of them are rather arbitrary but I still cling to them quite tightly just to spite their lack of quantification.

I am not ultimately in control of my life or who I am.

Happiness is not our main goal here.

Life is not falling apart; it was never all together to begin with.

Life is an adventure.

It’s going to be okay.

Expectations will kill you.

So kill them first.

The times that I am the worst are the times that I am spending the most time thinking about myself.

We are never alone.

There is no point in needless sadness.

But it’s okay to be sad sometimes.

There are always decisions to be made, we just don’t take the time to realize we are making them.

There is much to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Change, Life Lessons, People

#1 Fan

I think people become fans of sports teams because we need something to identify with other than ourselves. We want our moods and happiness and excitement to be based off of something beyond our own circumstances. We can’t make life what we want it to be so we blame our TV shows, sports teams, and friends.

It’s far easier to put the responsibility on something we have no control over than ourselves. We can’t change things around us, but we can change ourselves and that takes courage.

About Me, Adventure, Change, Life Lessons

The Uncertainty of Adventures

There is so much I’d like to say to myself. Things that I’ve known forever, thought about forever, and written down a thousand times. Repetition is my friend.

I have a tendancy to look at life like this:

Life is a constant exchange, a continous change of location and people but with one common theme of stress. There will always be a crisis to fixed and struggles to overcome. I will always be failing in some or every area of life and I will always be trying to pick myself up and come up with a new strategy on how to fail a little less next time. This semester has been wonderful in many ways but rather stressful in almost every way. The train of thought I was on would take me to the next stop of summer and see it as just a switch into more stressful circumstances. Just different relationships to balance and new situations where I’d be over my head and incapable of doing what was expected of me. All of a sudden, its next semester where I’m no longer a freshmen and I’m responsible for other people and need to grow up in 15 weeks and learn how to micro-manage my time and I wake up one morning to realize that I’m stuck in the adult world forever.

Today, I choose to look at life like this:

Life is a constant exchange, a continous change of footing and placement but I’m not being asked to jump to the top of the mountain. I’m asked to get through this weekend of finals. I’m asked to take a few more steps in becoming a better friend and student. This summer will make me a little less woefully unprepared for the next semester and each day, week, and month will prepare me a little more for the next one. All of a sudden, each little new stress is really a new opporutnity to grow and be a little more ready for the next challenge.

I could say that life is always full of stress and I just need to learn how to best deal with that reality and that would be true (and Fitwell would agree with me).

But I’d rather say that life is always full of opporutnities and adventures and new things and the small things I am doing now will mean that I will be able to better fully experience those opportunities in the future.
I could find something wrong with life if I wanted to, but I’d rather say that there is nothing wrong with being irrationally happy.

Change, God, Life Lessons, Time

Grove City Standard Time

I have exactly four minutes to write this. Welcome to Grove City Standard Time. Activities that imagesCARR51YA used to take you an hour have about 10 minutes of scheduled time to get done. You will manage your time or you will lose it, along with your sanity. Yet even though the time has compressed and the clock’s hands seem to be racing to see who can get there fastest, there is no other time zone I’d rather be in. It’s amazing what you can get done in a minute when a minute is all the time you have.

Life at this speed is insane, impossible, exhausting, but also beautiful and precious. We have such a short and undetermined time to be here. This isn’t a race to run you raggard but one to run with dilligence while resting in God’s peace and ultimate sovereignty. For as much as I’d like to think I can do, I am completely useless without Him.

My time is up for now, but I’ll be back.
Chloe

Change, God, Organization

Last Check

Once Upon A Time I came home from college for Christmas break. And by “A Time” I mean 4 weeks ago. The sudden halt of activity and interactions jarred my sense of stability but there was Christmas to be celebrated, God to be worshipped, presents to be exchanged, and food (and food and food) to be eaten. Just before the “Christmas Thud” overtook me, I was rescued by my to-do list.

A mere sticky note could not contain this masterpiece.
I listed people to visit with and projects to master, new skills to learn, habits to begin, books to read.
While I thoroughly enjoyed seeing my friends and repainting my bathroom and running every day, I was still resting. For me, true rest is not in social interaction or sleeping or laying on the couch reading. I enjoy all of those things but true rest is in God.

I began feeling frustrated that my intellectual and spiritual growth were slowing down just because I was slowing down. However, with some good conversation with friends and God I realized this didn’t have to be the case. I’ve learned different things here at home, but I am still learning and still in awe of all that I don’t know and get to discover.

Now, this computer is the only thing I haven’t packed yet. My to-do list is completed and instead of feeling relieved, it makes me a bit sad. Sad because I don’t have things to accomplish and sad also because having things to accomplish has become so important to my sense of stability. Still a work in progress with that one.

I feel empty and I don’t know if it is just the angst of transition or sadness about leaving such a lovely home or trepidation for what the future holds and confused because all of these feelings are rather foreign to me. I have so much to learn.

About Me, Change, Life Lessons

Relating Relationships and Realities to a River

You’re going to need more than a grain of salt to season this one properly. Try a handful. Or a whole shaker-full for that matter.

Some people dream of living on a lake or ocean. I’d rather not. I enjoy the waves and water despite having failed at least 5 different sessions of swimming lessons. I’m more of a stream kind of person. I think that’s why I picked Grove City. It had a river and a clock tower. Those were my two main requirements.

So, I was watching the river the other day. I started wondering if my presence mattered at all. I could see that if I jumped into the river and started splashing around, it would change the river. Suddenly, it would become a river with a person in it. However, if I just sat there watching the currents, I could change it in a different way.

It no longer was just a river. It was a river being observed by a person. Somehow, it was changed by no merit of its own. Just by observing something, I could change how it was defined. At the time, this discovery of definition by proxy seemed very profound. I wasn’t even intoxicated with wallpaper dissolvant then.

It wasn’t until I got home that I realized maybe this idea could be applied to something other than running water. The idea that I changed based on where I was and who I was with deeply disturbed me. It made me feel false and inconsistent even though nothing (significant) changed about me. So, using my incredibly sharp powers of deduction, I scanned my circumstances to see what changed.

Turns out, almost everything. I was around different people, in a different room, a different state ( of America and of mind), a different routine, and trying to fulfill different expectations. Let’s just focus on the first one though. Just as I turned a simple river into a bubbling brook being studied by a girl sitting on its banks, the people around me define me on some level just by being there and interacting with me.

I will never simply be Chloe. Instead, I am a daughter, a student, a church member, a child of God, a granddaughter, a cousin, and a friend. Even if we are only focusing on the friend aspect of me, that looks so incredibly different for each person. Chloe as the friend of Sally might be very distinct from Chloe as the friend of Diane*. It doesn’t mean that I changed. The river never changed because I observed it. It just means that if I am defined in some way by my relationships with others, it only makes sense that this is a relative reality based on location.

This comforted me in part, but what truly helped dissolve my fear that I hadn’t a shred of consistent character was that one relationship never changed: the one with my Creator and Savior. Considering this is the only one that really matters in the long run, I could rest at ease and return to over-analayzing landscapes and scraping wallpaper.

The End.

*I don’t actually know any Diane’s or Sally’s. Except for the one from the Peanuts but that doesn’t count because she isn’t real.

Change, Life Lessons

What Happens Next

As the year comes to a close, radio stations and TV talk shows only have one thing on their minds: reflection, resolutions, and rehashing. The top 10 songs, the top 3 box office hits, and the best of the political dramas and comedies that seem to be the mainstay of the news nowadays.

I, however, am tired of reflecting. Even so, I was browsing back through old blog drafts that never fully came to be. I came across one that was titled “Fare Thee Well” and I was very curious as to what my internal musings on goodbyes were considering how many I’ve made in the last year. Turns out, the post was blank. Which is just as well. Saying goodbye and hello means there are ends and beginnings.
That wasn’t the case for me. Life was more of an ongoing transition from mountain-biking to nannying to scholarships to summer to college. Not that these events are of equal significance but just that I can’t say goodbye because even if they aren’t in the present, my past accounts for a good portion of me.

The hellos are rather hard to pinpoint as well. Obviously, I said a lot of them as I started college and got acquainted with the 600 freshmen + upperclassmen. Yet I can never remember the exact moment when we went from a familiar face to a friendly one to a best friend one. Some people make me feel like we have been friends forever while others continue to surprise me with hidden pieces of themselves.

I really don’t have much else to say. If you want to know what my year was like, look back through some old posts. You might not get the details of what went on, but you’ll see the reflection of them in the ideas, thoughts, and emotions. Life was beautiful and disastrous. I had a stereotypically cliche senior year while internally fighting against man-made concepts of success. Needlesstosay, 2011 was interesting. Probably the best thing that happened though, is that I realized this year wasn’t all that special. Every year will have its excitements, dissapointments, and lessons learned. Which is one of the reasons life is worth living. You just never know what is going to happen next.

And I got my heart
Set on
What happens next
I got my eyes wide
It’s not over yet

“This is Home” by Switchfoot

Change, Life Lessons

The Only Thing Constant in Life is Change

I wandered the slowly-vacated halls for the last hour until I realized it wasn’t healthy. I feel so incredibly conflicted.

I am excited to be going home and seeing family and friends.
I am so sad to not be able to see these dear people here for over a month.

I hate watching people leave.
Yet I want to be one of them.

One benefit of being a hall vagabond is that you pick up wisdom, along with free clothes and food, as you wander along. One girl described this feeling as being so scary because not only are you leaving, you aren’t sure what you are coming back to.

There will be a new roommate and new classes and a new schedule and new friends.
But I liked the old ones ever so much.

Change excites me, and it terrifies me.

Someone else described my inner turmoil to be a result of post-communal living disorder. That’s a big part of it. Going from constant communication and interaction to a more minimal level of people is unsettling.

Unsettling. That’s what this is.

Yet there is always that lining in knowing that I have wonderful people to return to. It wouldn’t hurt this much to say goodbye if I didn’t come to know and love these people so deeply.
It’s worth it.