Live Metanoia

It’s December 1st.

It’s a Friday and I’m luckily off work today and this weekend. Well I say that loosely, because I am working over time tonight and on Sunday.

The holiday season makes everyone’s hands itchy it seems. Got to buy over priced presents and celebrate I guess?

I actually don’t mind Christmas. Do I think it’s a glorified, monopolized holiday ? Yes. Do I understand that it’s supposed to celebrate the birth of my lord and savior ? Also yes. However do I also think the Church choose December to celebrate Christmas due to the fall of the winter solstice, and Yule, and the other non Christian holidays and wanted to monopolize on that and don’t really know Jesus birth month much less his actual birth date? Big ole Yes. But I digress.

Go to any store in the United States. It’s crappy Christmas music and signs everywhere telling you to buy things. Not very Jesus-y if you think about it. I think about Black Friday, the Friday after Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, the Monday after the Thanksgiving weekend and how these days are supposed to be, and usually are, for large sales online and in stores for items for the holidays.

It seems this year the big sale was for ‘Who can lie to the consumer more’. 5,10,15% off sales are not big sales. Free shipping is not a huge discount unless it’s out of country. Watching the videos circulating on social media of large brand department stores placing “Sale” signs that were not different than the usually posted price was as amusing to watch as it was sad.

I currently feel there’s such a focus on consume, consume, consume and not enough of family, friends, and memories. I’d rather go somewhere and have an experience than a gift. Sign me up for snow covered mountains and a log cabin (preferably with a hot tub and me not leaving the cabin cause snow, pretty- but ew wet and cold). Put me down for an all inclusive resort in Mexico. I’ll Ho Ho Ho in the sand with a drink in my hand.

I’ve just become so disillusioned to the scheme of our country and its inherit greed. I’m tired of the lies and misdirection. I’m also tired of seeing one third of my pay check disappear to facially assaulting Taxes but that’s a different subject all together.

My heart is soft when it comes to the holidays, and I become melancholy. I see everyone around me worried about what to buy and wear and drink and I want to focus on warmth, joy, and fellowship.

Some times I think I’m not where I’m supposed to be. Whether in time, in the world, in the country, whatever. I think this can’t only be it. The life I am experiencing now.

This isn’t a sad, woe is me thing, I have many events I’m looking forward to next year, but currently, I feel stuck. I think it’s because we are closing out this year and it feels like a slow descent into tar. Sinking and sticky, and you can’t pull yourself out.

I think maybe my energy needs to be redirected. I’m trying to focus more on finding the things I enjoy and committing to them. Building discipline again where I have struggled in the past eight months to do so.

I’m going to Bali next summer and I want to be physically, mentally, and finically ready for it. I have a goal to stripe up in Brazilian jujitsu and increase my stamina in the next year. I want to run a half marathon and need the endurance for 13.1 miles. So, there’s goals there, just like anyone else. I just don’t want my goals to pass me by. I don’t want another year of setting goals and not completing them.

I balance between ‘ We are all trying our best’ and ‘You can do more!’ And I think a lot of people do. I guess I should try to take things one month at a time. Maybe I should write goals down for this month and focus on them.

1. Run a mile a day. It’s not that time consuming. Just effing do it. One mile a day is achievable and I need the cardio. Childhood Asthma and years of bronchitis when I was a child really left my lungs lacking.

2. Figure out a work out schedule. Between BJJ, kick boxing, and regular gym I have no idea what days to do what and time. I also want to throw in a Pilates class when I can since I enjoyed it so much. However 12 hour shift work sucks up a lot of time. Especially when the classes are on specific days and at specific times. I feel like I’m juggling chainsaws, and I’ve never juggled in my life.

3. Less random spending. Snacking at work and poor meal planning really kills my wallet. Not to mention everything is so expensive nowadays that I’m literally eating myself into a hole.

4. More talks with God. I’m a thinker. A deep thinker, and I feel deeply as well. If the empath thing is real, which to me it’s hokey and debatable, I’d say I am a grad A+ Empath. I usually can tell when someone is worried, upset, angry, etc with scary accuracy. It’s also exhausting and frustrating. When I vent to the ‘big man in the sky’ and definitely ‘cast my worries unto the lord’ (1 Peter 5:7, Psalm 55:22) I usually feel better. I haven’t done this in a long while, but recently started again and feel more focused and centered.

So far I have a positive outlook for this month and the start of a new year. I am ever grateful for my friends and family currently in my life and that I have a job that pays my bills and a roof over my head.

So here’s to the holidays and Jesus and consumerism and eggnog and alllllll the cute pictures of families and babies in ugly Christmas outfits I’ll see on social media soon.

I hope everyone’s Christmas or holidays go well. Whatever you celebrate or if you don’t celebrate at all best wishes my friends.

My journey continues,

Kaycee