Agoraphobia Musings and Strangers

I wasn't always shy.

I used to be adventurous.  I never wanted to be at home; it was always: run, go, do, see, explore, create.  Never just "be."  Everything was open to me.  The world was my oyster.

Slowly, though, the constraints of school and life and growing-up crept closer and closer until going and doing and seeing and exploring were very low on the priority list.  Then, I moved to Rome.  What a dry patch!  For a year, I had no friends except the ones I had to be on the computer to see.  Home became the theme.  I rarely left the house unless I absolutely had to, and even then, I would get anxious about all of the people and everything I wasn't used to and I would hurry back into my shell.

My personality changed.  Being in a place where being American is uncommon muddled my thoughts and made me shy.  I didn't want to stand out, so I backed into a dark corner and hid as best as I could.  My thoughts were just a series of commands.  "Walk tall.  Don't look him in the eye; he's sketchy.  Pronounce Italian better, dummy, they're going to think you're an idiot.  Don't make eye contact; that lady might start a conversation and that could get awkward."

So I would stay inside.

I became a homebody.  I would groan when we left the house, or if I had to go somewhere by myself.  And I was immensely frustrated with this new development.

And then it all changed.  I moved to Brussels and made some friends who happen to live a good distance away.  In order to see them, I have to walk about 5 minutes to the bus stop, take a 15 minute bus ride to the train station, and then ride the train for 45 minutes to their town.

This has forced me to purchase train tickets, figure out arrival/departure times, talk to people, and maneuver around a foreign country all by myself.

I realized one day how agoraphobic I'd become when my dad made me go out.  He told me I just needed to leave the house and do something, to conquer a few fears, so I took the bus to Starbucks and went to my favorite little bookstore.  When I found out the bookstore was closed, I walked right back to the bus stop and came home.  I didn't explore or try to find somewhere else to see something new; my first instinct was to run home.

Yeah, that had to change.

My agoraphobic tendencies still often outweigh my exploratory ones.  I still think too hard about every detail of everything I do in public, and I occasionally panic when something that's routine gets twisted up and I have to change my modus operandi.  But, I've been getting better.  I find myself caring less and less.  How sweet coffee tastes when I've ordered it in French without passing the duty onto my friend.  I'll hug my buddies all the harder when I take the train and the bus to their house without any incidents or mild panic attacks.  I'll have a conversation in what I like to call "Frenglish" with the sweet girl who sat next to me on the train.

Perhaps the dulling down of my adventure-sense was a good thing.  Maybe it broke whatever could have been irrational or overly-enthusiastic in me.  Now, I must build a bit of it back up; I need to break the cycle of shyness and self-awareness in order to blend those warring spirits happily within me.

I'm learning how to talk to strangers.

So, it's been a while.

Hey, it's me.  I know.  I haven't posted since July.

Let's just pretend I've been a good blogger and move on, shall we?  I've still been posting occasionally at Dressing Room Door, so you can go check that out.

Mostly, I wanted to show you my room!  I've basically finished decorating, and I love it.  It's my favorite room in which I've lived, and it just screams Caroline.

First, my little "study nook."  I live on the top floor of our house, so I have a slanted roof on one side of my room with a big window in the middle.  To the right of my window, underneath the slant, I sat an Ikea desk.  This is where I do school and all my big thinkin'.  My mom put this desk together all by herself.  The little drawer was missing a back, and she crafted one from packaging styrofoam.  I'm proud.

Our land-lady let me pick the paint color for that one wall before we moved in, and I love it.  It matches perfectly with the sheets and quilt that I already had, and now I can just build upon the theme.  I love happy white furniture, especially when I have a big window.  It makes the space really airy and relaxing.  Assuming my room is clean.

Next we have the wall to the left of my desk.  I've got a big, big whiteboard upon which I write song lyrics that I like, things I must do, etc.  This time, it's lyrics to "Plant Life" by Owl City.  Speaking of which, I'm going to go to an Owl City concert on Friday and I'm more than a little excited.  :)  

That little lanyard on the side is one that I wore at the gathering for my online school, but I blurred out my last name from the preying eyes of internet strangers.  Sorry, creepers.

Here I have my inspiration board.  I expect it to get really full of random pinnings, but it's still a pretty new thing.  I cut the Topshop label off my shopping bag, the big piece of paper is "The Seven Ages of Man," the postcard is from the college to which I'm applying, Covenant, and the little paper nub on the left is a ticket to the London Eye.  The little cutouts are Taylor Swift and some random model from a magazine who looked to happy not to cut out and paste up there, and then there's a mask from Venice.  I can't wait to put more good things up there.

This is my cozy little bed and my horribly unattractive wardrobe (there are two standing side by side.  Military issue.  Not pretty, but I've made due).  To zoom in......

This is Beau.  My brother won him for me at Dave and Busters once, and I'm sort of obsessed with this huge hippo.  Why the name?  My thought process was:  Hippo.  Translates to Hippie.  Translates to Bohemian.  And from there, Bo.  I spell it Beau because I'm fancy.

This is a little board that I got at Ben Franklin once for about 10 dollars.  It's a bit nicked in spots, since I've had it since I lived in Hawaii, but I love it.  I cut out some Audrey Hepburn pics that were from a 2009 calendar, which, for obvious reasons, I can no longer use.  I hang my necklaces on the hooks.  (And may I just thank my father real quick for hanging all of this stuff on my wall?)  

And then I have a pretty little wicker bedside table with a stack of books underneath and a candle on the top.  I love candles, and need to find some yummy scented ones somewhere.

Moving on, we have my bookshelf/dresser  Yup, that's a flute on the bottom shelf.  And that little tree is holding my bracelets and earrings and rings.  I like having my jewelry on display because it makes me more likely to actually wear it.

And no, my room isn't sideways.  Blogger is just rude.

And finally, we have my funky little rocking chair, which just hangs out by the door that adjoins my room to the guest room.  I don't really go in there, so I don't have to worry about blocking the door.  I've also got my white wicker laundry basket from Ross next to it, and although you can't see it, I've got a full length mirror on the wall next to the guest room door. 

And you betcha I've got me a shaggy rug.


That's all for now, folks.  I want to blog more, it's just that lately, I feel as if I don't have anything important enough to say.  We'll see where this goes.  :)

Love,

My summer thus far

Things have been quite a whirlwind, lately.

I've made some friends who already feel like family.  I'll spend days at a time at their house and we can do nothing and everything, all the while being wonderfully entertained by each other.  There's no end to the amount of laughter ringing through the halls of our houses when we're together.  I love them already, and am so blessed to have tangible friends after a painfully dry period in Rome.  After a year of learning how to keep myself company, and teaching myself how to be alone, I'm now reaping the benefits in that I now stand in awe of the glory of friendship.

We've found a house and moved in... for the most part.  There are still boxes here and there and we need to go to Ikea and get some storing containers, but we've figured out places for a lot of our things..  We're in a lovely four-story row house, and I'm at the top floor.  Fifty-three stairs from my room to the very lowest level.  I do believe I'm going to be getting into excellent shape, and fast.

Tomorrow, we go to London for the weekend.  I'm thrilled to pieces about it because London is one of those extraordinarily dreamy places to which every young lady wishes to go.  I do believe I'll practice my English accent, and I plan on going to Harrod's, TopShop, and to ride the London Eye, if we have enough time.  And tomorrow night, we're going to see Billy Elliot at the theatre!  It's this girl's dream come true, I tell you.

I turned seventeen a little over a week ago, and I genuinely feel it.  Everyone always asks if you sense any difference on your birthday, and no one ever really does.  But for some reason, I woke up and thought, "Wow.  A year from today I'll be getting ready to go to college."  I've realized lately that my life is, everyday, a little bit more structured around my own independent plans and schedule.  I can move from place to place pretty well on my own, and haven't needed much help from my parents to get things done in unpacking my room, or much else.  Suddenly, I'm not a kid.  It's a terrifying prospect, but I'm enjoying it, too.

I haven't been blogging much, as you've probably noticed.  Lately I've just been trying to move through my summer and detox in the most stress-free way possible, and the blog has fallen to the wayside.  I'm headed for an incredibly tense year of school, and I'm wanting to make the most of this time that I have without a set schedule and assignments.

This has been my summer so far!  I'm loving Brussels, I'm loving my friends, I'm loving my family, and this is shaping up to be a terrific summer.  I hope you're all having a great time in the sunshine as well!

Love,

To be at Peace

Lately, something has been slowly stirring inside of me.

Some sort of quiet ambition... a desire to change my own mind.

I'm very good at worrying.  I think I worried away quite a few days in the past, and I did so for nothing.  Worrying never moved me forward; it just kept me stuck in a pit.  And once you're stuck in that pit, you merely get mired deeper and deeper into it.

Worry is a terrible thing.  It consumes you and expends mountains of energy, and that energy is usually meant to be used for something else; something productive.  Mainly, my worries have always been about how my adulthood will turn out.  What college I will go too, the people I will know, and what I will end up doing.  Even since I was little, I've just fretted in my own head about how I will turn out.

But lately, I've realized how foolish this is.  There's no magic number of "being there."  If I spend my youth worrying, there's a high likelihood that I'll spend my adulthood doing the very same.  There will never be a time in my life where I have everything perfectly figured out.  That fact proves my tendency to be entirely fruitless.

I have a new mantra, readers.  It's rather cliche, but when I say it to myself over and over, it genuinely makes me analyze my heart and release my worries.

What will be, will be.


No amount of agonizing over the future will change it, and that's ultimately because I'm not the one in control.  Is that not a beautiful thought?

I don't have to worry about "creating my own destiny."  I simply must follow where I'm called to be, and everything will work out for good.  For instance, I don't have to worry about friends who are far away.  I simply keep talking to them and loving them and staying as connected as I can, but in the end, those who are truly meant to be my forever friends will end up being just that.


There is nothing I can do to undo God's grace and plan for my life.  I can't make one wrong move, like picking the wrong university, and suddenly throw my life off course and ruin everything.  That idea brings me peace beyond comprehension.

This new mantra has also taught me to slow down and listen very carefully to the direction in which I should be heading.  If there are a multitude of reasons why I shouldn't go to a college, but I want to dig my heels in because I have friends there or it seems like an exciting place to be, I have to release that and understand that perhaps that's not where I should be.

Worrying has wasted much of my energy; but no more will I allow that to be even a tiny facet of who I am.  I want to be a young woman who can rest peacefully in the knowledge that I'm not in control, and do not have to fret over trying to make everything perfect.  The only one who can do that is God, and I must learn to put that into his hands.

I don't really like the term "living in the moment," because when I hear that, I think of people who misunderstand the phrase and disregard the fact that we must also be listening to the will of God and looking ahead towards our futures.  But in a sense, I do wish to more enjoy my moments and days, even if only because they are free from worry!

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." Matthew 6:34

 "And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?" -Luke 12:25

Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down,

but a good word makes him glad. -Proverbs 12:25

A list because I'm still jet-lagged and the idea of paragraphs is daunting

Somehow, I feel like Belgium and I will be great friends, and here's why.

1.  Belgium is very central.  We can easily get to so many different countries in Europe, and that's something I haven't done before.

2.  The Belgians don't knock back tiny espressos and hit the road like Italians do.  They sit, with a human-sized mug of coffee, and a croissant, or something to that effect.  I very much appreciate this.  (Not to mention, Brussels has two Starbucks, and that makes this little addict quite happy.)

3.  Streets and sidewalks in this city are wide.  This may seem like small potatoes, but once you've been nearly hit by itty bitty dumb smart cars on extraordinarily narrow, cobblestone streets, it becomes a big deal.

4.  There are flowers everywhere, and everything is so green.  My mom and I love this particular aspect.

5.  Though there's a little bit of spray paint action, the graffiti-to-wall ratio is significantly smaller in Brussels than it is in Rome.

6.  The style!  I know this is so girlish of me, and I apologize, but the girls here know clothes and elegance.

7.  French.  I've always wanted to learn it, and now I get the chance.  It's a beautiful language.  But I am having trouble remembering to say "Merci" instead of "Grazie" and "Oui" instead of "Si."

8.  The diversity of food.  In Rome, you really only eat either Italian food or Chinese/Japanese fusion.  And that's really just unacceptable.  Here, they have excellent pub food, they have Mexican food, they have all sorts of Asian cuisine, they have Italian, they have French cafes.... it's all good.

9.  I'll get to learn to drive, I'll get to act, I may take a few classes at an international school, I'm going to try to get my first real job, and I'm going to go through my last year of high school here.  It's pretty monumental.

10.  The houses are so cute.  Suburbs aren't a bunch of matchy-matchy buildings... it's a bunch of different townhouses in either the French or Dutch style, and it is just so quaint, and charming, and full of soul and character.

These are my top ten reasons for enjoying Belgium so much.  It's just a place that... suits me.

Have a great day!

I need one of those "I heart NYC" t-shirts except for Brussels.

Bonjour! We've arrived in Belgium, and I blogged about it over yonder.

I have to say, this city, Brussels, is absolutely beautiful.  The architecture is very clean and... somehow different from the Roman aesthetic, though I can't quite explain why.  It's very French!  I love the wider streets and all of the cute cookie and candy shops.  It's a good thing that my savory-tooth is a stronger force than my sweet-tooth, because my waistline would not thank me for it later if I took advantage of all the sweets this place has to offer.

I love the accents, I love the French style (which I blogged about over yonder), I love the weather, I love the fact that they have Mexican food and burgers and Italian food all next to each other, I love the architecture, and I love the fact that it's a colorful city.

Basically, I've fallen in love with Belgium and I've only been here two days.  And I have slept through majority of that time span.

My parents are a little bit jealous that I went to bed at 10:30 last night and slept in while they were running errands.  When they returned from said errands, at 2:00 in the afternoon, I was still asleep.  And there was not one single second throughout that time that I even lifted, or even THOUGHT about lifting, an eyelid.

Being a teenager with the capacity to sleep when given a soft bed and a pillow is pretty much the best thing in the world.

I'm going to take some pictures soon, but every time we've gone out, I've been overwhelmed by just taking it all in and have thus become forgetful of my camera.  But I'll be sure to snap some soon!

And, oh happy day, a family from my online school lives very near Brussels.  But not just a family.  One of the sweetest, most wonderful families I've ever had the privilege to meet.  Also, I may be able to attend a school here starting in the Fall, just to take math and science while I'll continue to homeschool for the rest of my subjects.  Plus, the British theatre scene here is apparently fantastic, so I'll try to inject myself there.  Suffice it to say, I don't think I'll have any trouble making friends!

I have to unpack and get ready for bed (It's almost 10:30 and the sun hasn't even gone down), but I'll catch you on the flip side.

Au revoir!

Twilight, Part 4: Manipulation and False Valor

I'm back working on my Twilight review!  If you missed the first three parts, click here, here, and here.

**spoiler alert**  (Some themes in this post may not be appropriate for younger readers)

One of the main reasons that so many Christians support the Twilight series is the notion that the story supports celibacy until marriage, and that the characters in the story, though troubled, have better morals than characters in other modern tales such as these.  And to an extent, it's true, because the two do wait until marriage.  However, one really can't give them much credit for it at all.  In fact, the book is almost racier than it would have been if they had not waited!

Let me explain how this works.  I credit the author, Stephenie Meyer, for being brilliant at the psychological manipulation of young girls and their parents.  Many parents look at the books and see two teens practicing good moral behavior, while teenage girls read this book and become emotionally invested in characters who are deeply in love.

One has to understand that boys and girls are different.  While a boy reading this book wouldn't get much of a thrill from the whirlwind love affair of the two main characters, a girl reads this and is deeply effected by this so-called perfect love.

Another impressive fact about Meyer's authorship is that she pushes boundaries of moral behavior in a way that can effect readers, but not so far as to really be accused of being too racy.  But I challenge this, and say that the Twilight series is, in fact, incredibly inappropriate!

When one removes the harrowing aspects of the story, you have a teenage girl who allows her boyfriend to sleep in her room, though they do not do anything other than talk and sleep.  Kisses are in every chapter, and the description of the emotions Bella feels is lofty and deep.

In my rhetoric class early in the year, we were all discussing Twilight, and I took some notes, as I had been planning on doing this review for a while.  One of my good friends, Santiago, said "It's like the line between holding hands and... having babies."  After we all had a good laugh, I realized what a true statement that really is.  The two characters in the book, though they abstain from actual sex, are so emotionally invested and are constantly kissing, etc.  It's not that I think kissing is a sin, necessarily, but you have to read the book to understand how often and how significant each kiss is... It pervades the entire story, and attempts to create an anticipation that, I think, is unhealthy.

Not to mention, they have to abstain.  Bella wants to become a vampire, but Edward doesn't want her to be one until after they get married.  He's afraid that if they were to do more than just share kisses, that he would be tempted to bite her, thus making her into a vampire prematurely, though Bella actually tries to initiate romance on more than one occasion.

Now, when you put it that way, doesn't it just sound like a ridiculous story?

The characters in Twilight are no more moral than any other characters out there.  They remain celibate solely out of necessity, and the anticipation built in the story is unhealthy for young people to read!  It gives no moral reason for waiting; it simply forces the heroes to do so.  Stephenie Meyer has cleverly tricked many through her manipulation of emotions and morality.

The Week

As we flew down the road towards our destination, my stomach twisted.  Would this all be what I had dreamed?

I flashed back in time as we slowed behind the Amish buggies, and I grinned at the sweet little covered heads of two little girls on their way home from church.  But all the while, through all the new scenery and beautiful landscape of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, I couldn't focus.  My mind churned back and forth; mingled excitement and nervousness distracted me.

Mom and I pulled into the hotel and lugged our bags upstairs.  I swore I couldn't eat a bite, but found it extremely easy to gobble that delicious lamb and feta burger...

Nerves drove me to distraction and I had to remind myself to breathe evenly as I strode into the lobby to meet some of my friends for the first time.

As I hugged each of those boys, two from my classes, one being a family friend, and one being a brand new friend, any flicker of doubt I had was pinched out.  I was euphoric as I got ready for bed that night, so looking forward to meeting one of my teachers from last year and my very best friends.

The week passed in a whirlwind of meeting new people, positively tackling my best chums with affectionate hugs, and creating memories fantastic enough to last me well into the next gathering.

The founder of my online school and, honestly, the reason I have so many forever-friends, made a great point.  We students of Veritas Press are a new generation.  We came to this gathering with the great anticipation and delight of meeting our best friends; some of us for the first time.

My Spanish teacher from last year noted how beautiful this really is as I cried in the hallway last night.  It wouldn't be right to leave out this aspect of meeting new people and loving on other peers completely!  We, though often apart from our best friends, are nevertheless learning how to love others and to keep friendships. 

I had to leave a while before most, so I missed church and the final picnic.  But the hugs I received last night were each one so meaningful and they made me smile.  I laughed through tears as I held onto these people who mean so much to me, and I thanked God for bringing them all into my life.

I’ll post pictures and go into detail later, but for now, I just wanted to check in and let you know why I was gone.  I’m writing this as I fly away from those friends whom I love, and I’ll admit that there’s a mist beginning to cloud my eyes.  But that week with these people was absolutely worth any pain that the good-byes may have wrought.

I love you, my friends, and I am so blessed that you’re a part of my life.