Moonshine & Wanderlust

... a cosmopolitan view from a southern perspective

Cold Turkey

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“Free cheese is always available in mousetraps.” – Unknown

Do you ever try to bargain with yourself? You know – “I’ll just have a small slice of this chocolate cake”, “I’ll just have one drink,” “I’ll go workout tomorrow.” We all have. Some of us are better bargainers than others. I’ve played that game with myself for years. Usually it’s where relationships are concerned. We all have our bargaining weak spots – relationships, food, working out, alcohol, etc. It’s a power play against our will and our weaknesses.

Recently I needed to stop at the grocery store to pickup 3 things: egg whites, tuna, and a sweet potato. I only had $3 in cash because I lost my debit card (more on that story coming another day – it involves running out of gas. Don’t ask.) so I was having to be very selective in my purchases. Somehow between the tuna and the egg whites my body found itself on this aisle:

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I think they purposely put this type of stuff on the end of the aisle so you can’t help but see it and stop when you walk by. Let me preface all this to say I don’t think I have EVER bought a whole package of Oreos to keep at my house. I don’t keep sweets in my house, period. Maybe some chocolate but that’s it. I enjoy baking and cooking but I’m not someone who has a snack cabinet or anything like that. However, s’mores are one of my favorite little treats ever (I went through a phase where I had one every night before bed) and I am extremely intrigued by these s’mores Oreos. I’m more of a Reeses gal myself, but these days anything and everything hydrogenated and sugary is looking reeeeeeal good.

You see, when you dial certain things down or completely out of your life sometimes there is this thing that rears its ugly head. That little thing is called temptation. Ah, yes. Whether it’s my body tempting me to eat a whole package of Oreos or my mind tempting me to sabotage my sanity, temptation is rampant. And, even more so when you are trying to be “good.” Whatever that means to you. The temptation is always 1,000% stronger and harder to fight when you are on the straight and narrow. This could apply to hundreds of things – pick your personal poison.

If you read Gone Girl you know I am following the IIFYM (If It Fits Your Macros) lifestyle right now. Love it. Could I eat a few Oreos and stay on track? Absolutely. Could I eat a few Oreos and stop there? Eeehhh. Not on this particular night. I would probably have bargained with myself and eaten way more than a few and then told myself I’d make it up some other way. I know myself pretty well these days and weak PL was looking at those s’mores Oreos like she looks at a new pair of high heels on sale.

So – I walked away. I said no. I didn’t bargain. Because, bargaining often leads to losing. I’ve come too far to tempt myself. Do I eat sweets? Of course. But, I stay within my macros. Am I going to do this forever? Probably not, but I have some super specific goals right now and I have worked far too hard and far too long to bargain my way into a few moments of pleasure. Because, isn’t that really what temptation and bargaining with ourselves is about? A few moments of pleasure for something that won’t last? Something that feels good in the moment but ultimately leaves us feeling empty and more broken than before?

Cutting bad things out of your life is never easy. Sometimes we try to keep “a little” bit to hang on to – because it feels good, because it’s comfortable, because we’re having a bad day and a “little bit” of our old life makes a feel a little better. Temporarily.

Unfortunately, the real temptations in life for most of us aren’t food but are things that are more damaging to our mental and emotional well being than our physical well being. They hurt our hearts and impede our growth. We take ten steps forward only to look back in a moment of weakness and wake up to find ourselves five steps backwards. For most of my adult life when I have found myself in these types of situations it has taken me a long time to finally get to the cold turkey point. I waver, I struggle, I bargain, and I “what if” and “maybe if” in my mind until I’m physically exhausted.

Once I get to the point of never looking back something always clicks inside of me. Once I’m done, I’m done. Are there moments of temptation? Absolutely. Are there moments of struggle? Yes. But, they get so much easier. Promise. It’s worth it – to not look back, to not give in, to stand your ground, to be strong – to find out who you REALLY are, not who you think you’re supposed to be.

When you’re tempted to go back “just a little” to something that you know you are going to have a difficult time picking yourself up from – run the other way. Remember why you have moved on. Remember why you started. Remember why you are stronger than you were before.

There are no “do-overs” in this life – don’t waste your days on weakness. You are stronger than you could ever imagine if you just remember to not give up, give in, or give out.

Hungry Hearts

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Recently, I was asked to speak at a career day for a group of Kindergarteners. I must have been either having a weak moment or smoking some cheap drugs when I agreed, but agree I did. I am no public speaker – it actually terrifies me. But, branching out – right? It’s been a long time since I’ve been up in front of a group, but I’m used to being around kids anyway so of course they were the best audience I could have asked for.

Since it was career day, several of them had dressed up for the occasion. One little girl was a “veterinarian” complete with scrubs and a stethoscope (“It really works!”) She leaned up on her tiptoes and put the round metal disc to my heart. Her little face scrunched together and her bright blue eyes got very serious. She took the stethoscope away and said very matter-of-factly, “You’re hungry!”, and walked away.

We all have hungry hearts. Hunger for love, hunger for safety, hunger to be needed, hunger for friendship, hunger to be understood… An empty feeling we are needing to be filled. We need that emptiness to be filled – just like our stomachs alert us we are hungry, so do our hearts. And, much like filling our stomachs with either a Big Mac or a salad we have choices on what we fill that emptiness with.

Filling our hearts isn’t as simple as opening a bag of lettuce or going through a drive-thru, but we do and can easily find “drive-thru” solutions to temporary fill the hunger in our hearts. We can fill that hole with damaging relationships, with food and alcohol, with surrounding ourselves with people who don’t want the best for us or influence us in negative ways. We can fill it with drugs or even sleep. These are all temporary fixes.

The only way to fill our hungry hearts is with long term and loving relationships, with delicate care to our heart and mindfulness to protect it but also leaving it open enough to give and receive love and to surround ourselves with like minded people who push us to be better. But, the most lasting way to fill our hearts so they are never hungry again is with the love of our Heavenly Father.

Maybe you feel discarded. Abandoned. Even untouchable. Maybe you have made decisions or choices you wish you could take back. Maybe you blame yourself for life’s unforeseen circumstances. Maybe you have been hurt. Maybe you feel like you’re not enough. You are not unworthy. You are a special creation. You have immense value. You possess characteristics and traits that are unique to you. You have gifts to share with those around you. You are a gift to your family and your friends. You are worthy of love. You are worthy of forgiveness and worthy of a second chance. We all are.

Sometimes, we may not receive forgiveness or love from our human peers. We may feel rejected. We become frustrated and restless. This is a part of life. We ache for acceptance and love and too often, we find it fleeting. Our Heavenly Father loves us and forgives us. Continually. Everyday. For ever misstep, for every moment of regret… He forgives us. His grace is sufficient. His love is sufficient. He will never leave us or forsake us. No matter how bad we screw up He will never let us stay in the dirt alone. He will pull us up and put His arms around us and walk us home. No matter how dark the valley gets He is there.

He knows each one of our heart’s individual hungers and if we would just open our hands and let Him (yes, let) take care of us, our hearts will never be hungry again. We may yearn for earthly things but God knows each need, want and desire and He promises us that He will give us the desires of our heart. If we will only let Him.

I’ll leave you with some lines from the song “Restless” by Audrey Assad

“In between our frailty and everything You are
You are the keeper of my heart

And I’m restless, I’m restless
‘Til I rest in You, ’til I rest in You
I am restless, I’m restless
‘Til I rest in You, ’til I rest in You
Oh God, I wanna rest in You”

until next time… xoxo, patty lauren

The Foxes in the Vineyard

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I share a lot of personal musings and writings but one area I have not shared a lot of with you all is my faith. This is a lifestyle blog so my topics span a wide variety of topics. However, at the same time, since I do open parts of my personal life up it only seems natural to me to share one of the most important parts of my life. I promise more fun posts are coming, but these past few weeks of the New Year have been so significant in what I hope is the undoing of self and more of my God.

I found one of the most purely simple and beautiful worship songs this week – It’s from Audrey Assad and it’s called “Good to Me”

“Good To Me”

I put all my hope in the truth of Your promise
And I steady my heart on the ground of Your goodness
When I’m bowed down with sorrow I will lift up Your name
And the foxes in the vineyard will not steal myjoyBecause You are good to me, good to meI lift up my eyes to the hills where my help is found
Your voice fills the night – raise my head up to hear the sound
Though fires burn all around me I will praise You, my God
And the foxes in the vineyard will not steal my joy

Because You are good to me, good to me

Your goodness and mercy shall follow me
All my life
I will trust in Your promise

—
The lyrics are straightforward and uncomplicated – much how I strive for my faith to be. Some days I don’t even know if it’s as big as a mustard seed, but it’s there. Faith doesn’t have to be complicated, but oh how we complicate it so wholly and completely with our human nature.
The lines that popped out to me where “Though fires burn all around me I will praise You, my God And the foxes in the vineyard will not steal my joy.” I don’t know about you, but when I think of foxes I think words like “cute”, “sweet”, “fluffy”, “cuddly.”
In reality foxes are none of these things aside from fluffy. Foxes are wild. Foxes cause destruction. Foxes are cute packages that often bring harm. They steal the joy of our hard work, our dedication, our dreams, our plans, our love, our happiness…
We all have fires and foxes in our lives – some are small and some are astronomical, but they affect us all the same.
This year, don’t let the foxes ruin your joy. Don’t let the fires burn your perseverance and the remembrance that our God is in control.
xoxo,
patty lauren

The Breaking of Us

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we all have lost a best friend. sometimes it is purposefully and sometimes it is beyond our control. whether it is for the best or not, best friend breakups can be the worst kind of heart pain we go through in our lives.

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To You, the Best Friend of My 20s — There are so many things I miss about you. As the wounds from your betrayals have scarred over, the good memories try to push themselves to the forefront of my mind.

An unlikely pair we were – one of the unlikeliest, really. Two people who could not be more different, yet were so similar. Our bond was formed fast… one that we often said of that one could tell when the other was hurting or something was going on. An unspoken feeling that could be felt when we were not together. A connection rivaling a sisterly bond.

We bonded through tears and heartbreak, through hazes of long summer nights, through grown up jobs, through losses and gains, through accidents. A friendship that below simmered a hot difference in opinions and beliefs at times, but that somehow we made work. Because we thought it was important. Because we had each other. It was us against the world.

As I leave my 20s behind, I leave our friendship in a decade that was my growing up. It will stay there, perfectly preserved and wildly worth remembering. It will be those memories I will look back on and love when I am older and I miss my youth.

The night when you took care of me on the side of the road, the night you crashed your car, the interstate drive with you hanging out the window, the summer days at our local watering hole, the summer nights spent with Barefoot and boys, the nights where tears were all that were shared, the weeks you lived with me when you had nowhere else to go, our ride and die attitude. So many days spent with you that it felt like a lifetime.

You broke my heart, Best Friend of My 20s. You abandoned us. You left us. You broke us.

As the last few weeks of this year wind down… such a big year for both us, I forgive you. I have long accepted that there are many things in life I will never comprehend. Things that break my spirit every day and that I cannot even begin to fathom. We are one of them.

And, even then… we were a season. A beautiful, free, crazy, amazing season. A season I would not trade or choose to redo.

My life would not have been the same without you.

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I have a confession…

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I have anxiety. The kind of anxiety that can put me in bed all day. The kind of anxiety that makes me not remember what a day without feeling nauseas and sick to my stomach is like. The kind of anxiety that makes me not be able to breathe. The kind of anxiety that causes tears and overwhelming feelings of fear. The kind of anxiety that makes me disengage from those I love. The kind of anxiety that makes thoughts of running away seem more appealing than living with the fear of the next time the anxiety will overtake an hour… a day… a week.

 

The thing is most of the time I have no reason for feeling the way I do – that’s what’s so frustrating to my rational side. I have everything I could ever need. Anticipatory anxiety is a technical term, but I don’t like labels. The looming of “what if” is always whispering in my ear. It doesn’t take much to cause an anxiety filled few hours – What if my car blows up on the side of the road? What if someone breaks into my house? What if I lose my job? What if I get cancer? What if someone I love gets sick? What if, what if, what if. I know so many people around me who really have serious things to be concerned about, serious problems in their life… that’s what makes living with anxiety so difficult sometimes. Because, I know I have nothing to worry about, yet I can’t stop. It’s like an addiction – I can have a great day… everything is going good, things are in place, life is going along but something seems wrong. Something seems wrong because I’m not anxious about something, I’m not fretting over the next obstacle I need to face and thwart. It’s exhausting. I’m exhausted.

 

When I got back from my trip to St. Simons, I felt so renewed and refreshed for 2014. Things were perfect, really. I had peace and a plan. Somewhere between February and now, things have slowly been falling apart inside of me… like old paint chipping off of a wall. Layer by layer. Some days I feel like I’m spiraling into I-don’t-know what – a mire of mud? An empty hole where everyone I love is looking down at me and mad and confused because I can’t get my act together? I don’t find a lot of understanding in my anxiety… I find a lot of frustration, though. Because, after all, I have nothing to worry about.

 

I needed to write. Someone else needs this, because they’re feeling the same things I am. You’re not alone. When I was younger, I was the Queen of “don’t worry about anything, instead pray about everything.” Literally… everything. I prayed when I couldn’t find a paper or lost a toy. I find myself not praying as much. I find myself at a place where I am looking at everything I’m missing out on because my puzzle pieces are a mess. I’m not me. Somewhere last year I put on a cloak of discontent – and it’s still with me. I freely took it and wore it, thinking I could better myself into someone other than who I am. Who I am likes simple things. I like my small place to live. I like saving money. I like not having to be the best at every thing just to prove a point. I was handed a gift of discontent by someone who didn’t even know themselves and I have carried it with me for months.

 

There are many days I look around and I have no idea why on earth God has blessed me so abundantly. I have been given the most beautiful life and I know I am undeserving, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt where I am now is not God-given. So… for now, I have to take one day at a time. I have to run, I have to breathe, I have to love… because those are small things that keep me going. The verse Romans 12:2 has been on my heart recently…

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.

The world tells us we need more, we need to strive for wealth and more possession and more affluence and more to cram our life so full of stuff that we have no room for worth. The world robs us of our worth… worry robs us of our worth, our joy, our life. We are not getting any of this time back… it doesn’t matter how much I save I could die tomorrow and I will have spent the past three months of my life thinking what I would do if I didn’t have any money. We have conformed to the world’s ideals of worth and successfulness. We have bought the lies of entitlement and self-servitude so we reiterate those words to those we love and they carry on the torch until all that is left are robots in a world of worrying how we are going to keep up with the Joneses.

We want more until more begins to want us.