i miss this. i miss xanga. i miss when xanga was familiar. but i think what i really miss are the days of xanga, i miss everything it stands for to me. those awkward preteen years. i miss seeing verbal manifestations of people. all facebook provides are comments and photos. xanga is a monologue whereas facebook is dialogue. xanga always seemed to have a way to free up my tongue, to free up my heart. i miss the days where i spent hours reading quotes and looking at icons on xanga. posting quotes and the "wacky" stuff that'd happen. wacky. i haven't even used that word in so long. wacky. it's so middle school. we strived for wacky. i miss the songs that'd play on people's xangas. one particular one imprinted on my memory for some reason was brown eyed girl by destiny's child on melissa's. i don't know why that one stuck with me and generates nostalgia. nostalgia. gosh i hope that the amount of nostalgia you experience isnt proportional to how old you are. i don't think i'd be able to stand it. even though i remember that i went through a lot of pain and sadness along with all the good times, i don't remember the actual feeling though. i guess that's sort of encouraging. that when i look back in another few years i won't remember the sadness i feel helplessly bound by some days. the suffocating nature of it. in fact, if i had to relive my life and experience everything again, the good with the bad, i think i'd do it. even if i didn't get to change anything.

i don't want to forget any of this. i don't want to forget my life in china. the moments of pure joy. i don't want to forget what i felt like after the musical. i don't want to forget the giddy nights. i don't want to forget relay for life or the senior lounge or... i'm already forgetting. i've already forgotten so much.

and i don't want to BE forgotten either. in fact, i'm scared of being forgotten.

oh xanga, i've gotta admit, i haven't really thought about you for a while. but now that we've run into each other again, i must admit that i do miss you, i miss the ease that i used to approach you with and be able to let loose a stream of thought. now i feel as if we might as well be strangers. but maybe we can change that.

hi friend. who's still gonna read this anyway? hi alice. =) cherise maybe? hey janelle? am i simply putting off having to pack? even though this house doesnt seem to hold the endless possibilities and things to do as they did in my youth i still wouldn't mind lounging around here for that two weeks i'll lose at camp. i miss the years that have passed. when there were still bike helmets hanging on the banister for convenience cause we actually used them, went out biking, went out rollerblading, suited up with elbow pads and knee pads suffocating our pores. there used to be less yelling in this house. less attitude. less glowing monitors. more joy? ya there was definately more joy. where am i even going with this? i'm in one of THOSE moods. it doesn't even have a name. but it has a home, on my xanga. it's induced by having too much time on my hands, too much time to think and let my mind wander too far, both backward and forward. it scares me to think that this coming year might be my last year ever living at home with my parents.. i wish i were a better wordsmith. but instead i just sit here with my face in my hands, well not anymore since i'm typing, staring at the fan on the ceiling, watching it throw its shadows around in dizzying circles. i remember when i was too short to reach the string to turn on the fan. one tug for medium speed, two tugs to speed it up, but a third tug to terminate the spinning. the chain to turn on the light drops a little lower so i was able to turn on the light at an earlier age..

17 years. where will i be in another 17? but as joel osteen said, "you may not know what the future holds, but as long as you know who holds the future." 34 years old.. will i be like my mom and have a 2 year old baby girl? the terrible twos they say.. God knows, and life doesn't have spoilers.

ready, set, rant.

i've been itching to go shopping like no other. so much so that i've been hunched over my computer on ebay and then i checked out this chinese ebay my dad showed me but it's just not the same. you have to actually know what you're looking for rather than just doing some carefree perusing. but anyway, i was searching up picture frames and i kept coming across all these picture frames that will end up having more frame than picture. and it just really, perplexed me with a tinge of frustration. it's silly really, something so trivial, but i guess it's one of my pet peeves. when the frame is taking up more room than the picture. for example a rocket ship with three little coin sized circles meant for the picture or a night sky, with the moon and all and then tiny stars that a picture can peek out from behind. it's like "hey look at that frame! oh and the photo's nice too." it should be the other way around - the frame accentuating the picture. whatever happened to those good old rectangular frames, simple, but they do the job. well not that i have anything against nice frames, i love picture frames in all their aestheticly pleasurable states, but they have to atleast fit a 4x6 photo. eh and i guess 3x5 is still ok. is that asking too much? though don't get me wrong, i absolutely adore picture frames, i just love what they hold even more.

well originally, this was just gonna be a shallow rant, but as i let loose my stream of thought, some connections formed in my mind, and once again i'm gonna connect this to christian life. in a sense, we are picture frames for God, He lives in us and our bodies aren't ours, they belong to Him, they were bought for a price. there shouldn't be more of us than there is God, when people look at us, the "frame"shouldn't be stealing attention from what's inside.

so when people look at you, what do they see? are you one those ridiculous frames that draws attention to yourself or are you a frame serving one purpose - to accentuate and draw attention to what's on the inside?

i still really want to go shopping. and buy picture frames. among other things. =)