Can't I just be happy?

So I am a therapist right and I know all the ends and out of how to help other people deal with their own issues...but my issues, well that is a whole different ballgame. The wonderful person that was mentioned in my last blog as someone that I was "talking" has graduated to boyfriend status. Yes an official boyfriend. Things should be wonderful right?

Well it would be if I wouldn't over think every text message and convince myself every other day that he is going to say that he was just kidding about this whole relationship thing and he doesn't really want that kind of relationship with me.

See the problem. I am the problem.  I have experienced heartbreak so much that I can't enjoy my relationship when it is going just fine. We are both busy professionals, we don't live in the same county and have to be at work before 8 a.m. This are all things that I know. But I keep comparing this to past relationships that failed or worrying that it will end the same way. Then the real kicker is when I compare our relationship to other peoples relationship. You know people who see each other more than once a week. We talked for a long time, and techniqually this is our first month of dating but I am 27 and I am sick of games but I can't tell him that because that could scare him and it would be over. I don't want it to be over....so why can't I just be happy with what I have?

Rapidly Slow

If things could be going painfully slow, and way to fast all the same time that might explain my world right now.
I am in that werid session of life, that admitedly I have been in for awhile now, but at I approch 27 which is far closer to 30 than 20, is starting to get to me. The season where all your friends are getting married and some of your friends are even having children, or their second child. You congratlate them, you send gifts with your best wishes, you even attend or accept the honor of being in the wedding party. Then late at night it hits you, even though are activily "talking" to someone those things, the wedding, having children, building houses...they aren't in your forseeable future. They might happen in the next three years, maybe, but most likely they won't and you celebrate your 30th birthday doing something really depressing like having yet another Harry Potter viewing party, alone, eating Ben&Jerry's in your comfy pants.
But wait, I sound sad but I have all these accomplishments, I have a Master's, I passed the NCE, I have a great job, I am working toward a National Certification in Tramua Therapy, I am the Director of a Summer Camp, I help with a youth (a lot) and do all these amazing things.
But where is the time for me to met with the Father? When have I blocked that off in my tight daily routine. When do I stop and thank him for all that he has done for me?
If I am being truthful rarely. Rarely do I take the time cultivate my personal relationship, I study for classes I teach, work on next years camp material. But time for me to stop being busy and work on my relationship with the father, well I don't make time for that. Because it is scary, what if he wants me to work on some things in my life, some areas that I keep to myself. So as I keep people out of the hard places, I try to keep the Father out too.
But where do I even start to change? Get in the word, listen to podcast, listen to music. All of these things I do, but what about being still and knowing that he is Lord. Well not sure if I have mastered that skill yet. I am never still I am always doing something. So how can I BE STILL when I have so much of HIS work to do. Camp won't plan itself you know, the lesson doesn't get taught without someone being there. I don't have an answer to this, just a heart cry. Teach my soul and heart to be still and calm.

Almost finished with my first year...

I am 36 hrs away from completing my first year of being a school therapist, and I have shown "growth in my abilities" so that was cool.  I love where I work, the teachers at the schools I serve at and my Communicare family. I don't know how I would have survived this first year without them. My outside of work life is a bit complicated. Due to the whole live in one County, work in one County, go to church/serve at said chuch in another county thing. So I have the really large triangle that I go around. I can't imagine change a single part of this it is who I am and what I am suppose to do for now.

My house is cute and I love being around my family that I never got to see and being in the Ingomar community, I have met a really amazing friend that makes this transition easier, and all I can say about him is he is the most wonderful friend I could have asked for in this session of life.

My work is hard and I really hate paperwork but the lovely ladies I get to goof off with make it so great.

My church, where to start....well in Aug. I became the unoffical interm youth leader and I love love love my Shady people. We done fall retreat, YEC, DNow, and in a week we will be loading up and going to Williamsburg KY for MFuge. I love seeing them grow and have fun.

I am also directing a Kid's camp for PCBA this summer...CRAZY, I don't know how I will pull it off, but I know that GOD will do great things.

NOW,  I got to go do some fun stuff for Mental Health Awareness day in the park.

my life is so different than it was a year ago but I am okay with it, the people that have been added to my life make all the change worth it.

in christ
Ash

Here's my life

I have struggled most of my life with acute axienty and depression. I know this because well I am studying it. It is odd to be in a classroom full of people and next to friends and be reading symptoms and realize that I really do have a problem. But it is also empowering to sit in the same class and learn what I can do the change the way I think. How I see myself.
You see I have never had a great self-image. I have never thought I was pretty. Until one day I looked in the mirror and thought you know you are pretty, and dang it your pretty flipping awesome too. I have some awesome friends and an amazing sister who tell me this but those words from them aren't the ones I have been searching for. It doesn't take to much to guess who I would have rather heard them from. But then when I do here them from guys I still don't believe they are being truthful. I then just tell myself that they are just lying so they can kiss me......well some of them may have just wanted to kiss me. Acutally I am very certain of that.
Know my field of study has mountains of research that would suggest that because I tend to need the company and friendship of males, rather romantic or platonic, I had some sort of father uses. My sister's therapist says our parents were verbally abusive. I don't know. I was always a daddy's girl. Somedays I call my dad just to hear his voice. I remember his relationship being strained with my sister and them fighting a lot, mostly about us having to be "perfect" because we were the preacher's family. By the time I got to High school she had been to therapy once and he had backed off that but I also had learned how to work them. I knew that if I was just really blunt with them they would back off. In High school though I didn't do a whole lot of "bad" things. I waited till college to do anything they would have not so much approved of. Then I was an "adult" and old enough to make my own mistakes. Trust me I have.
I have made more mistakes than I really want to admit to at this point.
(More Later)

So I am a School therapist....wait WHAT!

oh how good and amazing the Lord is,
Sometime in March or April I was sitting in my car getting my oil changed, ( I really miss my oil change place) when my phone rang. It was a lady from Communicare in Oxford asking me for an interview in May. Obiviously I said YES! and got it schuduled for the Monday after I finished my Grad program.
Fast Forward to May. I had my last day of work at BXS on May 16 and walked on May 17 (of course in typical Ashley fashion I had a horrible sinus infection the whole weekend). On the 18th I spent the day going to graduation services with my best friend and sucessfully took photos (really bad photos I might add due to previously stated sickness) with all the graduates that I knew. It was fun and tiring and I fell down not once but twice that day. THEN I drove the 4 hour drive to Batesville to my parents/my new homeish. (we will get to that part.) On Sunday I went to church, went to a retirement luncheon for two of the women who helped shape me to who I am. My first grade teacher, Shirley White, and my Career Discovery teacher, Wanda Gooch. THEN I got to see my house for the first time since my Papaw went to the Nursing Home.
On Monday I interviewed with Communicare, and then went and started cleaning my house. On Tuesday I went BACK to Hattiesburg and cleaned on my apartment some and came back sometime on Wednesday. I was then no longer a resident of Lamar County (though my car tag says other wise :D)
Then the next three weeks I spent cleaning, painting, and talking about floors and furniture with my mom. In conclusion I think I will never try to build my own house. In the middle of all of that I was asked to go on the youth trip. The Friday before we left I got a phone call from Communicare asking me to come in for fingerprinting.
July has been less let say busy, mostly working at Cracker Barrel. I waited and waited and waited for a call back from Communicare. FINALLY I got a letter for a job in Calhoun County in the Bruce School District. SO blessed.
I started today and I am now trying to read the employee manual.
(More on how cool that I am in the SCHOOL system later)

so much has happened...

Well I was not as prepared for my self challege as I thought and Satan is so ready to tempt...Well December was not a great month, and I have learned I know some really not great guys!

BUT since Dec. 29 I have been kiss free.....

I have only 63 days till I finish my MASTER'S what what! The road that has brought me here has been crazy hard. BUT so grateful for the things that the road has taught me

Humm...What next, what next. STAY TUNED big announcement next month

A year without Kisses...

Last night I got the joy of hearing Miss Mo Isom speak to my beautiful Calvary girls. I know they needed to hear a lot of what she had to say. But One thing she talked about stopped me in my tracks.

SHE had a year long intimacy fast. WOW! like Wow, God just spoke to me there and said Ashley this is what I want for you for the next year. I didn't say anything to anyone as I packed my things and drove home with my best friend who had been with me on the trip.

I should explain: 

 The past two years have been rough emotionally. You can see previous post. I have had a roller coaster of emotions that have left a path of destruction in its wake. At the end of my relationship with Mitch I had started down a really dangerous path. A path that isn't easy for me to talk about, But I am coming clean, I had started viewing pornagraphic materials and reading erotic novels. It was a crazy road of conversations that happened between two people who where planning on getting married. Though now I know that those conversations should have never happened. When he broke up that relationship it let a whole in me. A whole I was trying to fill with just about anything. The addiction deepened. 

Then almost exactly a month later I went to visit my sister. A friend not really thinking about what he was saying said something to the effect of I bet you couldn't get "___ _____" to go out with you a 5th time. My brain went all "challenge accepted" and by the time I got back to Amory I had been texting ___ ____ for awhile. I sent many text and had a lot of phone calls to the guy and most nights the conversations sounded more like the books I had been reading than a conversations that a Children Director at a church should be having. We planned to meet to go to a football game. The game would be a middle ground, THEN he suggested that we get a motel room and Then my this is not who I am alarm went off and I ended up lying to him and telling him I was sick...(I was not sick and I still went to the game) There were many other times that we ALMOST meet up between then and January. We still were texting and my addiction to porn was getting stronger. 

In Feb. of 2011 I moved back to Hattiesburg, I was deep into the addiction at that point and NO ONE knew about it. Sometime in March I started talking to my friend Brittni Clark about my addiction. She was a great help she pointed me to a great filter and put in on my computer and keep the password for herself. 

BUT I had another way to have my "fix" I entered into a very unhealthy relationship with a guy I should have Never dated. It was all physical, it was more physical than I ever wanted to go. To say that  I am still a virgin after that relationship is spliting hairs. I pushed every boundary. I was so broken,  I had a need to feel wanted by a man, and even though at that time I was not watching porn I was in deeper than I had ever imagined. I ended that relationship at the beginning of May. But within a week I had contacted "___ ____" and bought a new computer. I needed the computer. But I was not smart. I did not protect my computer. It took me almost 6 months before I would protect my computer. That summer I also got an iPhone so I had two devices that I could watch porn at anytime I wanted. That summer my addiction deepened even more. I was becoming more and more broken. That fall I began as I started getting more and more under conviction about my addiction I started telling my best friends and my sister about my addiction. It still had a hold on my life. I even looked at personal ads and on two occasions almost met up with random guys from the internet. I have had amazing friends who have done their best keep me accountable even when I would hide my actions from them. They have literally taken my smart phone and iPad out of my hands and blocked all questionable websites. They have "grounded" me for going to see "___ ____" But the desire is still in my heart.

I feel like I need to take a fast from guys from the persuit of their attention and from the relationships with them that feed the desires of my addiction. IT will be hard but with God I can do anything.

Just how it is...

There are times that I wish I could control my thoughts and anxities more. Like today for example. I am worried that two of my best friends in life right now are mad at me but I have no logically reason to think that they are upset with me. Why am I feeling this way, because they have other things to do today and I am not with them. But normally on a Monday I am at work and I should be enjoying the time alone to rest and just relax but NO! not my brain. My brain goes spinning off into many directions that are irrational and just down right not true. I know that these friends are not like my old friends they really do want to be my friend there is no one telling them they have to like me or that they have to be nice to me. Or that they should spend more time with me because I might rub off on them or some Bull shit crap that always got thrown in the faces of so called "friends" I had when I was younger. Yes I did have some good times with the people who were in my life then. But it wasn't a lasting friendship, I wasn't a friendship that I feel like that would even care to let me know how there life was going. Much less care to know how mine might be. But These friends the ones I am sitting here worried about. They will want me to know what is going on in their life. And I will call them and ask HEY what is going on in your life. How are you spirtual and so on....they then will ask the same questions to me. These are those type of friends the ones that stick around through many seasons. So why am I questioning them in my head today....Because I am crazy. No really I have major trust and anxiety issues that go back 12 or more years. I used to be a very trusting person. But then I realized I didn't really have anyone to trust except my small little family. I love them, but sometimes that just hasn't been enough.....I really do love the friends I have right now. They are amazing and I hate that I put these past experiences on them far to often.

it would have be so easy...

It would have been so easy if I had not cared so much. If I had not loved so much. If I had not placed so much of my life into it. But I had. I had made my whole life revolve around our plan, and what we were going to do. But I thought I was happy, I thought I had it all figured out. I was going to be your wife. You were going to be a doctor, and we were going to be missonaries...together...in a far away land. But that all changed. You told me one night that you didn't want to make me wait on you to finish school...But I thought that had been my choice. You didn't make me move to my parents. You said you knew that I wanted to be married and that you didn't want to hold me back from that...Ha like getting over you enough to ever love someone enough to marry them would take any less time than it would for you to get out of Med school. So far it has been two years. I still miss you....today is your Birthday. All I want to do is text you and tell you Happy Birthday. Because you were my best friend. But I can't I don't even have your phone number anymore. And you have a girlfriend. I know it is ironic isn't it. The one who didn't want to be in a relationship is in a a relaitonship and the one who wanted a relationship is alone. Yes I have dated and talked to other people since you, but no of those even come close to the connection we had. You could tell what I was about to say over the phone before I said it. I still find it hard to believe that the reasons you gave me were the true reasons you left me. It is even harder to believe them now. I think that is way this has been so hard to get over. Because all of sudden without any warning there she was. It shattered what was left of my heart. I don't know were all the pieces went. I can't find them. I have tried to but them back together and see if someone else would like to try to love it. But they can't, it is to broken, to sharp, it cuts them it they touch it. It wounds them to hold it. So I must start filing away the rough edges. The places you left me bitter and angry. The places that don't want to trust again. Those are the things I need to work on. Then maybe this heart of mine can be held again.

THE wish list!

So, I have had some friends to blog about wish list for future husbands in the past...

Well I Think it is about time for mine. If you ever want to set me up...use this as a reference.

1) Loves the Lord more than he will EVER love me
2) Will edify my walk with the Lord and lead me well. (someone I can trust my spirtual growth to)
3) A man that wants to serve the Lord and spread his name across the nation.
4) Eph. 5 (ENOUGH SAID)
5) Can understand my sense of humor
6) Loves to laugh
7) Makes me smile
8) EYES! I really like Eyes...and I prefer BLUE or Dark Brown
9) I want a man who can grow a legit Beard. 
10) Not afraid to sing to me
11) Will walk me to my car.
12) Randomly show up where I work with a coffee or a diet coke. (just because)
13) MUST LOVE HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER! 
14) Will watch Girly movies with me.
15) Dare me to go outside my comfort zone
16) Protect me when I am scared.
17) Take me to random playgrounds and swing with me 
18) Talk until 2 a.m. about nothing important
19) Talk until 2 a.m. about things that do matter
20) Take me to concerts
21) Will Go Golfing, hunting, fishing, etc. with my Daddy and Brother-in-law even if they don't like those activites.
22) Enjoys playing monsters with Tripp and Cash as much as I do
23) Will play tea parties with Maggie Grace if she asks.
24) Bear Hugs
25) Wants to change the world

to you.

right now I hate you. you have broken my heart time and time again. but i kept letting you back into my life, why, because I still believed in us. why could you not love me too. I am so tired of the tears. for over a year i have cried over you. you are the only reason i really cry anymore. you are the only reason i had to believe that anyone could love me. you where the only one who ever loved me back. or so i thought until now. was that all a lie. just a game. why did you let me go on so long. you had to know that this was hard on me. you had to know that my heart was breaking with every phone call. you knew me better than anyone else had ever known me. you could tell my mood over the phone. i was there for you and i thought you were there for me.

was i just a thorn in your side. did you just feel bad for how it ended. were you just waiting for me to "get over you" so you could "move on" will guess what i am not over you. because you can never be over the person you thought was your best friend. best friends that is what we called ourselves for so long. but we are not friends we are exs. i had never called you that. but now that is what you are. you are not the friend that i once had that i cared so much about that i wanted to see achieve the impossible. wanted to cheer along the path. wanted to love. wanted to be best friends forever. but no. you made the choice. now there is no turning back. we are now and forever more exs.

Not Whole

I have been feeling empty...and I just want to cry but the tears just won't come. Why? is something that I ask daily if not hourly? I don't feel well I fell like I am running is circles and I am never going to get anywhere that I want to go. I want to do more I want see more. I want to be more. I want to get out of my comfort zone. I want to make life worth living. I want to meet not only my needs but the needs of others. I want to feed the hungry and give hope to the lonely. but I find that I don't have time to feed myself or give hope to myself. If I were busy helping other I think I would not feel so bad about this but I am just barely taking care of my needs.

It is times like this were I find myself questioning God again, wondering where he is in all this and why I am not able to do what I want to do for his Glory. Then I look back at even this post and see that I used the word I so many times in just 2 paragraphs.

I just don't know

Summer 2 Weeks at a time

So I am getting to the end of my Second summer break...Classes start back on Monday and I am having a much need break from going to class and have papers and presentation looming in the near future. I am super excited to have my bestie Kat Kendall back in Hattiesburg and in my little home for the week and Tara Morgan and her lovely sister visiting tonight and a little in the morning.

I have second interview at Chick-a-fila tomorrow...not sure how I feel about it. I don't know what I am suppose to be doing with my life right now but I am just praying for a vision from God.

This is a hard for other reasons. My life has been such a crazy ride of emotions this past year. I know it was all for the better but still can not see what I am suppose do next. I have another 2 years in Hattiesburg and trying to see what that is going to look like job wise has got me so stress right now. I would love nothing more than to be able to get a job in my field but am only getting offers in food industry.....it is really disappointing when you try so hard to get THE job and it slips out from under your fingers.

This next school term is going to be insane I hope I can make it though and keep my 3.5!!!

Prayers welcome

ash

these days

here lately I find myself longing for the comfort and peacefulness of spending time alone. I would rather crawl up in my big comfy bed and be alone than be in a room full of people. I know that sometimes this is a sign of depression....but trust me I have been depressed and this is not what is going on. I think I just see so many people when I am at work. that I really don't care if I see a ton of people when I am off work.

On the other hand I am off work this Sunday and I get to go to church sunday!!!! this is one HAPPY HAPPPY HAPPPPPYYYY Girl! I need this badly! I need to be able to worship with my church family. I can now join then by letter and be a true member of the Venue family. Man I love my church!

ash

Bitter+Sweet takes getting used too

well tonight my dad resigned as pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Amory MS to accept a job at Shady Grove Baptist Church near Oxford. This is around 90 miles away from the current church but about 20 miles closer to my mom's work. so it was a prayed over for many months and this is what my dad feels as though the Lord is calling him to do. We have been in Amory for 9 1/2 years so the move will be surreal...mostly because I have a very small role in it. I now live in Hattiesburg, that is my "Home" so to speak for this season of my life. I have no idea where I will be in the next 5 years but something told me when I left in Feb. I would never move back here....man was I right

ash

my heart

it hurts....it is broken.....i am sad....most of the time....i wish things had turned out differently....

really....really.....

first and foremost I want to say that I am totally happy for all my friends who recently got engaged or married....

BUT as a single gal seeing about 10-20 different people facebook status change to "Married" or "Engaged" does not make me feel that great about myself.....I know that my worth is not in weather or not I am in a relationship my worth is in heaven and Christ defines me not weather or not some guy wants to date me....but when you where as close to marriage as I was and then to have it plastered to facebook that everyone else in the world has what you want more than anything else it is hard.

I have a very strong desire to be a wife and be a mommy....I want to make dinner for someone and watch netflicks with them, and that someone be a dude not my roommate who is in fact amazing but as much as we enjoy being each other roommates I am 200% sure that we both would rather have husbands to do those things with! (nothing against you Britt)

But as much as I desire to have a husband I do not want to settle, I know if just said the word there is someone who would buy me that big fat diamond and marry me but I would not be happy with that life because I would have nothing to talk about with that man....so what do I want in a husband well since you ask:

I want someone who encourage me to grow deeper in my Faith, someone I can talk about theology with, someone who wants to be a dad as much as I want to be a mom, someone who wants to adopt one day, someone who has a job, someone who make me laugh, someone thinks I am beautiful, someone I think is handsome, someone who enjoys books and music as much as I do, someone who will rub my feet after a hard day at work.....

I know these are random and all but that is my heart so there.....

ash

MY 20th POST!

I know it is sad that I have had a Blog for OVER a year and this is only my 20th post...but in my defense my mom told me "If you don't have something nice to say don't say it at all"...that being said I haven't had much to report BECAUSE......

I WORK ALL THE TIME!!! and when I am not working they call me into work...which is Good money wise....the way my knees and back feel about it though is not so great!

I got to spend time with my sweet nephews twice this week! which is a record I got to see my sister and bro-in-law too of course. CASH is so verbal now he talks all the time it so cute, and that smile oh my word it is to die for! Watch out ladies Cash Money is coming! Tripp is in the crazy kid phase....he is still cute to me but that is because I am biased and love him....He has some crazy crazy moments though! He is so much like my sister in the way he DOES NOT like change it completely messes with his 4 year old mind...OMG he is 4 this time next year he will be going to Kindergarten and Cash will be 2 and half and Baby #3 will be here!

I have learned one thing this past year if nothing else what you thought would happen won't and what you least expect will and to never count your chickens before they hatch because the Lord my not have those chickens in his plan for you!

just a thought

ash

I just want to forget

Some moments, some seasons, some mistakes that I have made in my life I would rather just forget. It seems that it would be easier if I could just forget the things in my life that hurt me most. That left those scars...that brought so many tears. When I was my pillowcases and can see the tear stains on the pillow it reminds me again of the hurt. So many nights crying myself to sleep. After last fall I wasn't sure if I had any tears left. It felt at times that I could not possible have any left....they did stop coming out for awhile even though the pain and the sadness where still there...I was starting to go grow numb. I didn't even care. Then I came here back to this place and their was a little sun in my life. Today is an overcast day though it is not like before I can make it to the other side without losing anymore tears but I still feel alone....
Ash

Ramen....

So early today...(well I guess yesterday now) I was eating a bowl of Ramen noodles. I had fancied them up with soy sauce and extra seasoning and I was eating them in my big girl apartment with my chopsticks that I bought in Vancouver....But they brought me back to a place where I first had Ramen noodles at my Granny Mc's house. It was September and my parents had gone to North Carolina for a conference. Audrea and I where staying with my grandparents at this time they lived in the old house, the house my Dad grew up in next door to the Grocery store/gas station they ran up until the year I was born. It was at that time being used as a Antique store. But all of that is completely besides the point. Anyways back to Ramen, one night my Granny was tired and didn't feel like making a huge dinner which was totally acceptable for a women who was a Cancer survivor and a diabetic this being before her cancer came back. So since she was tired she served my sister and I Ramen noodles. and We feel in in love with Ramen noodles. From that day on my grandmother made sure there where always ramen noodles at her house because we liked them...this food item along with Mt. Dew, Diet Coke, Potted Meat, and Various types of Little Debbie Cakes could always be found at my grandparents house just in case the grandkids might drop by and might be hungry. It is one of my precious memories of my grandparents. I miss my Granny I know she is in Heaven and one day I will get to worship our Lord with her forever. I am sad I don't get to visit my Papaw as much as I would like, He is very wise and terribly honest these days. I hope to get to visit with him soon. I was blessed to have such Godly Grandparents. I don't think with them my family would be the family it is today. Much prayer has been prayed for each of us. My Grandmother gave each of her children to Lord and it is evident in their lives and the lives of their children. So yeah a bowl a ramen can mean a lot when you take time to think over the little things in life