Try to keep and open mind, but I just can't sleep on this tonight.

What didn't post the night before.

I am literally sitting here swooning over Tom Hanks. Sitting up in bed so late at night makes me feel like a character Meg Ryan might play - you know, someone who has something to say. The comforter which so kindly warms my unsatisfactory and lightly freckled legs is light blue (think Narnia ice queen) and perfectly fluffy. I wish someone would transport me back to the nineties when dark lipstick and neutrals were all the rage and when it seems it was perfectly acceptable to walk around holding books, drinking a new-fangled cup of Starbucks coffee and basking in the seemingly immortal favorable economy. Where are we now? I am twenty years old. Twenty one in September, to be exact. And yet, I don't feel ready. I don't feel attractive enough, accomplished enough, sure enough. What is there, unique to me, that would make me the main character in any story? Meg Ryan would never be cast as me. Truly, I am more of a...Hilary Duff? A young girl pretending at something special yet never quite accomplishing that legitimacy, that actual talent that is so necessary in so competitive a world. No, much like our preteen Lizzie McGuire, I have now idea who I am. If only I were an Elizabeth Bennet! SHE was unafraid of her future. SHE did not give in to her fears, the pressures, the discontent of her family. Elizabeth Bennet lived her own life. She loved and she acknowledged truth. "Goodbye, Mr. Collins." - "Prove yourself, Mr. Darcy." Had I but an ounce of her gumption then perhaps I could get somewhere.

I give in too easily. I decide what I want. And then, something that bears the slightest resemblance, however rough, walks by and poof! All of my standards are out the window. Surely this is coming from myself. The Lord has given me clear standards but I have apparently decided that following my own path is the way to go. I am seventeen again. Please excuse the unavoidable allusion. Must I be transported back three years to remember the vulgarity and shame of my previous self? Perhaps I was no more insecure than I am now, but I certainly had no hope. Today I have hope. Unquenchable hope: Romans 8:35.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?