There's Nothing Like a Little Etta . . .

. . . to just chill to and to inspire one. Thank God for Launchcast on Yahoo Radio. Pretty much the best mood lifter in the world.

I want to write something beautiful. The one thing I've started wondering about, though, is, do we artisticky types (yes, I'll include myself in that category) want to write or create something beautiful when the beauty is right in front of us, inside of us? Perhaps a life can be a beautiful story, as cheesy as that sounds. Maybe I'm so accustomed to this desire to create something beautiful outside myself as a semblance of release, that I haven't tried to find that release in my life itself.

Maybe there's something wrong if our lives themselves don't contain the beauty we seek elsewhere.

Maybe I'm doing the wrong things.

What do I seek for myself and my life? What would my mission statement be? How would I like to be remembered?

(Random note: It always worries me that no one besides me knows my scars. It saddens me to overemotional, weirdly unexplainable depths that even those in my family could identify few of my identifying marks if something were ever to happen to me where I was unrecognizable. Yes, it's morbid. But that lack of intimacy and, heck, interest, is just plumb disappointing. I just discovered another one today, and, thus, this popped back into my thoughts.)

Back to topic. What do I want to do, to be remembered for?

Well, first of all, what I'd like to accomplish and who I'd like to become are two different things.

I'd like to travel, to learn new languages, to get my act together and suddenly (poof! magic) become some shade of organized. I want to find a job that I will like and that will play to my strengths and needs: independence, lots of movement, variety, and freedom to be creative. I want to live somewhere that is beautiful, comfortable, and home, surging with community. I do not want to live in Housing Development, Suburbia. Heck, no.

I'd like to become someone I'd look up to. I want to keep my country roots, be someone physically, emotionally, and spiritually strong. I want to have a deep faith that not only questions, but finds answers, without all of the lingo and prepackaged, easy answers. (And I never want to wear a Jesus t-shirt again.) I want to be independent, fiercely compassionate and loyal, nonjudgmental, but still grounded in my own faith. I want to be a lover who fights for the ones I love. :) I want to be observant, hospitable, wise, introspective, intelligent, creative and artistic, merciful, sometimes times funny, sometimes awkward, always quirky, and always genuine. I want to be spontaneous and grounded, all at the same time, and I want to love and serve others for their sake and for the purpose of Purpose, of living out my faith and my love and extending that same grace and hope that I've received to everyone around me. I want to love the unlovables. I want to inspire and be inspired. I want to be vulnerable and honest. I want to be blunt when I need to be. I want to be passionate, tomboyish (why should I change that? I like it), and encourage the creativity and love of others.

I don't want people to be ashamed of me. I don't want my family to be ashamed of me. I don't want to be ashamed of me. I don't want to shame the God I love, although I know that's something I do and will continue to do from time to time.

I don't want to let people down. I want to meet their expectations, my way. I want to be more punctual, more thoughtful in encouragement and communication, and more reliable. I want to be involved in things outside myself. I don't want to settle into selfish routine.

Oh, yeah, and I'd like to learn coordination and learn how to dance and cook really well, too, but that's beside the point. I'd like to eat healthier, while we're at it. I'd like to create my own fashion for myself, one that's actually fashionable and professional. I'd like to learn how to paint and/or sculpt. I'd like to take exquisite photographs that really capture color and beauty as I see it. And like I said, I'd like to write something beautiful. Side track . . . done.

(Ray Charles' "Blues Waltz." Fantastic. Really.)

My grandma wonders why I'm still single? I'm still perfecting this stuff. These are my goals, my dreams.