I'm supposed to be reading 'Lolita' for my Great Books class. 'Great book' that it may be (who comes up with the criteria for what a 'great book' is, anyway?), it repulses me and I want to throw it across the room with every chapter I'm forced to read. I don't want to get inside the mind of a pedophile. I don't want to know how he justifies it. I don't want to know how he wants to get with a 12 year old girl and considers killing her mother. I could really do without all that stuff.

Will it kill me to read it? No...if anything, forcing myself to go outside my comfort zone *could* be a good thing...to an extent. I'm trying this experiment (which I hope will evolve into a lifestyle habit) where I abstain from any movie, TV show, book, or band that will make my mind go to 'bad places' Because honestly, I don't feel bad for being in this period of singleness if I'm not torturing myself with things that will just make me feel empty.

I think more people would be amazed at how much easier it is to get some self-control if they stop filling their minds with MTV or anything similar. I've been convicted of how living 'chastely' (my old-school word for the day) is more than just a list of things you shouldn't do (because let's face it, when people think of chastity, they always think of what you're not supposed to do instead of what you should). It's about what you think about as well. And I, as a 22 year old college senior, will freely admit that my mind can use a spring cleaning. I need to start disposing of bad memories as well as questionable outlets of entertainment. What causes me to stumble might not be an issue for other people. Nonetheless, this is what I feel God is telling me lately. I need to start cleaning up my life.

So I'm deleting a bunch of songs on my iPod that remind me of certain things. I'm no longer watching certain TV shows. I'm deleting old emails and messages from certain people who pressured me to compromise. It's a slow and painful process. I'm not quite where I need to be yet (actually, I'm extremely far from it). But I hope that one day I can get to a place where I no longer feel the weight of baggage carried from my 'former life,' pre-baptism and pre-legal name change. Hopefully one day I can forget all about that stuff. I know God already has.

"Yeah, they talk about her. She smiles like she's so tough. She says 'Hey can you talk a little louder? I don't think my heart is broken enough"

Oh, how I adore this album. New one coming out soon...finally! I swear Anna Nalick is living in my head.

Someone has a coffee addiction, just like Mommy!

Nothing like re-reading all your old journals and realizing how messed up your life was.

I tried to write my life like a novel, which just made it more like a cross between Secret Life of the American Teenager and Gossip Girl...okay, maybe not quite as scandalous as Gossip Girl. But I was quite promiscuous with my emotions back then. I wouldn't say I was absolutely boy-crazy, but I felt things very deeply...well, actually I still do that. I had a lot less common sense back then, that's for sure. I hope that now I've actually learned from most of my high school screw-ups. Some of those unlearned mishaps lead to bigger college ones.

I make myself do this every once in a while because it's the best way for me to track not only how I'm changing, but how certain relationships ended up in flames even though there were several clues I wrote down that just didn't make sense at the time. In what is, to date, the worst heart break I've ever felt, it's also reassuring to go back and read how I dealt with that once before, albeit on a lesser scale since I was only 16 at the time. I need to remind myself that I'm a lot more resilient than I think I am...

...but that doesn't mean I don't sometimes wish I could go back in time and slap my 16 and 17 year old self for being a silly, stupid girl. And maybe ten years from now I'll want to slap my current 22 year old self for being MORE stupid. I wouldn't ever go back to being a teenager again even if somebody paid me. Maybe I'll feel that way about every passing decade from now on.

I know that making mistakes is what makes us who we are (to an extent) but I'm not convinced that that is the ONLY way I've ended up the person I am today. Is it really necessary to get hurt first before you can find real love? Is it really necessary to go down a wrong path in order to find the right one?

So. Many. Questions.

I should just leave the past alone already.