My Future Husband

Tight Pants for Jesus, Weiners, Lunkers, & Shlumpadinka Pants

Vogel Family Definitions: (two of many)
What is a lunker?

• Andy's definition: a large catch when ice fishing
• Dawn's definition: something you would flush down the toilet
• Dad's definition: A Christmas miracle (defined as he walks out of the bathroom)
• Dictionary's definition: something unusually large for its kind

What is a weiner? (pronounced vwee-nar)

• My definition: A part of the body that Jack is hoping to lose if he keeps being so annoying
• Mom's definition: a zesty holiday sausage
• Dawn's definition: a saucy delicious naughty at holiday time
• Dictionary's definition: frankfurter

Christmas Eve begins with Dad pulling on his Tight Pants for Jesus and singing the Tights Pants for Jesus song.  Our family of giants pile into the car and complain as it seems to downsize every year.  Marielle sings church songs a la Vogel style (For the lamb who was slain, we forgot his name, bahhhhhhhahhhhleluiah bahhhhhleluiah) during the half hour trek that brings us to Normandale Evangelical Lutheran in Edina, MN.  For once, we roll into the church parking lot a half hour early (truly unheard of when you have Jill Close as a mother) and sit there being oh-so-twenty-first-century as we ditz on our smart phones for the next fifteen minutes.  Dad being the polite little Christian that he is insists that the whole family sit in the back since our church appearances can count for about three days a year and we should give the good spots to the people who actually go to church on a regular basis.  Not only that, since the majority of our family is over the six feet tall and you can count on Auntie Dawn walking in with the processional anthem, it is best if we keep our distractions to a minimum in the back.

I'd like to say that our family really gets the most out of Christmas Eve service, but really we spend that hour and half drawing funny pictures of Santa Claus and Jesus on the offering envelopes, singing the carols in goofy voices, and scoping out the hottest boys during the readings.  Jesus is my homeboy, but sitting in an uncomfortable pew in uncomfortable clothes for that long is just not my thing.

As soon as the service is done, we pile back into the car, complain about the lack of space, and Marielle sings until we end up back hope.  The whole family pulls on their shlumpadinka pants and cozies and we gather around the kitchen counter in silence as we stuff our faces with the fat and cholesterol and sodium-filled snacks.  In true Scandinavian style, Christmas Eve dinner is a real Mexican fiesta... okay that isn't Scandinavian I just liked the sound of saying that.  So we ate queso, and guacamole, and tacos, and talked about corn in our poopies and wore our hair in doinkers which I'm too lazy to explain right now and debated the meaning of the word squishitate etc. etc. etc. blah blah blah.

I'm bored of this blog post I've been writing it for like three days now and I am so not in the mood anymore but I am posting it anyway because I already wrote a crap ton.  Oh yeah, I am pretty sure I heard good ol' Catholic Grandma Bette fart for the first time ever.  I'm afraid to even use the word "suck" in front of her.  She would be mortified if she knew what I heard slip out of her backside on Christmas. muahaha!

This morning kind of sucks.

Caroline + Risk Is A Dangerous Cocktail

Risk tends to watch me staring anxiously off the edge of the cliff and shoves me over whether I want to take the plunge or not.  Sometimes it's good, I hit the water below in a nice smooth dive and am filled with the exhilaration of the thrill. Sometimes it's bad though, and I hit the dried up ground and must figure out how to pick up all the broken pieces of who I was.

My heart dictates what risks I am willing to take, with no say from my mind.  Feeling is different for me.  It's like taking the curling iron that most people just need at medium temperature and cranking it up to maximum heat.  The curls are a whole lot better, but the burn hurts a whole hell of a lot more.  I don't tend to focus on the disciplinary consequences but how hard of a hit the consequences take on my emotional well-being.

There never seems to be a middle ground for me.  I'm all in or I'm all out.  It's why I can get cautious at times.  I want to believe that I can trust everyone, that I can trust them to never hurt me, trust them to understand who I am and how I work, but that isn't how life works in reality. I have to constantly remind myself how quickly and hard my heart can break.

Risks are scary because the outcome is the unknown and there is nothing more terrifying than diving into the unknown with no grasp on if you will be okay or not.  The idea of risk likes to sit in the pit of my stomach and gnaw away at my reasoning.  That's when the reasoning has to stop, the thinking has to stop.  I just have to do.  Have to be.

If I have learned anything in the past year it is that everything will work itself out in the end.  If it hasn't worked out yet, then it's not the end.  Marilyn Monroe said, "Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together."  Sometimes pieces of life don't work out so the next piece of life can. It is about reminding myself that risks are worth taking if I plan on living my life to the fullest.  I'd rather regret a risk I took that didn't work out in my favor than regret a risk I didn't take and forever wonder what the outcome would have been.

Roflcopter

 

Marcel the Shell

 

Jenna Marbles: Justin Bieber's Tricks for Picking Up Chicks

 

Jenna Marbles: Sarah Palin

 

Grinding Scarred Me

 

Miss Swan: (900)HOT-SWAN

 

Miss Teen South Carolina

 

Harry Potter Puppet Pals: Wizard Angst

 

Double Rainbow

What I Discover On the Internet Instead of Doing My Homework

Okay seriously if this doesn't put a smile on your face it is time for you to see a therapist.

Grown men in costumes terrify me.  I watch too much crime television.

<3

I have lots of favorite words but 'hope' is definitely near the top of my list.

Just some good ol' warm fuzzies

Merry Christmas Everyone

Things I've Learned (Both Easy Way and Hard Way) And Other Things I Knew But Have Just Been Reinforced Lately

I actually have no recollection of what the capitalization rules are for titles.

I am an analogy addict.  I am addicted to analogies. They are the only way I know how to explain my life accurately.

Everything happens for a reason.  But it actually does.  I use this explanation for everything.  Especially things I can't figure out.  I hate (yeah I just bold, underlined, and italicized that for emphasis!) not understanding situations.

Cheeky underwear does not suit me.  Sorry Victoria's Secret.

I do not throw up often, but I do throw up easily.

My attempts to hold grudges fail me miserably every single time.  Like I said, I just can't help but love everybody.  This is why people (*cough* boys) should stop hurting my feelings.  Because as much as I try and hate them, I CAN'T DO IT.

Sometimes, it is okay to watch Gossip Girl instead of doing my homework.

It is really hard to keep people I love out of my life when they really want to be in it.

Purple is a great color.

I need to wear a belt more often, I feel like I give a crack show everyday to WHS. Yikeees.

People aren't always going to listen to what I have to say. I guess that is okay....

The self-improvement section at Barnes and Noble is my new fave hang out.  But seriously, I felt so inspired.  I'm such a sucker for that kind of stuff.

Rolling around in a giant bucket with my best friend and laughing hysterically will give people the impression that we are really freaking drunk.  We're really just being ourselves.

I shouldn't text/tweet out of anger. I WILL REGRET IT WHEN I AM NOT SO MAD.

I HATE WINTER. (Cards I just filtered so much right here you should defs be proud of me)

I seem to be the only single person who isn't feeling sorry for themselves that I don't have a boyfriend.

I wish I was as good at expressing my happiness through words as I am at expressing my sadness through words. Shmeh.

Life is never going to deal me any of the cards I expect (yes yes I know how cliche)

Eating that sundae is never going to be worth it.  Allergic reactions are so much worse than that ice cream was good.

Telling random people I don't know what I love about them never hurt anyone.

Boys usually side with their best friend, Dick.  Especially when they are drunk.

My dog and I do like each other sometimes.

The Packers are the greatest team in all of sports history. God bless the U.S. and amen.

Taking risks is what life is all about bitches!

This blog is getting really long and pointless now... 再见！我爱你!

I Just Love Everyone Right Now

Feeling sorry for yourself.  We're all good at it, me especially.  My goal is not to come off hypocritical in this next post because God knows what a downer I can be.  All I'm trying to say is that there is a lot of reasons to look at life with the glass half full rather than half empty.

Now lately there have been plenty of new relationships blossoming and the news of these relationships have been smothering any WHSer's Facebook Newsfeed in the past week.  Along with these relationship updates have been a series of angsty, pity-fiilled tweets attacking these love bugs for their happiness.  For people who feel like they deserve someone to like them, I can honestly not think of anything that is more unattractive.  I'm a firm believer in self-fulfilling prophecies and if they don't believe that any guy is ever going to like them, then I can almost guarantee no guy is ever going to like them.  It's not that they should go out and make it their prerogative to find a guy but at the same time sitting on their can sulking in their sorrows isn't doing them any good.

I know I have had my fair share of pity parties, anyone who has read my previous blogs knows that.  What really gets under my skin about all of this is how people handle this in relation to others.  I' m the queen of pep talks, I love making people feel better about themselves.  But when I spend a good chunk of my time reminding you how beautiful you are and then you respond with a message shooting it down, don't expect a response or sympathy from me. I can only play the violin at your pity party for so long. 

Following is a happy list, because lately I have just been SO HAPPY!

THINGS I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR OR JUST RIGHT NOW IN GENERAL:

1. Skipping through the aisles at Target wishing everyone a merry Christmas in a British accent.

2. Buying things for anyone in everyone.  I just don't feel like spending my money on me lately.

3. The smell of the Christmas tree when I'm being a load and sitting in my family room all by myself.

4. My fuzzy socks that keep my feet toasty warm in the winter.

5. Gazing adoringly at Neiman Marcus shoes that cost more than I have in my bank account (Okay I actually hate this but I love the shoes so I had to include it).

6. Making friends with whoever I meet, I just can't help but love everyone lately.

7.  My Bels sisters, I couldn't ask for a better group of people to call my family.

8. The smell of gingerbread cookies cooking in the oven.

9. Knowing that I will get to spend time with my family in less than a week and a half.

10. Knowing that I will get to see my best friend in LESS THAN A WEEK!

So to my beautiful wonderful friends, this is not meant to be a rant.  I just want you to be happy.  Boys are not the key to happiness.  Just living life the way you want to is.  The good stuff will come with time.  It always does. 

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

My faveskis poem by Emily Dickinson.

I was hoping I would have time for a happy post tonight but unfortunately I don't.  So here is a picture of someone who makes me happy.  Her name is Megan.  I told her I was going to blog about her, so here it is Megan! Thanks for having the biggest most loving sweetest beautifulest (is that a word?) heart of anyone I have ever met.  I couldn't have been more blessed to get placed next to you in choir this year <3

The Good Samaritan

Going to work with my dad on Christmas Eve is what I look forward to the most on the jolliest day of the year.  Not opening presents, or sitting by the fire watching Christmas movies, or eating delicious food (okay maybe eating delicious food tops it), but sitting in my dad's office building trying to find ways to entertain myself.  One Christmas Eve a couple years ago, I plunked myself down on the floor of my dad's office and rummaged through his desk while he made phone calls and did whatever work wealth management advisers do on Christmas.  In one drawer, I came across mugs overflowing with spare change that he had collected over the years.  Having nothing better to do, I organized the coins by value and counted how much money my dad had stashed away in his desk, forgotten for all this time.  It totaled over $200 dollars.

Being in the Christmas spirit, I hauled a small child sized bag of that change down to the first Salvation Army bucket I could find and spent the next half hour putting each and every single one of those coins in.  I think the bell ringer almost passed out in amazement.

Since then, I have given a few dollars and cents here and there, but nothing substantial.  I guiltily walk by the the bell ringers every time I see them, knowing that I have so much more than any of the people the money would go to help.  Sometimes I'm too cold, or too selfish of my time, or just too uncomfortable to contribute.  I think about how great I felt, using something that wouldn't make a difference to me to completely change a complete stranger's Christmas.  I could spare a few seconds and get that feeling again, but I don't.

Changing a complete stranger's day is one of the easiest things you can do.  It is one of those situations that can always be a win-win, leaving them maybe with a full tummy for once and you with a good feeling from helping someone out.  It's not hard, yet we rarely do it.  We choose to ignore what we can't see always but know is always there.  Why? Why do we choose to avoid something we know that will make us feel better about ourselves? It is a question that we must all answer for ourselves.  We all have our reasons, but they all have one thing in common.  They are selfish.  One minute of your time and one dollar out of your wallet barely phases you, yet it completely changes some other person's life.  Why isn't that enough? 

Just A Happy Reminder

Compassion is not a character trait like a sunny disposition.  It must be learned, and it is learned by having adversity at our windows, coming through the gates of our yards, the walls of our towns, adversity that becomes so familiar that we begin to identify and emphasize with it.

Barbara Lazear Ascher

Back To December

"Don't marry me, I'm useless."
The words my six year old cousin has scratched above the picture of me he has drawn.  The last word echoes over and over again in my head.  Useless.  Now he doesn't even know what the word means, he just thinks he is going to get a good laugh out of me.  And laugh is what I do.  Because I'm not about to scare the naive young thing by breaking the dam holding back a wave of emotions that he just took a hammer to.

Last year I wanted to die.  A year ago from next week I was going to kill myself.  I hate saying that.  Usually I can't say it. I'm cringing as I force myself to write those words.  They scream selfishness and embarrassment as they glare back at me from the page.  I'd much rather say "I was going away" or "I didn't want to be here anymore," but those phrases are vague and avoid the real truth.  It has taken me almost a year to admit to myself.  That I was ready to end not only my pain, but everything that was me, Caroline.  It didn't just hit me all of a sudden.  It was a process that gradually began to eat away at my inner being until there wasn't anything left.  I slowly retreated into the shell that I was becoming, like a dead body that decays until all that is left is a carcass.

Then there was Danny.  He was a real shit.  I wasn't exactly sunshine and rainbows myself though.  I clung to him with every piece I had left, subconsciously believing that maybe, just maybe, he could fix my pain.  If our relationship was a house, we took every flammable material we could find then covered it with gasoline and threw matches at each other, all inside this house.  How we both made it out alive, I don't know.  He was definitely closer to the door than I was.  We made it out with burns and injuries, but there was nothing left of that house but ashes.  Nothing to be salvaged.  It was my last straw.  The end of Danny was the end of me holding myself together.  It wasn't that I couldn't live without him.  It was that the one thing I still had hope in was over.  The only thing that knew the pain I was in was gone and I took it as a sign.  This monster living inside me, killing me, was going to scare away anyone that knew about it.

The pain that took over me at that point is indescribable. When I think of that night I envision acid and the devil surging through every vein in my body, torturing me.  My insides begging to come out of the body-fortress holding them in, with no chance.  Because it wasn't actually happening.  It was all in my head.

I stopped eating for a month.  I couldn't eat for a month.  Anything I tried to eat would just come back up.  So I decided I didn't want, nor need, to eat.  I dropped twenty pounds.  My pelvic bones jutted through my skin and my hands and wrists were nothing but skeletons.  My skin grew grey and gaunt.  I thought maybe if I just starved myself long enough I would disappear. Evaporate into thin air.  When everything else was out of control, I felt in control of something.

I got help.  Recently in a talk with the school counselor, she asked me how I did it.  To tell you the truth, I have no freaking idea.  When I look back at last year, all I remember is hell.  Each day, each hour, each minute was a challenge.  But somehow I did it.  There are no tricks to overcoming depression.  I still struggle with it every single day.  There are times when I look in the mirror and I see that girl from last year.  Empty. Ugly.  Useless.  But then there are days, most days, when I don't.  I look in the mirror and I see a strong, determined, confident, beautiful girl staring back at me.

It scares me.  Knowing that I'm entering the months of seasonal depression.  Knowing that the only vitamin D I will be getting will be in the form of the pills my mother shoves down my throat daily.  It scares me because all I want is to be happy.  This time around I know I'm going to be okay.  But I want to be more than okay, I want to be happy.  This is the time where I must remember all my blessings.  I have more help than I could ever imagine.  I have the most beautiful and loving family and friends that are ready to stay by my side and hold me tight in every tumble I take.  I'm succeeding in school, and I have learned to accept my abilities for what they are instead of pushing myself to be more than I could possibly achieve.  And I laugh again.  I laugh and I smile and I no longer have to be the friend that is always dependent on others.  I can now be the friend that knows exactly what to say when someone else is hurt.  I can be the one who holds it together when someone else is falling apart.  I get to be the funny girl with the weird jokes and the obnoxious laugh and not the girl who sits in the back of class, silent, singing softly to herself so she doesn't begin to cry. 

Yesterday morning, as I leaned over my backpack, holding my water bottle between my legs, and wiped the leftover tears from my eyes, Max Hanson looked up at me and said "Your vagina............ is wet."  I instantly choked on a laugh in my shock at his completely outrageous, hilarious, violating comment.  I don't know why, but in that moment as I laughed with Max, I knew, no more tears today.  How could I be upset when Max was sitting next to me cracking inappropriate jokes that really, should not be coming out of anyone's mouth? 

I'm still to scared to say some of this out loud.  Some of this I have never told anyone.  I don't want to.  These words are every raw wound I have in my body.  Some have healed up over time, forming scars where there was previously blood.  I'm writing this because I don't want anyone to feel alone.  I don't want anyone to feel how I did, like no one else in the world understood or knew what I was going through.  I held everything in for so long, and it destroyed me.  And it was almost impossible to put myself back together again. Call me Humpty Dumpty if you will. I did it though.  I have something to live for.  I have so many things to live for.  I wouldn't change one second of it.  I know who I am because of it. I found my true self.  And I am a better person for it.