because i'm convinced i have insomnia...

as of late i haven't been able to sleep.
it seems like every night for the past 8 or so days i have either woken up at 3 in the morning or stayed up til 3 in the morning.
lying awake for hours.
isn't much of a good thing when you have 7:30 am class.

occasionally i get out of bed and find some oreos and milk.
most of the time i just lay there and let my mind wander.
(which only makes it that much harder for me to fall asleep)

usually it is almost painful for me to lie awake due to my dark and twisty's that over take my thoughts.

what are your dark and twisty's?

those thoughts that you can't quite seem to shake.

for me, they lie in impossible situations that i have to work out in my mind.
i'm convinced i've solved world hunger at least four times....

other times my dark and twisty's are due to me feeling hopeless.
sometimes they are the thoughts trapped in my mind that worry about the future, or the past.

on occasion they take the shape of my excitement for some future event..
whether that be the next day, or another life.

they also come in the flavor of worrying for other people.
whether i know them or not.

it makes me want to meet every single person on this earth, and see what they worry about.
what makes them tick? how i can lessen their load? what thoughts consume their brains in the middle of the night?

well, tonights thoughts go to my own mother.
i truly have wonderful parents who i'm so grateful have shaped me to become who i am today.
i blame my worrying genes on my father. (but unlike him, i worry when it's needed AND i worry when it's not)
i blame my fix the world genes on my mother.
together= my mentality of the world is broken and it's my fault/i need to fix it.

just laying in bed a little after 2 a.m. and i can't get the image of this little story about my mom out of my head. it just keeps replaying itself over and over. thus making it my tonight's dark and twisty's.



china was very different than i expected. there is pretty much two classes of people there.
the rich.
and the poor.
not much in between.

we saw a lot of people struggling, but there was one lady in particular on a street corner in Xian.
she was begging for change, and we moved past her like we did many others.
sadly i didn't think much of her.

we got around the corner, when my mom stopped.
she said she needed to go give that woman some money.
how she couldn't imagine her own mother having to be out on the streets like that.
she asked my brother and little sister and i what we had in our pockets.
we pulled out the small change we had and we headed back with my mom.
i'm thankful that my mom's dark and twisty's make her worry about others.
there was no denying her feelings, my mom knew we needed to walk back to this lady.
i'm so glad we did.
i'm even more glad to have such an amazing example of love and service in my life.

photo credits are given to my awesome brother.

maybe now that i got this written down i will finally be able to get some shut eye.
here's to hoping.