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So in case you didn’t know… my nickname, and name for that matter, are both very versatile. Perhaps a little too much so. Anyone under the impression that they have come up with a new variation is probably very sadly mistaken, because my name has already been mercilessly stretched beyond the natural limits of name stretching. Unless you would like to prove me wrong and come up with some ridiculously fresh and ingenious variation of your own. :P Here I prove my point in listing every name I have ever been called as an offshoot of Coco or Constance:

Cokes

Cokes Mgokes

Coco Puff

Coconut 

Cocalicious

Coconut Monkey

Coco Butter 

Coco Krispy

Coconut Cream Pie

Kokomo

Coco Chanel

Rococo

Coco Loco

Hot Coco

Glenn Coco

Coca Cola

Coco Cay

Cocaine

Coca Cabana

Cokie

Cokie Pokie

Pookie

Coco Poco Head

Cokes-a-Brokes 

Coconut Juice 

C.J.

Coo-koo

Chachi

Coco Bean

Bean

Coco Munoco

Clocko the Clown (Solomons special creation)

Coco Beware

Constantinople

Constantine 

Constant

Consonance

Stan

Stanimal

Stanley

Stan the Man

Kegstan

Conotance

Continents

Connie (not a fan btw)

CiCi (first and last initials)

The End… I think.

Letters

Well what do you know, i’m in a sentimental mood. Big surprise eh? I’m going to write letters to a couple of friends. And by a couple I literally just mean two. They will have to identify them though. Shouldn’t be that hard. Or if you read this you can just pretend it’s to you and that’s okay too :P

..

I know it sounds cliche, but you really have always been there for me. When I had no way of getting around you always had me covered. When I was bored you would hang out and do random things with me. We actually did a whole lot of nothing when I think about it, but that’s what makes it so great. You were there to listen when I needed it, and I could just be myself. I can tell you just about anything and have told you just about everything knowing that I can trust you. That is hard to come by. We have been through a lot and have had some pretty great talks. I hope you know I don’t take it lightly that you have opened up to me as much as you have. I’m sorry to say I took you for granted at certain times, and didn’t realize just how lucky I was to have someone like you in my life. You never stopped being a friend even when I made decisions that weren’t the best for me. You are quirky and original and genuine. You always put a smile on my face. 

…

I can honestly say that the best memories I have made have been with you. You are absolutely stunning inside and out, even if you don’t always believe it. You truly care about people and that is why I trust you so well. I have never felt so myself with any friend like I do with you. I could say or do anything and not feel stupid. You are one of the few that have seen my strange side in all it’s glory. You have the best sense of humor and I love how much we find to laugh at with each other. We are a lot alike and it’s extremely easy to talk to you. Now it’s come to the point where we are saying the same things and finishing each other’s sentences and i’m not surprised. Even though I don’t get to see you often, I still feel close to you and i’m pretty sure that isn’t going to change. I’m so happy to have shared so much of my life with you. Who am I kidding, you’re my girl crush ;)

…

Sigh.

Wow. So I am just so extremely annoyed right now. Within the past couple of weeks I have dealt with the same exact situation twice. I ended up casually talking with a couple of guys who seemed like pretty cool people that I thought could be potential friends. They both started showing romantic interest and sent some pretty flirty texts, so I tried to be cautious with the situation considering i’m not looking to date around. Then I find out that both of them have girlfriends! When I confront them, they both act extremely shady and tell me how horrible their situation is and how they don’t want to be with their girlfriends. So why the hell are they still with them? Call me old fashioned, but if a guy doesn’t want to be with a girl he breaks up with her. Since when is it okay to start sending other girls texts calling them gorgeous? It just isn’t classy. Funny thing is that both guys sent extremely similar texts and reacted similarly to the confrontation. It’s just pitiful and it has me in a very pessimistic mood towards the male gender at the moment. The fact that you aren’t having the best relationship with your girlfriend does not entitle you to go out and flirt with other girls. Here’s a thought… the world doesn’t revolve around you. It’s the same thing as cheating. They also both sent texts putting themselves down, blatantly begging for me to flatter them. This is just sad.

God I am tired of encountering losers. 

Lyrics and Love and You

Sufjan stevens loves you a lot-he loves you from the top of his heart.

Stars love you when you tell them not to speak.

The Pixies la la love you, don’t mean maybe.

Band of Horses: no one’s gonna love you more than they do.

Give Portishead a reason to love you.

Your love will be safe with Bon Iver.

Arcade Fire’s love keeps growing like a cancer, and you won’t give them a straight answer.

The Smiths: If it’s not love, then it’s the bomb that will bring you together.

John Mayer can’t keep loving you with half of his heart.

Taking Back Sunday loves the way you roll excuses off the tip of your tongue.

Give Bloc Party one more chance to love you.

Yes Franz Ferdinand loves—I mean… would love to get to know you.

Don’t struggle like that or The Cure will only love you more.

Lady Gaga is gonna love you with her hands tied.

Kanye West isn’t loving you, the way he wanted to.

Fall Out Boy has loved everything about you that hurts. They want to scream I love you from the top of their lungs.

Fall Out Boy thought they loved you, but it was just how you looked in the light.

The Outfield just wants to use your love tonight.

Brand New loves you the most, the summer now it has to end.

MGMT told you it was love, but you won’t know the truth.

Mumford and Son’s love was never pure, you know them.

Mumford and Sons knows you have felt much more love than you’ve shown.

The Postal Service can’t back away and let you go… darling, they love you so.

Feist loves you more.

Secondhand Serenade was born to tell you they love you.

You’re the only thing Snow Patrol loves, and it scares them more every day.

Lifehouse is falling even more in love with you.

Dave Matthews loves the way you move baby.

Dave Matthews could never love again, so much as he loves you.

Rihanna loves the way you lie.

Tell Metro Station what to do now, they’re so in love with you.

The Plain White T’s love being around you.

It was a bright, and sweet, and hot summer day, the day Regina Spektor didn’t love you anymore.

Iron and Wine loves to say this to your face: I’ll love you only.

The Avett Brothers will never let your love slip from their hands.

Florence and  the Machine fell in love with your opinion when they fell in love with you.

Beachhouse loves you all the time.

If you don’t love the Decemberists, then let them go.

Anberlin wants to be your last first love. They fell in love with your sin.

You could be the one Muse always loves. They will love whatever you become.

Your love is something the Shout Out Louds cannot remember.

Last night Motion City Soundtrack fell in love without you.

Snow Patrol still loves you more than anyone else could…

Well that was fun :P

“Loyalty is relevant, and loyalty over righteousness is folly. The ultimate duty is to be loyal to what is pure.” This is actually a quote from my crazy World Literature teacher, Khalil Elayan. I’m sure he would probably be pretty flattered if he knew that he was getting quoted. Anyway, it kind of sparked some thought in me. This is a tough lesson to be learned. We all find ourselves bound to corruption at times in our lives, but can easily justify the ties with moral values such as loyalty. It comes in a million different forms: it’s a parent who knows that their child is doing wrong, but refuses to discipline them and lets the child grow up continuing on with their vice, a friend who knows another friend is hurtful and abusive to those around him but chooses not to confront it, or a partner who sees fatal character flaws in the person they are with but fails to sacrifice the relationship.

Being loyal to what is pure is not easy. Sin has so warped our view of ourselves, God, and life to the point that we are willing to nurture dysfunction in others and ourselves. We sometimes even allow it because we have low self esteem or choose to live in a pattern of guilt that will always disqualify us to our right to a wholesome existence. We believe that we do not have the merit to address sin, and we are completely right. We don’t have the merit- God does. None of us are pure outside of the grace of God. But we can address sin when we are confident in our identity in Christ.

Some of us even embrace depravity because within it we find our identity. It sounds extreme, but there are so many subtle examples. For instance, a girl who has always been known to be a flirt will come to promote this image mostly because it is something that she feels sets her apart from others. It could also be the “bad boy” persona, where a guy knows that he treats people wrong and makes selfish decisions, but believes that this projects a certain image of masculinity, which is better than a depiction of weakness. It is really just sad when you think about it. It would cut out so much pain and confusion if we were all to adhere to this truth of being loyal only to what is pure. Thankfully we have a patient God who knows how to lovingly draw us back to himself every time we make compromises with impurity. All of these mess-ups can certainly bring us to maturity and self realization, but that does not mean we should live loose lives. These examples are purely relational. You can obviously be loyal to false and corrupt doctrines and ideologies as well. 

This brings me to another discussion we had in class concerning solipsism. We were discussing it in the context of The Mahabharata, because one of the characters embodied this philosophy. Solipsism is the theory that only one’s self exists, or can be proven to exist; that the world is a reflection of one’s self. The result is an extreme occupation with and indulgence of one’s feelings and desires. It sounds silly that anyone should believe the world to be as small as their own reflection, but I would say that a lot of people unknowingly fall into this pattern of thought.

For example, because the character we discussed in the book did not know how to forgive, he did not think it possible for another human to sincerely forgive him; he valued human integrity that little. This is a great illustration of solipsistic thinking. Just because we do not know a certain truth to be a reality does not mean it doesn’t exist. For example, just because our thoughts are hateful or skeptical does not mean that everyone else in the world is walking around hateful and skeptical towards us. But that is the handicap that humanity finds itself bound by; we do not see the world for what it is, but rather for what we are. I suppose the only escape is to be continually drawing closer to Christ, and to be continually changed into his image so that we see things through a sound lens.

In the book, the character believed that he was preprogrammed to act the way he did. He would constantly say “I am what I am”. He believed fate to rule his life, and that he could not change who he was. This fate-centered view completely extracts personal responsibility from the picture. The truth of the matter is that humans have a mind and a choice, and our lives may be covered by divinity, but they are steered by our actions. In the story, it led the character to push the limits of his power and morality, because he believed he had the right; that he was entitled to any behavior that seemed fitting. Life played out much like a game to him, where he was constantly pushing the limits to see what he could get away with. He did this because he truly believed that only discontent would lead to happiness, and that his only source of happiness was to cause trouble.

So, constantly consumed by guilt, he wished only to further perpetuate that cycle of guilt because he believed it was part of who he was. There is a certain brand of pride that is the opposite of what one would actually perceive pride to be; it is the pride of degrading oneself and focusing on one’s weaknesses. It is a false humility masked by an excessive love for one’s self to the point of almost deifying our sins, simply because they are our sins. This is the kind of pride that can be discerned, but not easily exposed as a sin, and this is the pride in which he was slave to. 

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this anymore, but it’s amazing what an interesting topic can do to make me actually want to write about things concerning my classes at school. Unfortunately, this does not happen very often, and The Mahabharata itself is not such a riveting book. 

It was the patience of books that he loved, their absolute passivity, which endured all things in man. It was a miracle that a book, neglected for years, being taken down at last, should sing instantly with Shelley’s voice and that the voice should be unchanged by all the operations of fortune. And if, while he read the argument of a master, his attention should wander from it and drift away into his own follies or prides, to this master he might return unreproved as to no other, books having no need to forgive. The argument would be continued; if he misunderstood, he could turn back and it would be repeated—endlessly repeated without irritation, without scorn; if he rejected it, he might lay it aside and it would not intrude itself, would not complain or threaten or protest. It was the godlike aloofness of books that he loved…

The blessed inhumanity of books! He said to himself now. That must be their secret for me. Yet their inhumanity must not be coldness; it must be a transcending of the heat of life which still dwells in them as the heat of the sun may be said to dwell in an oak tree. And though, just now, I thought that I loved this room better than the books contained in it, without the books it would be cold; it would be a tomb. I couldn’t walk up and down, up and down, feeling this silence enclose me like wings. When I stood still, listening, it would be loneliness, not solitude, that enfolded me. 

-The Fountain

The Reminder

It feels so good to know that I can fall as low 

as to take all you’ve given and act like it’s nothing.

I’m lost in your eyes when I find them still loving. 

I’m the one who let down my guard

So I ask for grace to fall down hard.

I’m the one who always detaches

And ends up with this box of matches.

Hiding the evidence gets easier each time

Grow another disaster and oil down the crime-

But standing here in my seething patches,

I’ve burnt down the forest,

and can’t hide the ashes.

I thought I could keep you from the indifference

I hid so far in

the earth that shot weeds to our roots

And poisoned our garden.

Tending to my plot of dirt had me acting like an island.

All the fear and fruitless hurt had me eating other viands.

Every fox that crept in I calmly pardoned

and believed every lie until my heart had hardened.

But I found the rules do not change if you disregard them.

And life’s not a game you try your luck in.

You were the vine.

I was the branch.

I just got tangled on a sweater

and tossed into a trench.

So I go

to the river to find the remainder

of what love I have left in which I may tender.

You say if I forgive this sin, the years will grow kinder;

 abide in me and I will be your reminder.

Just one of those pensive moments.

It is always directly upon waking or the moments of meditation before sleep that the absurdity of the human situation dawns on me. It is a realization just as quickly forgotten, as it is suddenly and randomly remembered. It is somewhere between the second I awake, and the time it takes for my mind to slowly pull itself away from illusion and anchor back into reality, that a million thoughts rush in. On occasion my mind acts like a sieve, holding onto the golden nuggets of thought and letting the sands of daily concern glide through. It is then that I am left solely with the big questions: Who are you? What are you doing here? Why does this machine we call life groan on? In this particular state of mind, to answer these questions with stories of creation and salvation seems utterly absurd, yet wondrous all the same. Most of the time, I wake up and immediately carry on with my day. It is only on occasion that I awake in this state and my mind is blown away by the simple yet incredible fact that I woke up. Furthermore that I awoke to a world and a system of life that I know everything, and yet still absolutely nothing about. I feel significant for just being a part of such a mystery, and yet humbled by my incapacity to even begin to grip it. I realize that so much is taken for granted; so much goes unanalyzed. I also realize just how trifling and silly most of the things we do really are. But it is what they represent that gives them their meaning: the search for love, truth, acceptance, beauty, meaning, and peace. All of our crazy lives and rollercoaster emotions are directly connected to our struggle to fill that piece of the puzzle in our hearts that we have never been able to fill with anything. It is a God shaped-piece, complete with a God-shaped indention.

Nighttime sets a different mood for thought. When I am laying on my bed in the dark, sometimes I ponder God until things become so completely ridiculous that I feel as if my mind has just been thrown into another dimension. God always was, he is, and he will always be. There were none before him. No one created God, and there is no time in which to measure his existence. No beginning. No end, just God… and that’s where I stop. To move past this is impossible. Our minds cannot wrap around this kind of view of time. But I can marvel. 

Float on Phantom

Sometimes I bury people inside my soul and let them die.

I call it letting them go.

The corpses float to the shore when I least expect it; an overflow of feelings of

regret and longing,

Missing and wanting-something

That is already gone. A song, a place, a face, the past, a memory connected

to a web of chaos recollected. But I will clean the cobwebs out.

Because a phantom limb is all you are, when my mind

Is focused on the scar, but when I see me as a whole, the Healer will restore my

soul.

Where to go?

Here we are now. Past is present, future is forlorn, today is forever

making a fool of me.

I’ll let it go. 

So this is a poem I wrote a while ago. I usually write poems to help me process through my feelings, but I rarely share them with anyone. I obviously wrote this when I was dealing with letting go of some stuff. It sounds pretty melancholy, but I came to some positive conclusions. Your past will always be a part of your today, but there are certain parts and people you have to kind of put away and stop revisiting in order to heal. Time really does do wonders for helping that out and God can break off ties that are unhealthy if you ask him. He can also help you to stop making the same mistakes if you will let him. I am such a sentimental person, so this has always been my downfall. I guess the devil often tries to use our biggest strengths against us. Like in my case, twisting my compassion and simple trust to unregulated attachment. 

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

It’s finally October and life is good. God… is good. No, not everything is going my way, actually things are kind of crazy, but I feel a joy inside of me I haven’t felt for a really long time. I feel a peace that I haven’t felt for a really long time. It’s funny how life can be great but you feel unrest on the inside. Then everything is going wrong and you feel peace. I don’t understand, but i’m thanking God for it. It’s cool to think that nothing in this life can shake me when God is my foundation. I may be pressed, but I will never be crushed. Each disappointment life throws at me is just another chance to turn around and praise God. Praising him in a place of brokenness is so much more intimate because in our weakness he becomes our only strength. Quite a lot of things went wrong today, but all I could think of was how beautiful and merciful our God is, and how thankful I am for every bit of love he has displayed in my life. No way that is normal for me, so I give all the credit to Him for that one. And this weather may be making me just a little bit ecstatic ;)