Hello joy.

    Happy Tuesday, fair lords and ladies!

I am in this mood today.

    I went to a Renaissance Fair on Sunday and had some major flashbacks to when I was younger and obsessed with faraway, magical lands.
    I used to dream about being a gentle yet fierce warrior-princess with an endless trove of bravery, intelligence and compassion stored up in her heart. I dreamed of riding into battle to fight dragons and hosting grand balls in a castle lit merrily by candlelight. I dreamed of a chivalrous prince in a suit of silver armor, swooping in and carrying me off into the sunset on some gloriously romantic adventure.
    I had a wonderful childhood, marred only by events which were out of my control and, as I have come to terms with ten years later, not my fault. I am in love with those happy years of imagination and laughter, yet haunted by that darkness which seeped in and robbed me of my innocence too soon.
    I let that darkness manifest itself inside of me, thinking I deserved all the guilt and anxiety and suppressed anger. I stopped trying to be a princess and did my best to simply blend in and survive, forcing myself to be ordinary. The dragons I battled waged war in my head- most days, I let them win. I pushed friends and family away, convinced I was hard to love and too much of a burden. I did not let myself dream of a Prince Charming, so convinced was I that the only boys who spent time with me wanted to use me.
    I lived in that hell, a bleak, cold, ugly ghost of all the potential God had so graciously bestowed upon me. It was during my first semester of college, the first real length of time I spent away from home, when I realized how completely not okay my life was. It took some serious self-evaluation, the gentle interventions of close friends, and a lot of the princess-like bravery which I thought I lacked for me to reach out and get help.
    It took a long time for me to remember how to dream again. I don't recall the exact day when I started actually laughing- deep, breathless laughter, complete with my signature shrieking. It took me a while, but all of the sudden I could smile in photos again. I looked in the mirror one day and thought "whoah, I'm a pretty lady."
    I stopped hiding my body underneath layers of clothing. I stopped regretting eating an entire sleeve of Oreos in one sitting. I stopped having emotional breakdowns before every test in school. I stopped looking for the exits in a room when I was alone with a boy.
    I stopped being bound by fear and started being set free by grace.
    These days, I am back to trying to be that warrior-princess, attempting to be that example of beauty and courage in the face of adversity, to be as fierce and assertive as I am kind and caring. It is my intention to fight for justice in this world, slaying the monsters of slavery, poverty and greed for the sake of those who cannot advocate for themselves. I have learned that princes are sometimes frogs, but once in a while you find one who treats you like a lady and opens a door- literally and figuratively. And those are the ones worth following into some delusional sunset like a dopey-eyed fool.
    I don't have happiness. Happiness is transient. I have chosen joy. And I pray that, if you are reading this, you will choose joy too. It is never easy. But it is always worth it. :)
   

yes and yes and a thousand times yes.

--Laura :)

World Change happening at globalgoals.org

Hello best friends, sorry I didn't post yesterday. We went to The Big E and spent an awesome day there. I wish Rose and Laura had been there...... c'mom guys. How did you miss that memo? 

Rose, I'm obsessed with your post. Something about it made my soul happy. Obviously that just points to how much of a white girl I am. 

Mercy, you're my favorite and my best and don't you forget it. 

Laura, I'm proud of how short your post was. Also I'm immensely happy to see that you're doing better and your profile picture on Facebook gives me life. 

Okay news flash. Apparently the important leaders of the world all got together and decided on some important things that need to happen in the next 15 years and it really excites me. 

http://www.globalgoals.org/

Obviously (if you read anything off that link) these are really big goals. Really huge intimidating goals. Almost too much to think about. Ending poverty in all it's forms? Ensure universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy services? Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls? These are *in Donald Trump voice* huuuuge goals. But it excites me. Because if even one of these things could come to completion, it would be outstanding. Change can happen, guys. And we might be alive to see it. We might be able to help that change come about.  So check out the link. Watch their video (Tom Hiddleston is in it and if that's not motivation, I don't know what is.), spread the word and let's watch these things happen. 

Okay, I've got things to do today though. Like make my bed. That's something important that needs to happen. I will be amazed if it does happen.

Peace out girl scouts <3 Grace

I'm such a white girl.

Well it's Thursday!

This week has been soup. I've been reading a bunch of old journals lately and I used to use soup as an adjective a lot. I have no idea what I meant by it but I used it nonetheless. 

Anyway, I'm going to reply to your posts.

Grace, I really feel your post. I think I spend half of my time wishing I was someone else somewhere else and like 25% percent of my time reprimanding myself for being ungrateful. And the rest of my time sleeping. I sleep a lot. I'm like a sloth.

Laura, I don't have to reply to your post you sleep in my bedroom. And it is my bedroom because I spend so much time sleeping in it because again,

Mercy, OUR FREAKING BOYS AND THEIR FREAKING SELVES AND OH MY GOD i LITERALLY CANNOT.

My brain had been officially fried by junior year. So this week I don't have any of my own words for you but I do have some other peoples.

First of all, the little white girl in me is so excited for fall. 

September, by Helen Hunt Jackson

The golden-rod is yellow; 

The corn is turning brown;

The trees in apple orchards

With fruit are bending down.

The gentian's bluest fringes

Are curling in the sun;

In dusty pods the milkweed

Its hidden silk has spun.

The sedges flaunt their harvest,

In every meadow nook;

And asters by the brook-side

Make asters in the brook,

From dewy lanes at morning

The grapes' sweet odors rise;

At noon the roads all flutter

With yellow butterflies.

By all these lovely tokens 

September days are here,

With summer's best of weather,

And autumn's best of cheer.

But none of all this beauty

Which floods the earth and air

Is unto me the secret

Which makes September fair.

'T is a thing which I remember;

To name it thrills me yet:

One day of one September

 I never can forget. 

This next poem has been a recent obsession of mine. Also Rod McKuen is bae.

Empty Is, by Rod McKuen

Empty is 

the sky before the sum wakes up in the morning.

The eyes of animals in cages.

The faces of women mourning 

when everything has been taken

from them.

Me?

Don't ask me about empty.

Empty is a string of dirty days

held together by some rain

and the cold wind drumming 

at the trees again.

Empty is the color of the fields

along about September 

when the days go marching 

in a line toward November

Empty is the hour before sleep 

kills you every night 

then pushes you safety 

away from every kind of light.

Empty is me.

That's it. That's all I've got for you today. Grace, we'll hear from you tomorrow? 

Gurl please, -Rose.

Yet again

Good evening girls, it's Wednesday.

And here we are again, when it's 10:00 and I am just now starting a blog post. Love my life :) :)

I mean honestly, my life has been so unstable right now, cuz One Direction hates me, and I can't take it anymore. 

They um thought it would be funny to release a new song yesterday and put their album out for pre-order and everything and I'm so emotionally unstable and also broke.

I have a presentation due for my acting 3 class tomorrow and I'm a bundle of nerves but I'm praying all goes well. 

I dunno. I feel like I'm falling into a slump again.... It's not fun and I don't want to, but I don't know how to not??? But the Big E is on Friday and I'm excited about that and I pre-ordered my boys new album so when they sneakily drop all those new songs, I'll get them straight away :D 

I want to see you girls soon. We need to come to your house, ASAP. Please. I need some Backus coffee and some Backus food and some Rosie and Laura hugs. I miss y'all so much. Soon. Please? 

Here are my boys being perfect as usual. 

Go listen to Wet Dreamz by J.Cole (if you like explicit but meaningful rap music.) 

OKAY can we just talk about how great internet friends are? Almost 99.9% they're better than IRL friends, with the exception of you guys, duh. 

Anyway, I need to go to sleep, because I'm getting hungry now and sleep will distract me from this. Also it's 23:33.

Goodnight y'all. 

Rosie, I'll hear from you tomorrow? 

xoxo, 

Mercy 

Everything'll be alright :)

Good morning girls, it's Tuesday.

Me in regards to posting today.

I relate to John Green on a spiritual level. Props to him and Hank for inspiring us to create OTAS.

    I hope you all had a fun and relaxing weekend. It finally feels like fall, and I'm back to wearing long pants and sweaters and moccasins and enjoying the shivering chill at dawn when I go for a run. My mom bought pumpkin spice coffee creamer (dairy-free, so I can have it) and I put some in my late night cup yesterday and it was like I brought Starbucks home. My basic white girl thoroughly enjoyed the PSL-quality, as it kept me awake for my favorite, all-consuming hobby of studying.

What? Am I overwhelmed? Of COURSE not! *Dances to escape feelings*

    I've been having a better week than the last one. Music like this song has been keeping me going:

    I suppose I should reply to your posts now:
    Mercy: I am so proud of you for sticking to your guns (as a One Direction fan and as a talented thespian). Hope you are starting to recover from your PCD (Post-Concert Depression).
    Rose: I live with you. Do I even have to respond to your post?

I don't even know if this GIF is going to move, but you get the picture.

    Grace: I miss your squishy face and your text from yesterday made me all nostalgic. A Backus-Ege family escapade is necessary ASAP. I miss the melodious sound of your reasonable voice. I assume from your recent posts on the social medias that you are surviving and enjoying your much-needed gap year.
    I'm sorry that this post was so short. But I'm really short, so it works. Mercy, I'll hear from you tomorrow.
--Laura :)

newest favorite quote

In love with Fridays. In love with Tom Hiddleston.

see the beauty of the world you are in now instead of wishing you were in another

A wise Youtuber said this to me through the computer screen as I sat, probably, wishing I could have her life. I have the absolute worst habits of being jealous of other people's lives when mine is probably, definitely, perfectly fine. I see other peoples friends and I wish I had those friends when I'm clearly #blessed with the most perfect group of human beings alive. I see other peoples clothes, style, aesthetic, and wish that's what I looked like to the world even though I've been told countless times that my awkward personality and appearance is adorable and obviously that's a good thing, right? (although sometimes I've frustrated with the 'cute/adorable' labels that everyone has given me. but that's a different post for a different time) Lots of times I look at other families and wish my dysfunctional people would get the memo and then I'm like 'they may be dysfunctional people, but they're MY dysfunctional people' and I'm 100% sure I'm equally as dysfunctional and I usually don't have all my s*** together either. I'm constantly having to remind myself my life, my world that I'm living in, is not going to be perfect. It's not always going to be Instagram worthy and even in those moments, someone else's pictures will always be prettier than my own. It's hard though. It's hard to always be scolding myself not to harshly judge my own life and be jealous over someone elses. Because really, when you get into it, everyone is screwed up. Everyone has issues in one way or another. Everyone is unhappy or dissatisfied with themselves or their life to some extent and everyone has been jealous of someone else at one point. Heck, I could be that person that everyone thinks has it perfectly (you girls know I don't).
Anyway, that's all the thoughts I have on that topic. That was pretty much just stream of consciousness.
I did enjoy hearing from all of you lovelies this week. You know, today mom was talking about going down to your house tomorrow and I've been thinking about it. And it needs to happen so much. Now that Laura is back at the 'ol Backus Homestead part time and stuff, we need to convince the mothers that they desperately need to see each other just because in reality, we desperately need to see each other. 

I have to go watch some Doctor Who with the baby brother though because the freaking 9th season airs tomorrow and I swear, if it is not secretly a memorial to the 9th Doctor, they're doing it wrong.
<3 Grace 

I don't know what I just wrote.

Hello world it's Thursday!

I spent today reading about the causes of the columbine shooting instead of doing my school work. I'm also sick and very tired. I probably should have written this post early today but whatever. But enough about me. Let's talk about your posts.

BUT FIRST LOOK AT THIS PUPPY! OH MY GOODNESS! HE'S LIKE A POMPOM WITH LEGS!
I LOVE HIM SO MUCH!

Grace, your post was the most adorable Grace-ish thing to ever exist. Aside from you of course.

Laura, you're Mercy now? Donald Trump is the front runner for the Republican presidential race? I'm so confused.

Mercy, words cannot express how jealous I am right now. 

I don't know what to post about. I asked Grace and she said I should make bacon pancakes and tell you all how they turn out.

This week has been long and trippy. Youth group started on Tuesday and everyone brought their friends and there was just so many people I think I maybe died and it was really overwhelming and I was overwhelmed.

 Yesterday was the first night of middle school youth group which I decided to help out with this year. I'm not entirely sure why I made this decision because I hated middle school and hanging out with middle school kids only brings back painfully awkward memories that had been blocked for good reasons.

My entire middle school experience in one gif.

I'm gonna bounce. Sorry this post was short and stupid I'm just really tired and my brain feels like it's full of cotton balls. Grace, we'll hear from you tomorrow!

Gurl please -Rose

Frick

Good evening girls, it's Wednesday. 

So I forgot I had to write this post and it's currently 10:43 so this post will be very short, very messy and full of typos. 

LETS GO!!!!

So I auditioned for Much Ado About Nothing yesterday after school and completely effed it up, then I got an email this morning letting me know I have callbacks tomorrow! Miracles really do happen ladies. 

Um and yeah I went to my One Direction concert on Saturday and to be honest, Post Concert Depression is one of the worst feelings in the world and especially since it was from my favorite band in the whole world from the best concert I've ever been to.... I'm not really over it yet, but it's better than it was on Sunday or Monday, definitely. 

BUT OMG Y'ALL WILL BE SO PROUD!!! (Grace- sorry, I know you've heard this all already, so you don't have to read my post if you don't want to) 

I BARELY EVEN CRIED!! Like during the concert I mean. I cried when they first came out on stage, then a little bit during Drag Me Down and then I SOBBED MY EYES OUT during 18. But I didn't even cry besides that, not even during Little Things!! I am so impressed. 

Granted, I couldn't BREATHE during Little Things, but whatever. 

Harry was so aggressive and AUDHDUFUDJSJSJSJSJ and I almost passed out and he talked so much to the crowd and Niall was so cute and we sang him Happy birthday and Liam read signs and wore a banana hoodie and Louis was all squinty-eyes and adorable and slayed my existence during No Control and yeah I'm surprised I'm still even alive to tell this tale. 

(This ones not mine but it's from the concert I was at ^^^) 

This one is mine ^ 

Also mine. Dead

Anyway, this was short and sucky but I'm keeping Grace awake and I can tell by the way she's moving in her bed above me that she's not happy so I gotta blast. 

Rosie, I'll hear from you tomorrow??? 

xoxo,

Mercy 

This post was supposed to be about autumn...

'Sup, ladies.

LOOK AT THIS FRAKKING BEAR. LOOK HOW EAGER HE IS TO SAY HELLO. SEE HOW CHEERFUL AND BEAUTIFUL HE IS. I FRAKKING LOVE BEARS.

    I'm a little overtired right now.
    But not too tired to not reply to all of your posts from last week. Which I might have only just read ten minutes ago.

*cries silently*

    Mercy: I love you and your taste in music. That Ed Sheeran song was one I have previously never heard and am now officially addicted to.
    Also, best of luck with Much Ado auditions today!

(in which you are Benedick and Grace, Rose and I are Claudio, Don Pedro and Leonato

    Rose: please write a science textbook directed towards people who are not science-oriented. You would never have to leave the house again because you would make so much money.

I'M SCREAMING

Sorry, kids. This post just got very punny and borderline PG-13.

    Grace: I completely get your individual love for the four seasons, especially the cool brilliance of October. I was actually going to write this entire post about fall, but then I got distracted by Ed Sheeran...HAVE YOU SEEN THE MUSIC VIDEO FOR PHOTOGRAPH? BECAUSE IT MADE ME CRY.

   A lot of things have been making me cry lately, actually. Here's a list:

1. Every Ed Sheeran song ever.

2. Talking about sharing hope and empathy with our patients in my Foundations of Nursing lecture.

3. Shamefully realizing that I am Cady Heron and my life is exactly like the plot of Mean Girls.

4. Apologizing for my horrible misdeeds and hoping for forgiveness from the people that I hurt.

5. Anxiety which eats up my appetite when people are slow to forgive.

6. The love and open arms of my very best friends and the grace I have been shown when I least deserve it.

7. The sweet love of Christ Jesus, which still wraps me up like an accepting blanket even when I have done so much wrong and wandered so far off the narrow road. 

    Ugh. When did I turn into Mercy?

    Anyway, prayers and positive vibes would be appreciated. I'm a little lost at sea in this moment.

    Mercy, I'll hear from you tomorrow.

--Laura :)

Just some tired thoughts from a tired week

Hello all you lovelies, 

It is currently nine-forty am and I am downstairs all by myself, drinking too strong coffee that my half asleep brain told me to make, and writing to you three. Its grey and rainy outside and I have now decided I'm excited for this fall. Jackets, boots, long sleeves and maybe the occasional scarf. Good vibes right there, people. I really honestly think I love each season differently, but equally. There's almost nothing better than chilly October mornings that warm up to afternoons and then drop to evenings perfect for a campfire. But December is a season all of it's own and February afternoons can be wasted on a perfect book and hot chocolate with no regrets. And of course days that are finally warm enough to step outside in short sleeves in April and May are quite possibly the most freeing days of all. After those times where you spend the whole day on the beach, getting roasted by the sun and touched by the salt water. Nature is a wonderful mystery to me and invoke almost too much feeling. God is good. 

Flash forward to nine-fifteen pm. I'm tired. But I'm happy and I guess that's what matters the most. 

Laura, you are an incredibly strong woman and I love you, most ardently. Your heart for Jesus inspires me and someday you're going to meet someone who's heart for Jesus inspires you and then... beautiful things will happen. 

Mercy, good music. Always.

Rose, you're brilliant. I wish I had put that much thought into biology when I did it. 

Guys, I don't really have thoughts that I can put into words right now. Except that I'm hungry and tired. And a certain boy is due to call me which makes me nervous, as always. Tomorrow is my first day off where I legit don't have anything to do in like 3 weeks. I might be going to NYC but probably not. I still have to ask the mother. But, I also have Sunday and Monday to do nothing but sleep and I can't even tell you how excited I am. Sleeping is a greatly underrated gift from The Lord that some people do not have the proper respect for. 

Anyway, I know this was short and didn't have a point, but this was a long day. I greatly apologize. I'll make it up to you girls next week. 

<3 Grace

Here are some pretty things off my Tumblr this week

********

1. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.
   Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

I'm a geek with an awful lot of vaguely ignorant opinions.

It's Thursday!

I started school this week. Life is a sad dark abyss full of Algebra and SAT prep. That's actually not true. I like school. I love school actually. Wait? What's that I hear? Oh, it's the sound of my middle school self literally killing herself so that she doesn't become geeky high school Rose.

Grace, your post was beautiful and lovely and it made me miss you horribly. Except for the part where you complimented JBieb's new haircut, because personally I believe that particular hairstyle is a crime against humanity. Remember that last time Bieber got a ridiculous haircut? And every teenage male on the North American continent was like "Oh, if Bieber's haircut brings all the girls to the yard, maybe it'll do the same for me." And then all of the male Millennials became giant tool sheds because of Justin Bieber. Point being, Justin Biebers new haircut is encouraging a new generation of human Home Depots.

Laura, your post was about school? Nursing? The inevitability of the human race viciously killing one another like the end of Millions of Cats? Something like that.

I live with you so do I really need to reply to your post?

Mercy, first of all, She's Kinda Hot a phenomenal song especially the parts where Ashton talks and just I can't get into how much I love that song right now because I have no words.
Also Twenty One Pilots are fantastic. I listened to almost nothing else but them all summer and I love them. Tyler Joseph just gets me. Here are a few of my favorites:

This year in school I'm taking biology. And my biology curriculum started off, of course, with the 4 criteria of life. So the criteria for life are:

1. All living things have DNA
2. All living things need to draw energy from their surroundings and convert it into energy that they use as energy to sustain themselves, or something like that.
3. Life has to react and respond to change.
4. Living things have to reproduce.

For all the not science people such as myself, here's what they actually mean:

1. All living things have DNA. This one doesn't get any more simple because DNA is really complicated.
2. All living things need to eat one way or another.
3. If you poke a living thing with a stick it should probably move.
4. All living things must be able to produce other things that may or may not be living? Are cells alive? Whatever.

Now as a english/history person, I quite frankly don't care about math or science. I care about people. And people aren't numbers. And the world around me can't create anything as interesting as humanity can. But while dragging myself through biology on the first day of school, I found a human approach to the principles that make life.

1. All humans, whether they like it or not, have similar qualities to those who gave them life. 
2. Food is really important. But as an Italian, I already knew this.
3. Whether we like it or not, the world changes. And in order to live life to the fullest we need to accept that change as a part of life and make the most of it. 
4. All people reproduce cells. I don't have to have children to be a human okay? It's science. I'm not ever, ever, ever going to procreate, alright?

I guess that's just what I've been thinking about lately.

Sorry if this post was all over the place, I wrote this at different times throughout the day and my brain has been sufficiently fried by school.

Grace, we'll hear from you tomorrow! 

Gurl please, Rose.