Falling Together, Rushing Towards the Abyss

The more that life falls together, the clearer it becomes that there is a gaping hole. When will I release the hold on what I cannot keep to gain what I cannot lose? This ongoing process...some of it is effortless and I see myself growing by leaps and bounds; some of it seems hopeless, and I continue to cling.

In less than six months I will be graduated. When did this happen? In six months I will be free. What will I do with my time?

Ideas:

• Write a book.
• Make lots of ridiculous homemade crafts and sell them online to people too lazy to make them for themselves.
• Travel to all the places I want to see.
• Plant an herb garden.
• Make art all day.
• Travel around making art all day.
• Travel to inspiring places and just make art. All day.
• Go on a crazy year-long missions trip because I'm crazy and want to do something that will mean something to someone, not just to me.
• Go stay at a cabin by a lake and go for a run every day and swim every day and paint every day, and do this, every day, until I'm buff and a decent painter and a panini and latte master.
• Elope for the fun of it.
• Get a 6 Flags seasons pass and go to every single one.
• Get a grown up job on weekdays, only see friends and boyfriend on weekends, and volunteer because that is what good people do.

Did you just make the same sighish noise I did? Every part of my body made it with me. Everything on this list is beautiful and adventurous and lovely, except for the one I should be doing. Why is life like that? Why do I let life be like that? Why do I feel entitled to any more than that? Why do I feel that I shouldn't feel entitled? Why don't I just do whatever I want to?

The answer? The answer is a question. What does God want me to do? Me, I have dreams. Some of them are wonderful and some of them are selfish and some are godly, but that doesn't answer the question. Maybe He wants me in a season of doing beautiful things and making my own beauty and following His to the far corners of the world. Maybe He wants me to buckle down, get (or keep) a job, and be a big girl. Maybe He wants me to wait and see what He brings.

If only I knew. If only putting off my Masters - because, I now realize, I desperately need a break from learning in a classroom - meant that the rest would be sorted out.

I want a lot of things. Some of them are unattainable and therefore not even on my crazy list. Some are possible and therefore on the list. Some are in my heart and do not have names yet. Some are in my ovaries and do not have names yet, either. Some are in God's hand and, when the day is right, they will be hand-delivered to my soul.

Now that I think about it...that sounds really good to me.

Sometimes These Thoughts Are More than Thoughts

You know when you say just the wrong thing at the wrong moment with the best intentions but those intentions are thwarted by a lack of saving grace (i.e. either right moment or right thing to save the one that was wrong) because, despite those best intentions, it is really not a wrong moment or a wrong thing but a wrong person to say it to?

You know when there is that perfect line in your head that will get the desired reaction if said with just such and such an intonation and enunciation and explanation and exclamation, and in your mind there is no fault in it except a delirious desire to be understood and a lack of fear that it could fail because how could it fail and oh gosh what if it fails because that never crossed your mind and then it does because no one line can save everything and because people are unpredictable and they fail too?

You know when you plan the future and it stretches out like a forever expanding and contracting roadmap of months and weather patterns and anticipated events and life seasons that looks like it is without a hitch so you begin to imagine hitches and fallout and easy fixes and really hard fixes, so you wait for the hitches and the hitches never come and with their lack of arrival comes a lack of need for all expected fixes, easy and really hard, and life plays out exactly the way the roadmap said it would and it's confusing and almost frustrating because life has taught that plans never go off without a hitch but here they are and suddenly fear can suck it?

You know when you think so deep and complicated that it hurts?

Yeah, that's right now.

Hello, Passion, and All the Ways You Destroy Me

Our greatest strengths are so often the set-up for our greatest downfalls. It is that which drives us that also has the potential to drive us into the ground. The things that fire us up reduce us to ashes. That which is my personal spice for life wrecks the whole pot of sauce. It goes on and on.

It took me a long time to figure out my greatest strength, my driving force, my fire, my spice...and with the realization came such an enlightening moment of clarity. Passion. About what? Half the time I have no idea! But anything I care about at all, I care about with such a huge part of myself that, soon enough, I cannot see where it ends and I begin. I just get fired up and it consumes me. That is why I have to be so careful what I care about.

When I look back over the last several years and see the disaster zone that was my personal minefield of relationships, it's not hard to see why it was so harmful and toxic. I come to care for someone, really care, and it consumes me. It's who I am. That isn't to say that I cannot separate myself from someone, or that it in any way turns into an obsession. Not by a long shot. But I commit; I commit to making something work and then I am driven to make this thing last. I kill myself with my greatest attribute.

Ministry is like that for me. Right now I am staring down the barrel of a new gun and it terrifies me. It becomes such an integral part of my life and then, if it ends, a part of me dies with it. I want to be a woman so consumed with ministry that I cannot focus on any other future plans until it is the right time. But how? How in the world do I give myself to something when I know that its flames will take me down?

People say I have strong, even brutal, opinions. I make no apologies for these opinions, only for the coldness of my delivery at times. I do not go in something half way. I do not coast my way through anything. Even in the midst of depression, I sink into it with all the weight I can throw. It's sadistic and, well, dark and twisty. Yet here I stand, with my all in everything I do, and that has to be okay. I may wreck everything by throwing all my chilies in one pot, but no one can say I held back.

Dilemma. If this strength is what is killing me, do I cut it loose (and in the process lose an integral part of what makes me who I am) or run the huge risk of burying myself alive with all this over-zealous shoveling? The shovel feels right in my hand. And even on days when I hate who I am...I love who I am. I love the person who makes me so detestable and so very wonderful in the same breath. I am struggling right now with trying to suppress who I am to please others. These are the others who count. I need to stay in school, remember? I need to go on tour. I need to live out this aspect of my calling. But. Oh, the hugest of buts! I need to live! I need to breathe in air and breathe out something extraordinary. To reign that in is to not be true to who He has made me to be. I cannot take that lightly anymore. The calling on my life is so far beyond settling above mediocre; settling does not compute in my existential life quota.

If I do not let the flames spread to everything I do and everyone I touch, it will consume me from the inside out. I thought the walking dead was bad; burning alive is so much worse.

Every Time I Look at You It's like the First Time

Lately I have been discovering hidden truths I have always believed, based on my interpretation of experiences, that may or may not be true. Tonight another one popped up, and it was not until the opposite was stated that I realized how often this lie has been the premise for so many of my actions.

Lie: Men are shallow. They do not have deep feelings. There are mythical men who have real emotions, but they are always getting slaughtered by women without hearts. A man could never care about me as much as I care about him. I cannot break a man's heart because he doesn't have one; even if he feels a sting, he'll be over it in a week (and by over it I mean in some other girl's hot tub). I have to just be okay with settling for someone who will never understand my feelings or experience the same level of love I have for him.

I started typing out the "truth" that was given to me tonight, but I felt stupid. Writing "all of the above is a lie" actually made me feel duped.

So where do I go from here?

I was just at a service with 50 other young adults hearing about relationships and being told to meet people "just in case," but I have never felt less like being someone. I was sitting there, actually kind of confused, because there was no pull to be with a guy. At all. Zero. But I don't know how to fix what is broken without someone showing me that I, all along in fact, have just been using the freaking eggbeaters the wrong way. You get my drift? I don't want someone perfect, but I want a man who will prove that I was wrong. That even if he makes me frustrated beyond belief and never puts the dishes away right and always buys skim instead of whole milk because he thinks it's healthier, he will feel for me deeply. Is that too much to ask?

Some other little tidbits I picked up tonight:

• If the past is not dealt with now, it will leak into the future. Duh...but I'd never heard it stated quite that way before.
• A warning sign that says it's time to get out: if there's any level of compromise (settling for something you don't believe in because you're not yet ready to fight for what you do).
• Women have 10x the touch receptors that men do!

That last one especially was a big learning curve :)

Thought of the day:

He will show up, one day. And when he does, he will feel things. He will choose to see past the crap and be willing to risk his heart on me. I can only hope that I am able to keep his heart safe the way I am trusting him to do with mine.

Because...? Ha!

Today gave me a lot of thinking time. A jack-knifed semi through the center median blocking traffic in both directions provides ample time for extensive thought processes. The number one thing I took from it: it is impossible to hate someone who you are happy for. Despite this statements many connotations, it means something I never realized until now: it is impossible to hate me when I am happy for me. Wow.

Without indifference to the crappy feelings I've been submerged in lately, I think my head is finally above water and I am nearly gleeful at the turn-around I have made. I am THRILLED that I am apparently still on track with where God is leading my life, and that feels pretty awesome. I look around me, and it's only blue skies and butterflies (literally, it hasn't rained here in weeks). I don't know what the future holds, but I am not frightened anymore. To place the worth and weight of my entire future on the shoulders of another is unfair and impossible. Yet sitting here, supposedly on my own, I feel as if the burden has lightened and I can breathe again. I am no longer trying to wrap tomorrow's uncertainty up within someone else's dreams; He knows where I belong, He is above and beyond time, and He is more than happy to take some of this heaviness off my back.

I don't know who I'm writing for anymore. I used to write strictly for myself, back in high school. The best of my creativity was always hidden away only for me. Lately, as in the last year or so, it's been more public and a part of the old me died. In that period, I found myself "directionalizing" my thoughts toward a person or an event or a mass. There is no person anymore, there is no event that loves on me the way I love on it, and there is no collection of followers to keep this up for. So what is my purpose? Have I lose it?

I am finally writing for me again. This is not about a reaction or a revealing or a convincing or a convicting. This is me. And seeing as I cannot hate myself, it seems that I am stuck with this version of me for awhile. I am not disappointed; I am elated by the idea of simply writing for me. That doesn't mean that I don't want others to be privy to my thoughts...that's the exciting part. I just want the freedom to write what I write and be thrilled with myself, for no other reason than because

That Time in the Movie When the Music Goes Silent, Right Before the Killer Jumps Out

Earlier today, I was a perfectly sane, rational human being who felt somewhat in control. Although frightened at what the future might hold, I was being directed and knew Whom those directions were from. Now, everything is different.

I am antsy beyond belief! It feels like I cannot possibly sit still without exploding. All of my insides are ready to burst, and there is nothing I can do to prevent the fallout. My heart is ready to jump out from inside of me, and drugs are the only possible option. I'm sure if I were on some, then all of this would make some sense.

As it is, there are no drugs and there is no sanity, so I don't know what this is all supposed to mean. Where just a few days ago there was a beautiful inner peace that coincided with the world and brought bliss to all future projections, I now have a peace that is punctuated by a burning yearning to dive into all of this that He has prepared for me.

I am on fire, and every natural life function within me is crying out, trying desperately to convey that this is not enough. The mundane, same-as-it's-always-been mediocrity that once passed as life is not enough! I have so much more to live for, and every second, every heartbeat, every keystroke spent on this couch, in this house, in this state I've always dwelt in is a waste of precious time.

I don't know how I'm supposed to sleep tonight, or what any of this means. How do I put this craving (for lack of a sufficient word) to the back of my mind and let rest prevail? I'm so heartsick for this "more" that I know is out there, and I'm horribly restless for all of this to unfold. I know that tonight, like any other night, is just one in a long series of necessary events to lead me to the "eventually" that I'm awaiting, but that doesn't make 12:01 any easier than 12:00 was or 11:59 or 4:27.

Tomorrow means decisions and promises (broken and new) and ideas and dreams and everything I'm too scared to deal with. It also means decisions and promises and ideas and dreams and everything I'm so excited to delve into that tomorrow will probably never come. I say a lot how I never thought I'd live to be this old; not that I thought I'd die prematurely, just that I never thought 20 would ever come. Mirrored perfectly is my feeling that tomorrow could never possibly come because I don't know how I could ever possibly live until the morning of the 17th of May without imploding. Every second that ticks by on a clock unheard means one more second that doesn't make sense because how can tomorrow come if I don't know how to face it?

Plain and simple: I'm antsy. I don't know what to do with my hands except type because I'll probably end up ripping something apart with my subconscious. I want everything to be decided, but I'm so frightened of what this will all look like in the end. I have absolute faith in tomorrow, and that's probably what scares me the most. I've never been so absolute about anything in my life, and if that fails...well then what does that say about me?