TMI

Despite the fact that I have never experienced this particular pleasure, I find myself unable to ponder anything this evening but the mechanics of and reactions to oral sex. 

... And good night!

A penny thought

First of all, ha ha ha on this title considering the actual value of a penny, which is unfortunately a negative amount of money. So there.

Here is the part where I get weird.

I can't... What a great way to start this. Lord, help me.

I can't figure out what to do with all the emotions I have. They are fierce, yet tepid at times, with no basis in reality and no real potential in having anything to do with my future. I am too quiet, but too loud, saying all the things that don't matter because I'd rather have people like a superficial me, laced with bitterness, than hate the optimistic, bright-eyed little fool I really am.

How can these few moments, meaningless to anyone else, be so important to me? When I think of the last time I was really, truly happy and completely comfortable with who I was, no wondering about anything beyond the present, many of those memories are wrapped up in those emotions. And when I think about it so logically, the conclusion seems crystal clear. But there's more to it than that, as there always is. There's more to me than that.

And what I always conclude is that I just have to shut up, calm down, and wait, my oldest and most despised game. I am living in a way I never thought I would be. I am feeling beyond what I thought I could. I feel isolated and alone, protected by my silence and in the same moment, so vulnerable. I am scared. This isn't what I wanted, but my prayer will never be for what I want. I always want the wrong things, I have learned. I run from the things that make me uncomfortable and scared. Those things are very often the things that end up saving my life.

Case in point: the community I am a part of, I once hated and wanted to abandon. Where would I be without them now?

So, yeah. I'm sitting in my room, early in the morning, crying at all my favorite Relient k songs, praying for patience and the ability to shut up. I have to let God speak and I can't hear him over the sound of my own fear. Maybe if I just be quiet, something beautiful will happen. After all, He has never failed me yet.

Um.

I think I'm just going to pause here in this moment and take the time to say that yesterday was a horrible day. I did not do the difficult thing. I was not brave, I was not smart, and I was not happy. Not at all.

But I did write. And today, I am feeling a great shift. I didn't get any answers to any of the questions amid that disgusting slush of whining, self-evaluation, and angst. That's okay right now. I'm okay with that.

I'll keep walking and seeing and trusting.

That's all I can do.

Carried

I am trapped inside myself. That's what this feels like.

I know my own strengths. I know my boundaries. I know what I can do and what I can't and the list of "can'ts" is getting longer than I'm willing to take.

I feel like everyone around me is going somewhere. I feel them slipping past me, there for the blink of my eyes and then in an instant, light years away, already off to some future I am not capable of partaking in. Screw the person who said "slow and steady wins the race" because that has got to be the loneliest fucking thing I've ever heard, said by some six-packed jerk in running shoes.

I don't want to slow people down. I want them to run, get as high as they can. I don't want to be a burden and I know that I am and I don't know how to be anything else. It's a side effect of living for me, dragging people into the dirt. I am a lead balloon, a sand bag, a paperweight. The dead fish.

"Why?" is the question I ask most and my frustration builds when it won't go because I know that I don't need to know why. And I never will. It doesn't matter. I want to, but that doesn't matter either.

And then I think harder. In my desire to be logical and to "think" my way out of whatever I'm feeling, I struggle to analyze it, to do anything to feel better about my emotions. To justify, to explain, and to hopefully find someway I can rise above it, to be in control again. Even now, I feel like I'm dramatizing all of this, just so I can deal with it. There are people who've had far worse things happen to them and they're okay, I say to myself. And almost instantly, I snap back because of course that doesn't matter. I'm me. I can't be someone else. I can't process things the way someone else does. If I could, I'd be them and this wouldn't be here.

I'm always struggling to find a way to bridge that gap between what I'm doing and what I think God wants me to be doing, but I try to do it on my own, without even realizing it, like I was programmed that way. I haven't yet learned the words to tell people how much I need them. They don't exist in me yet and I've got to learn them, I know that. I think, in my more helpful moments, the moments when I give myself a break, that letting me move inside His will means letting him work through others. Maybe it's not an issue of me being a burden, but an issue of me learning when to be carried. You can't be in community with people until you can admit that you need them without condition or ceremony. You can't be loved by people and you can't love them until you can open your mouth and ask them to help you. I haven't done that yet and I don't know what I'm waiting for. It's never going to get any easier than it is now. I'm not suddenly going to get stronger, or better, or wiser. I have to ask and I haven't yet. I don't know what I'm waiting for.

But I don't know. When I'm angry, I can't help but feel like that's giving up somehow. But maybe that's my own need for independence. I need to take care of myself. I need to help myself. I need to save myself. But I'm not allowed, because someone already did that, without my consent. I think that makes me angry sometimes. I wasn't asked what I wanted. It was decided for me. It's what's best, for sure, but I didn't get to choose. I feel drawn toward God, sometimes against my will. I'd rather stop caring than feel pain sometimes and that's a pretty cowardly thing to want. I feel real low every time that crops up.

I want someone to know how angry and sad and hypocritical and messed up I can be and am and then I'm mad that I need that or that I think that I need that, because wanting implies a lack of contentment and a lack of peace, which I'd have if I was that person I want to be, a person more fully connected and moving with God. A person in the center of His grace. I'm not that person. I hardly ever am. I used to feel like I was before more of the time, and I look back and think I was happier then, but I don't know if that was real or immaturity or just plain ignorance on my part.

This is shaping up to be a very ecclesiastical week. Involuntary fasting and unhappiness is my future and I can't see around it right now. I could ask someone for help, but I'm just not there yet. I wish I was. I wish I was better.

I wish I was someone else.