Many Things at Once

Leaving space for your inner monologue is not my current forte. I’m trying. But it’s only going…so so. I want to be able to hear my feelings, acknowledge them, and not assign undue weight, morality, or judgment to them. I do not want to dismiss them outright. I simply want to allow myself to think/feel whatever comes up as a response to the current situation.

I do not enjoy that there are multiple sensations at once. Nothing is ever orderly. It’s not “I’m happy, but that is followed by a bitter sweet tinge of eventual loss, and finished off with a bit of resentment” in total clarity. It’s “racing heart, clenched stomach, stupid grin, shallow breaths, internal swearing, the sickening need to scroll Instagram” laced with a generous dose of “why am I crying” and finished with “I think my blood sugar is low?”

There are things I can’t fix. But there are things I can have compassion for. And that is why I’m trying to listen. To alleviate where I can and simply accept where I cannot. I cannot change the fact that Pop is dead. But when my chest is hollow and I’m cold because I’m sad and I have the urge to binge Netflix, I can put on a sweater and sit with some memories first. I can’t change that I have depression. But I can hear the self talk that’s fueling the current malaise, acknowledge that it feels like valid criticisms, and then feed myself, sleep, and generally be kind to myself anyway.

I can feel excitement about a new friendship, terror about it possibly ending too soon, making the wrong impression, trying to stay true to myself so that I’m in for being me and not just trying to fit. I can feel disappointment and hope and also just enjoy the day for what it was. I can hear the self blame when I don’t get the feedback I wanted. But I don’t have to believe it. And I don’t have to convince myself I didn’t have a good time or that I should have done something differently.

I want to be a complex and heavy enough person to have space for all the feelings and sensations at the same time. I want to hear them without believing them. I want to understand what they’re trying to tell me even if the message is convoluted and misdirected. I want to have gentleness for the insecurity and protection for the happiness.

But so often it just feels like I’m being mown down by a cyclone and carried away by my sympathetic nervous system. Am I doing this right? Or does being an emotions whisperer really just mean I’m secure enough to let them do their own thing without me needing to be in control 100% of the time?

The Strong One

I have to be the strong one.

It is more accurate to say, I need to be the strong one. I function so much better when people are relying on me. When people pour their hopes and dreams and frustrations and sorrows into the bottomless receptacle that is me. When I am the sounding board, the confidant, the one who always wants to listen.

I need to be the person people can trust to always hold it together: whether “it” equals my emotions, a specific situation, or life in general. I need to be the one with dry eyes and a clear mind and an unwavering sense of purpose. I need to always be able to be okay.

Here’s the problem with that:

None of those things are actually very strong. Next problem? Most of those things aren’t even really attainable, much less sustainable. And the final problem? My deep-seated need to be all those things makes that “strength” a weakness. Because if  I don’t have all those pieces of reliability and cool-headedness together, then I’m actually failing at being strong and I will fall apart.

So let’s think about this: what happens if I fall apart? There are really only two options: 1) I never get out of bed again OR 2) I survive. I cry a lot. Feel foggy. Keep living my life at a defective quarter speed until one day: everything is basically normal again. And really, all the times in my life where I’ve finally fallen apart because I can’t keep the pieces together…only number 2 has happened.

I’m also becoming increasingly suspicious that the length of time it takes me to bounce back after falling apart is directly correlated to how long I pretend nothing is wrong.

So if I need to be the strong one and I also need to avoid a devastatingly long recovery, then I really only have one choice: change my definition of strength.

I will be strong enough to cry about things as they happen, when I need to, and not three years later.

I will be strong enough to cry in public, even if there are other people around.

I will be strong enough to tell people what’s happening with me, not as a pity-monger or drama queen, but because I can handle sharing hard things.

I will be strong enough to let other people into my suffering, instead of just asking them to let me into theirs.

I will be strong enough to be honest about how I feel, even if the conversation is hard and uncomfortable.

I will be strong enough to recognize when I need a break, to step back, to recharge.

I need to be the strong one because I need other people to see what it’s like to be strong. I need them to embrace their own weaknesses so that we can all accept each others’. I need to be able to see myself for who I am and for others to see themselves, without shame or hiding. Because if we can’t acknowledge who we are, there is no path to recovery. And recovery requires strength.

I need to be the strong one.

Emotional Choices

I tend to wack out a punchy blog title, write the blog, hit publish and go. Because I know what I want to write. I just let it flow forth, zero editing, almost no planning, and poof. Done.

But I’ve been…stalemated. Writer’s block doesn’t really cut it. Writer’s constipation may be more accurate, if not more nasty.

Typically, this blog is my emotional dumpster. I can throw whatever I like in here with very little judgment. I don’t have to worry about it being socially acceptable (although I do worry. Let’s all just be honest). And I don’t write it for everyone to like me (but again: applause and fame don’t suck). I write so that I can purge unwanted emotional chaos from life and think through things and record them so I don’t have to remember them on my own.

But sometimes you hit a place of emotional morass that you just kinda go…hm. No. Not happenin’ today, not happenin’ tomorrow, that is is just one big pile of nopety nope nope. You’d like to hand that Gordian knot off to some other hero to unravel, conventionally or otherwise. Even strict documentation of the confusion, instead of interpretation or heaven forbid solution, is too much.

Like now.

Pop has cancer. And it’s not good cancer (haha, I know. What kind is good? The kind they can wack out relatively quickly with no stitches and it’s over. That kind is the least bad kind). We don’t technically know *how bad* the cancer is, but it’s definitely nowhere close to warm and fuzzy and is probably in the vicinity of DEFCON 2.

And there are lots of things I’d like to say and be honest about and express. And I can’t because there are real people attached to those things. And I can’t because expression is a little too real. And I can’t because I don’t want to make a hard situation worse by drawing attention to things that won’t be an encouragement.

I don’t like glossing over and making things pretty and comfortable. Real life isn’t comfortable. And you survive by bonding together with other people who recognize that life isn’t comfortable.

But how do you do that when not everyone you know is at the same stage of survival as you? When not everyone can handle the truth the way you tell it? When you don’t know if it’s more loving to lie or stay silent or scream?

What do you do?

How do you choose?

Heading Back…Sometime

Hopefully this new format will prove conducive to your consumer tendencies. Or something. Basically, I’m rambling because I’m in the airport, too distracted to people-watch and too bored to read. I’m distracted and can’t keep a coherent thought together and I’m trying not to panic.

I don’t want to go back. And in case you haven’t heard this particular rant before, stick around, because my issue is not with BJU.
I don’t want to go back, not because of where I’m going to, but because of what I’m leaving behind.

BJU is one of the best things to ever happen to me. I was forced to learn about God and grow in ways I didn’t even know I needed. God became up close and personal to me. I watched Him demonstrate parts of His character I didn’t know existed. I saw His grace mixed with the hard things, the required things. I saw how He could be good, even when my circumstances could be so bad.

But I don’t want to leave my parents, my sister. They are my home. I desperately miss my friends and I only told them goodbye this weekend. For someone like me, who is not the best at making friends. And when I do make friends, it’s hard for me to open and honest. It’s easier for me to talk to an impersonal electronic wall that won’t judge or mirror my own self-hate back at me.
These people are my life-blood. And college seems like a punishment. Even though it is a beautiful opportunity. Even though I love my classes. Even though this is the path God wants me on.
I think that is the hardest thing to reconcile to: I can’t seem to understand that God’s will is a good thing, even about something so blatantly good as a college education.

Last spring was one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through, and people keep telling me not to worry because I’m smart and I just have to study hard. What they don’t understand is that the class part of school has never been a problem. I’m not trying to brag, even humbly, but I can be very smart and academics are something that come easily to me.
What I’m terrified of is losing my rationality again: thinking the most ridiculous or destructive paths make sense. I don’t want to go back to the dark place I struggled through.

But my mom is also right. She tells me I’m tough. She reminds me I’m now taking medication, that I know more this semester, that I’ve grown so much. My dad believes in me implicitly: A belief I feel inadequate to fill, but one I greatly appreciate.

Things will be different, better. There are new strategies in place. I’m praying for God to work in me. Not to rely on myself and my own sanity. I want to continue to believe He is good, regardless. I also don’t want to start off the year thinking it’s going to be doom and gloom. I want to expect great things.

But right now, that’s all a tad muddled and I just want to cry. But I can’t because there are a billion people in this airport gate and I’d rather blow off steam and roiling emotions to the blank internet page that will a billion other different people read about them. Anything’s better than them seeing my face.

Travel safe and sleep well, Florida.
I’ll see you in a few months.

Frozen

All I have to say is, if O and I lived in a mystical kingdom and I had magic powers, then Frozen would be our biography.

I was nearly in tears for the first twenty minutes of the movie. It was not THAT horrifically depressing, it just touched a lot of chords from my childhood. Especially “Do You Want to Build a Snowman”.

Then I laughed, cried, laughed, cried, cried from laughter and was totally blown away by the ending…

Frozen was amazing. It was a tale of true love. It was a challenge to love: to truly put the needs of others before yourself.

I’m not going to summarize the movie. BUT. I will say that if you haven’t seen it, do. It is stunningly fantastic: intricate plot, exquisite (and sometimes corny) humor, twists, heart-wrenching steeps, and a fabulous ending.

When we got home, DFL, Steve, O and I piled up on the love seat (which Steve persists in calling “the small couch”) to facetime with Twigg. A wildly good time was had by all, if not hysterically awkward and eventually roastingly hot time.

And then we watched Tangled.

I’ve had a day full of Disney, laughter and melodrama, family and friends.
Life is good.