like fog in morning light
ethereal and hope-tinged
my thoughts wander towards You
ethereal and hope-tinged
my thoughts wander towards You
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Saturday, June 29, 2013
everything you want waits on the other side of fear
I was dumped.
Not a grand announcement, I didn't even change my FB status. But still. 35 and unceremoniously, completely-caught-off-guard dumped.
It was nauseatingly civil: the reasons explained, divvying up the stuff, the friends, who does what going forward.
It's been a while since this happened to me, so it feels sharper and keener. But I've tried at the end of every relationship (my choice or not) to see where to go with the rest of my life. If this didn't work, what would? What do I want to try now might not have before?
What do I have to do to be the person I want to be when I grow up? How do I get there?
The idea of doing something different in life distracts me from the pain. But I still know it's been 13 days, 23 hours since I was... released.
Weird things have been happening to me for the last few weeks, surrounding the release period. The day before it happened, I was in the shower talking with God. The water pounded, I was in a confined space, and there was nothing else I had to do for the time it took me to take a shower.
I talked to God about this thing that bothered me. See, I've had a crush on someone so far outside the realm of possibility for so long, I don't know how to have a crush on anyone else.
It felt disloyal since I was seeing someone else. And you don't leave a relationship where needs are met and life is good to walk up to someone you've met through friends of friends and say, Hi. I've thought you were cool since before the second Matrix movie was released. I'm not a stalker (usually), but what're you doing for the rest of your life?
Seriously.
I started tapping my head against the tile. 'Cause I must have had a psychotic break, and this is a sign. Well, at least I'll be clean and smell good when the nice, nice men in the white, white suits coming knocking.
I started rinsing off, and one line from one song I can't stand from the 80s stuck in my head. From one singer whose voice makes me twitch. From one song of the dozens she wrote.
One line. Over. And over. And again.
Love will make a way.
Seriously.
I come to You in a sacred moment of authenticity, with this thing bothering me I can't talk about with anyone else, and the answer is... Amy Grant.
Ok.... psychotic break sign #2. Got it. Great.
The shower had a reason - a friend needed a ride to the airport. At her place, she admitted (since it was our first time) she hates being driven to the airport. Time restraints, questions about routes, security, work stuff, home things, all the details flood her brain on the way to the plane.
So she asked me to ramble.
I had God, Amy Grant and Psychotic Breaks 1 and 2. Rambling - covered.
45 minutes later, she asked if it was Ok if she cut in with feedback. She started with if God was using Amy Grant, I must have ignored everything else. Ow.
And then it got personal, starting with if you can't share faith, everything else will suffer for it. So what if he's an atheist and I'm a Christian? He still gets a stocking at Christmas and eggs at Easter... and I don't get razzed if I miss service. Win. Win.
She... somehow didn't agree, and said I needed to break it off. I had no idea how I would do that.
We pulled into the designated traveler drop-off not too long later, and off she went. I was alone in the car with my thoughts, deafening silence, and my friend's words lingering in the air.
The next day... I was dumped.
Now, I have to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. And who I'd like to do it with.
It's not a big deal, won't even affect my FB status.
But still. 35 and not psychotic. Single and wandering, befuddled but free.
Where the hell do I go from here?
Not a grand announcement, I didn't even change my FB status. But still. 35 and unceremoniously, completely-caught-off-guard dumped.
It was nauseatingly civil: the reasons explained, divvying up the stuff, the friends, who does what going forward.
It's been a while since this happened to me, so it feels sharper and keener. But I've tried at the end of every relationship (my choice or not) to see where to go with the rest of my life. If this didn't work, what would? What do I want to try now might not have before?
What do I have to do to be the person I want to be when I grow up? How do I get there?
The idea of doing something different in life distracts me from the pain. But I still know it's been 13 days, 23 hours since I was... released.
Weird things have been happening to me for the last few weeks, surrounding the release period. The day before it happened, I was in the shower talking with God. The water pounded, I was in a confined space, and there was nothing else I had to do for the time it took me to take a shower.
I talked to God about this thing that bothered me. See, I've had a crush on someone so far outside the realm of possibility for so long, I don't know how to have a crush on anyone else.
It felt disloyal since I was seeing someone else. And you don't leave a relationship where needs are met and life is good to walk up to someone you've met through friends of friends and say, Hi. I've thought you were cool since before the second Matrix movie was released. I'm not a stalker (usually), but what're you doing for the rest of your life?
Seriously.
I started tapping my head against the tile. 'Cause I must have had a psychotic break, and this is a sign. Well, at least I'll be clean and smell good when the nice, nice men in the white, white suits coming knocking.
I started rinsing off, and one line from one song I can't stand from the 80s stuck in my head. From one singer whose voice makes me twitch. From one song of the dozens she wrote.
One line. Over. And over. And again.
Love will make a way.
Seriously.
I come to You in a sacred moment of authenticity, with this thing bothering me I can't talk about with anyone else, and the answer is... Amy Grant.
Ok.... psychotic break sign #2. Got it. Great.
The shower had a reason - a friend needed a ride to the airport. At her place, she admitted (since it was our first time) she hates being driven to the airport. Time restraints, questions about routes, security, work stuff, home things, all the details flood her brain on the way to the plane.
So she asked me to ramble.
I had God, Amy Grant and Psychotic Breaks 1 and 2. Rambling - covered.
45 minutes later, she asked if it was Ok if she cut in with feedback. She started with if God was using Amy Grant, I must have ignored everything else. Ow.
And then it got personal, starting with if you can't share faith, everything else will suffer for it. So what if he's an atheist and I'm a Christian? He still gets a stocking at Christmas and eggs at Easter... and I don't get razzed if I miss service. Win. Win.
She... somehow didn't agree, and said I needed to break it off. I had no idea how I would do that.
We pulled into the designated traveler drop-off not too long later, and off she went. I was alone in the car with my thoughts, deafening silence, and my friend's words lingering in the air.
The next day... I was dumped.
Now, I have to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. And who I'd like to do it with.
It's not a big deal, won't even affect my FB status.
But still. 35 and not psychotic. Single and wandering, befuddled but free.
Where the hell do I go from here?
Saturday, June 8, 2013
distraction
I've been wrestling with distraction recently, or maybe it's wrestling me. It wraps around everything, blurring edges, stickifying piddly games and petty people.
I blink, years wisp away. My time spent, life.. blurred. Things and people I want to pour time and love into disappear; I don't even notice.
I'm distracted.
The usual suspects could be blamed - Facebook, texting, some favorite tv program. I like that idea, on the surface. Adding to the list makes me happy, too - work, taking care of my mom, family, the pets.
Maybe there's justification. I love my mom, the dog's on a schedule and needs meds. Maybe that project has a timeline, my career means providing better, more.
But the fact remains, I am the one surrendering to distraction.
I choose it first.
And that's not ok. See, I made a commitment before I knew what the word meant and the world looked like. I said I'd have one love, one first among many, one response to distraction. I knew even then I wouldn't follow through, because I was young enough to be lose thought when I saw a pretty flower. But I said I'd try.
And that's the problem with distraction - it takes away my want to try. I settle, with my preferred things around me in my preferred life. I don't have to see what I don't want to, do what I don't want to. Those things pull away from my preferences and wants, so they stay and I choose to wander.
But there's no weight of beauty in distraction. To rephrase C. S. Lewis, distraction is the joke worthy happiness and wonder doesn't bother with.
Distraction pales. It blinds.
And eventually, I don't care to see the difference between the pale and the worthy.
There's a conference this October I could actually attend for the first time since it was created 5 years ago. It's free to attend. And actually in a state below the Mason-Dixon. It's in a month when I need to eat vacation time, but before the big push at work. The founder speaks good into the world, empowers the fatherless generation towards hope.
But my distracted brain muddles through the oppressive questions of worth.
Should I really go to a city I've never visited before *just* to hear an attractive man talk about things I would like to listen to anyway? The money spent on travel and hotel and a car could buy me a new laptop; buy my mom a new one. (My brother can buy his own. :P) Why should I go spend 5 days away from my house, my beautiful cable connected wireless network (and bed!) to go to a conference which will make me question the worth of a quiet, small life? Small and quiet can be powerful, like iPods and vials of nitrogen glycerin; why should I deal with the guilt of feeling I should be doing something bigger or braver?
How much of my questioning comes from fear distracting me from the worth of a struggle and new experience?
How do I figure out what path to take when my life (filled with socially acceptable responsibilities like work and an aging, seizuring mother) distracted me from the community primarily responsible for giving me a place to wrestle with questions and distraction in the first place?
How do I disengage a sticky wrestle with distraction when I crave to be distracted?
Jean Twenge wrote her doctoral thesis about the dissatisfaction driving modern world citizens living in America to distraction. It morphed into a book called Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - And More Miserable Than Ever Before.
An except from the author's site encapsulates my apathy and ambivalence:
GenMe's focus on the needs of the individual is not necessarily self-absorbed or isolationist: instead, it's a way of moving through the world beholden to few social rules and with the unshakable belief that you're important. It's also not the same as being "spoiled," which implies that we always get what we want; though this probably does describe some kids, it's not the essence of the trend (as I argue in Chapter 4, GenMe's expectations are so great and our reality so challenging that we will probably get less of what we want than any previous generation). We simply take it for granted that we should all feel good about ourselves, we are all special, and we all deserve to follow our dreams. GenMe is straightforward and unapologetic about our self-focus.
I hate that clinical voice condescendingly saying wanting what I want when I want it isn't spoiled but social expectation writhing through my head.
Especially when I know it's not true.
Nothing de-stickifies distraction quite like an ego bruised by the truth.
Going to the conference or not won't dictate how strong a pull distraction has in the future. It's not even really the point.
The choice to be distracted, to choose anything before what I committed to first is.
Which means I can go to a city to see a wise, attractive man and explore beauty, feeding my soul. Then I can go to back my grown-up job and live a responsible life.
I can return to my love, and ask forgiveness (again) for being distracted into not losing thought and giving thanks when I see pretty flowers.
I blink, years wisp away. My time spent, life.. blurred. Things and people I want to pour time and love into disappear; I don't even notice.
I'm distracted.
The usual suspects could be blamed - Facebook, texting, some favorite tv program. I like that idea, on the surface. Adding to the list makes me happy, too - work, taking care of my mom, family, the pets.
Maybe there's justification. I love my mom, the dog's on a schedule and needs meds. Maybe that project has a timeline, my career means providing better, more.
But the fact remains, I am the one surrendering to distraction.
I choose it first.
And that's not ok. See, I made a commitment before I knew what the word meant and the world looked like. I said I'd have one love, one first among many, one response to distraction. I knew even then I wouldn't follow through, because I was young enough to be lose thought when I saw a pretty flower. But I said I'd try.
And that's the problem with distraction - it takes away my want to try. I settle, with my preferred things around me in my preferred life. I don't have to see what I don't want to, do what I don't want to. Those things pull away from my preferences and wants, so they stay and I choose to wander.
But there's no weight of beauty in distraction. To rephrase C. S. Lewis, distraction is the joke worthy happiness and wonder doesn't bother with.
Distraction pales. It blinds.
And eventually, I don't care to see the difference between the pale and the worthy.
There's a conference this October I could actually attend for the first time since it was created 5 years ago. It's free to attend. And actually in a state below the Mason-Dixon. It's in a month when I need to eat vacation time, but before the big push at work. The founder speaks good into the world, empowers the fatherless generation towards hope.
But my distracted brain muddles through the oppressive questions of worth.
Should I really go to a city I've never visited before *just* to hear an attractive man talk about things I would like to listen to anyway? The money spent on travel and hotel and a car could buy me a new laptop; buy my mom a new one. (My brother can buy his own. :P) Why should I go spend 5 days away from my house, my beautiful cable connected wireless network (and bed!) to go to a conference which will make me question the worth of a quiet, small life? Small and quiet can be powerful, like iPods and vials of nitrogen glycerin; why should I deal with the guilt of feeling I should be doing something bigger or braver?
How much of my questioning comes from fear distracting me from the worth of a struggle and new experience?
How do I figure out what path to take when my life (filled with socially acceptable responsibilities like work and an aging, seizuring mother) distracted me from the community primarily responsible for giving me a place to wrestle with questions and distraction in the first place?
How do I disengage a sticky wrestle with distraction when I crave to be distracted?
Jean Twenge wrote her doctoral thesis about the dissatisfaction driving modern world citizens living in America to distraction. It morphed into a book called Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - And More Miserable Than Ever Before.
An except from the author's site encapsulates my apathy and ambivalence:
GenMe's focus on the needs of the individual is not necessarily self-absorbed or isolationist: instead, it's a way of moving through the world beholden to few social rules and with the unshakable belief that you're important. It's also not the same as being "spoiled," which implies that we always get what we want; though this probably does describe some kids, it's not the essence of the trend (as I argue in Chapter 4, GenMe's expectations are so great and our reality so challenging that we will probably get less of what we want than any previous generation). We simply take it for granted that we should all feel good about ourselves, we are all special, and we all deserve to follow our dreams. GenMe is straightforward and unapologetic about our self-focus.
I hate that clinical voice condescendingly saying wanting what I want when I want it isn't spoiled but social expectation writhing through my head.
Especially when I know it's not true.
Nothing de-stickifies distraction quite like an ego bruised by the truth.
Going to the conference or not won't dictate how strong a pull distraction has in the future. It's not even really the point.
The choice to be distracted, to choose anything before what I committed to first is.
Which means I can go to a city to see a wise, attractive man and explore beauty, feeding my soul. Then I can go to back my grown-up job and live a responsible life.
I can return to my love, and ask forgiveness (again) for being distracted into not losing thought and giving thanks when I see pretty flowers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)