alone -- ungrateful

how can a life this good seem so undesirable lately? i just want to step out for awhile.

i don't know where the bond has gone that my brother and i used to share. in fact, i don't even recognize him anymore, although i'm starting to think i see a hazy picture of matt superimposed on his image. most likely he's turned his back on matt, too, though; i don't know. and then i got this reminder that my dad is a verbal abuser, but somehow i hurt him tonight. and vice versa, but all i can think about are his feelings.

i am so sick of fighting with my parents, but at the same time, i have all of these things that i'd like to say to cody. why am i so confrontational and so unconfrontational all at the same time? i hold back the things i would say to cody because they would explode out of me if i unclamped the lid. and to my parents . . . i would rather brush our problems under the rug, bear the abuse heaped on me just to avoid being the one who hurts people's feelings. because all these problems with cody are something new, whereas my parents' own jerkish tendencies have been there all along and are not likely to ever change -- the verbal abuse, the screaming demands, the always changing expectations, the tirades.

and the sad thing is, my dad actually cared about my birthday. he wanted to see me this weekend. but he screamed at me about cody's and my own "laziness at looking for a real job" for the summer. suddenly, lorie's kids are brilliant stars shining in the night, whereas cody and i are flickering matchlights that pale tentatively in comparison. and i'm weary from it all. i had hoped that this would be my one temporarily happy relationship with a family member. it seems that i failed the exams, though, and the term ended early. and now i feel left with nothing.

i feel alone. even with all of the plans and business of school and agathos, with all of the online chats with jael, with all the conversations with other tutors at work, i feel alone. and i guess that's that. i'm stuck here in this empty valley waiting for the sun to peak up over a mountain that now seems vast and stark in the darkness and reveal the beauty hidden in this same landscape.

sheesh haha

so. maybe i'll try to commit myself to this almost-once-a-day thing, maybe not. we'll see.

God's been so good to me today. (always, yes, i know, but i'm focusing on today.)

i'm trying to get into the habit of praying my thoughts; rather, being so used to talking to God that i don't know where my thoughts leave off and where my prayers to him begin. i used to have that, and it was pretty extraordinary.

so today i tried. and i've become more aware of the little cruel things i do to people, like blowing them off or just the grudges i pull from the recesses of myself when i see someone who has either hurt or offended me in the past (or who just struck me wrong at the time). i am trying to find a good balance between apathy and gouging those things out right now. i have all the makings of a legalistic little tyrant in me. i'm trying not to rush myself and not to rush God, but to just become more aware of my own faults. haha you know, it seems like there's no such thing as "other people" after that. because i'm aware of things that bother me in other people, but now i'm so much more aware of what it means to be human, to be those cans of vegetables that started out so good and then dented after dropping from the shelf where they belonged. 

there are things about me i don't like. there are things about me that i like that i wish i brought out more. so i'm going to work on it, patiently, almost apathetically. i just don't want to become too disciplined or too hardcore, because then the rules will rule me. and i have enough of a guilt complex to be Irish Catholic or Jewish, anyway. ;) haha

and now i pray for linda, anita, nick's grandpa, and aimee to feel better, for my friends and their babies, here and on the way, for a friend who got married in the last year and his wife (college seems tough enough as a SINGLE!), for my brother and my "sister," my best friend to see what he's missing out on, my other best friend to continue healing, for our soldiers and civil protectors to be protected by God, for my mom with the loss of her dog (and that she won't buy another sheltie!), for my family and all of its problems, my dad and his finances, my own finances, and a nice blend of sleep and studying/laundry before my test...today. i pray for my sanity with another Encore week. :) and for friends who are leaving for the unknown, that they will find provision and learn the patience that comes with faith. and finally...for my roommate situation and the questions i've been having lately about my family and how that will carry over into the rest of my life. (it's vague, i know...)