And:

Happy New Year, y'all. :)

Judgmental

Am I really judgmental? That's a bitter pill to swallow. I guess the real question is, do you guys see me as more judgmental or empathetic/perceiving?

There has to be some truth to this, since people apparently agree that I'm a judger in some way. Also, that I'm introverted. I'm not so sure about that one, but I dunno.

Maybe I just empathize with the people that one doesn't generally empathize with, and I judge the others that represent something to me. I do categorize some people by their symbolic meaning (to me). I don't know how much I care for the rules, but I do assign symbolic meaning to people, so that's something. Also known as a run-on sentence. And a fragment to follow.

Me and the Men in My Life

My relationship with my brother and my dad (two different people -- I am NOT "my own grandpa." Or grandma.) -- page 1. (Just kidding.)



To save time and space, let's just say that my dad is moody and confrontational, and he tends to create his own momentum to feed his tirades at times. That is not to say that he is always wrong (although the degree of his emotion and "constructive" criticism might be). My dad is the one person that I can -- and cannot -- stand up to, paradoxically. When backed into a corner unfairly and rather loudly, I tend to take on the characteristic fury of a bear with the seeming lack of reason. (Though his violent temper scares many people, I guess I try to protect myself by in matching him tit-for-tat or shout-for-shout.) We become angry, nonsensical, mirror images of each other, and nothing gets solved. Usually, I end up walking away in some shape or form, and then I avoid him until he apologizes, albeit still critically. I won't put up with his tirades, but, sad to say, it seems that I always "stand up for myself" with matching emotion and enthusiasm. It's an endless cycle.

I don't respect him enough. I'm not thankful enough for the good things he does for me, nor do I express my gratitude well (often, coherently) to him. I don't really encourage the good aspects of his character, and I dwell on the negative and hold a grudge against those things, synecdochizing them as his entirety. I'm so afraid of his reactions that I don't tell him anything, often hiding the true negativity of my finances or my grades. Conversely, he attacks them when I do share, unless Cody has already stepped in to warn him to play nice.

My brother is not my dad, as much as he doesn't always see this. He is much more even-keeled, though he will relentlessly attack in order to prove a point or point out statements that either don't make entire sense or don't contain the entire truth. (I'm not trying to be "grey" here, just discussing those simple cause-effect relationships and such that are never so cut and dry except when we want the cause to be something other than ourselves.) He basically acts almost as a parent at times, stepping in between my dad and I in our disagreements, making sure that I do things in a punctual, commonsense manner (both of which do not come natural to me). He resents it, and, while I resent it, too, I kind of rely on it.

We help each other out when the other is in a jam, and I continually say and do the wrong thing around him, something that both amuses and immensely irritates him, and which usually embarrasses him in some public form. I really try, though. I just don't have . . . I don't even know what. A filter, for one. It kills me that I embarrass him. It kills me that I just make things awkward around him. And, although I love to try to help him out with advice or a good home-cooked meal or whatever, I know deep down that he wants me around when he needs something. He has a tremendous heart, though, and he has a habit of coming in to save the day when I don't even expect it. I can't truly fault him for this use-it-or-lose-it mentality when he does so much for me out of random moments of . . . I don't know what. Compassion? Friendship? Siblinghood? (Is that even a word?)

He has all this random wisdom of his own, and I really respect it. I'm way too critical of him, though. I want him to be the best person that he can be (and not get a big head in the process). I don't feel like I can tell him emotional, wishy-washy things (read: feminine things) that affirm his positive attributes, though, because, for one, I don't think he likes emotional, sappy talk. For two and three, I am not that coherent of a person when I'm trying to put something big into (verbal) words, and I feel like those words fall on deaf ears when I do throw them out there. Every once in awhile, we have a big conversation where we really open up to one another, and we can talk honestly and vulnerably about our hopes and dreams for ourselves, as well as our admiration and concerns for/about each other. I remember things that he tells me that I doubt he remembers even saying. I hold onto those things, albeit silently, just hoping to hear one again.

I don't handle conflict well with the men in my life. I don't handle emotion, or femininity well with them, either. I continually send my incompetencies their way, and they take care of it, although not always so happily. I run from justly deserved criticism, getting angry at its senders. I ache for affirmation, positive attention, affection, though I never say it. I guess I'm just as screwed up as the next guy. I don't know what this says about me; all I know is this: here I am as I stand now, honestly, but, I'm sure, replete (I like that word) with my own biases.

Chance Is the One Thing You Can Still Bet On

Should I have capitalized "On" in the title? I don't remember, since it has emphasis? Eh, well.

Random thoughts of the day that I will share before I forget them --

How crazy is it that, centuries after mankind first noticed randomness in the universe (or at least settled down to think about it), we're still debating over its implications (good versus evil, the "purpose" and occurence of suffering, the existence of God and the depth of his concern for humanity, evolution versus creation) and using it for our own entertainment (in other words, gambling)? (Whew! That was a long sentence. I apologize.) Sure, we've developed oodles of variations of poker and euchre and the like, but c'mon, we're still betting on dice or the randomness of cards. Ridiculous. And downright cool that something as simple and paradoxically huge as random chance (redundant) has so captivated us -- such a powerful law of nature. We don't even see God in that mix, but who the heck created all of this random chance? I think God did. Haha, so when we write gambling off as "of the devil," we don't even realize (heck, neither do the gamblers) that this fascination holds in its gaze something immense and God-created that we should all marvel at! Two bad approaches here -- gambling tries to control (or thinks it can control) chance, "lady luck," and denies its source and purposes, while parts of the Church historically (and still today) strive to deny that this chance even exists, covering up its beauty and simplicity with assumptions of God's intentionality toward all things. (Maybe God created chance intentionally? Just saying.)

Thought bubble number two:

Why is it that, upon telling some people that they have something, specifically some personal quality, that you wish to have, one can instead unintentionally inflate their egos? I mean, there is a compliment in there, but let's say that it's an affirmation. Anyway, the next time you try to impress them with your own demonstration of said ability/quality, they now condescend to mock or just plumb shut down your attempts now that they've been deemed an authority on the subject?

Here's the part where I spill the specifics. I wish I was as funny as my brother. I'd almost tell him that, but I think I know his personality well enough to know that, if I do give him that affirmation, he will (probably unconsciously, but to ensure his stature as said resident funnyman) most likely follow the above pattern.

I guess the real question is, why do I want to be as funny as he is? That's envy, folks, pure and simple. I envy the ability to make people laugh and the charisma that just draws people to him. Oh, well. I have my awkwardness and running into things. I guess I qualify as an unintentional slapstick comedienne. Seriously. I have the bruises on my shins and knees to prove it. :)

Today, Cody and I joked in the car about how funny it would have been if I would have shut my shoelace in the car door and discovered it as we were driving down the freeway. Just missed happening, actually. Just a closing story to make you smile. :)

("I can't move my stupid foot 'cause my shoelace is stuck in the door?"
"You shut your shoelace in the door? AHAHAHAHAHA"
"I know. Shut up." *beet red face*)

That's generally how it goes. ("You ran into your bed?" "Did you just run into the door frame/counter/door?" "I can't believe you almost ran into a tree!") My gift to the world is my lack of coordination. Or my lack of attention to details like where the doors, trees, beds, etc. are at. Small stuff like that. :D

Fun Fact

I'm seriously considering going into the Air Force after school. It pays well (and SallieMae is fully prepared to suck me dry upon my graduation), it would give me some real discipline, and I'd get to travel! I won't qualify for any of the teaching fellowships in any of the big cities across the U-S-of-A for next year, since my degree won't be conferred until August, so that's not an option anymore. The only other thing I'm really considering is teaching English in Korea, but I'm not sure if I'll have my degree in time for the proper visas and such. We shall see.

Rocky Votolato. Check 'im out. I'd recommend "White Daisy Passing," "The City Is Calling," or "Suicide Medicine." Great if you like folky or acoustic music.

There's Nothing Like a Little Etta . . .

. . . to just chill to and to inspire one. Thank God for Launchcast on Yahoo Radio. Pretty much the best mood lifter in the world.

I want to write something beautiful. The one thing I've started wondering about, though, is, do we artisticky types (yes, I'll include myself in that category) want to write or create something beautiful when the beauty is right in front of us, inside of us? Perhaps a life can be a beautiful story, as cheesy as that sounds. Maybe I'm so accustomed to this desire to create something beautiful outside myself as a semblance of release, that I haven't tried to find that release in my life itself.

Maybe there's something wrong if our lives themselves don't contain the beauty we seek elsewhere.

Maybe I'm doing the wrong things.

What do I seek for myself and my life? What would my mission statement be? How would I like to be remembered?

(Random note: It always worries me that no one besides me knows my scars. It saddens me to overemotional, weirdly unexplainable depths that even those in my family could identify few of my identifying marks if something were ever to happen to me where I was unrecognizable. Yes, it's morbid. But that lack of intimacy and, heck, interest, is just plumb disappointing. I just discovered another one today, and, thus, this popped back into my thoughts.)

Back to topic. What do I want to do, to be remembered for?

Well, first of all, what I'd like to accomplish and who I'd like to become are two different things.

I'd like to travel, to learn new languages, to get my act together and suddenly (poof! magic) become some shade of organized. I want to find a job that I will like and that will play to my strengths and needs: independence, lots of movement, variety, and freedom to be creative. I want to live somewhere that is beautiful, comfortable, and home, surging with community. I do not want to live in Housing Development, Suburbia. Heck, no.

I'd like to become someone I'd look up to. I want to keep my country roots, be someone physically, emotionally, and spiritually strong. I want to have a deep faith that not only questions, but finds answers, without all of the lingo and prepackaged, easy answers. (And I never want to wear a Jesus t-shirt again.) I want to be independent, fiercely compassionate and loyal, nonjudgmental, but still grounded in my own faith. I want to be a lover who fights for the ones I love. :) I want to be observant, hospitable, wise, introspective, intelligent, creative and artistic, merciful, sometimes times funny, sometimes awkward, always quirky, and always genuine. I want to be spontaneous and grounded, all at the same time, and I want to love and serve others for their sake and for the purpose of Purpose, of living out my faith and my love and extending that same grace and hope that I've received to everyone around me. I want to love the unlovables. I want to inspire and be inspired. I want to be vulnerable and honest. I want to be blunt when I need to be. I want to be passionate, tomboyish (why should I change that? I like it), and encourage the creativity and love of others.

I don't want people to be ashamed of me. I don't want my family to be ashamed of me. I don't want to be ashamed of me. I don't want to shame the God I love, although I know that's something I do and will continue to do from time to time.

I don't want to let people down. I want to meet their expectations, my way. I want to be more punctual, more thoughtful in encouragement and communication, and more reliable. I want to be involved in things outside myself. I don't want to settle into selfish routine.

Oh, yeah, and I'd like to learn coordination and learn how to dance and cook really well, too, but that's beside the point. I'd like to eat healthier, while we're at it. I'd like to create my own fashion for myself, one that's actually fashionable and professional. I'd like to learn how to paint and/or sculpt. I'd like to take exquisite photographs that really capture color and beauty as I see it. And like I said, I'd like to write something beautiful. Side track . . . done.

(Ray Charles' "Blues Waltz." Fantastic. Really.)

My grandma wonders why I'm still single? I'm still perfecting this stuff. These are my goals, my dreams.

Late-Night Musings

It's late, but I'm not quite tired enough to sleep quite yet.

Maybe friendships can't start again when two roads diverged in a wood, and he -- he took the one less traveled by? And do we ever really grow up, or do we just learn to camouflage the same childish questions in designer clothing? Is it the questions themselves that are childish, or just the mouths of the babes they come from? I don't have any answers.

And for me, specifically. What does it take to truly forgive things thought forgotten? I would genuinely like to change my perspective on things, namely, from pessimism to optimism. It makes forgiveness so much easier and healing so much more possible. Somewhere along the way, I've convinced myself that realism meant pessimism. Does it have to be that way? And change -- can people really change? Can I change? I don't always want to; sometimes apathy wins. I don't really seek answers from anyone; these are the rhetorical thoughts that keep vibrating in my brain. Can trust ever be validated? Maybe that's not the real question. How does one find sufficient validation in God? How does one find anything in God? I hear theories and abstractions all the time, but they seem to my ears like instructions to a dog to duplicate a Van Gogh painting. Mull that one over with your cider. For once, I would rather see this in action, especially up close, than to hear the words once again.

"A woman's heart should be buried so deeply in God that a man has to go there to find it."

I don't care about the man right now. I want something lasting, eternal. These are questions I would expect from a "non-Christian," but I am a Christian who has been tinged with doubt about all things over the last few years. I don't seek a fleeting feeling. I want something tangible, something lasting and consistent. In my experience, God hasn't been consistent, but, then, neither have I.

And that's enough for now. I'm tired enough for sleep at last.

Family?

I think my parents are both trying very hard. The holidays have been really good so far, though there was conflict. Even my mom's family was pretty openly enjoyable. I think everybody's trying to forgive and move on. I don't feel so threatened by my mom's new family and the prospect of "blending" into it so much anymore, although I don't imagine it the way that she does, I'm sure. I could have a friendship with these girls, although I can't guarantee a sisterhood. I don't even have that with most of my friends -- just those I have the most history and the most vulnerability with. I'm finding peace in the midst of it, though I don't envy my dad's situation with Lori's kids. None of us wants to blend there, and that seems to be the only thing that actually connects us all. Her oldest son seems like the only one of her kids who has retained any peace and common sense in this whole thing. I dunno. It's a bit scary, still.

Coming back to this note a few days later, yeah, the tensions are coming back, but we're handling it the way any ordinary family would, I think. That's good, right? It has to be.

Older chest

This time separated from anyone my age and chuck full of "family time" gives me a lot of time to think -- and get depressed. How will the monotony not drain me with apathy and frustration? All of the stuff bubbling under the surface, all the stuff we'd like to avoid comes out and taints our emotions and darkens our time together during these long stretches of time together.

1. By all accounts, I'm a failure. Academically, I turn everything in late and oversleep instead of going to class. I show up late for tests or never show up for quizzes. I'm not the successful, straight-A student that many people assume, and my future is in jeopardy.
a. Financially, I spend more than I make.
b. I show up late for work and don't get all of my tutor reports in. I don't fill things out in a timely fashion at all.

2. I'm angry at my dad for the divorce; I blame him for it, and I don't trust his honesty with himself or others after "the Loris." And his attempts to control my life (which arise more out of love than they seem to, I realize) sometimes seem ludicrous, even laughable in his hypocrisy.

3. I don't like Lori. I see her, in part, as a catalyst for the divorce, though I don't think she was as aware of what was going on as my mom thinks. I hate how my dad treats her, and I hate that she gets mad over little things, but puts up with the biggest crap he dishes out.

4. I don't like my mom. I haven't felt closeness or affecton to or from her since I was little. She doesn't like kids, but she's always pretended to. For some reason, she stopped or gave up on being supportive at times just because she didn't like our ages. Except that kids don't work like wine -- you can't just cast us aside for years until you decide we've reached an age in which you can now enjoy us. She's so stern and correctional most of the time, and has been for so long, that her kindness, generosity, affection, and interest now seem somehow false.

5. And I don't really trust her. As much as I don't trust Dad's judgment, I don't trust the strength or stability of her love -- she's just as unreliable as one of my dad's moods. She has taken out her frustrations on me and thus taught me that some truly beautiful, but complex things are ugly punishments (like femininity, for example), and she has told both Cody and I things about ourselves that stick and cling to us with such great force, hurtful things, that her attempts to affirm us seem fickle and feeble at best. Plus, she hasn't treated Cody, especially, in the way a loving, supportive, understanding mother -- someone she wants and claims to be -- should! We are not toys tht can be picked up again whenever someone so chooses.

6. Bob is not our father; his kids are her family and not ours; and their house will never be "our" home, nor would I ever desire to make their home my own. I want to support her in her new life, but she does not get to decide that my life has to suddenly tuck and roll into this nice, neat little package of Family Suburbia. I don't want a new life, complete with prepackaged step-siblings and step-nephews. I'm happy she's found someone who makes her happy & vice versa. I kind of miss our past life as our family, and maybe that's why I'm so critical of the past -- I don't know if that even makes any sense. I guess it's a paradox. But the best I can do is create my life -- not my mom's chosen new life or my dad's, either; not some combination or hybrid of the two; just my own life, which includes the same people as before.

7. I'm incredibly self-centered, and this divorce/remarriage thing has only served to heighten this. Whereas the center of my life once included a whole family unit, replete with traditions and conflict, that family has been torn, and its members now spread away from the center. While there are new people at the periphery, those new people in the lives of my former family members, there's now no real, emulsified (that's non-glued-together, for all of you non-sciencey folks) family at the center.

Thinking of giving up

This week has been hell. As in, I've made my own hell this week. I turned one paper in two days late and another three days late. And the funny thing is, I had the first one done on time and the second one done about an hour late. I just overslept and would have arrived to class late with said papers in hand both times. I need to get my act together.

On the other hand, Agathos has slowly stopped participating in things. We did a service project last weekend, and "we" only included Ellen and I. I still have to finish it myself, because, with just the two of us, we couldn't finish the dang thing. I sent out an email about selling tickets, and only Jenny responded. As it was, her schedule was already busy, so she could only take the occasional hour. And now that my phone is back on, I realize that I've got a bunch of missed calls from Boosters wanting to know why we haven't had ticket sales in the BOD, and I have no idea of how to answer.

I'm done. I've dropped the ball enough with classes, work, and Agathos, so one thing needs to go. And I'm through with doing everything with just myself, Jenny, and Ellen participating, for the most part. I'm not Agathos; I can't be Agathos or even carry it for awhile. I think I'm going to resign as an officer for next semester. It's just one more thing I don't need on my plate right now. I need to get my frickin' act together in a few more important areas than this, and I don't need the added responsibility of club to weigh me down.

Something that provoked thoughts in me . . .

Apparently this was an article in Relevant. ------------------------------------

I know, I know. You’re already looking for holy, sanctimonious, snobbish “it’ll be worth the wait when your prince (or princess) comes and makes it all worthwhile.” Not so, I say. And it’s not easy for me to say that at all. I’ve been married seven and a half years, was single for 27 before that, and I’ve been thinking lately about what it means to be single.

Don’t get me wrong, here. I’m not looking to be free of my husband … not at all. Seven and half years later, I think we’re finally getting to the good stuff. We know each other way less than we thought we did on our wedding day, and much better than we did that next morning when we woke up as Mr. and Mrs. We’ve been through some really tough stuff together: We’ve both had surgeries, mine minor, his less so. We’ve struggled to pay bills—really scary ones, like the one from the IRS. We make an odd couple—both tremendously damaged by our childhoods, and healed in some painful and wondrous way by one another. But I digress…

Singleness. I never valued it when I had it. My goal was always not to be alone, and since I make friends with male people more easily than with female people, that meant I was “not alone” with male people quite a bit. Emotional intimacy was easily had, and I mistook that more than once for love, and that led to sex and the giving away of bits and pieces of myself.

And the older I get, the more I wish I hadn’t given so much of myself away. I wish I’d learned to like myself better as a single person, valued myself more, given more of my heart to God and less of my body to men who didn’t love it like I should have. The older I get, the more I realize how deep God’s love is, and how like a father I have broken God’s heart in the past—not irrevocably and not with rejection, but with sadness for how little I thought of myself, how much of myself I gave that I can’t get back, how little I trusted myself when I was so determined not to be single.

By the time Ben and I married, I had grown up a little. I’d sort of given up on not being single, and was working on learning to love my single self. We actually had a very deep conversation about how we were not dating at this point in our lives, over a dinner that started as a convenient grab-a-bite-after-class and was, by the end of the evening, looking more and more like a date. I liked myself, and so I didn’t just jump at the chance to date someone, to be “not alone.” I found that because I valued myself and had a sense of who God was calling me to be, I felt freer to hold back, to be “wooed,” to wait for a sense that this time it would be the time to give my heart definitively and not try to buy love with the rest of me.

What I think about singleness is this: It’s a time to come to know who you are, to be at peace with yourself and with God. It’s hard to feel all that comfortable when you know you’ve left bits and pieces of your self and your soul behind, and failed to value them the way God does. But they can grow back.

Singleness for me was mostly years of failing to understand that true love doesn’t ask for my soul, but receives it, shares it and grows it. It was years of failing to realize that I had “true love” in my platonic friendships and in my relationship with Christ and in my family, and that it was time to stop looking elsewhere for love. And singleness was the incubator in which I grew up, from a childish seeking for comfort anywhere I could get it, to finally feeling that in Ben I’d found a love and acceptance only God had felt for me before. It was years of learning to face myself in a mirror and see contentment reflected back.

So yeah, I’ve been thinking about singleness. Part of me misses it, but only to the extent that I failed to value it when it was mine. There’s freedom there, to travel and to think out loud, to take the crazy job or paint my toenails purple (he hates it when I do that). You can eat what you want and watch the ball game without worrying about what anyone else wants to do. Singleness was right for me for a time. It’s been right for my best friend all along—she’s my age, and, I think, secure enough in God and in herself to enjoy it while it lasts, while staying open to the possibilities of being not-single. It’s right for another friend, who finds it to be her calling in life, to be satisfied with who she is and comfortable in her own skin.

Singleness is about adventure, self-esteem and growing up. And it’s about you owning your soul, until it’s time to give it away to the one who gives it back to you, with theirs. Here’s my word of wisdom from the other side of singleness: It’s who you are when you’re single that sets the course for who you’ll be all your life. Be whole, and yes, holy—don’t give yourself away. You’ll miss the pieces you let go.