Glimpses at the Center of the Thing

Talking to Eli today reminded me of something. I am desperate for community. I desire to love deeply and completely, and to be loved in return with the same force and openness, but I guard myself against it at the same time. I form transient attachments. For whatever reason, this is especially true with other women. My group of girls now, I can honestly say, will probably not be my lifelong friends, much as they are great people. I hope that, by realizing this and trying to figure it out, that will change. Anyway.

Most of my closest friendships are with either men or with women I would class as more masculine than feminine. One friend and I came to the mutual understanding the other day that, if we're not "phone friends" with someone, relationships with that person just don't last once the face time fades. Which makes sense, right?

I have known for a while what I'm like in romantic relationships, and it's not good. I'm so desperate to find some way to give myself away, without abandon, to someone, something that I tend to be the follower, the one desperate to hold everything together. It's good on the level of commitment, but not so much on the level of self respect and emotional distance. That's the pattern with vulnerability for me in general. I stave off true vulnerability until I finally make an attempt to be truly open, but all these rare flashes of vulnerability come out instead as powerful jabs laden with expectations. They're more of an attack than a gift, because I already expect to be burned (which makes me try that much harder after each interval of aloofness).

I don't want the personality type that draws one into abusive relationships. I am a self-reliant woman, a proud woman, at least as far as my independence, and I know that I don't need someone else to complete me. It's not really about a relationship, although that seems to be the most obvious area in which I express these behaviors. (I sound like a head shrinker, huh?)

I want to share myself with someone who cares. That's just it. It makes me a people pleaser and sometimes makes me feel much weaker than I should feel about myself, but it's there. I want to love deeply and give so much of myself it hurts (which is just sickeningly emo, let's tell the truth here). But that is not a relationship. That is not about another person. This is about me, unfortunately. And it shouldn't be.

I know that everyone's supposed to have a God-shaped hole, right? Well, isn't becoming a Christian, a walk with God supposed to fill that hole? God is the one I should be loving without abandon. I guess my concept of God is just so ethereal, so abstract, though, that it's hard for me to find fulfillment in loving God. I don't even know what it means to love God.

I had a professor once that was a trained psychologist with years of experience. He told our class, "There are two types of people who engage in relationships for the wrong reasons. Those in the first group think that, by getting someone to love them, they'll find happiness. The other group is made up of those who think that, if they can just find someone to love, they'll be happy. The problem is, neither of these things can make you happy. You have to find happiness inside yourself, not in a relationship. You can't make another person responsible for your happiness."

I don't know what I should be doing right now. I just don't feel that what I'm doing is enough. I feel disconnected from the people around me, and I can't see the needs for those around me, even when I look. I'm living selfishly, and I can't figure out what I should be doing differently. It's so frustrating! My complacency and my attempts to break out of it irk me equally.

My relationship with my Abba has changed. I feel like I'm in the teenager (or twenty-something) stage right now, where I'm just getting past rebellion, but slightly jaded from the process, at least temporarily. I don't believe in the same way I used to believe, not innocently and without complication. We don't talk as often as we used to, and even when I try to really listen, I don't always hear his voice. I know what unabashedly giving myself to God felt like and looked like in the past, but, in this new world, this new person I've become, I don't know where the puzzle pieces fit, exactly. I don't know what it looks like to give myself wholeheartedly. What does that even mean?

I guess I'm more confused than ever. But at least I know that this isn't about other people; it's a God thing. I trust that it will work out, though I'm not good with patience. Maybe this time is about learning that clay sometimes just has to sit still while it's being reshaped.

"And the wisdom to know the difference . . . "

Questions for an Older Man . . .

I was taking a bath tonight while reading a great book for class (Dreams of Sleep by Josephine Humphreys), and I started imagining questions that I would love to ask some guy, either married or previously married, in maybe his thirties or forties. (No one in particular in mind, just the expectation of an interesting perspective.)

Why do what seems like most married men compartmentalize their lives according to the roles they play — husband, father, employee, lover (to another) . . . ? How does that become so easy? Why does that become so easy? I don't know. I could be completely wrong here, but it seems like the infidelity problem in lots of marriages isn't necessarily the result of some evil, completely ill-intentioned blackguards, but the symptom of husbands (spouses is more of a fair term, but this has only happened with the men in my family) who feel duty-bound to their spouses, but romantically bound to someone else. I'm not trying to condemn, because I think this is just a symptom of something else. But what . . . ?

Did we use to be better people, with more integrity? The easiest answer is yes, but I know plenty of people who believe great things, who do great things, things that are beautiful and good and true. I have also met those older than me who used to be just like these others when they were my age, but somehow — do we just lose it, somehow? Is it even related? Can one be a person of integrity and have an affair? I don't know anymore. The act itself is appalling to me, but I don't know if a person can be defined as good or bad by simply one choice. Can a person have integrity and still make a heart-wrenching mistake (choice)?

How have we fallen into this mindset? Why have we bought into it? Is it really too much to expect another to provide one's life with romance and meaning and significance? It's these questions that give me pause as I think about relationships. It's so much easier to toy with the idea of a relationship than to trust that this is even possible anymore. I believe it's possible for a few to escape this thought pattern, but how should I know if and when I'll ever meet one of those few? If I'll be one of those few? I come from people who threw in the towel, family members who gave in to compartmentalization. Time and time and time and time again, I've seen it happen, whether marriages ended due to infidelity, or other marriages lumbered down a lonely path, with two silent strangers walking side by side and staring into opposite directions for the rest of their life, the stale space in between still void of fulfillment and love.

I don't know if I can trust in this married world I see. The world for people my age, for the happily unmarried, seems to hold much more longevity and satisfaction, if one can learn to face the sun through the periods of loneliness. I crave intimacy, I really do. I don't know if I can convince myself, though, that the flowers on the other side of the fence aren't annuals, and those on my side, perennials.

I know that this sounds entirely pessimistic, but I don't mean for it to be that way. I enjoy my life. I enjoy the freedom to enjoy friendships with men that haven't yet needed to be modified to avoid the impression of impropriety, not that I have improper friendships anyway. (Still, any woman will know what I'm talking about.) I don't have to worry that "hanging out with the guys" will somehow bother a significant other. I have the freedom to explore different job opportunities, travel wherever I want, spend my money without wondering what other purchases I need to make room for in my checkbook. . . . I have free time.

Less than six months ago, I was debating whether or not I should actually join the Peace Corps or whether I should remain in Anderson, instead; I was happy in a relationship with a guy who made it clear that he wouldn't want to move to a long-distance relationship. Now, I'm going to South Carolina in October, then to California for at least a year and a half before I move to some new place. I'm going to learn to speak Arabic! I'm so happy for my brother and his girlfriend, who, I would assume, will get married in the next two or three years, but I don't think I'm ready to give this up yet. And I can't exactly say I'm very good at picking up new relationships anyway; I don't even really have a "type," since my type is based largely on my (most likely inaccurate) perceptions of which guys have the potential for the kind of marriage I want someday. I don't want to spend my time with someone who views marriage more flippantly, just to accidentally slide into a life together because we've created a history.

I don't know. I think too much.

In Bad Need of a Shower . . .

It's 6:36 am, and I still have to finish up a paper, print a bunch of stuff off, shower, finish my questions for my 9 am presentation and email/print them off to my group, check and see if my brother's friend has been able to stick a phone number on our video (or if the dern thing's just fine the way it is), study for a test at 10 am, and gas up my car to take my friend to the airport between classes today. And then I have class at 1 and work from 2-4. Esta noche, ¡dormiré!

Aside from all that toxic whining, I really just wanted to say that I'm currently in love with The Strokes, The Shins, and Arctic Monkeys, and Blink-182 is keeping my mood elevated. I'm slimy and need a shower. My face feels like Haven pizza (which is never a good sign, as far as I'm concerned).

Weird aside. I got two calls from the Army today, one from my PT sergeant and another from the AKO peeps, who just left me this vague message to call them back, at such-and-such extension. Huh. The other call was about getting ahold of somebody who might be thinking about joining up and has some questions, so that one's not really any big. I'm not really biased; I went into this with my eyes wide open. I can say that everybody's been pretty forthright when I asked the right questions. Anyway. They weren't anywhere near as bad as I'd heard "those daggone recruiters" were. Pretty great people, actually. Anyway. Good night, or good early morning. :)

Oh, and Radiohead. I'm also in love with Radiohead. Especially the acoustic version of "Creep." Loooooooove itttt!!!!!!!