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 . . . "