I think I’m too apathetic about most things.

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”

― Elie Wiesel

 

Out of dust, out of us.

All this pain,
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way.
I wonder if my life could really change at all.
All this earth,
Could all that is lost ever be found?
Could a garden come up from this ground at all?

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There’s that sinking feeling of guilt. The pit in your stomach, and your shoulders cringing. The darkness and pang of your heart. And then the hopelessness. Head’s resting on your hands.The drop of your eyes, pulling the darkness in like a blanket around your neck. Then apathy. Apathy, when the searching stops and the darkness is a close friend and what were once failures are now trophies in your cave. And everything is murky and it doesn’t matter because it’s easier that way. Until swimming through the dark isn’t exciting and it never was. And maybe light is better.

And

I might be wandering, but I’m not lost. And I might be sleeping, but I’m not gone. A garden will come up from this ground.

Because He makes beautiful things out of dust, out of us.

Picking Peace.

Is it possible to forget how to write? I might just be there now. It’s like I had all these moments in the past few weeks in which I said to myself, “Write about that thought” and now that I’m here the thoughts have either evaporated or just seem unimportant. And I just feel monotonous and insignificant. I want everyone to listen, but I can’t give any of you a reason to even continue reading this post.

But I’ll do this for myself more than anyone else.

I think I have a problem with contentment. I’m in a situation and I’ll either be 1) wishing for the circumstances to be slightly different or, if the situation is ideal, 2) creating conflicts that aren’t there. I can’t just accept something good. I pick it apart until it unravels.

Why?? Why can’t I be happy with where I’m at?

Yes, I’m talking about relationships. I always ruin them. I assume they’re going to fall apart, so I begin to look for problems that aren’t there. I trust my emotions so much that if at one instant I feel discomfort about where I’m at, it’s a sign that ‘this isn’t going to work’, failing to realize that I’m surrounded by people who are not perfect. People aren’t perfect. Somehow, that’s hard for me to grasp. It makes no sense, considering how aware I am of my own shortcomings. Of course I’m not going to love being around you all the time; you’re a human. Seriously, what’s wrong with me? I let my mind take off on this train track of doubt and fear, ignoring the fact that I’m leaving behind my sensible half, and any sense of peace.

I want to be finished with analyzing and pondering. It wears me out, and doesn’t seem to help me organize much at all. It’s just hard ignoring a thought once you’ve let it run through your mind. Because you can’t just pretend it didn’t happen. It did. You thought it, and now you have to catch it and ask what are doing in my brain, and where did you come from?

For this reason, I’ve been trying to let myself just take things as they are- enjoying what I have, when I have it. And not worrying about what happens after.

I cringed even as I wrote that last sentence. What am I saying? Am I to ignore any kind of critical thinking skills I’ve been given? Am I to throw inhibitions into the wind? So many would say yes, give your doubts away. Isn’t that what every sappy internet pic quote tells me? Live now, and worry later. “Love like you’ve never been hurt.” Why do we have memory then? I’m supposed to forget any kind of lesson I’ve learned in the past? I’m supposed to numb myself to any pain I felt in the past in order to find a sense of freedom in living in the moment? I feel like society has grafted my generation into a sea of reckless sailors that refuse to use compasses or maps or navigation, because we’re meant to “live in the moment”, not realizing that it will just leave us calloused and probably more than a little lost.

You know, I’ve always justified my poor decisions by saying that the experience was valuable. I learned from it. And while that’s probably true, what’s the point of “learning a lesson” if it doesn’t protect me from a future disaster? Shouldn’t I take my inhibitions as warning signs? We really don’t give them enough credit. Doubts can be valuable, can’t they? Why should I disregard the instincts I’ve been given?

So this is where I am, somewhere between blind bliss and acute discontent. And I don’t really want to be on either side of that fence, but it’s hard walking down the middle of it.

My Haven of Dishonesty

It’s not all the time that I want to write. It’s a certain mood that throws me into this. It’s the moments when I need to be heard. When I need to say things that I won’t actually say to someone. And you might call me a coward for turning to a computer screen instead of opening my mouth, and I suppose that’s justified. Fine. I’m afraid of disappointing, of being misunderstood, of looking foolish, of rejection. But aren’t there times when it’s best not to speak? When the truth isn’t appropriate? When silence is best? But I can’t always keep these things to myself. They can’t just stay inside my head. Not everything is should be said, but not everything should be stuffed away either. I don’t want to explode. And there have been several conversations I’ve had recently in which I’ve been asked hard questions. They’re questions I know the answers to. But the answers are too harsh or frightening. And I’m ashamed of them.

Here’s the thing about college: You get asked about your story over and over again. And while it’s become easy to come up with a organized narrative of what my life has been up until this point, it’s not really truthful. No, I don’t try to make it sound like I have it all together. I don’t attempt to play the role of your typical Christian University student. But I try to make my life into some sort of story line. I want to be an established character, with an established problem, and I want recovery. I want to be able to end my narrative with, “And now I’m here and it’s not always smooth sailing, but at least I overcame [insert conflict].”

But I find it hard to be vulnerable about things that aren’t completely in the past. If I’m open about the things I struggled with in high school, then I’m being open about the shit I have now. Certain things don’t  come and eventually leave. They don’t really ever leave; maybe they subside, but they don’t just disappear. And I hate that.

A couple of weekends ago, I was in the car with a friend; we were on our way to Fayetteville. We didn’t know each other previously before coming to JBU, so he was just asking about my story, and I started giving him the usually run down. I started with talking about how I had such an awesome childhood, and wonderful, wonderful parents and the silly things my siblings and I did and the pets we had and it flowed. And I talked about high school and the whole issue of identity that I’m convinced every young person goes through in one way or another. And there came a point when I started saying things I wasn’t planning on saying. Before the story was finished, I just stopped. There came a point when there were things I didn’t want to say out loud. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him. It wasn’t that I was afraid of judgment. I felt safe; it’s just hard to admit to being broken.

And there’s more to say on honesty. But I’ll save that for later. There’s only so much disorganization one post can hold.