Prayer is personal.

The discipline of writing calms me.  Idle time usually spooks me, but I think this self-imposed requirement (that I write every day) is creating a safe space for me to slow down.

I've been thinking a little more about why I've gone back to writing like this after about a year of inactivity.  The issue before was that I didn't have a clear-cut purpose for the blog, and so my motivation flagged because I didn't know why I was writing.  But it's clear to me that I'm not writing for an audience.  I'm not trying to promote a product, or a service, or even myself.  I think, rather, that this is turning into a journal of sorts...the kind of writing I always reserved strictly for my notebooks, to be created by hand and pen and scribbles here and there.  But typing is faster.  Perhaps that's lazy, but I'm okay with it.  Who knows - maybe I'll go back to more traditional journaling at some point, but for now, this is what is helping me.  It helps, especially given that I'm an internal processor...and I'm content to let this logic dictate things for now.

The logical follow-up question to this thought is, why don't you make the blog private, then, or just keep a journal on Word and save it to your computer?  Well, I guess I could take either of those routes, but here's the thing: I sometimes get into these moods where I'll hop from blog to blog, hitting the link at the top of my screen just for kicks.  And occasionally, I come across a blog that teaches me something new, or catches my mind, or plants a seed, or just plain interests me.  There's nothing (so far, at least) I've written on this blog that's too private for another person to read, whether he/she knows me or not.  And maybe someone out there, someday, will come across something I've written or thought and be spurred to think a little harder.  Maybe something in me will help him/her, or prompt conversation.  I'm aware that as a person, I'm "no passive observer of life" (as my best friend so encouragingly put it, a few months ago).  I have lots to give, and a willingness to do so...so in the spirit of maybe creating something beyond myself, I'm keeping myself wide open.

A shift: I've been thinking lately about how intimidating prayer can be, and how such fear is actually counterintuitive to the idea of praying.

Yesterday, in a weak moment, I tried to pray - honestly, not because I thought it might help, but because I was desperate and already a weepy mess.  Over the last few months, I've fallen into a comfortable pattern of starting prayers, "Father," or "Lord," but yesterday, was in a precarious place of being physically alone and just wanting a person to be there with me.  I wanted so badly to be leaning into someone who cares about me and understands the bitterness of being curled up in bed and hugging your pillow so you can try to pretend you're not alone.  I wanted something personal, in other words, and at that moment, "Father" and "Lord", though intimate titles, felt like distance.

A name, on the other hand, is a far more personal way to approach a person...and God, as it turns out.

So I tried to begin a prayer, and it took me only a moment to realize that I couldn't say, "Jesus."  It felt paralyzing, to be that personal, even with the God who has searched me and knows me and all that jazz.  And it wasn't like I had reason to be self-conscious, either; I was alone.  I persisted for a few minutes, and when I finally was able to say it, it only made me cry harder.  I'm not sure why, though.  Perhaps it had something to do with hearing myself trying to eke out something even vaguely resembling prayer.

That was last night.  The post-crying headache has stuck around all day and is still squeezing the back of my head, so I think I need to stop writing now and prep for tomorrow's Bioethics seminar.  Between that, my head, and my needing to be out of my room by 7 am tomorrow, I wonder if I'll be able to catch any shut-eye tonight...

Free falling

You know what it is?  I fell in love.  That's all it is.  Now I understand why they say it's like falling...

because I didn't realize it,
but I'd suddenly slipped into friendship...
friendship that was the best I've ever had...

because I didn't realize it again,
but I'd suddenly slipped into love...
love that nudged me closer to joy and forgiveness and transformation every day.

I'm free falling.  Every day.  Oh, this ache...my head feels ready to split.  I miss this friendship, and I want nothing more and nothing less than to get all of that back.  He told me, "God is bigger," but I don't believe God cares right now.

In her blog, Emily P. Freeman writes about why it's important to know what makes you cry:

"So what?"  Why does it matter what makes you cry or tear up?  Maybe it just means you're overly emotional, sappy, too sensitive.  Maybe.  Or maybe our tears are tiny messengers, secret keepers of the most vulnerable kind, sent to deliver a most important message: Here is where your heart beats strong.  Here is a hint to your design.  Here is a gift from your inner life, sent to remind you about those things that make you come alive."

So the violence of these tears, the depth of this awful alone-ness and the place it lands me, I suppose, all reveal how viscerally I care, and how fiercely I love...and how that care, that love...it makes me come alive.

Captive

I should be working right now...

Instead, this disease holds me captive.  And my heart has never ached like this before.  I need to vent, and I'll do it here because I'm pretty sure no one's reading...which is just fine with me.  Plus, there's no one I can talk to about any of this except D and S and I'm terribly afraid of overburdening them.  What if I'm too much and they decide I'm not worth dealing with anymore?

It's hard to imagine that I could be happy - really, deeply happy - anytime before January.  And I don't even know what's going to happen in January...how that transition will happen.  I know that this time is supposed to provide healing, but it feels like punishment and I'm broken and alone and it hurts to breathe.  So I cry and let this disease control me.  I focus on the cramps because that's pain I can control.  On June 24th (which is when this new hell began), S called it an addiction.  I've only ever thought of it as a coping mechanism, or a control issue...but in a way, her redefinition made sense.  I don't feel able to live any other way.  Is that addiction?

I almost wish I could be angry with him, so that I wouldn't have to be sad...but I care too much about him to even consider such a thing.  Instead, I walk around campus and remember and remember and remember some more.  Everywhere I walk, a memory lies in wait to knock the breath out of me all over again.  B has her reminder in me, and I have my reminders all over this home away from home.  I guess that's fair (what a bitter thought)...but that doesn't make it hurt any less.

Two days ago, S called to see how I was doing.  Among some other well-intentioned and gentler things, she told me that this particular friendship is just not going to come back, and that it would be better (for me) to just acknowledge the truth in that.  She's not wrong; I understand her in my head (as opposed to understanding it in my heart).  It was just way more direct than I could handle.  She apologized, too, and I said, "It's fine; don't worry about it," out of politeness.  She's only known me for four months, after all.  How can I ask her not to be direct when that's the kind of person she is, and she's only known me for four months, and she's only trying to help?

But I ended up crying, alone, all night...it was the same as usual.  It was acrid and breathless and desperate.  It made me physically sick.  I woke with puffy eyes and a tightness over my temples, yet had to spend the day working in my lab and being cheery.  All I really wanted to do was go back to my room and turtle so I could sleep off the headache.  Pretending to be happy is exhausting.  Deceiving (most of) my friends makes me feel more alone than I should have to feel.  There are very few people that I want to be around right now, but if any one of them were, I might have some motivation to move.

3 gifts musical

3 gifts musical (I chose 4, because it made sense: "You are My All in All,", "He Knows My Name", each new song (and a beloved music teacher who encouraged me to write them).

This brings me to the 225th of 1000 gifts.  This past May, I found this blog written by a woman named Ann Voskamp, who's written a book called One Thousand Gifts.  Ironically, my first response to reading about her passion for living with gratitude was not to buy and read her book.  Of course, I will do that at some point, but for now, I'm content to take her challenge: in one year, to count one thousand blessings in my life.  It's a humbling daily goal, because I find that I'm quicker to see the things going wrong in my life than I am to see the things that are going right.  I'm quicker to blame and petition God because of what I don't have than I am to thank Him for what He's already given.  Living mindfully, I gather, involves not only recognizing where you've erred and need forgiveness (whether from people or from God), but also recognizing where life is beautiful and satisfying.

Voskamp publishes a "JoyDare" on her blog each month (here's the one for July), which is a calendar that gives a different "theme" of blessings to look for in each day.  Today, I had to come up with three gifts that had to do with music.  Only three? I thought.  I could write about my guitar and its story...and how I've been blessed with a voice to sing...about how I sing everywhere from the grocery store to the bathroom.  Do I think about lyrics?  Songs?  My own songs?  The situations surrounding particular songs?  People I've written about?  Situations I've written about?  The person a particular song reminds me of?  Oh, the possibilities.  I limited myself to the four gifts above and, as I've already noted, was humbled to realize that I have too many gifts related to music to count, or to fit into one post on Facebook (which is where I'm keeping track of the gifts, in hopes that I will spur some of my friends to take on this challenge, too).

I feel like I'll be able to talk to people more concretely and articulately about this whole experience once I've actually read the book in question.  I suppose a trip to half.com is in order...

Internal processing

I'm an internal processor, which means that I'm hardly ever as articulate in conversation as I am in writing.  I can put on my professional, talking-to-adults hat and read like I'm thirty, but when it comes to the conversations that bring out five-year-old me, I actually have to prepare.  I need to think about what I'm going to say and anticipate potential reactions.  Is this a weakness?  Is it dishonest?  I used to think so, but these days, I've been growing into an acceptance of this being the way I operate.  The people who really matter in my life accept it, so why shouldn't I?


Ps. 56 is on my mind today, particularly v. 3: "When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you".  I've been saying this to myself all day long...trying to internalize it, hold it, believe it.  I woke with puffy eyes and a throbbing head that reminded me of how last night racked me, wrecked me...and a few random passersby, including the kindly woman at the campus center near the coffee, have told me that I look "really tired" today.  (I wish I knew her name - names are so important.)  You bet I'm tired...but it's not your fault that you've only gotten part of the answer right.  There are only a few people, after all, who can recognize this look as the she-cried-all-night look.  The important people know...and one of those important people is gone, gone, gone.  So, no, I don't want to be cheery with the other two students in my lab, or play with fruit flies, or move, or talk to anyone except those important people.  What I want to do is sleep off this headache in the arms of the people who matter.  I should be running to God, because when I am afraid, I ought to put my trust in Him.  I wonder how long it will be before I'm brave enough to be honest with Him and pray.

Oddly enough, I'm learning something in this: that trusting Him might involve being patient with more than just my circumstances.  It seems to involve being patient with myself, too.