dear God,

i would really like a job--

soon.

thanks,

Adel

i had a moment this weekend, driving,

somewhere between new brunswick and newark

on the garden state parkway

a memory slowly creeping into my mind,

a Truth long buried.

the fear and anxiety that lie latent in my chest

always appear most readily when i am in modes of transportation, particularly driving. the last 2 years have brought out a constant throat closing, chest burning, nauseating anxiety whenever i put myself in a moving vehicle, even when i'm the one behind the wheel. i always talk myself through it, but its exhausting, especially when i go somewhere new. i never let it stop me because that's me. i fight through it/against it. until this last weekend.

a trip to nyc was planned and i wanted to go. but when i found out we were driving in, i kinda felt like crying. i just didn't want to deal with it anymore. last week i decided that i was going to practice doing what i wanted to do, following my gut and listening to my heart, not my head. it started with that drive to the hudson. i hadn't driven on impulse since high school. it continued with a 2 hr hike mid-week and concluded with the Truth long buried.

i used to love driving.

the peace that pervaded following that thought was unbelievable and carried me through the rest of the day. i used to love driving. it wasn't a guilty accusation towards my anxiety-ridden self or a this desire is long lost. no, it was Truth, spoken to my heart to grant freedom. a reminder of who i am. a call, a deep awakening of who God has created me to be, spoken in a whisper to a child long lost, trying to find her way home. i've always known that the anxiety i have felt in travelling, especially driving has been connected deeply to my spiritual walk, an assault on the very fabric of my being. a suffering i've never been able to pinpoint.

but something happened on that parkway.

a Whisper that not only set me free of my fear of something simple that i used to love, but with it, told me i was Home. Home in Him. and there's nowhere else in the world i would rather be. it's been way too long.

i had a revelation yesterday.

well i've had several revelations in the last few days but only one of which i'll address at this time. with not much to do in regards to [real] life work, i've had more time to do some soul work. and that means i crashed b.c i haven't done much soul work since august.

all sense of purpose came to a screeching halt sunday evening as i listened to friends who have become very dear to me in a very short period of time talk of grand life plans and moving to far away places. normal talk pertaining to this stage in life. but myself still in the midst of great upheaval having actually followed through on what normal people only talk about wanted to put my hands over my ears and say la la la la like a 5 year old.

and then i did. in my own way.

i left. after they did. it would've made more of a statement if i would've actually left when they were talking about it but i never react that fast. i suffer from delayed emotion

and i drove. not a normal coping mechanism anymore in my life, though i did it a lot in high school, back when my parents paid for the gas and it was only a dollar a gallon.

i got as far as the Hudson. would've gone farther if it weren't for the darn $8 toll. i would've gone to the ocean if it weren't for the tolls to get there.

i sat. i stared. i contemplated running away.

but where to? i need my paris. yes, that's right, it's mine.

what has happened to me? where is the girl that loves new things and adventure, dreaming the impossible? oh that's right i've let people mean something to me.

and it scares the shit out of me.

how did i get here? i didn't make sense of all of this until yesterday.

yesterday i had an intense and wonderfully thought provoking conversation with my agnostic housemate. funny how her thought process isn't much different than mine. we've had some similar life experiences, particularly difficult relationships. the intellectual, spiritual, and creative aside, boys are always a good thing to bond over. that and tea. in the very short time that she has known my story, she has served to validate the absolute unhealthiness of my experience in a way that only someone who has been there can. as i was walking through how i came to enter the relationship in the first place and my overall ineptness in the relationship category (not been very successful to date...) a picture came to mind, a vague realization. the words slipped out of my mouth as only happens when you talk through things and a connection (Holy Spirit) between the sub conscious and the conscious is made. 'if it hadn't been for david, i would've never really learned to connect with people'. that's what i said at the time.

but there's more to it than that. the picture that still resides with me is a concept i've been wrestling with all year. it's something i experienced at the time with david (and guys in general) and that i re-experienced earlier this year on a much smaller scale. that God does let us have our way with ourselves but if we are sealed in His Spirit, He will let us know that it is not His will. it's our choice whether we listen or not. its this sudden awareness that my life was on a steady downward slope until that moment i filled out the application for miracle camp my sophomore year of college. the worst hadn't happened yet. but it was the beginning of God saving me from myself. (nothing is hardly ever a single point in time in my life but always a process)

david was not an anomaly. david was the result of a pattern in my life, a rebellious pattern. a pattern set deep in my sinful nature, enforced by my parents, enforced by the majority of my life experiences. a willful pattern to choose what i desired, unhealthy relationships particularly centered on male affection and security, over God; a pattern of trusting no one, keeping everyone at arm's length. in order for God to change that pattern within me, He had to break me. i did not listen. I was in His Spirit but repeatedly i did not listen. i continued to 'save' people to feel needed. i continued to be tantalized by male attention, yet frustrated at its unfruitfulness. i knew it wasn't the answer but i told God i didn't care. i was addicted. if i had not reached the dark depths of that absolutely unhealthy relationship, i don't know that i would have ever been truly broken of my addiction. i drove myself there. it was only by His Grace that i was saved.

without brokenness there can be no new life.

i can see now that the years following that, though i have been frustrated by what seems to be a continuation of the same pattern, has really been God teaching me how to have real, deep, healthy relationships. though i had been broken of the old pattern, i did not yet have the tools to establish a new one. He has been stocking my tool kit well. and i am grateful.

i feel like a schizophrenic.

i'm surrounded by all these people, what i have been craving for so long.

i've made a choice to commit, to being in one place.

i have friends, real friends, of a larger number and wider variety than ever before.

the sheer amount of people in my life, both near and far who truly understand me and care about me is absolutely mind blowing.

and i want to run away.

i want to run far, far away.

the pieces are starting to fall into place and i am curled up in a ball, waiting for the ceiling to fall.

all my built-in protection is gone. no distance to keep people at arms' length. no all consuming job to take up all my time. no plans of leaving to warn people i'm only temporary.

now what?

these were all things i have felt extremely convicted about in the last few months. things i knew that God was asking me to get rid of, to leave myself open to what He wants for me. and now i'm here. and i feel naked. i want to run and hide. i want to disappear for a week or two.

and yet i can't stand to be alone.

see? i'm schizophrenic.