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.

this is the life.

can i just say that?

i think i could do this for real. or maybe i'd get bored. i probably would get bored. hmm. i don't know. i can wear whatever the hell i want. i wore the same thing two days in a row. why? because its so comfortable. awesome. plus i can't take a shower since the plumbing is being worked on. but it doesn't matter because i just take my computer wherever i want and work on things whenever i want.

listen to whatever music i want.

and live completely in my head.

bonus.

ok maybe that's a bit dangerous. but for right now it's perfect. after all, one can't live inside their head all of the time. but it is a nice exchange after living completely outside of my head for the last 11 months. i kind of like it in here. cozy. a bit of a spiral downwards sometimes. but also a land of dreams, where impossibilities are within easy reach.

a good cup of coffee and a rainy day helps.

all while designing a brochure.

i'm telling you.

i'm gonna be famous someday.

ever walk away from a situation feeling completely unresolved?
like something should've been said or done and it wasn't, but you can't quite put your finger on what it is. and it doesn't really feel like you could've done anything about it. or maybe i'm just being stubborn.

i'm feeling very stubborn right now.
very stubborn.
my eyebrows are furrowed as i think about what i should type.

i don't even question in my mind if i should've said something. because i'm feeling too stubborn to even entertain that possibility. so that probably means i should have. but instead i sit here with furrowed brow. i think i'm frustrated, but i'm not even sure about that. all i know is i'd rather stew than feel what i actually need to feel.

i think it is that i am done trying--not in a bah i give up throw my hands up way. but in a withdraw sort of way. in a i'm just going to be me and forget about you and your silliness, relegating any emotion to the back of my mind. b.c i'm not going to be controlled by it. so there.

i think i go on writing binges...

after waking to this

i drove home in the dark through the neighborhoods of west orange and happened upon the most spectacular view of new york city metro area, driving down a steep neighborhood street facing east. what is normally blocked by green foliage suddenly, now in late fall, shows a clear view of everything from west orange new jersey to the new york city skyline. i wish i'd had a good enough camera to capture it. it took me completely by surprise.

and still leaves me breathless.

i was so taken by it that though i kept driving home, i am still drawn to driving back to that exact spot to sit on the sidewalk and stare. maybe i will. if not tonight, then tomorrow. its as if a trance has been placed upon me. and i wonder at the absolute craziness that i should be able to witness a black bear cub and the above scenic view and the new york city skyline and everything in between within the span of 12 hours. i am completely struck by how much i love where i live. maybe not the actual location of maplewood nj on the edge of irvington, nj (where they say the crime of newark is being pushed to) but the 2 hour radius from said place. while i can't say that i absolute love new york city, the view it gave me tonight was beyond description. and while newark is the armpit of the armpit of the nation, i found myself pacing its streets the other afternoon, finding bits of beauty amidst the utter awkwardness of being a white chic walking down broad street. (that's not something that words will ever master, only experience) even better, it takes an hour for me to drive to the delaware water gap and the appalacian trail, relatively in the middle of nowhere, where new york city light pollution no longer interferes with the stars. and finally south, an area that i don't particularly love for any reason except the people.

i think i'll miss living here. i've taken advantage of the location. i love the small town of maplewood with all its facades of innocence, which don't really fool me because i've seen real small town innocence. but i like their efforts, as only wealth can try in vain to create a bubble of safety. and its all going to change in two weeks. that's right. two weeks. my whole life will change in two weeks.

ok not my whole life.

the people won't change.

thank God.

but the scenery will. and i'm an aesthetic.

i get attached to both the ugly and the beautiful around me.

i have one thought for you....

why can a random stranger on the street have the courage to talk to me as a woman, a man whom i have no right to trust, no reason to believe that he should have anything to offer, yet is willing to risk rejection though he knows nothing about me and knows that his chances of getting even just a phone number are slim. why oh why is he willing to do that and yet in my life i have yet to have a guy that i actually know and trust come anywhere close to having that kind of courage?

would someone please tell me why?

i feel like i'm waiting for a boy to call . . .
though at least i am guaranteed a response (which is more than most boys will guarantee; wonder if it'd be possible to make that a requirement of the male part of our species. treat a date like an interview--you have to call me, if only to tell me you never want to see me again. but alas relationships are never that black and white)--
even if the news may not be what i want to hear.
though i wonder if i really want to hear it?

either way it'll be a lot to digest.
i'll either be back at square one, starting the job search all over or i'll be committing my life for the next 4-5 years in new jersey, a state i never intended to end up in. either way--it's kind of scary.
right now i'm just in limbo.
i think i should be freaking out about it more--
but i'm not.
maybe because in this case no news is good news.
because there's still hope. the longer they deliberate, the greater my chances. after all the other person has been around for quite awhile. if they really wanted him/her, they would've already made the decision. so there's still hope.

hope. what a concept i struggle with.
struggle is not even adequate. wrestle. fight. beat to a bloody pulp. kill.
yes. i kill hope. that is such a vivid and true way of describing my relationship with hope.
and yet it is incredibly persistent, like that weed in the garden that keeps coming back. the roots so deep that it would take an earthquake to uproot it. and even then, i wonder. i witness this persistence daily in the vulnerability of my students. growing up in a culture that seems to kill all hope, these children still desire, no, demand, hope. they do not give up. they refuse, despite everything life hands them. they are fighters and fighters for hope. they believe that life can only get better. they'd never articulate it that way but their faces and voices say it every day when they ask me for help with their homework or that problem with that boy or the conflict at home or the fight against loneliness and boredom. they have so much less than i did growing up. yet they are willing to hope so much more. i feel as if i'm learning in reverse. i grew up without hope; without belief in much of anything; with only this sense that life should be different than what i witnessesd, never really believing that it was possible.
thus the battle against hope. i've wanted to hope but i didn't believe that my life could mean anything; that i could have friends--lifelong friends, soul sisters, real community. i didn't believe that i could be anything more than a job; that i could have purpose in how i spend my days. i didn't believe that i would ever find a soulmate; that i would have a family of my own--a home where even strangers felt safe. i didn't believe that i could create.
but that hope--it kept growing back. something deeper than myself. not even the earthquakes of broken abusive relationships and change, knowledge, philosophy, and disbelief, could kill it. beyond my control. beyond my best efforts to drown out this hope. it survived. and now i work with children who, day in and day out, hope against all hope for love and safety and something better than what they have. they hope in a God they've never even heard of; a new creation they've never read about; a love that's only been perverted.
they put me to shame.
so i learn in reverse.
to hope.

Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.