ever looked through ALL the pictures in which you're tagged on facebook?

I just did.

well ok not all of them, but a lot of them, definitely most of them.

wow.

yes i know i have nothing better to do at work and i'm avoiding my reading.

the thing that struck me-

the people.

so many people.

many who have meant so much to me.

holy shit. the people.

i just can't get over it. so many people who have come and gone, sharing snippets of my time, my person, my life. each one bringing a slightly different Adel to the surface. do you know how many adels there are in the world because of all the people who have been in my life? i cannot deny that each person that has crossed my path has influenced me...in both good and bad ways. who i am is because of who they are/were--to me, around me, for me, because of me. i carry a little bit of them with me every where i go and they a little bit of me. some parts are bigger. some parts smaller. but they're always there--with me. and i have lost a bit of me in each of them.

i have gained and lost.

there is a bittersweetness in the knowledge that a part of me will never exist again. i will never be college adel again, not fully not completely. the things i've lost and gained since then do not make it possible. there is no going back. there is only moving forward. the feeling of not being able to return grows stronger with each passing year. the vastness of the unknowns before me weigh heavy upon my shoulders. responsibility broadens. innocence slips away. freedom seems to be a distant mirage.

but there is life. without safety there is adventure; there are possibilities; there is great gain. there will be reward. maybe not here, maybe not now. but to say that i led a life well lived, lived to the full. to say that i made the most of every opportunity, that i did not settle for anything less than His best. to say that fear did not triumph, that guilt did not paralyze, that regret did rule my life--that is victory. that is purpose. that is great gain.

i need to confess . . .

i am not invincible-

but that doesn't stop me from wanting to be.

walls sky high-

a paper thin illusion.

i've been fed a lie.

strength does not make one invincible.

passion does not mean control.

love is not manipulation.

rather-

strength is found in weakness.

passion brings freedom.

love is at its best in vulnerability.

i've tried to pretend that it doesn't matter, but my armor is wearing thin.

i am surrounded, drowning in everyone else's romance.

where is mine?

i'm hanging on the edge-

between invincibility/control/manipulation and

weakness/freedom/vulnerability.

i want what is real/true/great.

i've sworn i wouldn't settle for anything less,

but the pressure is great and i am weary.

oh so weary of fighting the tide of my needs and desires.

my need fights, wages war with my heart--

my need for someone to be there.

i need someone to be there.

i'm tired of being alone.

so tired of being alone-

it has settled like a dull ache in my chest, a thirst never fully satisfied.

just when hope blooms-

it slips away, leaving me to wait with a stronger thirst than before.

i've tasted and i want more, a lifetime supply for i'll never get enough.

will you...?

i have spent the last 3 days in a pretty unique environment/situation and i gotta process it a bit. so here goes.

i sat in a room tonight listening to a worship band playing, people singing, and prayers ringing out--just like the previous two nights. but tonight it just sounded like noise. when i went outside during the break, in the silence my head was ringing and my heart was suffocated.

when i came back i couldn't open my mouth. i had no breath to speak, to sing. there was nothing.

nothing. that is a very new experience for me. i hardly ever feel nothing (anymore--i used to quite a lot a few years ago, but this is a different kind of nothing). this nothing flowed out of necessity. the necessity to keep my heart from bitterness. and this nothing didn't flow out of indifference either but an overwhelming sense of truth.

it is only for so long that one can strive. and there is an awful lot of striving taking place with the people i know here. I guess it just doesn't appeal to me anymore. and finally i don't feel this monster rise up with indignation when i don't agree with what is going on around me, driving me away from the One that they seek instead of drawing me closer to Him. finally it doesn't control me.

that's what i mean by nothing. how often what others do that smacks of deceptiveness drives me away from what they are being deceptive about even though it should be the persons and not the idea or activity or God that put me on my guard. the persons control my reaction instead of the Truth. so here's the Truth.

the Truth is that I believe in a God who loves and because I am loved I no longer strive.

I rest.

I rest because I know that I am not in control.

And I have lost all desire to fake that I am in control--whether that's to myself, someone else, or Him. I'm not in control. no caveats. none.

God, I cease because You are.

I will wait to hear from You.

do you ever have something happen to you that just doesn't feel real the next day?

had one of those days yesterday.

and now, after watching 2 hrs of scrubs b.c i couldn't find the energy to do anything else, i lay in bed wondering if any of it was/is real. partly b.c i live in an alternate universe when i come home --an imaginary hospital with unrealistic situations and tons of humor.

but the other part b.c some of it was too good and other parts too bad.

some i never want to forget--

and others i'd prefer to pretend never happened.

it's strange how one day can hold so much.

actually every day can.

especially if you're female :-P and i can say that b.c i am one

for example take today...a rather ordinary day--unlike yesterday.

but i spent the drive to work crying (partly b.c of yesterday)

the morning overreacting and moping,

lunch time praying,

the afternoon feeling like FINALLY i've actually been given things to accomplish at my job holy shit

dinner, the absolute satisfaction of a real meal after a day of not eating b.c of course i gave in to this whole fasting concept at work...but that's another post. i'm such a weakling for peer pressure.

post dinner the exhaustion of a day spent emotionally all over the board/not eating/not sleeping the last few nights

evening a scrubs marathon to keep myself from going to bed at 7 pm

to night of feeling slightly guilty that i didn't take my evening walk, that i overindulged on scrubs, that i don't think my blood sugar can handle me not eating and then eating, and the slightly whelming feeling that my yesterday wasn't real.

see?

and today was a pretty slow day.

man i hate being a girl.

and i forgot to mention in the midst of all of that, i read a facebook message from a friend about our mutual college friend who was found dead in her apartment last week. there is nothing more humbling than to read a description of how they found her body rotting. dear God someone my age, a person i knew well for a time, her physical body rotting b.c she was not known. the landlord had to call the police to get into the apartment because she hadn't paid her rent in awhile. excuse my crassness but i cannot help but be struck by the absolute fragility of life in hearing and saying that. and it disgusts me! what are we, God, to You that our lives should be so fragile, so short, so completely and utterly forgettable? how can we be here but for a time and so easily forgotten? how close did i come to that myself, if were not for my friends. dear God if i hadn't had people to call would i have been any different? would i have called 911? i honestly don't know. why me and not her? why have You placed me here with such goodness in my life and others are not so fortunate?

most surely i don't deserve this.

i am sick of big words.

disseminate...seriously?

oof.

what happened to plain speak?

i think up opening lines to blogs while i'm walking down the street or day dreaming.
but i never remember them when i get to a computer--
should write them on my hand.
it's always some great philosophical statement about life based upon my observations of the small things around me.
annie dillard-esque. my hero. to go live in the woods for a year.
i think i'd get bored, but it'd probably be good for me.

or a rant about something that annoys me.
like adults leaving their junk everywhere to be picked up by 'someone else' (that someone else being me.)
or the toilet seat being left up. seriously. you're not at home.
this. is. a. public. restroom.
put it down
or...well i can't think of anything else. but you get the point.

anyways
i turned in a resume on monday with a dynamite reference letter and a so-so cover letter (i've written so many, i can't tell if they're good or bad anymore, they've become so formulaic).
for a job that a friend told me about and very strongly urged me to apply for. haven't heard anything.
it put me in a funny place to start with. i've been pretty selfish/stubborn lately. about a lot of things.
example1: weddings. i swear. if one more person around me gets engaged. well. i don't know what i'll do. not because i'm bitter. i swear. i know when i'm being bitter. i'm just tired of having the same conversations-- over and over and over again. and hearing girls deliberate about the DUMBEST things. yes you're getting married. it's supposed to be the greatest day of your life. and all the little retarded details matter to you. but it's not exciting to me. as a matter of fact, it kinda makes me want to bang my head against the wall. after all, i've already heard this from 10 other girls soooo can we move on? selfish.

example2: my dad. the last time i talked to him on the phone he was freaking out about something silly. i realized just how ridiculous he can be, even if he is my father. and it kinda makes me not want to talk to him at all. and i'd like to think its because it always comes back to him. but really it's just me being selfish.

example3: a friend i haven't had contact with in three weeks. and we used to talk every day at least once, if not twice, for the last year and at least once a week for the last decade. i think this is the longest we've ever gone without contact. do i reach out? of course not. i'd like to think its because she needs to reach out to me but really i'm procrastinating & being selfish.

example4: turning in my resume. i was blatantly stubborn on this one. i knew i needed to follow through if only b.c i didn't want to. and get this, it wasn't because i LOVE where i am. b.c i don't. i mean it's not awful, but i've definitely become increasingly restless in the last month or so. no, i didn't want to because i'm comfortable. and i hate that. i have always prayed God keep me from being comfortable in life. b.c i didn't want to go through yet another change. i wasn't willing to go when called. b.c i am being stubborn.

now that i think about it, it's not so much a recent development as an uncovering, a revealing to myself of my true nature. and me not disguising it, esp to myself, with good intentions. in my arrogance that's what i do. i pat myself on my back after a conversation that i don't want to hear or am not particularly interested in and say good job tolerating. good job appearing interested.
and that's just it.
that's my stubbornness.
my tolerance and just 'appearing interested' says i'm putting up with your strand of conversation to make you feel better but really i find this boring. it says what i would like to converse about is much better and more interesting than what you are talking about. it is me being closed minded and unwilling to listen.
my procrastination says you're not worth my effort. i'm putting you off just a little bit longer. it's just easier that way. never mind where you are at or what you are dealing with.

God please make me actually interested.
give me a heart that actually cares.
make me actually willing to go when You want me to.
make me more than just my silly words.
b.c they are so ridiculously empty without You.

when you don't know what to do......
write a blog post.

so i know to many people, my current dilemma would seem ridiculous or not even a dilemma at all. after all, who seriously deliberates about who they should be spending their time with?
And who gets overwhelmed by too many people asking to hang out?
that's just silly.

but that's where i'm at right now. again.
for the millionth time.
it's kind of a common thread in my life.

and so i have to choose
because i can't do it all.
blast. i hate that.
i HATE disappointing people. i feel such a responsibility, an obligation.
and all i really want is to be free.
free to follow my desire, my intuition wherever it takes me.

like this weekend--
friday night: two different invites, received in a matter of hours of each other.
first: people i haven't seen in awhile who i kinda feel comfortable with doing something i only kinda enjoy at a place that is a bad drive on a friday but i may not have a chance to see very much of them after this summer ever again.
second: people i've seen kinda recently doing something that sounds like a lotta fun at a place i feel comfortable and is not a bad drive on a friday but some i will definitely have many opportunities to see in the future.
both i have had to say no to them quite a bit b.c of other commitments.

am i an awful person for wanting to be with people i feel comfortable with? does that make me insular? exclusive? people that i know i can develop real relationships with that will be around for awhile instead of just for a bit or on a hit and miss kinda opportunity.

who do i focus on? spend time with? i don't want to spend all my time with the same people. honestly i'd go crazy. never been able to do that. though this time i can't help but revel in the community i've found. and i want to focus here, pour out my energies where i am physically present. and i can't do that, i can't find the energy to do that if i keep doing this hit or miss thing.

do you see? do you see why i go a little crazy on the inside?
and that's just friday night...
that's not even saturday.
or sunday.
or monday.
or...well you get the point.

and i'm not even addressing my need for me time--which i deny quite frequently.
how the hell does one decide what to do and who to be with when there is just so much going on!?!?