realizations

i am realizing various things about myself. when you have lots of time alone to think, it happens.

people always ask why i paint or why i paint what i paint. i haven't figured out why i paint what i paint but i know why i paint and i think that's more important for me. i was listening to a sermon about the practice of silence, not only physical silence, but inward silence, the quieting of our minds. it's not that we need to stop our minds as much as create space for God to speak, distance ourselves from the inner monologue the voices from our past and ourselves create. there is the actual act of sitting alone in silence, meditating that the pastor talked about, but i realized that is the reason i paint. i paint to create space internally from the inner monologue of my thoughts, space for God to speak. its my own way of connecting with God and that's why i don't place much importance on the actual subject of my painting. i have been trying to focus on the subject or message of my paintings recently b.c of conversations i have had with various folks and i've found i can't paint that way. and if the only reason i paint is to create space for God, that's good enough for me.

the other day i was taking a walk by myself and stopped to blow some milkweed from its pod. This action created room for the awareness of a very tangible desire, one i've not experienced very often and one i don't think has ever been fulfilled. i found it incredibly interesting that we can desire something we have rarely experienced. i longed for someone to just be there, not needing conversation or counsel, not requiring anything of me but my presence and the same in return. i don't know that i have experienced that very often in my life. i don't think many people have, but i long for something that i've rarely experienced like a child longs for love even if they never experienced it. it's a testament to me of our Creator and what He longs for us--desires He has placed deep within everyone.

i am continuing to discover the consequences of some of my personality choices. i always strive to be open and willing to hear what others have to say. i never want to discount another's opinion about something, especially something that i know very little about--which is most everything. i am astutely aware of how little i really know in life and want to figure everything out for myself from the ground up. the only time that i speak up is when i feel confident that i can at least make an educated argument. i've gotten better about big topics like my beliefs and philosophy and my art and people and such. i've taken a lot of time to think about these things and i like discussing things, but i still hold those opinions fairly loose. but the small things in life, like activities i enjoy and shows or movies i see or small things like that, i just don't know. this makes me incredibly open to new things but it also means i don't make up my mind about things either. i'm afraid to disagree with people because i don't feel prepared. it makes me incredibly accessible. everybody likes me. but with little comfort in who i am. but out living alone has come this one good thing. i am discovering the things that i love to do in my own time, which i have not had very much of my own time in my life. and i am finally getting tired of doing those other things, or putting up with others' ideas or just being tolerable because i actually know what i like to do. do you have any idea how weird that is? i actually know what i like to do. huh.

moving on

I'm sitting in an office with a nice computer finally. The director just walked out of his office and said if anyone calls for a reference for me that all should speak absolutely horribly about me so that I can't leave. A joke of course but a wonderful compliment from a man who rarely gives them. But it's interesting because I don't feel like I have much of anything left to do. My time is coming to a close here. I never thought that I would feel at peace about leaving. I never thought that there would come a time when I would run out of things that I see that need to be done. But I have. And as I'm sorting through pictures on the catalog, one of the last things that I would've said last year needs to be done, memories of the past summers flood my heart and mind. And I never thought that I would say I'm ready to be done with camp, but I think I am. I think I'm finally getting there. I can feel my heart disengaging, pulling away, separating myself from my love for this place and all the good it has done in both my life and others. I still love the summers here, but I don't think I want to be here for the next one.

But it's not a bitterness that pushes me out though there is the temptation.

And its not the futility of the situation either, though again there is the temptation.

It is simply time to move on.

It is time to embrace something new. Of course, this is something that I have felt for a long time. My sense of adventure and restlessness hardly ever let me feel content in a place for long. But it's as if I've finally been given permission to move on, that the job I was meant to be here for has been completed. The relationships that I needed to develop have been developed. The healing my own heart needed to experience has occurred. And I am allowed to start afresh, anew.

There are definitely a few things that I am glad to leave behind--buried emotions that will only be fully aired once some distance is granted; doubts about myself and my abilities that need to be refuted in a new experience. And there are definitely a few things I am very sad to leave--relationships that have quickly grown unexpectedly; a beauty that is unique; a community, though struggling, that is very much a community. But there is one thing I have learned in all of this and it serves as a comfort as I move forward. My passion is people, first and foremost, and no matter where I go, I continue to prioritize investing in those around me as well as the relationships I have left behind. I have managed quite well to believe Satan's lie that because I am not an extrovert, people cannot be my passion, that I lack the skills. And maybe I do lack some of the skills, but I don't lack the heart and that's what counts. No matter how many times I have to start over before I figure out where I am supposed to be, I will never give up on people. I will never reach a point where I do not want to invest and be invested in.

I digress

I use the word rambling all the time so I looked up a new word in the thesaurus for my tangential stream of conscious thinking--hence digress.

I've been on this kick lately of looking up everything on the internet or wherever to find the information. I've always been curious about things but never have the time to really look things up. I'd rather know something for myself not have someone else give me the information because usually there is a bias that comes with it. But I hardly ever have the time to research things....until now :) i digress.
Chicago always makes it difficult for me to return to the camp world. i miss the city but i also found it suffocating at first this time. the country is beginning to wear off on me. i don't mind being here but i really just want to find my place, wherever that is and as much as camp people say they want me here, i kind of feel overlooked. i'll be honest i don't mind slipping into the background sometimes. i don't mind just doing things, not being in charge or leading. But its not natural for me in the end. i hold so much back here in order not to run people over or impose myself. its not my place. i'm too young. i don't really know anything in some ways. but i do in other ways. there's just so much of me that lays beneath the surface here in this atmosphere. its a silly thing but i'm pretty sure no one here knows next tuesday is my birthday. it took several weeks for my complaints about the skunk smell in my house to be taken seriously. no one really knows how much i work b.c its for different people. again sometimes i love flying below the radar but i also don't feel taken very seriously. yes i should speak up sometimes, but i'm not looking for attention. i ache to really contribute and not just fill the cracks. i mean i am an excellent crack filler (as i told my sister this weekend :) but when you're filling cracks, you're doing everybody else's odds and ends that they can't get to and none of your own stuff. I am truly learning how to follow.

what is college anyways?

This weekend is proving an interesting point to me.
We have the southwest Michigan conference of Campus Crusade here and I am running the coffeeshop for them basically at every hour possible minus meals and chapels. It provides me a great deal of time to observe and draw some conclusions.
I had a friend last year make the statement that college is the prolonging of adolescence, that we are not forcing early 20somethings to grow up but rather extending the protective parental bubble for another four years. Now that probably depends on what kind school you attend to what degree that parental bubble is provided. But I am sitting here among state school students, U of M, Michigan State, and such and they don't seem to be acting anymore responsible than I did in college. Possibly even less because after all I am an overachiever and slight control horde.
I also had heard that college is a very selfish period in one's life because you have so little responsibility. And while in it, I didn't disagree with the statement but I had a hard time applying it to myself and my friends. Now watching and having been out of it for a year, I understand so much better.
Talking to me last year at this time and even up through early spring, you would have been hard pressed to keep me from bemoaning graduating. All I wanted was to be back in school with my friends in my lovely close social circle with my wide array of activities. I could not imagine how life could get any better than that and how these individuals all around me called adults would rather be living the life they have than be in school. I dragged my feet; I kicked and screamed. I protested in every emotional way possible. It was not a graceful experience, but it did the trick. I'm glad I got it all out. It was a very productive year of mourning.
Now don't get me wrong, I love learning. I want nothing more than to take classes again and have intellectual conversations with individuals who can challenge me. I love the mentorship that being in a classroom creates between student and professor, especially as an art student. I do crave that kind of discipleship in my field.
BUT I have grieved my losses. While high school was a decent experience (aka not absolutely dreadful), I did not feel the need to grieve leaving there. I was ready for bigger and better things. And while camp was an absolutely wonderful experience so I did grieve every fall, I did not suffer for long because there was college and hope of another year at camp. Therefore, graduating college was the first time that I truly felt that it would be difficult to find something- anything- better. And my life is based on the next bigger and better thing. Essentially in my mind, my life ended last fall.
But now I can look at these folks, these lovely college students, and I can look at my life and I can truly say I am glad where I am and I do not want to go back. That there is always something good to be found, something new to learn, another experience to be had, whether it is experiencing the friendships of people my parents' age or mentoring high school and junior high students. I have no one directly around me that is my own age, in the same station of life and I actually don't mind. It is having time to do anything and everything absolutely random that I should desire and with that, the time to invest in others far more than I ever thought possible. I had friends in college no doubt even though I was insanely busy, but now neither the people here nor myself are constrained by the college schedule. I am free to invest in so many ways.
And I can understand both those statements I mentioned earlier. I would not trade my college experience for anything in the world but I also see how naive it keeps our early20somethings. I understand how everything one does in college is for oneself from the classes to the activities to your job for your money. Even service projects, duties become as much about the social experience as the service. And if students don't want to participate because there isn't enough social experience, then they don't. It is as simple as that.
All of that to say, I get it.
Whatever 'it' is.

i've been thinking...

sarah since i know you actually read this sometimes i'm sure you'll appreciate this one :)

so i'm a thinker and part of being a thinker is processing things after the fact (which i have been doing this morning and want to share but currently have no one within talking distance so i type instead to get it out). its just the nature of who i am and i'm learning to accept that. it helps that i don't have too many feelers around me. too many feelers and i get claustrophobic. last year i lived in very close quarters with three feelers.

now you must understand that my experience with feelers before this time was not positive.

i was engaged to a feeler...and he disguised himself as a thinker and manipulated me with it all the time..one of the biggest reasons why i could not be with him.

at the same time as that relationship was going on, i had a 'friendship' with a girl on campus who was an extreme feeler like manic depressive no joke and she used me for all her stability...*shudders*

looking back on previous friendships with girls, i always attracted the unstable 'feeler' b.c i was so intensely logical, especially as a child, very black and white. i provided stability which meant that i also got used a lot. there is one specific friend from grade school and another from middle school that i can remember. After both incidences i abandoned them/they switched schools and i went back to my thinking ways. in high school there were a couple of girls in our group that were feelers and of course i got caught up in that drama too.

Needless to say i have hardly ever (i won't say never b.c my best friend from high school is a feeler and we are still close) had a good experience with a feeler, especially an intense one.

Therefore in college after my engagement was broken off i swore off feelers for good and my friends in college are all thinkers before feelers and i love them all for it. it means that there is no danger of them using me for stability. there is no danger of them saying things rashly that they don't really mean but that i take as fact b.c i react as a thinker and that i then spend hours trying to process and fit into the paradigm of that person which of course it doesn't fit b.c they didn't really mean it. My friends place a lot of value on thought in their regular lives as well as their faith and that provided me with a better way to connect with my faith in college. High school I was always taught to connect through my emotions and since my emotions are not my natural inclination, my faith never was either. At the same time in college I also learned to hold others' thoughts apart from my own and not take them personally when they conflicted. And when they did share emotion, I took it as a privilege to be hearing them and never took them personally because it was not seen as an intrusion on my life b.c they only did it when absolutely necessary and i trusted that. then i graduated....

and i ended with three feelers for roommates in an area slightly larger than three college dorm rooms put together. oh, and i went to china (which i loved) for a month with a feeler who didn't do squat b.c he couldn't get over his emotions and actually deal with the situation (which i despised). needless to say, i was suffocated.

*these statements are said in retrospect. remember: i don't process well in the moment b.c i am a thinker and when you are a thinker among feelers (or vice versa), it is like trying to communicate in a foreign language.*

the situation, things said, handled, etc. especially in the beginning of the year reminded me WAAAAY too much of David and the friend i had in college. and while i had thought i had dealt with a lot of those negative emotions towards them, which i had towards them directly, i had not dealt with the negative emotions towards feelers, particularly strong feelers and those who cover it up with intellectualism. someone who covers it up with intellectualism confuses me even more because especially after college, i associate intellectualism with thinkers, not feelers. i forget that feelers can be intellectuals who can make their feelings sound like intellectual statements which i then try to plug into my logic and get all confused because of course they are feelings, not necessarily rational.

Qualification: while feelings are not my natural form of communication/reaction, they are something i have learned are very important to me, thus making me passionate and sensitive about things that i really care about. And instead of numbing them as many thinkers do in order to avoid them, i have actually come to value them more than thoughts because i have thoughts about many things, but i do not have feelings about many. It helps me to sort out what really means something to me, even as i am aware that emotions often lie, but they serve as a signal that something important is going on and needs to be addressed.

now if you take the process above and apply it to feelers, well it just doesn't work. again another reason why i was confused most of the year and couldn't understand things. also when feelings are being thrown about to and fro it makes it very difficult for me to figure out what my own feelings are. unlike my thoughts which i have learned how to hold onto no matter what is going on around me, i am not that strong in feelings. so it was a wonder i survived at all with any emotions of my own and i definitely couldn't figure out what i wanted in life b.c i had all of these other emotions from others i was trying to process. it was just too much noise so to speak. finally, it made it very difficult to connect with at least two of the people i lived with b.c it was like speaking two different languages and in speaking a foreign language, especially when not fluent, it is extremely exhausting to try and connect with people on a real level and it just becomes easier to not. therefore, i felt more lonely last year b.c while i lived with people i couldn't connect with them, and i was so exhausted from trying to connect and not succeeding that i didn't have any energy to connect with anyone else. This year i live by myself and have to work to connect but i also have room to breathe.

BUT in amongst all of this confusion, God also brought me a positive example of a feeler, Dorie Voyles :). While she is a feeler hardcore, i don't feel in danger of being used or being lashed out at and she taught me a lot about emotions and valuing them. She also helped me to get over my fear of feelers, or at least make me more aware of why i want to run away when a feeler starts to cry. And that it is possible to communicate across those lines and it does not have to be utterly exhausting. It can actually be appreciated.

One final thing. a concept, point of understanding.

being a thinker does not mean one doesn't have feelings but just that it is easier to communicate and relate to life through logic instead of emotion. the opposite is true for feelers.

because of this, whichever one we are not often is the one we value more/have heightened sense of because it is unusual, foreign. therefore, we have one of two choices. we can ignore and subdue our weaker sense because it is foreign and uncomfortable or we can value it because it is unusual and can reveal new and hidden dimensions about ourselves.

none of us are one-dimensional

tossed to and fro

I waver like a twig tossed to and fro by every passing breeze. It is not something tragic or exuberant but just a whim-a whim that seems to only further exaggerate how little I know what God wants for my life.
I have dreams, oh so many dreams. I have passions far exceeding what most people will ever experience. I have already encountered in my young 23 years more than what some people will in their entire lives. And I am more acutely aware of all of this than most. My level of contemplation about life, from the very minute details to the overarching themes, consumes more of my thought process than I ever care to admit. It is utterly exhausting. There are many gifts I am blessed with and thus much responsibility which are a constant weight upon my shoulders.
I am independent but love people.
I care deeply for things and yet strive to remain objective.
I am opinionated and yet allow others to hold their opinions.
I am easily affected by others and yet very stubborn in who I am.
I am intensely creative and yet effectively logical.
I am keenly sensitive to others and myself.
I can keep track of everyone else's details better than my own.
I see the potential in most everyone but also realize who they are in the present.
I am a hidden romantic, a pragmatic idealist, a bitter realist.
I am full of constant change, consistently inconsistent, open to many possibilities and yet staunchly conservative about particulars.
I love who I am and yet find it shameful at times.

All of this and I feel no closer to understanding why I am where I am right now. I know where I want to go and I have faith that God will get me there eventually because He's done it many times before. But where I am right now is like a shot in the dark and what I choose to do next seems to be more of a whim than anything else. I can only pray and have faith that the pieces will fall into place.

this is for all the single ladies

this is written in light of my viewing of the movie ''he's just not that into you'' and events in my and my friends' lives that have coincided. this is for all the single ladies.

I enjoyed ''he's just not that into you''. While extremely exaggerated, I found it entertaining with a few gems of truth hidden in the rough. And it struck a chord. While I would say that my friends and I are not anywhere near as desperate as the main character and that we don't go looking for guys in bars and online dating sites, we are well acquainted with this position of wondering and asking the question women have been asking for ages, "Does he really like me? And if he does, why doesn't he do something about it?

As any good girlfriend does, you comfort, make excuses, and call the guy a jerk (or at least I do). Now I consider myself a fairly good judge of character when it comes to people and how they interact with each other. I am also aware I am prejudice against relationships for reasons that can be addressed at another time. BUT this makes it all the more impressive when I think a couple can work or that a guy and girl really like each other (excluding myself, I have concluded that in some circumstances I am awful reading others for myself). Needless to say, I am extremely realistic in the matters of the heart, if anything, a pessimist. Especially after seeing the movie, I declare I am not that girlfriend that makes excuses for him and I am not that girlfriend that beats around the bush. I give it to you like it is.
And I am here to say that I have had enough of the stupid games we play with ourselves and with them. I'm trying to learn, understand, and communicate that many times a guy's response, or lack therof, is not personal. They aren't thinking about how many times they should email/text/call you or whether their stories line up or if they were being rude or just plain distracted. I have watched and experienced time and time again interest shown, toyed with, prolonged unnecessarily so, and then finally dropped *sigh of relief*.
BUT GUYS, these are not stupid girls! These are women who are genuinely interested and want to be honest and open about it. They are not looking for the world, just a response! They are not conniving or manipulative and they know you are expressing interest in some facet. (Whether it is because you are genuinely interested or only looking to fill the space, is yet to be determined, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.)
I know it's hard to approach a girl. I know it's hard to be honest and put yourself out there. But we are sick and tired of doing it for you. When is it going to be enough? When do you finally make up your mind that we are worth an honest response, either yes or no? Because for those of you actually worthwhile out there, it doesn't matter how much we do or don't chase after you, let's be honest. It's whether or not you can make up your mind what you actually want. We're not asking that it be us that you choose, we're just asking you to choose, and then have the decency to tell us. Because we know once you choose, you'll see it through, but damn it, you have to choose!