I find myself really longing for male companionship recently. I wonder what area I'm lacking that's making that void seem deeper than normal.

Happy "Father's" Day

Man, who'd have thought buying greeting cards could be such an emotionally stirring experience. I feel like this is going to be a long day...

Love Lost

"The danger in loving is the endpoint of that love."

That's a quote from an entry I made several weeks ago. I was writing about losing people you care about to tragedy. Now, as I repost, I'm asking myself if that's accurate. Is there an endpoint to love? Even when the ones you love disappoint you, walk away, or even die, do you not continue to love them? Maybe it's better to say that the danger in loving is the intensity and duration with which it is returned. If I love someone and they die, I may continue to love them, but they're no longer there to receive or return it. If I love someone who leaves me, the same is true. The difference is the hope that someday the situation will change. After a person dies, this hope dies with them. But as long as they are alive, hope remains.

Sometimes it seems more expedient to not love a person. You can then, in many ways, avoid the pain of losing love which I think may often be worse than the pain of never having loved at all.

---
Maybe I should stop asking God to take away the things that keep me from depending on Him completely. He really seems to listen to those prayers. But no, that's crazy talk. If it's not from Him, I don't want it. Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like heck though.

it seems advantageous for me to avoid at most costs any circumstance of being alone for too long. my mind and heart are not my friends.

The Story of My Life

"Only Thing" by Ronnie Freeman

I heard someone say the other day
They'd seen in me true love displayed
Blessed by something I had done for them
No sooner had they said these words
I found myself somehow disturbed
Uneasy as I took their compliment
Cause I know the heart inside this man
I know the truth of who I am...

The only thing that's good in me is Jesus
The only thing that's good in me is Jesus
I've lived long enough to know
No matter what this life may show
The only thing that's good in me is Jesus

If you could walk the hallways of my heart
And see things as they really are
I wonder if you might be surprised
Seeing faded walls of pride and fear
Rooms I've filled with faithless tears
And corners where I've stood in compromise
But you'd see the work His grace has done
You'd know just how far I've come

In a thousand years
When the dust of this world clears
And I look back on my life
And see in perfect light

The only thing that's good in me is You Lord
The only thing that's good in me is Jesus
I know me well enough to know
No matter what this life may show
The only thing that's good in me is Jesus

The only thing that's good in me is Jesus
The only thing that's good in me is Jesus
I know me well enough to know
No matter what this life may show
The only thing that's good in me is Jesus

I just want it all to go away. I fear I've made a mess of so much. Sometimes I feel like I don't want to be anymore. But that can't be right. Sometimes I have fleeting thoughts wanting bad things to happen to me, thinking that it doesn't matter anymore anyway. But that can't be right either. But there's this darkness, this hole that I find myself in. And the stresses of life make it just that much heavier. I've never gone this far down before. At least not that I recall.
I laughed tonight. I've started realizing how much time goes by without laughing. It feels nice to laugh.
Everything on me just feels so stressful right now. I feel like I can't handle it. Yesterday at work I was starting think I was gonna have a small breakdown. But I didn't. I did go to the breakroom though to stop and breathe. I feel like my emotions have been flying kind of out of control. I'm sure approaching and being on my period hasn't helped at all. But still, it's so big I don't even really feel like I can identify how I feel. And I get so exhausted and drained. I think it's emotional tiredness. Pardon the analogy, but I think maybe it's kind of like sex. There's all this build up til you hit a climax then you just can't take anymore and you fall asleep. Except this build up isn't pleasurable at all. It's actually quite miserable.

a work in progress...to be continued

In-Side Out

The words I say are laced with anger.
The ones I don't are flowing with love.
The face I make is full of frustration.
The one I don't breaks with compassion.
The tears I cry come from confusion and sadness
The ones I don't have no reason at all...

"You say you're falling apart
Reached the end of the line
Just looking for your place in an oridnary life
No one calls you friend
No one even knows your name
You just want to feel loved instead of all the pain

You no longer have to say
No one's listening anyway

Come here and cry on my shoulder
I'll hold you 'til it's over
I'll rescue you tonight
Let My arms be your shelter
Your hiding place forever
I'll love you more than life

You're wearing a frown
Given up on hope
My heart is reaching out
More then you will ever know
Is your burden too much?
Is it more then you can bear?
I'll help carry the load if you're willing to share

You have had some hard times
Had thorns placed in your side
I know about what you've been going through
tears of pain are falling down
It hurts so bad you're crying out
Your problems won't last forever
Let Me put you back together"
-Overflow

My adaption:

Lord, can I cry on Your shoulder,
Will You hold me til it's over?
Come rescue me tonight
Let Your arms be my shelter
My hiding place forever
I'll love You more than life

I'm so confused. And stressed. I almost just want to drop it all and just leave. Everything. Maybe bring a friend and just go. I feel so overwhelmed with life.

Left alone

Three of my closest friends are gone for the summer. Others are occupied with family crises, while yet another lives far, far, far away. I'm going to need God to stretch and grow me this summer, otherwise I'm in for a very, very lonely couple of months :'(

Random Thoughts...

So this is a post I'm titling before I start writing. I wonder if that says anything special.

While walking home tonight, I entertained the idea that community experiences like tonight are like drugs to me. I take it in, get high, then come home and fall back into reality. Then I determined that Satan trying to trick me into thinking my positive mood tonight was due to something other than encountering God during praise and worship tonight.

Also while walking home tonight, I looked up and saw the stars. The sky, especially the night sky reminds me that the God I serve is a very very big God.

I'm sad that my friends are leaving for the summer. I've never had so many leave at once while I'm still at home. I'm a little anxious to see how this is going to turn out.

Recently I've felt like I'm living life under a blanket of darkness. Even things that are happy aren't as happy because they're clouded by the knowledge that my secret life is filled with despair and even depression sometimes. It feels like I've lost part of me. I don't know when it started, but everything seems to have lost a portion of joy. I don't know what's wrong with me.

I've felt myself struggling with fear a lot lately. I've gotten afraid that someone is going to attack me or that I'll get hit by a car or that someone I love is going to get injured or die.

I've never considered myself much of a worrier but with my friends, it's different. Like when my one friend told me about a health occurrence and how he'd supposedly had a heart attack or something (but not really?) and I seriously started crying in the middle of Wal-Mart. This was last year just before I left for China.

The above paragraph was attached to the one before but I decided they were separate thoughts because worrying about a friend with "heart problems" isn't quite the same as irrational fear about dying.

Success is achieved when we identify the right thing and get as close to it as we can.

I started warming up to this guy, maybe liking him a little? I'm kinda worried I'm going to realize he was really just checking in as a friend and nothing more. I feel like this always happens to me. It seems no guy is ever interested. The one who was, changed his mind like three weeks later. I often wonder why guys don't seem to be interested in me. I don't even think I'm completely ugly anymore.

I sometimes wish people knew my heart. Really, my intentions are almost always good. I have my moments- moments of pride, insecurity, jealousy, etc. But in general, I'm trying to do the right thing. I don't want to be a jerk, but sometimes I think I come across that way.

I'm so afraid of becoming like my parents. My dad's an a-hole and my mom is sick. I really really really don't want to be like them. I worry sometimes because I don't think I'm much different from how they were at my age.

I wrote this at 3 o'clock this morning, but fell asleep before completing or posting it, so here it is. Unfinished.

I am not okay.

Don't buy the smile
It's on sale half price
Defective, but it's hard to tell unless you look closely.
You'll notice the edges are a bit frayed
Worn from days, months, years of emotional agony.
I am not okay.

I'm starting to remember, this isn't just a recent thing. I was depressed for much, if not all, of high school. Granted, there were also crazy things going on with my family during that time. But I remember not caring about school. I remember my GPA dropping from a 3.8 to a 2.7 in one cardmarking period. I remember not caring to listen in class and just feeling sad all the time. I remember coming home looking at my books and deciding "no" then turning on the TV to drown out my thoughts because I couldn't handle thinking. I also remember wishing I didn't exist but never going so far as to think about suicide determining that if I existed, God must have had a reason.

Maybe it's time I redefined my story. Maybe there's more going on than I thought.

I can't remember if I've actually written about here or not, but if not, what I'm referring to is my emotional state over the past month or so and off and on before that. I've been "down," feeling overwhelmed by life, unmotivated, fearful, angry, sad, etc. I've had times that I've stay in my bed for most of the day just because there was nothing else that I particularly wanted to do or felt i could do. I would be online, but that was about it. If I got bored or overwhelmed, I'd sleep. My excitement was people being online to chat. What I'm realizing is that this isn't new for me. Being in a different stage of life allows me to express in a way that I never have before. But much of the feeling I think is the same. Interesting.

i feel like i'll lose control. the effects of all the recent stuff with my family go deeper than i first realized. i knew i was hurt by it. but for awhile there i thought it didn't hurt anymore. thought i wasn't angry anymore. i try to ignore it. sometimes i feel like it shouldn't bother me anymore. like i should be over it. other times i feel like i am over it. then i have times like today where i'm so desperate not to be alone and i know it's because i'm trying to avoid something. i wouldn't even really let myself entertain the thought that the two issues (family stuff and not wanting to be alone) had anything to do with one another. but within five minutes of talking to one friend, the connection came up and i could feel myself wanting to cry. why??? why does it affect me like this? it's one of those things that i honestly don't understand. i don't understand how i feel. just that i feel hurt and angry and betrayed. but ask me why i feel those ways? i couldn't tell you anything specific. just the story of what happened. i talked to another friend who'd experienced a similar family situation to see what it was like for her, what her relationship was with her dad now, etc. she understood completely. it's so nice to be understood sometimes. she hugged me with a pretty good understanding of why i needed it right then. and we prayed for each other because both our situations are still active. that whole conversation/exchange was very cathartic. so much so that i was starting to think i was doing ok. that was wednesday. but here i am at the weekend still staggering emotionally when it's brought up. i'm not ok. it's like a wound. what i discovered that day cut me pretty deeply. so deep i sometimes don't even realize it's there. but if i press on it, it hurts. it hurts.

I thought I was past this. Not completely past it but I thought I was past the point where family issues would be such a big thing for me. Why??? ugh....I feel like my family is falling apart all over again. I think I should just have faith and trust that God will work everything out. I just can't stand to see her crying. She said she doesn't want him to come over for her birthday tomorrow and that she means it. We'll see how that holds up. Funny thing is, she doesn't even know what I saw. She just got fed up with him all on her own. But we've been here before. I've wanted so long for her to stand up to him. Assert herself. Sometimes she would, but usually just takes whatever he's dishing. Now that I'm older, I try and take up for her somewhat. Not as much as I used to because she seems not to really want it. But I won't talk over her when he asks a question while she's talking. I just don't take sides in general.

When I see her cry, it reminds me of when I was a kid and she would cry all the time. I don't know if was just the things he did and said or if it was mixed with depression or even mixed with the schizophrenia. But she cried a lot of tears.

Who am I to judge his sin? But I'm so angry at him. He lives a life that's totally separate from us. I wonder how big that life is. What all it entails. Is he drinking again? What else does he do? I think I'm really disappointed in him as a dad, as a father. I wish he were a stronger man. I wish I didn't have their genes sometimes. I wanted more out of a parent. I feel betrayed on some level. I don't understand that. I want a dad. When I see images of healthy father daughter relationships, it makes me emotional. I feel like I'm missing that part in my life. I thought maybe we were starting to move in that direction. I was thinking of giving him a Father's Day card with a real message from the heart this year. Something telling him that I didn't think he was a bad father, that I knew he'd done his best, and that I loved him. Something to that effect. But I don't feel like I want to do anything like that now.

My heart is grieved for my family. It's such a big, big mess. So complicated. It feels like there's no hope for redemption. I don't think we'll ever be together again. I thought I'd accepted this reality years ago, but for some reason the fresh realization is painful. My heart is hurting tonight.

I never knew that it would feel like this
When the two that raised you up and call it quits
Nobody told me 'bout the emptiness
When the place you call home is closed for business
I push the pain down, I gotta "get by"
Always knowin' in my heart that it ain't gonna fly
Rock bottom's never felt so near before
And if pain is God's megaphone it's loud and clear
So hold me now father, human love ain't enough
I've failed and been failed by the people I love
But your faithful arms they surround me
And any other soul who has to sail those seas
Of a broken family
-TobyMac