how goes it with your soul?
oh, how i miss hearing that question every week. i miss the vulnerable encounter of speaking one's deepest truth and being met with grace in the soul of another. i miss the curiosity that followed, the honest desire to understand and to commune with one another in whatever space we found ourselves. at the time, it seemed tedious. no one was content with trite answers, and i couldn't get away with my normal tactics of deflection and vagueness. but it was so good for me.
because for as much as i advocate for deep, vulnerable and authentic relationships, and for as good as i am at inviting vulnerability for others, i actually quite suck at it.
i have had relationships in the past where we just don't talk about difficult subjects. i have had people respond to my deepest truths by trying to convince me that i am wrong for thinking or feeling what i did in the moment. and i have had people completely disengage from our friendship when i was honest about what was going on with me. i have learned that being my truest self is not safe. i have learned that i am too crazy for most people to know what to do with.
i am trying to fix this. it is like learning to walk. sometimes i fall flat on my face by saying something that is unintentionally hurtful or just not appropriate for that particular moment. sometimes i don't know what i want or need. sometimes i know, but i don't know how to ask for it. sometimes i just need to get back on my hands and knees and crawl for a bit.
so, the rest of this blog is my attempt to articulate what is going on inside of me. this is me trying to make sense of what feels like an overwhelming deluge.
fall quarter brought a lot of change. that wasn't surprising, i was anticipating all of it. it appears, though, that i did not set myself up for success in these changes, or at the very least couldn't anticipate the way these changes have affected me.
leaving my church has been so difficult. in different ways than i articulated when i posted about it previously. my theology has been growing and changing so much in the last year that leaving my church has equalled something more like stepping off of solid ground onto a skateboard for the first time. i do not have my balance. i don't know where my beliefs fit, and what's more is i don't know where i fit. for as much as my church was spiritually unsatisfying for the last couple years i was there, it was familiar. i didn't attend any service for three months, and the result has been that i do not have my feet underneath me, spiritually speaking.
i also started my internship in the fall. it is affecting me in ways that i would not have anticipated either. i swing wildly back and forth between feeling competent and feeling utterly overwhelmed. people's lives are in my hands. perhaps that is an exaggeration, but these people are looking to me for help, and i am not so sure i can give it. i wonder whether i can handle this for the rest of my life. i wonder whether this is really what i want to do, or even what i am good at. for the most part, these feelings are normal. but eventually they are supposed to go away. eventually you are supposed to get the hang of things. this hasn't happened for me yet. i don't have my professional feet underneath me yet.
i left california after my little christmas stint with my family feeling a strong need to further differentiate myself from that life that i am in some ways very invested in, but in most ways entirely separate from. i don't fit there anymore.
my family also had a health scare over the holidays. between that and a few other situational things, i find myself facing the reality of the way of living that i have chosen for myself. i choose to be single and celibate. i enjoy my life. but at the end of the day, that choice leads to certain conclusions. for as committed as i am to those i love, there is always the possibility of something less from them. likewise, i am no one's number one priority. no one considers me when making decisions. because of these things, i will always end my days alone. this is a hard realization to come to. my choice to be single affords me a lot of wonderful possibilities. but this is the difficulty of the other side of the coin. i am forced to face the reality of at least a small amount of perpetual uncertainty when it comes to my relationships.
no part of my life feels safe, secure, or firm. i don't feel as though i can set my feet on anything to get my balance. what's more is that i don't know how to talk about what that is doing to my soul. i don't know how to say that i am more anxious than i have been in 5 years, towing the line of panic attacks, reminding myself every moment that i have to breathe. i don't know how to say that i don't want to get out of bed in the morning, and that i cry more days than i don't. moreover, i don't know what talking about it would accomplish. i don't know what would help. i don't know what anyone could do or say to give me comfort. but i know that i want to be seen, heard and held. i don't want to have to pretend that i am okay in order for people to love me. i want it to be okay that i am not perfect.
i want to know it is safe to be real.
