ready or not

here i come! is what i'm yelling at my bed right now.

told THE STORY again today. it had been a while since the whole shpeel was requested. i started with, "i so don't feel up to the whole thing, but i'll give you a basic idea..." and then i told almost everything. really, i couldn't believe that one of my closest friends here had never even heard it and never actually knew the true ending... whatever. glad she knows now. nice to hear she wanted to go to a thrift store and by a stack of plates just to break, in my honor.

i'm crying a lot lately. usually that isn't too big of a deal, but it's been more than normal, and more heart-felt. and sorta not understandable. although understandable. you know? it's exhausting being me today. as my friend says, and lately i concur, "i have nothing to give." why is that? and at the same time, i'm praying more than ever (or than i have for a long while--minus the retreat from a couple weeks back), so that part of my life feels good. perhaps that's the tears. perhaps it's not a confusion but an explanation of all the emotion. i hope i'm hearing and learning what i'm supposed to. this better be worth it.

can't wait for visits with ben and then abby and noah this week (not to mention the folks in muncie). let's just hope my dad's car (he preferred me to take his over mine), that seems to have horrible traction on snow and ice, gets me to illinois and indiana and back in one piece. and preferably while going the speed limit.

resolutions

it's past midnight. i'm at work and should have been asleep for hours by now. however, after receiving a reward that i recommended myself for at our work holiday party this evening, with an extra 70 bucks in my pocket to prove it, i found myself particularly inspired... by the recognition more than the money... and i walked the isles of Target to see what things for my still semi-empty house i could now afford, left with only two pairs of little black gloves (for a whopping $1.50) and let myself spend another $1.07 more on a Red Box movie. i had decided to go into work a bit early to let the evening girl off and to get my night going (before the usual ten o'clock arrival/start time). and in order to make the hours before sleep more interesting, i spent the dollar plus to watch Julie & Julia. and now, i feel more inspired to write by it than cook hundreds of fattening meals. so i began a list of resolutions in my head. and, knowing myself to not easily turn of the churning machine in my skull, with the fortunate ease of access to computer left on, i hopped up and turned the light on to type them here before they are forgotten in slumber. perhaps a small bit of me wishes this blog were read and interesting like the one julie writes in that film, but i don't kid myself; i just like writing when i'm in the flow. whether "they" or you read it or not.
so the resolutions, in no particular order:
1. to write more, of the creative sort. not just the journaling, hand-aching kind (while even to my journal in many ways i've become a stranger), but the kind that is "in the [above mentioned] flow."
2. to resist my natural tendency to hibernate with my home-body self and get my butt moving. i can feel the poundage creeping on around my upper arms and shoulderblade/wing areas, and those are only the parts i'm aware of. i must begin to use that silly bollywood workout dvd, locate the isle at target that sells workout dvds (since i have experiences with those of a much more effective lot), and/or break down and get that membership at the Y (to be sleuthed this sunday pre-"swing" class or some such odd name for a hodgepodge of movements over and over that i've yet tried).
3. to seriously study nepali. it must happen. i must be fluent one day, and why delay that day by being lazy now? it's quite saddening and ridiculous as i realize how quickly the vocab and grammar i once had is now being lost. i visited my bhutanese nepali friend today and had such a difficult time saying the most simple things. i honestly came quite close to giving up the whole dream in the face of my loss. i hope to visit her regularly to ward of further loss and perhaps gain some back, and i realized the books on my shelf and my old school journal need some serious, and consistent, visiting.
4. to go on some dates (as yet i cannot commit to a number/frequency). enough said on this matter, for now.
5. to study hard for the next month and 11 days for my LGSW exam and then to successfully complete (aka pass) it. i WILL not torture myself (and my pocketbook) with a re-take!
6. to apply with gusto for the cambodian adventure that frightens and delights me all at once. to let my application be rejected or found wanting, if such happens, and then come the next april, apply again.
7. to find a way to dwell less on the "if onlys" of the past and the "what ifs" of the future. to come that much closer to freedom, contentment and presence in the now.
8. to laugh with abandon more often.
9. to pray more, as if i truly believe what i say i do. and not in the holy, polished, "i believe, oh jesus!" way (although that's good, too), but to just talk to God like he's there and caring and comforting even though so much of me rejects and feels uncomfortable with that. to let him be that companion that i so desperately seek for elsewhere (and will never fully find in those elsewhere places, peoples and things), a companion i even chat to about my wing fat and the fact that i can't believe my back and legs aren't aching from all the hibernating i've been doing lately! these meaningless and random conversations are so far feeling pretty great, as of today, post script.
and last, 10. to fully experience my emotions while not becoming their prey.

(okay. now. maybe my brain is empty enough to let me sleep for the next few hours until my client wakes me with the wall poundings and yells of "ma'am! ma'am! i'm not feeling so fine!" oh lord...)

2010. today and a belated reflection on this year's commencement.

it's that age old delaying problem of "waiting for inspiration." alas.

i have been stood up again. by a client. a client that i wonder if i freaked out a bit last time we met as i was really pushing her to let down her guard a bit with me. she left saying, "i want to feel!" but i knew the prospect was scary for her. so many of my clients are similar to her (although not all quite as stoic), with such intense histories of damaging rejection, trauma, bad parenting, neglect, and the like. but they are such beauties! it's so much fun to get to know them all, to see their unique selves and encourage their attempts and hopes to have something all their own to offer to the world. they have cherished dreams and tiny bits of willingness to hope for them to actually take shape. it is truly a privilege to walk beside them.

often, after particularly intense sessions, i feel like i need to shake off the residue of these young adults who sit with me and share their stories. i get to poke and prod into their lives, their pains and joys, their very essences, hopefully in a manageable and well-timed and welcomed way. and when i do so their story becomes a bit of mine, and i become a bit of theirs too. these days/weeks/months of interaction leave me changed, and hopefully they leave changed for the better as well. really, the prayers that i've prayed for each of them are too few. and the pressure i have put on myself to help them in dramatic ways has subsided as i've learned that now is only meant to help them manage what is to come a little better than without the now. sure, more could happen in our weekly/biweekly sessions, but if i expect too much i grow stunted and disappointed with myself (or with them! godforbid!). it's such an interesting learning process.

i wrote an email to a friend today. an update on where i am now, so close to graduation and approaching the next steps that are still quite blurry to me. he's on of a few who were with me and very influential in my life 2 1/2 years ago when i was given the vision i have for my future, the one that began with a trip back to nepal and lots of prayer and lead from there to applications for graduate school... and later on a move back to the mother land and many hours of studying and writing and working for free. it was so fun to write to him. to thank him again for those hours of processing and trips around the foothills. and for the long day in the forest, writing and reading side by side when the clarity really struck my heart through his own words and longings for therapists to come to nepal. it's great, too, to imagine joining him there again one day as his work has really continued to grow (www.tinyhandsinternational.org) and thrive.

i also talked with my good friend kara last night. she recently returned from 5 years in nepal and is trying to discern her next steps as well. we both have these dreams that we feel are so clearly from God, not the same dreams but for similar peoples... and it was nice to discuss all the excitement and peace that can dwell within us while not knowing how it will all work out. the excitement flowing from knowing it's got to be God so much more than us. and that we have major parts to play: things to learn, people to network with, hours of prayers to pray... but that it isn't and can't be about it. i described to kara how i have this big broad dream with some details slowly coming into focus that is sort of far off on the horizon. and then i also have a clear picture of the step just in front of my face. but the big gap inbetween is dark to me. and as we talked, we both confirmed that if we knew what all was in that large shadowy expanse, we would freak out and halt altogether! so it's grace that we don't know all the steps and tasks and hills and miraculous musthaves between what is right in front of us and what will one day be. it made me more excited and thankful. and so glad to have a good good friend in a similar place. i'm so excited for her and can be full of deep faith for her and God acting in and through her... feeling that for her and speaking it to her helps me feel more of that faith for myself and my own unique path. more faith and less doubtful fear and anxiety is what i've been praying.

i spent a couple days in a hermitage in the woods (paceminterris.org) right before the new year and before my big 2-9 (new years day). it was a wonderful time of silence and reflection and prayers about all sorts of things. a time to rejuvinate and re-set my stance of standing on what i know in the depths of me to be true, about God and about me. i read some stuff about belonging and identity that cut to my core, especially as loneliness has become a companion i've been trying so hard to ignore lately. and i learned that if we are willing to sit face-to-face with our loneliness, stare it down, rather than distract! distract! distract! (my usual modus operandi) that icky self-concept-distorting companion can turn into a beautiful friend: Solitude. in Solitude we can really meet God. and Solitude (not just isolation) can be had anywhere, even in the business, noisiest places--it doesn't require a hermitage where no cars or talkers are allowed to traverse! and i prayed for an abiliity to transform loneliness into Solitude. because i realize trying to escape from or ignore loneliness is ridiculous and impossible. we all, whether married or single, whether a true hermit or the bell of the ball, have a bit of loneliness with us. this loneliness is evidence that the Kingdom has not quite come and it is part of that longing for more, longing for heaven, longing for intimacy with God--that, Him, the only true satisfier of our need to for connection and belonging. and he can infuse our days. that is what he asks/demands of us. an abiding, a constant praying... and it seems impossible. but i swear its more possible than i've let myself believe. and my hands-tossed-in-the-air "i can't!" has really just stolen a mysterious transforming of my moments and days. so no more! i will pray and trust and wait for God to teach me, show me, and show up. my ears need some re-training to hear. but there is hope even in that acknowledgement, admitting that i've lost some of what i once had maybe, but perhaps instead a realization that i need to learn anew, at a new level of mystery specifically for the now of this next year of life and change and journey.

join with me anyone? speak your doubts to Him who isn't thrown off or pushed away by them and let him speak inner deep rooting truths to your hearts, anyone? let's surrender our heads a bit and ask for more experiences of the heart. i want to be rooted in the solid ground and honestly confront the winds of doubt and fear that come. to me, that's faith.

the heartbreak of life.

sometimes intense heartbreaking emotions fly at me and run me through the ringer completely out of the blue. it always leaves me breathless and dizzy. i had one of those mind boggling afternoons on sunday. i can't, so i won't, attempt to explain it. but i was talking on the phone with a dear friend, and suddenly i was weeping. and i mean weeping. and i felt almost panicky at the immense nature of the flood, worrying that beneath it all something damlike broke inside of me and would never be fixed. and i muttered loudly through my tears, "what's wrong with me?!" and then i found myself half-laughing because my friend said she was wondering the exact same thing, but perhaps with a different spin on it. it may have been the kind words she was saying to me of the sweet meeting we had unexpectedly 8 years ago. or it may have been my ever-increasing awareness that i will soon be 29, and i have so many desires left unmet...we spoke of the balance between contentment and desire which i find impossible to master (perhaps that's for a later post).

i've been trying to be more honest with myself lately. and in discovering the truth beneath what seeming beliefs i have built up, declaring them as my own, i discover that really i have a pretty shakey foundation afoot. and then i try to tell the God of the Universe about it. and the very act can feel false as i declare i don't have faith. i don't believe you! (do i dare to yell it?) but i know that healing comes by being honest and not just with myself either, in secret. that's only where it has to start. my friend has been helping me to see that unbelief is the core of all sin. unbelief? sin? these are words i'm not so used to using as i've been in some communities that avoid these taboo words out of a reaction to a pained past with the church. (no judgment here, just statement.) so hearing them again and even using them makes me a bit squirmish, but i think it's right. it's time. and i am daring to say them to my current community. asking for honest discussion about sin to happen between us. let me not be so reactionary and so determined to fight for social justice that i let the rest of who i've been called to be fall asleep, grow lazy, be kicked to the curb and ignored. i can only truly do what i am passionate about when i am truly being who i am made to be.

i prayed this morning, "i want to be a woman of deep faith whose actions and words flow from that solid foundation." i want to change the world through the yuck of me lessened that goodness of God as more... and more.

"i believe! oh Lord help my unbelief!"

do any of you struggle with unbelief? how do you dig down to the the bare-boned truth? then what do you do with it all?

random divulgence

i can't *cough* stop coughing long enough *cough* to use my Crest Whitening Strips.

my knees make me feel older than a month and a half to 29.

my breakouts make me feel younger than a month and a half to 29, much younger.

i fear the first "real" session of therapy in which i am the therapist. i wonder if it was more than coincidence that i stayed home sick yesterday, dodging potentially three of those very things.

i am continually on a road for self-realization/self-understanding/self-definition, in order to change either my self-perception or my behaviors, but i feel like most attempts to know myself are thwarted by my undefinable, inboxable nature. yet, i pursue nonetheless.

i don't believe a lot of important things about God, at least where they apply to me. this is my most recent realization that i'm left to struggle with and wait through. and hopefully not forget this time.

i forget things all the time. i am highly distractable and am not as good at multi-tasking as i claim.

even though i don't like starting over somewhere new, i am constantly contemplating doing so.

i eat way too many beans and eggs, and sometimes together.

i know pizza makes my stomach hurt but i eat it anyways.

i secretly love our cat, frank, but openly hate our other cat, ella.

my sides hurt from laying around for two days. my throat and chest are starting to hurt from *cough* coughing non-stop. my legs hurt when i sleep with one on top of the other, knee against knee, calf against calf, bone on bone. it's disturbing to me.

i think i have restless leg syndrome.

due to the tip of a friend, i worry if i have ovarian cancer. the silent killer.

my computer has a mind of its own and turned off and on throughout the night, getting me out of bed at 4:30 to force it to shut up.

the idea of moving back to nepal scares the shit out of me.

i hate missing days, weeks and months of my nephews' lives. when i think about it or get new photos in my inbox, it makes me almost ill.

what does it mean to "hear the lovingkindness of the Lord in the morning"??

sara groves and motivation

When The Saints

by Sara Groves

lord i have a heavy burden of all i've seen and know
it's more than i can handle
but your word is burning like a fire shut up in my bones
and i can’t let it go

and when i'm weary and overwrought
with so many battles left unfought

i think of paul and silas in the prison yard
i hear their song of freedom rising to the stars

and when the Saints go marching in
i want to be one of them

lord it's all that i can't carry and cannot leave behind
it all can overwhelm me
but when i think of all who've gone before and lived a faithful life
their courage compels me

and when i'm weary and overwrought
with so many battles left unfought

i think of paul and silas in the prison yard
i hear their song of freedom rising to the stars
i see the shepherd moses in the pharaohs court
i hear his call for freedom for the people of the Lord

chorus x2

i see the long quiet walk along the underground railroad
i see the slave awakening to the value of her soul
i see the young missionary and the angry spear
i see his family returning with no trace of fear
i see the long hard shadows of calcutta nights
i see the sister standing by the dying man’s side
i see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor
i see the man with a passion come kicking down that door

i see the man of sorrow and his long troubled road
i see the world on his shoulders and my easy load

chorus

I Saw What I Saw

by Sara Groves

i saw what i saw and i can't forget it
i heard what i heard and i can't go back
i know what i know and i can't deny it

something on the road, cut me to the soul

your pain has changed me
your dream inspires
your face a memory
your hope a fire
your courage asks me what i'm afraid of
and what i know of love

we've done what we've done and we can't erase it
we are what we are and it's more than enough
we have what we have but it's no substitution

something on the road, cut me to the soul

chorus

i say what i say with no hesitation
i have what i have but i'm giving it up
i do what i do with deep conviction

something on the road, cut me to the soul

chorus 2x

your courage asks me what i’m afraid of
your courage asks me what i am made of
your courage asks me what i’m afraid of
and what i know of love
and what i know of god

this week has been interesting. just a bit emotional for several unmentionable reasons, but good overall. i started what was an unexpected new internship since my original one succumbed to the bad economy and i'd been scrambling to replace it for three week. and school and the time and focus it requires has finally caught up with me. the beginning month of each semester has consistently been misleading, and when things finally start happening i'm never quite ready. i should not be surprised by the "bottom-heavy" nature of my program since this is my third semester, but nonetheless i am, currently. and currently, in this chair in my home, in a bit of denial that i have two papers to write, hours of reading to do, and a project to make major headway on...

i pasted the lyrics of two sara groves songs above because in the midst of my emotional state, revolving around internship, school, relationships--all of which are linked to my future and the life i dream of having--i have been needing reminders (yet again) of why i am where i am, doing what i am. last spring i went to a prayer conference for International Justice Mission, a long full and intense weekend of hearing stories and spending hours of prayer for the work of an organization i have highly respected for years. sara was there to lead some worship and share songs with us, songs that she'd written around the issues of bonded slavery and forced prostitution in her involvement with IJM. these songs cut to my heart that weekend, but not until last month did i actually find and purchase them. and i haven't really listened to them again until this week.

somehow as i've been listening on my drives to/from school or just in general around this crazy city, a couple times i have been singing along in ways that feel like intense prayer and/or talking to myself about the WHY behind all of this upheaval and financial strain and time that sometimes feels unjustified and unsatisfactory. "when the saints" i have decided needs to be my theme song until i graduate and am officially a licensed graduate social worker (and perhaps beyond as i continue to get educated and trained as a therapist). and the song "i saw what i saw," which i believe sara wrote after her time in africa, had me in tears. tumultuous and refreshing all at once. this forgetful head needs to recall the faces and the pain of the people i am called to love and serve... the impetus for the dream, the dream fueling the current education. the tears feel impatient but also hopeful.

grad school, i guess, can feel dry and empty some days. but always draining. and i'm not always happy with the way classes are taught or often the lack of depth that the design of the class or the lack of time brings us. i have become a firm believer that the interning experience is far more practically important to my education than the classroom (although i'm not arguing the classroom needs to be done away with, it's very necessary, too). but when i feel like my time sitting (which is much of my time these days) feels less than what i hope, it's hard to be motivated to really invest in it. i shared the sara groves songs with a friend this weekend, telling him of my intense emotion around them and the need for reminding they have been fulfilling this week, and he reminded me yesterday, so appropriately, as i was dragging my feet from putting in more hours of homework, that it's for the women, for the children, for the broken and oppressed that i need to buckle down and learn.... so i have more to give. so i can be the faithful servant i'm called to be with what i have been given.

strength

someone told me tonight that i am a courageous person. it's nice to hear. and i think i agree. as i get closer to my 30th birthday (not this coming birthday but the next), and i continue to pursue my dreams, i feel more and more sure of who i am. however, these days i've had some questions and wonderings about that said identity. lately, i have been nostalgic and with that having to shoo off regret and "wish had been"s. but with changes, new beginnings and adjustments, comes naturally (for me, at least) thinking of what was and who i used to be at different periods of life. i found some old letters and emails the other week at my parents' place. reminders of friendships that i thought would never change and of who i was in those times... and i have embarked on reconnecting with a few of these important "golden eggs". i think i need people in my life that have known me longer and can remind me of who i am in ways that people who more recently have meet and known me can't. and with the commencement of the schoolyear i've also tried to begin to reconnect with school buds who i have not talked to much this summer. it's a place of awkwardness and discomfort in self-awareness, all this change. tonight's encouraging words were happily drunk in.