Toe in the Water
(Campus Market)
I keep waiting for something significant to happen. I know I’m not happy at where I am now, but why do I keep waiting?
I’m considering visiting the home of the “enemy”, to see what it’s like on that side. What have I got to lose?
Well I’ll Talk
But the point of this blog is for myself, so keep that in mind, person/people reading this. (I’m not going to go on a shameless self-promotion rampage and email everyone I know to check out my blog post. [Nor am I trying to "make it big" in the blogosphere world.]) Ugh.
I’m mad at people. It’s because I’m not being accounted for, by the people who are supposed to be my brothers and sisters in Christ. The past two weeks I’ve skipped small group on purpose (well, the first week was because I felt dead), and to my dismay, the first week not one person asked me why I wasn’t there, and the second week only had meager improvement (yet small enough that I still wanted to punch a wall).
At this point, I’d like to cut in my own blog post at this point to say that I don’t really care for rational solutions/advice on this (especially since the problem itself is irrational). Rationality would say that it shouldn’t matter who cares if I’m there or not, but that only pushes the idea of spiritual independence. This is my blog, so I’ll write whatever I want in it. Otherwise, the only way I’d get this off my chest would be to act passive-aggressively or speak sarcastically to try to make fun of the situation (which both deconstructive, and plus, I’d have no one to rant to about this). And back to the point:
Yet, even though hardly anyone cared that I wasn’t there at small group, it seems like a certain person still cares about my ability as a programmer to continue working on the website, despite my absence from their meetings. It’s almost as though I’m being used: the enticement of small group was the bait, and signing me up to work on the website was the switch. And now that I’ve signed off my soul to working on the website, it no longer matters to him whether I attend small group or not (that is, if he even noticed in the first place).
Not that I expect every single person in small group to be concerned if I’m missing, but it takes some audacity for him to email me asking about the website without wondering (I know I’m being unfair right now).
Even then, I wish that people just knew stuff about me, but still cared about me (regardless of some undisclosed attributes I have, but that’s besides the point). I want to be in relationships beyond the point of people asking me, “What’s wrong?” to find out (much like my sentiments regarding how my closest friends ask me, “Do you want to eat lunch together?” instead of initially asking “Where are we eating?”). I’m not myself around anyone, and I’m not myself around me.
I should find someone who’s extremely gifted with discernment to be my accountability partner, or a mentor who can tell when something’s wrong.
Productivity
I wonder if I can channel my passions into doing something productive.
Ambition and Alacrity
When I feel passion wanting to do something, I always find myself choked by the thorns.
Jump
I want to take the high dive with a running start, but I don’t even know if I’m at the foot of the right ladder.
The Summer Bug
It comes every year around this time; each year, I feel the same odd mix of feelings.
Like a cocoon, each summer is always a marking of shedding one life and entering another.
I’m not sure if something like this can be described. I feel happy, sad, excited, depressed, all at the same time.
I know that I’m still growing both in spirituality as well as in mentality, but the summer bug always hits me hard.
Long before, it never felt as such a dark, yet bright, time as this; I always knew that I would just return to the same old life in the fall.
Just before, it was a huge shift of my mentality from high school into college. But I knew that I wouldn’t anticipate feeling sad leaving.
Now, it’s completely different how I view these different segments of my life.
Instead of wondering if I’ll be sad to miss people at all, I’m wondering if I’ll break down and cry or not when I leave the ones I love and return to the others I love.
Sometimes I wish time would slow down and let my emotions catch up.
Coals
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
But what if I don’t want to ‘heap burning coals on his head’?
Torn Between Two Worlds
“I’m caught between one and the other.
In the middle, I see both.
My heart misses one and longs for the other!
Is there no way to have both?”
-Tina Clark, “Torn Between Two Worlds”
I’m already looking forward to both this summer, when I’ll be learning intense guitar and meeting up with old friends, and next school year, when I’ll be having the time of my life living with my closest college buddies.
I remember in the summer when I was looking forward to college, I didn’t know exactly what to expect, except that it would probably be better than my boring life at home. I just never knew that the few times I went back to the Bay, I’d grow closer to the people there way faster than when I had been taking them for granted. I’m pretty sure of all those few times that I went back, the youth retreat in Twain Harte was definitely the most important of them. It showed me that I could have that closeness of brotherhood that I enjoy so much in college in the Bay Area, as well as how the “older” group was less intimidating as I used to think (I was forced to join their after-speaker small group, since I’m in college instead of high school).
Now I get sad even thinking that when this school year ends, I’ll have to say goodbye to most of my college friends, and later, when the summer ends, I’ll have to say goodbye to all of my Bay Area friends.
I know I’m going to make the best of the summer, though. I’ve learned from my lack of activity to never do the same again; I’ll become involved, I’ll become closer to my friends, I’ll become more than invisible.
I’ll become a better person…if only I could drive.
