one of the great things about a two-week break is that it gives you just enough time to almost become a normal human being again. until you (meaning me) get reminded that you're (meaning that I am) actually an uber-nerd and can't stay away from uber-nerdom for too long without getting tingly.
I predict that this reminder will hit me upside the bowels of my gut in about three days. which means that time is short. I've had a swirl of thoughts and emotions and prayers that are partially sorted out and I'd like to go a few steps further in doing so.
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first off, stuff that's on my heart now: (resolve the moment in the appearance of clarity and move backwards)
i. my family
ii. a friendship that still feels a tad strange but shouldn't
iii. reflection from the past year
iv. the ongoing romantic angst
'"when people say that 'experience is the best teacher,' they only have it half right. processed experience is the best teacher."
- dave clark
my family.. is and always has been interesting. a source of simultaneous love, comfort, and torment. I s'pose that these are the characteristics of 'all things under the sun,' which makes the whole mess feel less isolated, but doesn't take away the sick reaction that we must have to all sin. anyhoo. I write here in confidence: if you know my sister, please don't speak to her of this. she's a part (not a large one though, thankfully) of the mess and I'd rather have her hear it from me than from someone outside our family.
short story: my parents are on the verge of separation. while my dad has entertained thoughts/hopes of this in the past, he has laid those down and been committed to working out his own anxiety/depression/adhd issues in addition to the history between him and my mom. however, my mom has now 'had enough.' over the past year of her and my dad dealing with their issues, she's become very distracted and her business has suffered substantially. now, bear in mind that her business suffering means that her income has gone from 'ludicrous' to 'half-ludicrous' (a far cry from the lower-middle-class place we lived in until just after college). she thinks that some time apart will (i.) help her recover her business-functionality and (ii.) give my dad the time/space to work out a lot of his stuff.
my response is this: the first reason is a statement that business/money/economics is more important than the most important relationship in your life; the second reason ignores the basic fact that they are two-become-one, that in order to recover a functioning marriage they must be able to support and work through conflict together. in short, I see the whole matter as an escape, a running-away, a cop-out, and a selfish turning-back. am I being too harsh? almost guaranteed. I speak from the naive hope that God should be taken at His word and that He can accomplish all things. thus, the deeper issue I have is that both of these reasons are examples of how the world reasons and deals with problems: they represent the pursuit of a goal excluding God's intervention.
the part I've mostly kept to myself is one of the parts that hurts most. you see, my mom, even though I disagree passionately with her, is looking to God first and is ultimately committed to her marriage with my dad. she approaches the whole matter with tears and regret. my sister.. wants this to happen. she's actively encouraging and pushing my mom to put my dad out the door. for her, she fiercely thinks this will help my mom, but a substantial part of her advocacy comes from the hatred she has for the power my dad has over her. and so, power-rivalry is more important than family.
it is sickening betrayal. I want to get all rhetorical, but any words I write won't express the fact that my principal feelings are rage and wrath. I love my mom and sister; in that love I cry that this behaviour is childish and both of them know better. I don't care what you've been through or what sorrows you've experienced: they don't give you a pass to become a traitor to your own blood (because whatever reasonable-sounding reasons you can come up with, this constitutes the breaking of the spirit of the deepest oath on earth for convenience). especially when the litany of 'awful things they've experienced' are perpetually accompanied by miscommunication, blindness, and their own lens of condescension/bitterness through which they view nearly everything my dad says and does.
I don't want to have these thoughts and feelings towards my own family. I hate it. I want to trust them completely and to be able to dance with them in that trust and love. but my family is mired in sin just as much as I am. we live 'under the sun' along with everything else. to ignore that sight and understanding is to reject clarity and truth (or what tiny shadow I actually see). after all, whether my sight is clear or not, the way the Kingdom works is by keeping clear sight of Jesus, not by keeping clear sight of the things around us. so let Christ be our Guide and Light as He sees all our filth and then covers it with His mercy.
a picture: when I was a kid and I started acting like the jackass kid that I was (and still am), I'd finally open my eyes and realize my jackass-behaviour and apologize. in our family, we took the whole apologize/repentance/forgiveness-thing and talked about it as a single step - 'let's start over.' this is my chief prayer for my parents, that they will 'start over.' for, if they don't, they will be forever haunted by the 35 years of war and history through which they see every action and word in the present. they need to show mercy so desparately, to hope in each other, to give the benefit of the doubt, to set aside self-protection and self-defense.
LOVE! MERCY! GRACE! FORGIVENESS! HOPE!
'sometimes the bravest thing of all is to hope.'
and so I pray that you would join me in prayer: for my family to look to Christ first and that He would heal our family. we need it. He can do it and He is the only One Who can.
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the second thing on my heart is a friend I saw for the first time for several months a couple days ago. around this time last year, I was very interested in her and pursued her romantically for the next few months. it took her some time, but she put it together that she was not interested in me and thus that chapter ended. however (and fortunately) we developed a solid friendship during that time, one that I still thank God for and treasure.
in the months after, we were able to maintain a good amount of friendship in addition to a good amount of awkwardness. imagine that. anyway, we didn't really talk about it in a meaningful way and deal with it until the end of summer. that exchange happened via email (that most real-feeling mode of communication), as she was leaving to go abroad for several months. serious relief. incredible relief. we then kept up an email exchange while she was gone (I consciously tried to leave the initiative with her for her sake) with non-awkward, healthy communication. praise God.
and so it was with a strange feeling that I found myself withdrawn from her this past weekend. I didn't want to be, but I couldn't not give her distance. it's still messing with my head and I'm frustrated with myself for it. outwardly, it probably wasn't too noticeable, but it was definitely there.
I think there's several reasons why I'm giving her more distance than I should be right now.
1. resolving awkwardness via email may be real, but it probably takes some real contact for that to sink in to the heart.
2. on the whole, I felt out of place the whole weekend. granted I've felt out of place nearly everywhere (this stuff with my family has a part I'm sure), but it was definitely a bit stronger while I was out at soundview. I don't know if that's because the staff I grew up with have all passed beyond (the only other staffers left from my first few summers were dave & sarah), or if because what I need right now is not the laughs of short-term, short-commitment contact but some substantial encouragement from folks that know me deeply.
3. before she left, our dynamic had me too clingy and her too distrustful. since I was only too aware of the walls she put up, I gave her too much distance (making me twisted up) which of course didn't solve anything - for it didn't actually deal with anything. I think that behaviour is still there and hasn't had a chance to go away. but, it doesn't make sense for that behaviour to simply go away either. why? well, that distance was something I gave her largely out of fear of even more awkwardness and otherwise pissing her off. at this point, my clingyness and unhealthy attachment to her has faded sufficiently that I don't think they will generate further strain on us. however, I think I fear that I'll come across that way. and so, the easiest way to avoid all that is by giving distance and feeling cold. that totally solves the problem. not.
and thus one of the great blessings/curses (necessarily both distinctly) of relationship in any form: it requires both parties. as much as I'd like to wipe away that fear and get myself all fixed up and shiny, the thing that will probably take it away will be her and assurance of healthy friendship from her. I need to recover my trust.
I guess we'll see. further prayer. I look forward to being able to laugh at all of this.
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in the interest of time, I think I'll save the rest for tomorrow.
"..always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal body."
- II Corinthians 4:10-11
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