Feeling small or not at all

****A friend asked me for a biography, so I am writing one. There will be edits and additions and deletions and such, but I am going to post as I go, because it won't end until I do.******

My world is small and it is precious. I don't like people coming inside of it. I don't let many in but it's not because I don't like humans as much as it is that I don't like the way humans treat each other, even accidentally. My world is fragile, and thus easily broken. Little moments carry great significance and my inner self, unbeknownst the the rest of me, assigns grand meanings to memories and mementos and ideologies that would seem otherwise unnoticeable or trite. The glimmer of light that passes through a darkened room as the shades are drawn is but a passing glance given by a distracted world whose eye has been caught. But to me it is a beacon of hope, a cool drip on a smoldering tongue.

I can't even care properly for myself, so why and how could I ever figure out how to trust anyone else? I create a safe space that may feign itself as cozy and open, but only when I occupy that world. Outsiders may visit for a time, amount selected by the universe, but every friend seems to overstay.

My life is a shattered bridge of warn-out welcomes, connecting my body to my soul. Every piece of me has either been meticulously gathered over time, mined from those with whom I interact, or resides within me since and until eternity, innate and inert until the moment I am most in need. Traces made appearances here and there, but it is only after years that I am able connect the dots of my personality, dead synapses firing to life one by one, millions of jasmines blooming in the night.

What I most yearn for is to be accepted as I am. To speak and think and write as I like and have people take it as my personal voice. This is how I see the world; I am not pretending. This is how I think about myself in relation to life and I cannot see things any other way. It is neither immature nor pretentious. Every label is misapplied because people assigned them based on their own personal assessments and relations to the word and subject. The results are skewed and nothing can be fair.

It's all about perspective

So when I make my heavy attempts to control anger, or violence, or speak my truth, or whatever circumstance, and I am not taken seriously purely based on my manner of thought, I find myself at a dead end of the conscience. I can only be all that God made me to be, He gave me my voice and the life I have lead, by His grace, has brought me my words. What person who walks this earth could ever dare tell me I am less than I am? And why do I believe them?

What's more, it starts in my own heart most days. I look out into this world and see thousands of boxes that I don't fit in, and am too easily hurt when reality appears. I see limits and walls instead of ladders and bridges. So I condition myself to expect disappointment and rejection and then become depressed when that's what I get.

You could say confidence isn't exactly my strong suite.

I must climb the mountains, I must scale my battles and claim the territory of my soul. God gives me the strength to overcome yet how daunting is the task! But victory is the Lord's, and I shall see him face to face one day. Resting in God alone.

But there is yet this life on earth, and my struggles come and go. Just like friends, and love, and good chocolate. 

Insides

"Doesn't it feel great out?" she asked, opening the windows to let the night in.
"Yeah, I suppose," he answered bluntly, looking at her in that way he always did when he missed her.
The answer didn't even come close to fulfilling her desires, but she was used to that by now. Weather-inspired emotions weren't his thing. His loss, she thought. It didn't really matter.
But it did. They were dating, after all. His loss was her’s too.
Of course, she'd never meant for it to be that way. Nobody ever does with these things, but they happen. They always happen, and people always walk into them. Life's love traps.
Girl meets Boy. They hit it off and become fast friends. Boy is struck by her independence, her kind spirit, her indifference to the world. Boy falls first, and fast. Asks Girl out. Girl doesn't want to date him. She is a free spirit, poetic to the core, and loves it. Boy asks again. Girl still thinks it is a bad idea. She's never had a relationship before, so can't speak from experience. Boy uses this against her, challenges her to take a chance. Girl knows her self, and knows it won't work, but decides to go for it anyhow. She can't resist a challenge.
Almost a year passes, Boy is in love more than ever and Girl realizes every day how captive her spirit has become. This was never what she wanted, but sometimes it really does feel an awful lot like love.
Maybe it even is.
Like a thousand times before, she pushes all of this from her mind and shuts the window.
"Why don't we just watch a movie then?"
_____________________
(thoughts)
"Have you ever read a story about a certain type of girl who would just up and cry? She sees a lost kitten, or a broken flower, or a lonely man on the street and can't help but feel their sorrow...and then begins to cry?"
"I want so badly to be that girl..” she thought, imagining what it would be like to actually tell him these things….
Isn't it heart breaking?
“It's like the dirt on this roof here" she sifted it through her hands…

Finally she spoke,
"Where did it come from? This dirt….the ground maybe...but now it is on this roof. Forever away from the ground. It will never be down there." As if to set some free, she threw the handful over her head, off the roof. Most only came back down onto her arm, but some kept falling.
"It's like the ground above the ground," he answered, totally missing the point.
At least he made an effort.
_____________________
I used to always think of myself as someone who is intrinsically sad. Intrinsic. I love that word. It's weird because most people mark me as happy and joyful, but more often than not I find it so much easier to be sad. More natural even. Is this some warped view of the human condition that has brainwashed my spirits? I don't know.
One of my favourite high-school teachers called me passionate. He said I don't feel or show anything halfway... in fact I hardly show any emotion at all. But when I do...when something really affects me, it happens all the way. When I am sad, I get so passionately sad. When I am happy, I get passionately happy. When I am joyful, it overflows.
I love that idea. Passionate.
I wish everyone could experience things passionately.
Then again, I want to hold onto it and share it only with those who know what it's like.
Am I also selfish then?
In high-school I loved to share that passion. Especially about God. God made me ridiculously happy, and those were the times when I felt most alive.
I learned how to not need the sadness.
I learned how to share my joy with other people, and how to love sharing it with other people.
He doesn't see God the way I do. He never will. So I stopped talking about it.
Sometimes, it makes me think I'll never be ridiculously happy ever again.
____________________________________
Without my joy, it has been coming back again, the sadness. I feel like I need it again, like it is a vital part of me. The outer shell of smiles is getting more and more empty. The only way to fight it is to write it out. Before I found joy, I wrote constantly. I was also a cutter.
One of those is a bad thing.
I’m not that way anymore, but once again I am isolated from someone who is supposed to be helping me, and it is mostly my fault, but I am afraid to fix it. Deep down I know I should have never agreed to it, but part of me needs it.
He needs me too, he says.
Part of me is certain it will still work out.
Part of me is wrong.
____________________________________
I’ve become dislocated.
Out of joint and place and time.
Drifting along to the current that is my schedule, my church, my world.
I let him be my lifeboat, and forgot how to swim.
____________________________________
In high school, they said I’d change the word. I wanted to turn it upside-down for God. There’s a verse about it,
"These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also."—Acts 17:6.
It’s about the Apostles.
____________________________________
The thing is, none of it is his fault. Sometimes, I try and pretend it is so I don’t have to blame myself.
Sometimes, he thinks it is and apologizes for not being what I want.
I don’t know that anyone can be. I just need to fix myself. No, I have to let God fix me. Lately I’ve stopped listening to God. First, I stopped talking to him. This is a terrible idea, but I got tired of doubting my relationship. And my life. Silly, to think I could run from it all.
It’s not that a relationship is keeping me from being who God made me, it is that I am letting the relationship take the blame. Maybe I shouldn’t be dating, maybe it is okay, but I should not avoid God.
That is where my problems are coming from.

Before I started dating, I was convinced God was all I’d ever need. God’s love is perfect you see, and once you feel it, there is nothing else that can compare. That’s why I was never in a rush to start a relationship. I knew love with a guy would never be as amazing as Love from God. God never disappoints because with him, you don’t expect anything on any terms, so you are never left wanting. Except for romance, and that is when you know you should be looking for that special someone.
I’ve never felt that though, that lack of romantic fulfillment. I started dating mostly because he wanted to so badly and thought sincerely that it was the right thing for us. We were getting too close physically. Physical attraction and emotional attraction are not the same thing for me. Neither even come close to spiritual attraction.
Swear I’m not a slut.
We broke up once, and I was instantly relieved. But he missed me, and we couldn’t be friends unless we were also dating, so I decided to try it out again. From then, everything got so much better. I really tried a lot harder to get used to having a boyfriend. I loved it actually, and I love him. But recently it has just been really tough.

I’d never realized the lack of romance in my life in a way that made me wish for it. Not until now. When you are romantically involved, you expect things. You compare one romance to another sometimes, without meaning to.
Never having had a relationship, I’ve replaced God’s love with romance love. I am never satisfied because nothing can ever compare to God. Well, that’s not completely true. I am satisfied when I don’t compare it to God’s love. When I don’t think about God, romance is enough.

If we could share God’s love, Love itself would be complete.
But I am not ready for that. Is he? Maybe. But I don’t know how to share God’s love with him. I rarely try because I assume it won’t work.

That’s probably an indication of something right there

Spiritual attraction. I’ve been waiting for that my entire life.
The man of my dreams has never had a face.
All he’s ever had, all I ever wanted was someone totally and completely on fire for God.

I don’t even know what that means any more. To be “on fire” for God. Once upon a time, it made perfect sense. Now, I doubt the phrase. Now, people tell me I can’t possibly know for sure what God is like, and how one could be on fire for Him.
Now, I have hardly any backbone to stand up for my God, because I’m far too worried about offending someone. I changed my God for them so much, I don’t know who He is to me. My faith has been reduced to the mumbling of a few churchy adjectives and phrases.

I can’t even begin to describe how attractive the man of my dreams is to me. It’s because I made him perfect, and therefore non-existent.

It’s not that I don’t love my boyfriend now.
I do, so so much.
It hurts me to realize everything I’m writing. But at the same time, I know it is true. And the shreds of faith that still remain in me fill me with assurance that no matter what happens, God will be with us both.

Maybe we need to be apart for a little while. Maybe forever. Maybe not at all. But I cannot hide any longer. I cannot remain in anyone but Christ.

It is said in the bible that to live is Christ, to die is gain. It means that dying to one’s own desires and living completely for Christ is the only way to truly gain anything worth having in this life. Salvation being the tip of that mountain.

That much, I Hope for.

It's here!

My blog for MMC 2100 has begun. The challenge? Quite simple really, a 5 post blog detailing the reporting process for our first ever self-chosen story. Each post must have 4-8 journalistic paragraphs and be informative, effective, and professional. They also have to maintain a "Storytelling" feel. In addition, I must include at least one photo, with a caption. All this to be completed by next Monday at 12 p.m. Not tough, right?
Right.
So, dear reader(s), without further ado, I give to you, The Beat.
I may change the name later to something less common, most likely I will use the name of my first post. Hope you enjoy!

Also, I will be maintaining this blog after the due date, so keep reading for UF/College/Life news updates.