Something’s Missing

I can’t be sure that this state of mind, is not of my own design
I wish there was an over the counter test, for loneliness.

As Pastor John [Mayer] so adequately put it. Something’s missing, and I don’t know how to fix it. In fact let’s back up a bit: Something’s missing, and I’m not quite sure what it is. It can all be pinpointed, however, to this book:

Now and Not Yet: Purchase on Amazon.com

I purchased this book at LifeWay extremely by happenstance. (I blame Tim Tebow. Had I not seen his picture outside of the store, I wouldn’t have thrown the car into park and run in to pick up his book and look around, but I digress.) I needed some new reading material and the book look interesting, so I grabbed it.

The next day, my dad and I are talking about how he’s gonna bounce back from his sickness, so he could be around for me and my brother for a long time, and for “whenever I decide to give [him] grandkids.” I stress that the whole grandkids ordeal is still a ways away, and that I kinda need a husband first so kindly pump the breaks. A while later, I’m talking to an Aunt who talks to me about my career choices and how if I want to have children I need to do so soon because, “that clock is ticking.”

I wanted to slam my head against the wall.

I have just gotten over this overwhelming need for companionship, and all of a sudden those feelings of want start encroaching again. It’s not that I’ve ever lost the desire to get married because that’s clearly not the case, but the desire hasn’t been all encompassing. So after coming back home from vacation, I start reading the book and am stunned by all the feelings that are starting to surface.

Starting next week, I’m going to break down a chapter of the book every few days and publically process everthing I’m feeling. I’m sure lots of people can relate and help me sort this stuff out. But now I’m fighting feelings of loneliness (however fleeting they are), anger, and disappointment. I’m more disappointed than anything, and at a variety of factors. I’m disappointed in the culture in which I’ve grown up, that has esteemed marriage as one of the major goals of life that I should attain by such and such date. I’m disappointed in the church for fostering and encouraging these feelings that marriage should happen soon, without really prepping me for how to enjoy my singleness. Or even worse, hold up any interaction I have with a guy into some examination on my feelings for the guy and vice versa and making lame jokes like, “Oh…Alexis is talking to Cortland Finnegan, I see what she’s doin!”

Pause. Time for an aside. I need a new placeholder name for any guy I may or may not be interested in or find attractive. I can’t use Cortland’s name anymore now that he’s married. It’s just too weird. I want to substitute Cortland for my new musical crush Heath McNease, but that seems a tad bit too weird. I need the name of someone crush-worthy who doesn’t know I exist. Idris Elba perhaps?  Feel free to kick in some suggestions. K, end aside.

I’m disappointed in my immediate family for not providing a healthy example of what marriage should be. I mean, girls are taught from a young age to desire marriage and motherhood, but when you grow up in a broken home and have nothing to encourage you but cheesy movies, what is it that they’re really being taught to desire?

For now, my feelings are a jumbled chaotic mess that only God Himself can understand. But I’m hoping over time He can help me figure it out to and help me to fix it.

I’m most disappointed in myself for not using enough common sense when I was younger to be more perceptive and realistic with my past relationships. I unwisely bought into popular culture’s idea of how relationships should work and have paid the price. I have given away a lot of time, energy, emotions, money, you name it to dudes who have really left no lasting impact on my life, unless you include the baggage and scar tissue that I’m still dealing with years later. (I have no doubts that I left them with equal amounts of baggage, but the self-flagellation tendencies of mine make me certain that they’ve gotten over it already while I obviously haven’t.) I feel like the foolishness of my past romantic pursuits have left me lacking and off-course.

 

Surprises

This is my favorite song by Israel Houghton right now. This has been playing as a constant loop and this song affects me so deeply each and every time I hear it.

As usual, there has been a multitude of things going on in my life. The whirlwind has been both exciting and overwhelming. There’s been a lot of pieces in my life that have fallen and I’m not quite sure what to do with them. Some pieces terrify me more than others.

The biggest surprise is this newest endeavor I’m undertaking. I can’t really say too much about it right now because it’s in the infancy stage, but it involves me finally listening to God and fulfilling the vision He’s placed in my life. For so long I’ve been struggling with God’s will for me and I’ve been trying to impose my will on Him and that’s just led to a lot of heartbreak. Now that I’ve finally stopped fighting, I can clearly see His plan for me and it’s a lot bigger than I could imagine. I’m scared to move forward, I’m utterly scared of failure, but my faith is much stronger than my fear. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to say that. So I’m going to keep working, keep trusting Him, and walk down this path He’s set before me. I’ve been on my on detour for way too long.

Speaking of detours, I’m officially out of school for at least the next 6 months. My head was not really in this class, and there was no way I could get off of Academic Probation, so I’m on Academic Disqualification. This leaves me with quite a bitter feeling, but I’m solely to blame. The more I went through the program, the more I knew that it wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing. But I can’t change things now. I have to accept the consequences of these decisions and move forward. My pride and my impatience have gotten the better of me with this, but I’ve learned invaluably from it.

From first to last You knew my days / Future and past You saw everything / When I would fail, would I would win / When I would need grace to start again / Nothing surprises You / Nothing surprises You about me Jesus

While I’m grateful that nothing surprises Jesus, I wish He would drop some hints my way when things were about to happen so I wouldn’t be surprised so much.

Case in point: completely out of nowhere, my Tag just popped back into my life with the most random of text messages. Now for those of you who don’t know, Tag is a reference from Friends which I never watched. I just co-opted the term from Black Girls Like Us and have modified it accordingly. Now my Tag is much older than me, but common sense wise he seems to be younger. The true definitive trait about the Tags of the world is that the girl should really know better than to catch feelings, but they just can’t help it. Something about Tag just pulls at you, and if you’re not careful, you’re caught in a heartbreaking trap.

So with my Tag I’ve seen him once in the past year. So many memories and images flooded me I don’t know how I could even stand to look at him without melting. But we went to Starbucks, grabbed some coffee and just talked. We’ve always had great conversations, and that was the main thing that attracted me to him. When we parted it was definitely bittersweet, but I was very much relieved. Sometimes Tags are just too much for the senses. So when he disappeared of the radar again (which he does quite frequently due to his job) I was thankful. But of course he just had to pop up out of the blue. One of my old email addresses got hacked and has been used to send spam and he apparently got quite a lot of it. So I apologized and without even thinking I said, “I miss you. We should reconnect sometime.” WHAT WAS I THINKING?! I clearly was not in my right mind. Luckily for me, his job has become quite demanding so his free time isn’t what he would like it to be. Jesus is being a fence right now. Really.

Doesn’t it quite clearly say in the Book of John (Mayer) that you have to keep running to protect your situation? Jesus be a pair of Nikes right now.  Too much is going on for me to mess it up, so I have to tread carefully.

All in all, things are really looking up for me. After 2009 I thought this year would be THE year, but it’s just more setup for next year, and I’m very excited. Hopefully I can endure some more good surprises. Lord knows I can’t handle anymore sideways surprises.

 

Daughters

This week I have been all about some John Mayer, I have no idea why. Case in point: soon as I started typing this up, “Assassin” came on. But there’s always some lessons to learn from him. Just this morning while still mostly sick, I watched Where the Light Is and Storytellers back to back. Looking at the past John with the context of the post-Playboy interview John has made a lot of things stick out. And it gave me lots of room to think.

While watching Storytellers, John gave the reasoning behind the song “Daughters”. He talked of how he was so much in love with this girl, but she didn’t love him back because she had been so hurt. So when tracing the pattern backwards, John found that “she couldn’t love the current man in her life because of the first man in her life, her father.”  It made me  think of Why Did I Get Married Too when Troy and Sheila were having an argument. Sheila said that it was so hard to have a good man after being with a bad one. Troy said the only thing worse than that is being a good man that has a good woman after she was hurt buy a bad man.

All of this made me reconsider if I had any baggage from my numerous battles with my father. While our relationship is mostly reconciled, there are still a lot of scars remaining. I have to now wonder if I will take some (or all) of those scars with me into my next relationship. I’m sure those scars were carried into my past relationships which led to fresh scars that are finally on the mend. But I’m determined not to carry any of these scars into my next relationship. The problem is I won’t really know what I bring until I get there.

I’ve been wanting to be in a relationship for an extended period now and the urgency of that wanting has me quite concerned. God has made it quite clear that I’m not ready for a relationship (which may or may not be a reason why I’m not talking to Him right now. Hasn’t stopped Him from talking to me but I digress…). I’m constantly struggling with my feelings and having to examine my motives. And while thinking of the baggage I have with my dad, it also made me wonder what kind of baggage I have with God since He’s my Father too. That thought has scared me tremendously.

Aren’t all relationships supposed to be representations of our relationships with Christ? For that reason alone, I know I’m not ready for a relationship. There are so many rough edges He’s trying to smooth but I’m not letting Him because I’m comfortable with those edges. And if I can’t follow Him without fighting it all the way, how am I supposed to follow someone who’s just as imperfect as me?

2010 is the make it or break it year. For me, for my family, for my church, for seemingly everyone I know. And as hard as I try to keep the pace and make it through this, I see myself falling by the wayside due to my own stubbornness. (Just another aside, 30 Seconds to Mars’ “A Beautiful Lie” has come on iTunes, and of course it is perfectly appropriate. See here.) But I know that this is just a season, a time for brokenness so I can be healed; a time for isolation so I can be comforted; a time of insecurity so I can be taught and restored. This is definitely not one of my fun seasons, but I know that good things are on the other side.