That Was the Worst Christmas Ever! - Part II

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”

-Robert McCloskey

I distinctly remember baking and rushing my last batch of christmas cookies, god knows they tasted awful.

Somewhere someone told me that with anything you create, your emotions can determine the outcome; this was the case. Somehow I managed to make them wrong (normally taking ten minutes they took 30 just to set up). Internally I was thinking of just going out on a good note, but in reality I was just trying to stretch my time and stay there---just squeezing in that last ounce of the atmosphere I was about to leave behind. I just wanted to stay.

The ride to the airport was quiet, on my front at least, but everyone else seemed to have something to say. They had their questions, stifled with an unabashedly akward silence. All the while I was just trying to hold back from crying, something I had done quite the fair share of in the few days I had between the announcement I wasn't ready to attend out reach and the flight date home. We said our goodbyes, and like most good Christian people we hugged. Out of All of the hugs in my life, those hugs lasted just a little bit longer than usual; as if to say: ‘I’m sorry’, ‘Don’t give up’, and a thousand other forms of what is the one-two punch of guilt and regret.

I remember when they first told me that I was not going to go. I looked like a patient about to be forced into a psych ward---minus the straight-jacket. Flailing aimlessly, angrily screeching; something in me was dying...and then I crashed. I couldn’t handle them telling me that, and I was digressing into my most basic animal instincts. I was fighting it both inside and out, feeling as if an unbearable poison was forcing its way through my veins, paralyzing all rational thought. Over the next few days I mellowed, or more so I was tranquilized by irrational fear.

I was going home a failure, a then incomplete mess. Standing in front of me was the daunting fact that everything, and I mean everything I had planned for in the next months was going by the wayside. I was returning to Ohio---but I wasn’t supposed to be back yet. I was seeing my family---who weren’t expecting me until March. I was turning twenty and thrust into “Happy Holidays” mode, but I honestly wasn’t happy. I was pushed back into my life, my reality, questioning everything that had happened in the previous months. I was home. The sad part though is really just how hard people tried to make me happy. It was like trying to warm over a slab of marble. Something in me had felt like it died, and I was regressing into the stages of grief; or maybe it was a good grief I just don’t know.

"This is what I'm thinking, this is my point."

When I got home, when I decided I wanted to be a little better than I was last year, I took off like a rocket. This past year had a definite direction to it. Despite being severely depressed for a majority of it I was a force of movement. A week into it I had a job, that same week I had two, and then I just took off. I wanted something and I wanted control over it. There were times this past year where I was ridiculously angry. I tried not once but twice to retry a discipleship training school. People would say they were proud of me, but I knew that it wasn’t my time yet. The first time was in October, I had hoped and prayed for a school, finally finding one that just screamed me. It was in Montreal, and I was enchanted by the idea of attending a working internship of a school. It was my first big rejection in a while, but they where honest---they felt they couldn't help me. So I talked to Mark, which took forever. Only to hear from Hilary in a Newsletter the school I wanted to attend was canceled. I almost applied to another school, they actually called me three times, but I didn't go. Looking at my situation left me a little troubled differencing reality and determination, holding on to an archaic tendency to move in that fixed direction. Something about the fixation to leave a town combined with the impatience of being stuck in a town really throws you.

It’s weird looking back at mistakes made, because initially I would have just dwelled on not being able to correct them---but now? Now I have this innate want to hold onto my mistakes, to actually…learn from them. I know now that I want to learn, I desire to learn. That’s probably the healthiest habit I’ve ever picked up in my life. So as the one year mark came around I was feeling just a little bit of a failure. I was finishing up a semester, and slightly worried of failing. I was at one job for the longest period I’ve ever been in my life, and slightly worried of being fired. Was anything really wrong? No! Nothing big, I just didn’t want to be at this point at this time. I wanted things to work out slightly differently. I was quite literrally worried because I really had nothing to worry about, go figure.

So I procrastinated a little...then a little more...then a lot until today really.

So what has happened since---November?

I went on vacation, a real honest to god vacation with beaches, gelato and everything! It wasn't quite wonderful, but it was something. Especially our last meal---easily the most gourmet meal I ever had (and I picked it). I learned a bit about Gullah. I've watched fifty Korean movies (eight Japaneses, two chinese and one soap opera too). I survived the three month mark at my job, and now the six month mark. This is a landmark of commitment. I stayed home...so far. I catered the deserts for my work Christmas party. I went to North Carolina, and realized Durham has a street that looks like Commercial Drive. I saw my family again, they're all a little older---yet exactly the same. Christmas came, Christmas went, and then I turned twenty-one. Heck I went out and bought a SINGLE beer. It was bitey, with hints of coffee and the color of Guinness. I passed with a B, and signed up for two more classes. I realized I liked photos, and even started a page for them. I watched an entire movie in a theater without talking, and with smuggled cheesecake. I made Sugar cookies from scratch; gingersnaps too. I also chased seagulls.

So here I am. A little over one year later, a little bit older, and not so much the wiser but all the more eager to try a little more. What have I learned...well. God is slow. Painfully slow. In perfect conjuction, I'm obnoxiously impatient.

So he continues to push my patience just a little bit more. Maybe I'll see some of you in September?

All at Once

So. This Picture has nothing to do with the post, but I refuse to waste it, now...

I really want to be selfish. It's true, I really want to be mean and spiteful and full of hate, anger; I could go so EMO right now it's not even funny. Unfortunately though, in this situation It just wouldn't be right.

So this post is about my sister, first a congratulations, because she is getting married. I really hope that my sister respects me and doesn't read this because despite the fact I know where her blog is, I won't read it. It's something personal, and a side of my sister that isn't for me to see. Knowing this, you have to know that despite me not reading the rough equivalent of her open paged journal, I still do know something. I know when she has trouble, I can tell. I know when she feels ganged up on, and when people think everyone is against her. I know everyone of her little ticks she does when she's aggravated and I can call it to the second when she'll break down.

Truth is her and me are both painfully alike in that aspect. We each have different insecurities, we both had different problems growing up, but we are both very visual. Creatively and annoyingly we tell our problems before people can even ask. We tell it by our pained expressions, our upset looks, our posture, our silence. Who needs words with all of this glaring you smack in the face. The worst part though is that when it comes to confrontations, we have somehow managed to be opposite types. If someone really does bother me, I will go up to their face at any point and tell them the best way I can that they need to do something about it. My sister, when she's mad she goes away. She retreats until she knows what she wants to say. I process things aloud, sometimes while walking around. She processes things internally. Now---put these two in a room and let them disagree---GO! Many of our friends can attest to this monstrous and immature display.

Despite our fighting sometimes we still can't really understand each other. Currently this is the situation.

My sister is getting married. My sister is getting married! You have no idea how happy I am for her; despite this though I have a predicament. I don't think my sister is quite ready personally to join with another in holy matrimony. She knows she has issues, but I just don't know if she's open to seeing them all. Her roommates can seem them, her family can see them, but why is she is blatantly unaware. When I look at how her and Mike get along I trust they want god to be a big part of their relationship, but I also think that they're strong emotional attraction has but a bias on their views of each other. I know I seem skeptical. Maybe that's another big character flaw on my part, or maybe I'm just being a brother. I just had to ask myself, Is this the best thing for her at this time, or will she need more time?

Bring in more to this equation my sister has set the date for her wedding in March. When she is married she will know her fiance Mike for one whole year. One whole year. What do I know really, what experience do I have in dating and relationships? The real answer is none, which further adds to a malicious motive some may skew me towards. Truth is by my sister having a wedding it further puts me in a financial straight shot situation of not knowing what to do. I want to go to a school in January. I need my parents to help me with that. Key Words: I want. What I want doesn't really matter at this point, except for the fact that I want my sister to be happy.

" 9known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; 10sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything." 2 Corinthians 6:3-10 (NIV)

This is phrasing that was quoted through somewhere, I'm not sure where, but I remembered it involved patience. I remember that it talks about dying, where at times it's honestly what I felt was happening to me. I could relate to that feeling of dying, of part of you thoroughly wasting away with every heaving step. Yet we live on. It seems I've been saying I'm sorry a lot lately. Now though, I need to say again...but to god. I keep telling myself that I'm ready. I keep telling people around me that I have changed and grown enough that I can do this again. I keep remembering things that made me so sad to see, like when I was in Manitoba. I was so sad to be there and not have that connection everyone else had. I was jealous they had the freedom to move on while I had still more work to do. I was jealous of a connection I lacked amongst them. At the very same time I was ridiculously happy, I saw them moving on with their lives and I saw that they were affected. It's frakking beautiful. However there is nothing I can particularly do now except hold on and wait. I love god, but dang him for making me wait.

It better be worth it.

So. Back to my sister to end this annoyingly hovering and long long entry full of depressing typed diarhea spewed on to the page. My struggle with her is that, I wish I could be more happy for her. So to do that, I'll pretty much have to wait a little longer for my stuff to happen, at least until god tells me something else. I want her to have the best wedding she can, because you only do get one...if you do it right and make it count. So my parents shouldn't have to worry about my school and the wedding at the same time. It's annoyingly easier, which makes it harder for me to do.

Now. Someone please, knit me a sweater, it's COLD.

"Dear, dear Corinthians, I can't tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn't fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren't small, but you're living them in a small way. I'm speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!" 2 Corinthians 6:11-13 (the Message)