Gossamer Blossoming

The Write to Flip-the-heck-out

Awaitingbloom — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:50:45 GMT

I don't plan on this being a regular thing, I just don't know where else to put this. I've got another blog, but...well, there are others who don't know about this one (others that I've perceived it not being ok to be emotional around)...yes, I'll probably regret this, but I've learned that I actually get migraines if I don't express things (that or I don't sleep) so I'm going to here.

I worry that this trip (I come home in just about one month) is a silly, self-indulgent waste of resources. Yes, things are happening in my heart and my life, and I'm definitely being as frugal as I can, but I worry that this is a just an impulsive waste of precious resources. I've been to London, Belfast, Dublin and Amsterdam, I'm planning on going to Bern (which I hear is expensive), Edinburgh and Iona before coming home. Honestly, a bit of me is going crazy. So, this post is purely emotional: meaning that my depeest feelings are stated here as fact in a rather cathartic way, because they really just need to come out.

Do I have anything good to offer the world? I'm not a writer because if I were, I'd DO IT. I'd have something to say. I started reading this biography of this guy - Keith Green - who seems a lot like me - aside from the drugs and the extrovertedness and the genuis-level talent and the inseperable level of friends. But, he is described as extravagently emotional, all-or-nothing, honest to a fault, and "on edge because he feels like calling on his life that is not being fulfilled." Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I feel it, too. I don't know what to do. The love I give isn't good enough. And it shouldn't be because I am a selfish, immature person. I'm not trying to gather pity points - it's true. A scottish prophet once gave a sermon about how guarding one's heart can look like being brutally honest with oneself before God.

Keith Green was this incredible guy. I've already fallen in love with him. Not in any dramatic, "real" way of course, because I'm reading what his wife wrote about him and he died about 30 years ago, I think. When he was twenty-freaking-eight years old. That's old 5 years older than I am now. And, if things go the way they've been going, I will have had a wasted life. Did I have anything to offer the world anyway?

Oh yeah, and this whole death thing. I have isolated this as the thing that permeates all of what I do. I don't want kids because they are going to die. I don't want to love because people die. I don't know what to do that matters because everyone dies and only world shakers are remembered - and where, even, is the meaning in that? Like, this whole WORLD is passing away (i'm not talking Christian, I'm talking environment). But, I'm afraid of my own "religion" either way. I'm afraid of what happens if it's not true - "it" being eternal life, although I suppose that means that we just wink out of existence and you can't experience that, but that makes this life a hell of a lot more painful knowing that no, no you won't actually ever see that loved one again. But, if it is true - that is, if eternal life does exist - what the heck are we going to do for eternity? I mean, I am sometimes making myself sick with thinking of how to pass the time out here. It all seems so meaningless to just wait for time to pass - I don't know what I'm doing and it goes so slowly. And these are just DAYS. What of eternity?

I mean, it would be easier if I were with ones I love. If I could talk with the one I love - oh how I think about him and how he would enjoy some of the things I'm seeing out here. I realize that I do have a heart for travel, but I have more of a heart for community, and I am sometimes homesick and lonely to the point of migraines (which I've never had before so I assume that's what causes them). Some days I stagger under the weight of how deeply I've been blessed by this trip - whether it was God's will or not (I mean, I've ALWAYS wanted to go to Amsterdam, not that I ever knew why), and sometimes, I stagger for lack of seeing straight with a loneliness headache. I thank God for homesickness, though - I know, truly, what I have in Seattle, and will not bitch about its imperfections anymore.

But, life just has to be more than a collection of experiences. I resist all the touisty stuff - and the suggestions people offer about "stuff to do" just doesn't make sense. I can't just "do" stuff to get through the day....

(oh my GOSH. I think I just grabbed hold of a thread of a major epiphany. One of my MAJOR, burning, painful questions has been, "God, what do I do with this life? How do I not waste it?" But, yet, I resist "just doing" stuff around the city...oh I'm starting to get it...well, that part anyway).

Ok - yes, I know this isn't the whole picture. Yes, I know I should just enjoy Europe - but my whole thing about "enjoying something" sort of requires people to be with me. I, of course, DO realize how lavishly I have been blessed - both back home (everyone I've met along my travels has RAVED about Seattle...and even about Denver, where I'm sort of originally from). But, God did warn me that this would not be a vacation, that this would be hard. And my pastor has said that God, in some ways, wants to kill me.

So, I offer this to You, Lord. I offer these pieces of this shattered heart to you and I wait for the fire to fall. I offer my desire to talk with certain people, my confusion, my death/eternal life fear, my longings for home, my headaches, my heart strings, and my not-writing all to You. Will You take them? Can you change me to Fire?

T-minus 6 days

Awaitingbloom — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:12:22 GMT

My pastors are out of town. My "parents" are out of town. My two old roommates are out of town. Another couple is out of town. No one is here to say goodbye to me. It hurts. A lot.

My two old roommates got wonderful send-off parties. I don't want to give in to the temptation to be jealous, but this is HARD.

I leave in 6 days, but everyone else is already gone. The logistics of this trip - the things I was freaking out about don't matter as much. I love the people who have been in my life over the last two years. And I won't be seeing them for the next 3 months.

It will be ok. Change is just very hard for me until I get used to it.

But, I get to go to Europe for three months. And I'll be in Dublin, Ireland in one week from today. (I leave in 6 days but it takes a day to get there if you include the time difference).

Summer Blarney

Awaitingbloom — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 05:57:16 GMT

A fellow congregation member spoke into the mic what she'd heard;

she thought she got an encouragement, and a whispered Word:

"The rains may come this season, falling harder than you've known -

but take heart, loved of God, for flowers need water to grow."

This word has stuck with me through a season of the shakes -

where cliffs break from their mountains, and nothing tastes like cake.

I've been told by a few that hold me precious by God's power

that my delicacy is to be treasured; I am a budding flower.

I take this deep to jagged edges, ragged raw with hope -

in hopes to chronicle more than an outward journey around Europe:

too much on my spinning plates, but breaking are my crucibles -

flattened out and falling - with God all things remain possible.

Let it Rain

Awaitingbloom — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 06:01:22 GMT

This will all be worth it someday.

Today my visa approval package came in the mail. Not the actual Visa - oh no, they thought they'd cut that nice and close (i leave in 8 days) - but the travel guide to Ireland, some cute little "advice" brochures for foreigners, a hotel voucher, etc.

Someday, this will shine.

Today I had a friend help me begin packing. She picked me up from work to take home some boxes we had from our new technology update (most of which got fried in the brown-out last week...) and we went out to a wonderful Teriyaki place. Then, we took down all the posters in my room and organized them. She took a box of my former stuff to Good Will.

It's going to be ok.

If it wasn't for her, I would have stopped at all the old notebooks I found in the bin I wanted to store my posters in. I had labeled each one with the date, time, place and situation in which I completed it. I came across all the ironic ones: There were things like, "First notebook finished in Seattle, (the city I'm leaving in a week)" "finished on a plane back from Colorado after Pop's funeral, (and now the stuff with my dad)", "finished the day after breaking up with Mark (the first time...)", "finished the day I moved into the townhouse" (the one I am now moving oout of)....etc. There were journals from the early-mid 90's (most of which I was too scared to open).

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

After she left, I cried. Change is growing (read: cutting) edge for me; it's hard, and I think it's hard because I grew up thinking things wouldn't change, and, in many ways, not wanting them to. Which may have been a coping mechanism and it may have worked or have been appropriate. But now, it just makes my past rubber cement.

Someday, I will see why.

I talked to my pastor on the phone 4 or 5 times today, each for about 45 minutes. As much complaining as I did about this man, he is one of my favorite human beings. I repent of such lash-out-irrational sludge. This week (of which I only spent one night at my own house...), he and his wife "adopted" me - in a spiritual, emotional, behavioral sense. So yes, now my pastors have the power to "ground" me if they want. (I know this sounds REALLY weird and probably a little bit cultish, but if you spend five minutes on the phone with my pastor, all your fears would be put to rest. So, just trust me that this is ok - this is what ALL of us - the three involved here - really, really needed).

This is all going to turn me out something beautiful.

This evening, after my friend left, I met the new roommate. One of girls moved out today and another moved in. I signed in to my g-mail to finalize Island plans tomorrow with another friend and saw one of Mark's nephews (one of the cutest little boys EVER) online, his status message read: "MARK IS HERE!!!!!!!". I cried again - I was planning on being on that trip.

Let it rain.