I haven’t written in about a week. Isn’t that something. I get the attention I so desperately desired, and suddenly, back to no writing. 

Not really. I just like to start with self depreciating humor that is only funny for me. 

Um. 

Anyway. Busy busy busy, working max hours at work. 

I got yelled at for working 20 minutes of overtime yesterday. 

I’m going to quit my job. I’m so over it. 

Ok, I need to get my thoughts in order, because I have a lot of them. 

Old thoughts from throughout the week first. 

I checked out a lady at Lumber House the other day, and the name tag she wore said Lynden WA. I had to stop her, ask. She said she had lived there for 40 years, but decided to move because of cost of living. Lynden is about the size of Salina, a nearby “city”. So it’s not horribly tiny, but the odds that I were to meet someone from Salina in Lynden are incredibly low. It wasn’t even Bellingham, it was literally Lynden. Now that I’m thinking about it some more, it seems like some sort of God thing, I just don’t know how. 

My lust for a motorcycle has grown exponentially, seemingly overnight. I’ve always wanted something like that, but I’d always leaned more dirt bike off road type. I’ve landed myself on the “go fast vroom vroom” side of Instagram, and I am in no way complaining. This however has also landed my mind on the “spend money on fancy bikes you can’t ride and even fancier cars that you can’t even dream about seeing” side of my brain. My coworker has a bike I want. A lime green Kawasaki Ninja. She goes fast and UGHHHHHHH the desire seems to be under my skin and creeping into my everyday thoughts. And my dream car is 200k, so… I’ll just sit here with no license, a mother who would kill me if I pursued my motorcycle dreams, and Go Fast dreams. 

I started crying at work on Friday. I wonder if that was my last straw. I was non stop checking out customers, and people were commenting about how dirty the counter and floor were. I was the only cashier, there was a line of at least 4 the whole time, with no break for three hours, and every time I had time to start sweeping, oh look the whole store wants to check out now. I broke, started crying. It was a little silly. Crying every day after I get home from work is one thing, but crying AT work is entirely another. I was almost surely just overstimulated, but even with all of my growth in the past year or so, that was too much. 

“I think I romanticize my angst in an attempt to fake control over it. If I can control how it’s perceived, then I can control it. Right?” From a while ago. A few weeks? Found on a scrap of paper on my floor. I write about all the bad, to twist it into a form of bitter poetry, because I need to make it sound like something worth hearing. I can’t complain about my job, my family, my loneliness, my life like a normal person. It used to be because I didn’t want to be a burden, and I think a part of this (writing) still is that, but a lot isn’t. I like being able to express my thoughts, give people the option of reading or not. The option of responding or not. The option to care.   Anyway, now onto the rest of my quote. I think I wrote that when I thought I was nosediving again. I had a rather horrible spiral for about a week, and I thought I was starting into another one. (I didn’t.) A lot of times, I will admit, I do find comfort in my sadness, the familiarity of these well traveled thought patterns and rhythms. I like sad music, crying after work because “I’m so miserable” (not really) has me stable. It’s a “normal” level of despair. In one of those mega-not good spirals, I do not have control of it. It’s like I start out at my baseline moderately ok, just a bit of typical angst, and then an avalanche starts in my mind. I usually make big decisions. I would say bad, but last time, I deleted my TikTok account, and that was definitely a good decision (ignoring the countless bad ones I made in that time.) I would say I am in control of my angst most of the time. I need to stop falling on letting myself be baseline sad, but other than that, I am chilling for real for real. 

“They’re going back, and I still haven’t processed the fact that they’re gone.” Clearly written about a week ago, about the people going back for DBS. They’re back, I’ve seen a few pictures from Milana. It looks like a good fun time. I haven’t processed. I think I more was sad for a while, and then just stopped thinking about them in the context of friend. (Them meaning all of the DTS now). It’s ok though. Time passes, and I will likely see most of them again. It won’t be the same, but who says it has to?

Doesn’t feel right to go to Advance anymore. Nothing feels right. I’ve lost my zeal for life. This was me yesterday and today. I’m not sure. I obviously know better than to trust my feelings. I think that my job, this place, and the stark lack of community has stolen the metaphorical light from my eyes. I’m again at that place of “I don’t want to leave, but I don’t want to be here”. That isn’t a good place to be, that results in me getting stuck. I fear that if I was not already signed up for Advance, if I hadn’t been so vocal about my commitment to it, I would have slipped away. I would have simply broken contact with most people, talking to Maddie, JT, Trevor. Dropping everyone else. I wouldn’t have enrolled. I would have gotten stuck, even after all my efforts to break out of this place. I know myself so well, that is part of why I was how I was about Advance before DTS ended. (The other part being I am a huge yapper and truly do not know how to shut up)

I got a letter from Maddie the other day. She said something in the letter that I hadn’t let myself think about yet. I can’t find the letter now to directly quote what she said unfortunately, but it was something along the lines of “I like to think about going back and doing it over again, but I know if I did, something would be missing.” This has two significant meanings for me. I daydream about getting the ability to go back in time and do DTS all over again. But it wouldn’t be the same as I think it would. Either I would have to go through it with no memory of the first time, and struggle with God for months, fail to connect with people well for a while, idolize Trevor, make most of the wrong decisions with Cody, hate the June DTS at first. Or I would go through it with memories in tact, but no one else would remember. I would still probably fall for Trevor, meaning the same silly mistakes would happen, just likely at a more rapid and weird rate. I would be too scared to get close to Cody at all, so I would lose out on that friendship entirely. The impact of a lot of the lectures wouldn’t be the same. Instead of struggling to make friends, I would struggle to hold back the affection I now hold and know how to show. My growth wouldn’t be the same. I would have gotten closer to Jess. That is a good thing. That is all make believe. What isn’t make believe is the possibility of seeing any of them again in the future. I will see a few at Advance. But it will be different. Six plus months apart does a lot to a relationship. Will I forget how easily I was able to show affection? Will the conversations that once used to flow so easily now cease? They won’t be the same and neither will I. I guess I wouldn’t let myself think about anything being different when I see some of them again because it won’t be the same. We won’t be the same people. Only Ethan and I will be there for Advance. My closest friends won’t be there. While I say I know and understand that, my subconscious still holds on to the idea that it will be the exact same, outreach and all. Ashlin and Maddie will be there to talk with and cuddle. Trevor will be there for late night discussions. JT will be there to play music with. But they won’t, will they? None of them will be there. I do get to see Christina again. The staff (minus Tommy.) Ethan. It is bittersweet. 

Ethan and I were texting about jobs and the like, and he said something that I thought was very my mind. “My desire for security, comfort, and familiarity is real, but I still know my desire for adventure, challenge, and the unreached is stronger. Most people never leave the comfort bubble, but some do. I want to count myself with those people.” I’ll just leave that there, no need to expand. 

I am going to quit. Maybe. My job. I’ve been wanting to quit since I got back, but something switched. Predictably, when I hinted at it to my mother, she said that it was because of the money that I had been given, I should have never received it because now I don’t want to work, blah. I knew she’d say that, but I had wanted to quit before the money ever came. I trusted that God would provide for Advance to the level that it wasn’t a matter of if, but when. Anyway. I wanted to quit earlier because I hate it. Still do. But now I also think that it isn’t where I am supposed to be anymore. Even going in, I only thought about being there until the end of May. I prayed about it for a while. Quitting a job is a scary thing. God seemed to say that it’s up to me. Quit, don’t quit, He’ll be with me in either. What He didn’t say I could do is just sit at home. The interesting thing about that is, there is no alternative. Yet. I do think something will arise, an opportunity for a job, a project, a move. We’ll see. I’ll make it to camp, but if by July, God has brought me a different option, I will likely take it. Maybe I could move in with Eden and Jade in Lawrence for a few months. Maybe move to Washington and find a temporary place to stay there. I know people. Go to Georgia. Stay here and work at the Irish Den. If God is giving me the option of leaving, but not just staying home, I trust that there is something else for me. I just don’t know it yet. 

I hate this job. Truly. It is killing me. My only hope is that I leave in two and a half weeks, and even that seems too long. I am not built to be fake. That is my whole job. I got told today I have to smile and be happy more towards the customers. I don’t like fake. I don’t like selling people crap that they don’t need. I don’t like a low brain job. I can’t articulate it, and that’s the issue. If I can’t properly explain how deeply unhappy I am, likely as a result of this job, then my mother will only grow madder, and I will only grow more stuck. (It’s temporary, whatever happens. I have to remember that.)

I’ve been on such a hate my job kick, I haven’t even had time to think about how lonely I am. Win! It’s weird. I am pretty good at digital contact. (Good to the point of being too much.) outside of phone calls, I will initiate everything. I have pen pals, both with people I know personally, and people I don’t. My two in person friends are a different story. One is a work friend that I know I will lose contact with when I leave. And the other I think hates me to an extent, and frankly I don’t blame him. I’ll be ok. I will thrive at camp. But then it’s another few lonely months. maybe. 

I haven’t given a hug in weeks. I miss people who actually like to be touched. I am going to have to relearn that part of myself. 

“And when the mirror no longer reflects who you were, is it growth or are you simply gone?” This quote. Hmm. Milana posted a picture of the DBS group on her story. Ellie and Ashlin tried to FaceTime me this morning. It’s hard. How do I explain this. I was terrified of coming home and changing. Changing for the worse. Losing the good parts of me that God had so newly cultivated. Seeing those people back together, I realized far too late that I have. Already. If I were to be back there right now, I would not be who they knew. I don’t recognize the Kiah from DTS, and that scares me,  because she was my ideal. If I no longer recognize me, have I lost the best parts of myself? 

I’m not sad today. Just confused. Lost. Very lost in what to do. Nothing feels right, nobody feels right. I’m relatively connected to God. I don’t know what’s up.