All my friends write poetry. Does this style of writing make me lesser?
No.
It just makes me different.
I always used to want to write as a kid, but I could never think of anything to write about, so I started reading instead.
Now I forget to read, and either write all the time or never at all.
A lot of times these days, the words just won’t come.
I have a lot of things to say, but I’m simply unsure of how to say them.
I shared my testimony yesterday, and it was the bitterest retelling. I warned them that it didn’t have a “God is moving in my life” moment, because to end it like that would be fake. I may not be a lot of things, but I am real. I shared about how close to God I got at YWAM, and a bit about how hard I crashed when I got home. I didn’t tell them details, about how I had to delete social media because it was fueling the flame, breaking things off with my only hometown friend over a fixable issue, trying to sabotage my friendships from YWAM, reverting back to some of those previous harmful ways, and at the end of this spiral, all I found was tangible darkness and a deep and lonely pit, dug by my own actions. The months of not leaving my room except to go to work. Dragging out journaling the last week or so of YWAM in an attempt to make it seem like I had never left. The first accidental, then grudgingly intentional, then easy falling away from God. I told them how I planned to come to camp and fix myself, how that didn’t happen because God has not shown Himself to me at all while I have been here. Not a word, not a touch. When I got done, Cheryl lists the ways that she’s seen God working in me, and that wasn’t the point. She says that there is nothing wrong with me, but I don’t believe that. It’s not a negative lie if it’s true. But I’m not necessarily affected by that.
Anyway. That is why I didn’t want to share my testimony.
I’m not particularly sad or anxious. That’s why whatever is up in my mind is so strange. I guess I feel stuck. I’m going to Advance, but why? I’m going back to work until then, but why? I feel a strange yearning to stay around these people, but why? I have nothing that I’m striving for, no one that I’m yearning for. That stupid voice likes to say that means I simply should stop living (which is clearly false). I like living, I just wish I had more purpose. Maybe missions is my purpose, but without God, that is pointless too.
The cool thing about my position now is that I know God is still there. He’s still active and working and present. My feelings do not determine His status as God of the universe. I also know that someday (hopefully soon), He’ll make Himself known to me again. I get tired of waiting when I am more sad or anxious than I am now, but right now, I know that He is still there. I just can’t hear Him.
Camp is over soon. That sucks. I’ve gotten used to goodbye’s of this nature at this point, but they still suck. The distance is less with this group; I’m the one going the farthest. Naomi is headed to Missouri, Hayden to also Missouri, just later. Everyone else is still in Kansas. Gives me people to come back to, if we can manage to keep in contact. That’s always the hard part. This goodbye last year hurt more than anything, but now I’m well traveled in the ways of leaving. I do hope I can leave this place more gracefully than I left North Cascades.
What is even up with boys. Usually I’m all over Boy of the Month. There is no boy of the month this time (which is positively lovely, let me tell you). I’m playing matchmaker with one pair (but sort of secretly talking to the guy? I don’t even know. It’s just about music.) and playing anti matchmaker with another pair. My old patterns have tried to bring up old crushes and such, but nothing stuck, and I am perfectly fine with that. It does make camp a lot easier when you aren’t making all of your decisions based on one person. See, Jesus should have been that one person. He is now (or at least closer than what He used to be). Growth.
Hmm. I keep accidentally forcing bad mindsets because I feel that that is where I should be (which is a weird sort of lie that is stupidly obvious, but crazy easy to not care about.) Nothing sticks though. It’s nice to let things pass through me. I can’t remember the last time I could do that.
I don’t have any friends going home outside of work.
I don’t have anything to go back to.
That’s ok though. I need to learn to be ok with times of bleh. My life can’t always be one massive adventure. I’ve already lived more life than most people, and I’m barely an adult.
It’s weird to be writing without negative feelings.
The people around me are hurting. It’s not my hurt this time. I don’t know how to help people feel ok, I just feel a strong desire to help them. One friend confided in me that they attempted to kill themself last month, and outside of their parents, I am the only one that knows. Their siblings and closer friends are oblivious. And all I could do was hug them. Another friend told me about their struggles with severe anxiety, how they don’t know what to do with their life, and I didn’t do anything but ask more questions. Yet another lost their entire friend group when they needed friends the most and I just listened. I have gone through all of those things to an extent, but I do not know how to show them that I care, that I want to be there for them as long as they will let me.
One last thing, to maybe tie it all together. Or not really. I think I am made for a life like this. Incredibly close community, deeper friendships than many people ever experience, but only for a time. One month, six, whatever. I am meant to know lots of people, have been close to them, and then leave them. Not behind, but beside. As they travel a different road, maybe destined to run into me again, but never forever. And I am becoming more and more ok with that.
Soundtrack: Remember that night (Sara Kays). Unfinished business (neriah). In your midst (Allie Paige). Stay with me (Louis the child) Sail to the Moon (Radiohead). Turn my back (NF). Aria math (minecraft)
Rainy Ramblings 