Today I started walking down the beach, and about two hours later, I remembered that I would have to turn around. That is what happened with this post.
I can think of DTS without it hurting now. Although that in itself hurts in a different sense. The whole “grief is just love with nowhere to go” quote stuck out to me before I left, but now, if it doesn’t hurt as bad, do I love those I miss less? I could sing the Blessing today. Without crying. I found myself having fun with a different group of people. I think I had been unwilling to let myself have fun with others until now. Maybe as a way to keep the sacredness of what I had in my community intact, but it wasn’t good at all. I still miss everyone. I was at the beach today and wishing for my Pattaya group. I imagined what each person would be doing. Ethan would be farther out than is likely safe, swimming. Ashlin would be running around trying to catch a sea gull. Mama Sarah and Alyssa would be setting up a blanket or mat and settling down. Drew and JT would be walking into the water, more slowly. Maddie would be a bit farther behind them, being more careful in where she puts her stuff down. Trevor would be tackling me into the surf to my oxymoronic joyful protests. I could envision it so clearly, it was jarring to open my eyes and see instead, a much less cohesive group. This has happened two other times on this trip. Once on the plane, in which a child would not stop screaming. I looked around for Ashlin or Trevor to make a comment. When I realized what I had done, and that I would be getting off of this plane with a different group of people than my mind so gleefully convinced me I was back with, I started to cry. Not hard, mind you. It was so odd. To genuinely forget who I was with. The final time this happened was more intentional. During worship, I closed my eyes and envisioned every aspect of the Green room as it is during Monday morning worship. Where I was standing, who was around me, I even “placed” the people that I typically scanned the room for: Mama Sarah, Trevor, and Dan (because he has a habit of jump scaring you with prayer). Mama Sarah was to the right of me, sitting cross legged against a chair. I could picture her overalls and half up half down hair. Trevor was behind and to the left, standing with his glasses off, wearing his black and yellow hoodie. Dan was on cajon, with Gabe singing and playing guitar (the actual singer sounded a bit like him, so it was easy to fool myself). I had myself so immersed, that when I opened my eyes, I half expected to see the people I miss so much. I was disappointed.
My brain is trying to convince me that it never even happened. DTS, I mean. Before I left, and I was terrified that it would be a cult, I told Brooks that even if it was terrible, it’s only six months. And if it’s good, well, I should learn to make the most of six months. We speculated what kinds of people I would meet. Not a lot, but enough that when I didn’t meet our imagined personas, I was a bit surprised. I think about the building, the staff still there, Trevor, Ashlin, JT, Maddie, a lot. My brain is trying to erase their memories. Like it never happened. I always thought that six months would be a life time (and it was in a lot of ways), but I blinked and now all I have are the photographs. It didn’t happen, right? There’s no way that the best time of my life is over, the best people in the world are gone, already. I haven’t even left home for DTS. Right?
Some part of me likes to wonder how I would have been if I had taken a different path. If I had moved after Sophomore year. I think that somehow, some way, I would have still ended up at North Cascades.
People are moving on. The group chat is dying. I should let them go. I need to let them go. But I can’t. For the same reason that that white string is still tied around my wrist. I can’t let them go.
I miss hugs. No one around me likes touch. I miss hugs, and the way of being around people and knowing touch was a part of that. I so desperately miss physical touch. My mother tries, but I can tell she doesn’t like it, and it’s not the same.
I miss the girls and the talks we would have, and the ease of which we would have them. Ashlin and Maddie showed me what friendship is supposed to be.
I miss being comfortable around people.
I miss who I was at YWAM. In some way, I think that is who I truly am. The best version of me at least.
I miss Trevor and all the sides of him. I miss being understood and cared for. I also miss tackling him to the ground on random occasions. I miss my best friend (he doesn’t read this anymore. No one does. So I can say this more easily: I’m not his best friend, but he is certainly mine. I knew things would be different after DTS, and I knew he would get busy. Knowing something will happen does not take away the hurt of when it does. I fear I have become an obligation he feels he needs to fulfill.)
I miss my relationship with YHWH. I feel like I’m starving, and have forgotten how to eat.
I miss being an extrovert.
I don’t think I know how to process. This isn’t it. And at the same time, I don’t want to process, because then I’ll have no reason to look back at the memories.
This conference makes me remember how long it is until I return. I will inevitably get worse, go to camp, probably fall for Jade again or something utterly ridiculous like that. I better not. There’s only one man for me. And his name is Jesus. Then I’ll fall away again, and come back to Advance and have to take a month and a half before trusting anyone. I will get there and be hostile to the new school, out of fear of liking them. Because if I like them, I have betrayed my people.
I think the reason I’m blocked from God is because I need to pray about something, but I’m afraid of the answer. If He gives me an answer I do not like, I don’t believe that I will be able to follow what He says. This is not good.
And yet. I know I’m going back. I know I’ll see some of these people again. I know it will never be the same, but also that it doesn’t have to be. These six months may be the last “normal” months of my life with my family in Kansas. Just because I wish I was some place (time) else doesn’t mean I can’t make the most of the now.
Rainy Ramblings 