Conflicted

I’m not necessarily conflicted. I just suck at coming up with titles. I could just… not make titles, but where’s the fun in that? So lame. 

I think I’m just going to jump right in because I’m tired, it’s late late, but I actually have the motivation to write (what whatttt), so I’m USING it. 

I can’t look at pictures of late July and early August because it was right before everything went down, and I had no idea what was coming. I can look at DTS pictures just fine, texts and things from that time. But right before and right after it all happened. That hurts too much to see. My pictures from family vacation are literally lost. I cannot look at them. It’s silly. I don’t know why those of all things are the ones I can’t see. I can’t look at the pictures of my hiking the Decalibron. Although I guess that one makes sense, because I took every picture with the intention of sending it to him. But the TikTok edits that I made in that time, I can’t watch either, and that actually makes no sense, because I didn’t send them to him, or think of him while making them or anything like that. 

I reread the messages from The Day for the first time in a while this evening. I had been okay, like truly okay, for the last week or so. I got too curious about if the wound would still ache if I poked at it, so I reopened it. I’m not poetic tonight I think. That’s ok. I’m not writing for you guys. If someone reads it, great. But this is for me first and foremost. I cried about those messages today, hard. I had banished them to the depths of unvisited things in my mind for a reason. I remember that now. And back to the depths they go. 

Don’t worship the goal, worship the God. I had a meeting with Sarah Bultman (life coach, but also a genuinely fantastic person) the other day, and we were talking about what my life looks like in the future, if I can even think that far. And the crazy thing is, I can. The loose plan is finish out Advance and Outreach, staff DTS’s for a few years here, move to Trang and work at that base, taking the language school, staffing there, getting adjusted to Thailand full time, and then eventually move to Pattaya and work at the Tamar Center. Absolutely and totally wild. Last year at this time, I was still waiting for God to tell me what to do after DTS, and I was convinced that whatever it was, missions would NOT be it. Now here we are. God opened up all of these doors. The timing is up to Him, but when is it not, am I right? It’s becoming a lot easier to make life decisions with the lens of what the future of my life will likely look like. Does this decision fit into this long term goal? But also with that comes the difficulty of no longer trusting God in the small things, since He’s given the big answers. Or worshiping going to Thailand eventually, not the God that I am going for. I remember a while back, I had been telling people that my end goal in my life was moving to Thailand for full time missions. But when I paused to think about what I was saying, I had not been actually leaving space for God. He gave me Thailand, and I sort of turned my back on Him with my answer. I don’t want to do that again, so being aware of that may help. 

This calls for a Trevor debrief. Unfortunately, I do not have a Trevor. Oh rusts. I’ll get into this a little later. I wasn’t sad when I wrote this. For context. I was giggling. Healing is weird. 

I was anticipating it because I wanted to see. And I saw. Cody. I was looking forward to him coming to Lynden to a massive excessive extent, and I wasn’t sure why exactly until I made myself think about it. I wanted to see three things. I wanted to see if he still liked me, I wanted to see if I would be able to like him, and I wanted to see if everything that happened in December and January would be mentioned and talked about. Yes, no, and no respectively. Again. I’ll get more into that in a bit. 

Maybe I don’t want my DTS back, the past back, Trevor back. Maybe I’m ok with the now. Maybe I have changed since then. Woahhhhhhhhhhhhh. That is the proper amount of “h”s. Come at me. Anyway. That’s huge. Like. So huge. I haven’t been able to feel that way since GRADUATION. It’s been many months. My DTS was an amazing season. Probably one of the best, if not the best ever. For so long, if I could have one wish, one superpower, one anything, it would have been the ability to go back and do it all again, just as it was. (Although. There are things that I would change NOW. Hindsight is a mean word for a dog) Not so anymore. I would kill to see my friends, sure. But I don’t have the desperate yearning for the past that I became so used to. God is good. I know people have been praying for me in that regard, and those prayers are working. 

Understanding Trevor because of Cody. Ouch. I’m not sure if it was a God thing or a timing thing. But now I’m sort of on the other side of this friendship breakup. Kiah likes her best friend, Trevor sees her as only best friend, has to figure out how to make a decision that honors both of them. That is no contact for indefinite time-forever. Cody likes his old situationship turned friend. Kiah isn’t emotionally available for anyone right now. She has to figure out how to navigate the immense discomfort of that while still being kind. She chooses not to ghost. Because she knows how that feels.

Enough third person, oopsies. Anyway. It’s not quite the same. Cody and I were honestly never really friends, just talking stage to acquaintances, vs the best friendship of Trevor and I. I flat out told Trevor, and I just sense it hardcore from Cody. I’m not as close with Cody as I was with Trevor. I’ve avoided one on one time with Cody. Unfortunately, I am an awkward people pleaser in most situations. I may need to communicate that I don’t return feelings. If he was staying longer than tomorrow, I probably would, but I REALLY don’t want to, so I won’t unless it needs to be said. 

It really puts it into perspective. I haven’t felt uncomfortable like that before. Like, someone who I see as a friend likes me as more than that. I have quite literally never had someone like me before, besides him. Now I just feel bad about Trevor. 

To add some context for others, and to give myself a refresher course of life. Cody-June DTS. We got close ish the last week before he graduated. We *gasp* held hands while watching a movie the night before he left. He called and we talked for four hours, and during those hours, he confessed that he liked me. And at that point in time, I still liked Trevor (isn’t that just the story of my life), but I had thought that if circumstances were different, I would have liked Cody, but they weren’t so oh well. But his confession flipped that all on his head, because all of a sudden, the first possibility of a relationship opened up to me, and I got excited. Cue the very up and down next few months on outreach, calling almost every day, dating without a label, almost putting a label on it multiple times, screw DTS rules (don’t do that.) until God told me randomly and without me even asking anything about it that he was not for me, and I needed to let him go before I got even more entangled. So I did. Sort of. It took a bit. But we got there. Then I find out he’s coming back for a week. Boom, all caught up. It’s been a while since I’d thought of those phone calls, sitting on the porch in Thailand during precious downtime. Hm. I can’t say I miss that aspect of things. 

‘That was a different Cody’ no that was a different Kiah. I’m not desperate and searching anymore. I honestly don’t recognize him anymore, but that’s purely because I don’t recognize myself anymore, in good and bad ways. And my lack of desperation and searching sounds good until you realize that it’s actually an emotional wall a mile high, keeping me from vulnerability with friends, and any prospect of romance, probably for a good long while. 

I was standing in the rain and all I could think was that he was not worth standing in the rain for. This was today. Potentially the last time I ever see him, unless he can find the time to stop by tomorrow before heading out. Isn’t it strange. A year ago, I was decimating my sleep schedule and taking up all of my free time to talk to him. But now. I don’t know. It does paint me in a bad light, that I was thinking more about the fact that my books were getting rained on than I was about the fact that he is leaving. I didn’t mean to be that way. And I really hope I didn’t show it outwardly. 

Something I have always used to judge if my feelings for people are sacrificial or superficial is “would I comfort them in person if they had a stomach bug?” Getting sick in that way is my absolute worst fear. The people that I love the most have been hurt by that fear, because when I get scared, I get mean. People here have been affected by it too. I attempted to skip my great grandfather’s funeral because my brother had the flu and I wouldn’t get in the car. The word flu actually makes my heart flutter with fear. I can confidently say that I would not be able to be there for my family. Trevor, I could say that, but get this. Not at first, when I had a crush on him, but in that month gap where I didn’t like him, that we became really good friends. (And after. But it developed out of the friendship, not the liking). I can’t say that about many people. In fact, he might be the only one. Maybe Ashlin or Maddie. Who can I push past my panic for? It’s not many people. Maybe I shouldn’t consider a relationship until I can say I would be willing to sit with him when he’s sick. That would take a while, and that’s a good thing. 

Wesley called Cody Trevor, and my whole body and mind shut down. I apparently can only handle it when I know it’s coming. (Why I can talk about Trevor just fine, but when other people bring him up, it’s like I am in the electric chair). It was strange. Because I had actually been doing so good this week. Not sad about him at all. I had to bow out, go to the bathroom and cry (that was when I reread the messages). It’s pathetic really, how I return to him like a dog. I’m doing ok, I bounced back after a quick sob sesh. But the fact that someone saying his name makes me cry is not good. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but I know that I’m doing something wrong. Oh well. God and I are working on that at the present. Growth is a process, especially when one party only wants the growth half the time (because I’m secretly terrified to grow into a person that Trevor doesn’t know, and I hadn’t verbalized that within myself until just now.)

If it had been Trevor, I would have left too. Tired brain can’t remember exactly where I wanted to go with that. I think it was something along the lines of Cody wanted me to sit closer to him on the couch, and I did for a second, and then left. I would have done that with Trevor too. And not just Trevor, but anyone. That’s sad. I truly am not capable of this right now. 

I can’t do this right now. I can’t do this maybe ever. I can’t do this with him now OR ever. This meaning opening up like that again. And the him being Cody. There’s the smallest potential of something going on with me and unnamed person that too many people know for me to say the name because it WILL get back to him, and that would be foul. Mostly just because of a dramatic dynamic shift between us since last year, and him being genuinely vulnerable about a lot of things, and seeking me out to talk to. Last year (ok take Trevor out of last year’s equation for a second), I would have been all over that. This year, I feel a sort of curious indifference. That curious indifference mostly pertains to romantic relationships, as I quite literally can feel nothing, but it extends outwards into my friendships as well, and THAT is an issue. It’s interesting. I was always told that God will send someone to you when you finally stop looking, so I always pretended to not be yearning, but I always was. Now, I not only am content, but I’m on Paul levels of Do Not Send Me A Parter. I do not want a boyfriend. I can’t see myself healthy enough for that for a long time, I can’t see myself wanting that for an even longer amount of time. This is an ok spot to be at. 

I guess the title did fit. Conflicted. Always conflicted. The duality of Kiah. Maybe the Duality of Kiah would have been a cool title, but that makes it seem like this post was going to go a different direction.  

I’m going to write something about the sermon from today at some point, but I have a prayer burn to plan, and a life to live, so it might be a while. 

Peace.