Forced memories, archived thoughts

I was going through old Instagram stories I’d saved from 2018. I was so grateful at the end of that year for the group of women I was spending time with. I wrote things like, “the old is gone and forgotten” as if I wasn’t battling a painful rejection at the time. At the very moment I was speaking of being grateful and feeling blessed, I was anxiously waiting for someone I cared about to reach out, praying that he’d text me or call me. It took me a long time to get over the fact that he never did and I felt guilty for being so emotionally immature, attached to something that really never existed and unable to cherish the love that was no doubt surrounding me in my community group. I thought at the time, I was “solidifying incredible relationships” and that I’d “healed so much.” However, all I did was place huge bandaids over the gaping wounds that would only start to close back up a few years later. “Fellowship and eating, my favorite things.” That is how I ended that story, and at the time I really treasured those things. Meeting inspiring women and opening up about our lives and our dreams, praying, and having deep conversations was one of my favorite things to do. I loved church because it paved ways to small groups that made a big church feel small, and I invested so much in building meaningful connections that I thought would last a long time. For some people, they do. Sisters are found in groups like that, roommates, best friends, maids of honor, god mothers, and mentors. Amazing events are shared, life’s valleys are walked through together, and at the root of it all is the group that came together on a random weeknight to fellowship like Jesus and His disciples.

As much as I’ve disassociated from church, I miss it so much. I miss live worship and being able to sing at the top of my lungs, deep from my belly, moved by the presence of many with hands lifted high, and eyes straining to see the lyrics on a projector through tears of release and unburdening. I miss hearing a sermon I can shout out, “wow, yes, so good, and amen” to. I miss serving and supporting the leaders, breaking down the set and cleaning up the meeting place, stacking chairs and entering reports, being an active member of a real community. I miss the random brunches that led to long afternoons filled with laughter and stories shared over mediocre food in the area. I miss dressing up and wondering if there’ll be any cute guys in church that day. I miss awkwardly flirting with the guy in the cafe across the street. I miss the jokes and the drama and all the messy and stressful human elements that made being a church-goer dynamic and weirdly exciting.

I don’t have a dramatic story to tell. I stopped going to church when the pandemic hit, and I’ve yet to feel safe attending again. At first, I didn’t feel safe because of the virus that stopped 2020 in it’s tracks and dragged on into 2021, but then I didn’t feel safe because I felt like I barely knew anyone anymore. I couldn’t trust the very people who’d led me in groups or prayed over me when I needed it. I couldn’t tell if smiles were fake or forced, and I didn’t understand how after sharing secrets we wouldn’t tell our family or friends, we couldn’t be honest about what actually mattered to us. The check-ins lessened until an unspoken understanding was reached that things had changed and we’d never be the same. The lens with which I saw the church and its people was blurry and no matter how much I wiped, I simply couldn’t see through those lenses like I used to. I finally had to remove them and slip them into the place I put all my old pairs of glasses. Pairs that I once loved and needed and couldn’t see without, pairs that don’t match my current prescription. 

Looking at those Instagram stories, filmed not too long ago, took me through a memory lane I never thought would be laced with such complexity. I’m still grateful for that year, those people, and the lessons I learned, even the lessons I’m only learning now, in the present. I can look back at those smiles and written reflections and know I meant every word, I can remember every hope I had at the time and thank God for where I’ve arrived. I can finally move those stories and whatever is attached to them to the Recently Deleted, select all, and delete. It took a while, and I may find that those deletes are still swimming around in some cloud one day, but now I can actually mean what I said at the time: the old is gone and forgotten. I have healed so much, and I have indeed solidified the most incredible relationship – the one I have with myself.

Restart Cycle

I’ve been struggling creatively, stuck in what feels like the most dense and impenetrable writer’s block. I haven’t touched a book in months; a few are left with two or three chapters to go, many more have been bought and borrowed and stacked on a shelf. If I’m being honest, and I’m only realizing this now as I type, I think it’s been hard for me to delve into someone else’s flow. I know some authors take years to write one book, and they may have all at some point experienced what I’m going through – a drought of sorts. Nonetheless, it’s been difficult swimming in others’ currents when my own rivers run dry. My heart yearns to create and my hands ache with this need to make, but it’s like my brain is sleepwalking, unable to send the signals my body needs to jolt it back to life and action.

Instead, I’ve been searching, asking myself questions like, “where is the dreamer in me, the reader, the writer, the sharer?” I haven’t been able to find her. I’m not sure if she’s asleep or hiding. Maybe she’s awake and this is her reality, a life she did not put on her 2020 Vision Board. I keep looking, my journals filled with more questions like, “where is the go-getter in me, the visionary, the lightbulb full of ideas?” She’d make week or month long challenges, just to push herself toward her goals. Month-long fitness trials, three-week fasts, ‘no social media’ days, one chapter a days…all in an effort to brush against the hem of the woman she wants to be.

I know they are still in me, all those things about myself I enjoy, but have not recently encountered. What keeps me hopeful is knowing that just like one can’t un-know what they know, I can’t un-see or un-dream or un-believe what I know is possible beyond anything I can imagine. I think everything has just been put on an involuntary pause, like a cycle in the drier that gets all tangled up and waits for you to come, unfold and restart the process of ironing out all the wrinkles, and separating from all the lint.

Well, I’ve come to pull the fitted sheet away from the duvet and throw them back in on cotton-extra dry. I’m even adding in another dryer sheet with a sweet scent and leaving the load alone because I trust that it’ll all get done; it just might take longer than I anticipated. The two week quarantine, turned months long social distancing, turned “We’ll be back in the Fall” turned “see you in 2021, hopefully”…that’s all done. This is the new normal, a reality I’m finally accepting as is, and not as an “until”.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.” – Reinhold Neibuhr

Vote (f)or Love

The result of the 45th US presidential election showed me many unfortunate things:

• If people don’t like what you have to say, they will not take the time to listen and understand you
• If you’re conservative, you’re automatically thought of as racist, bigot, sexist, etc. regardless of all the good reasons one may choose to vote red
• If you’re liberal, you have the right to be hateful, judge others and block out people who disagree with you rather than being concerned with broadening a person’s general knowledge and experience
• If you’re libertarian, you didn’t make the right choice. The only choice to be made was to vote blue or waste a ballot despite the fact that you may have truly aligned yourself with the candidate that made the most sense to you and gave you the most peace
• The media is a dangerous trip and whoever runs it has a twisted mindset and questionable agenda that no one is actually aware of – we have our thoughts but no one really knows what their goals are and that, my friends, is really scary
• People don’t want to be comforted, encouraged or prayed for – yet as a Christian I am meant to always seek after that which is good for all people, rejoice always, pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks because this is God’s will for me in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5)
• Even Christians – my own brothers and sisters: my family – can’t see past their own presuppositions to have an open dialogue without criticism
• Even when some try to be positive and point out the silver linings because the bible tells us to use kind words to cheer people up who are weighed down by worry and anxiety (Proverbs 12:25) people get offended for ‘not being allowed’ to feel some type of way
• People are angry; they are hurt, confused, scared, disappointed and despondent and they have every right to feel all of those things
• Some people are happy; they’re excited, hopeful and full of joy and like it or not, they’re entitled to those emotions as well
• Some people are regretful – some for making the wrong choice, others for not making a choice at all (beating them up over it isn’t going to help anything at all)
• A lot of people are oblivious to what is going on inside many people’s heads and hearts because they just don’t get it
• I don’t think I get it
• I probably will never get it because I am not American, did not have to vote, and do not have years of painful history weighing on me or scars to show the wounds a country inflicted on me or my ancestors

I understand that I don’t understand how everyone feels. I know that I don’t know everything. I just don’t want to see friendships lost or families divided over things people are not willing to sit down and talk about.

All I can say is that I was scared, disappointed and disheartened by the fact that people could not see that their constant attack of conservative people is the exact reason why people who always intended to vote red didn’t say they would. If people asked about their opinions in class, most people stayed silent or all sang the same tune, when in actual fact – this country has been divided for centuries. A few decades of social movements, bills passed and laws changed, and people thought the hearts of so many automatically felt the same? It’s concerning – you simply cannot put a bandaid over a wound that needs stitches.

We can pick apart people all we want, but the problem is we take people’s voices away from them when we tell them what they say isn’t right. The may stop saying it, but they will not stop believing it until someone sits them down and hears them out. Without understanding why some things may be problematic, no one is ever going to see the error in their ways! I’m not saying allow people to spew hate speech, I’m just saying calling them a name won’t stop their hate. Telling them how what they say makes you feel might. It might not – but if you miss all the shots you don’t take, you miss all the hearts you don’t try to change.

We need to voice our opinions, because they matter. But the question we need to ask is do all voices matter? Or does only one voice? Does only one opinion deserve grace? I really don’t think so. Even though we aren’t all always right, all our voices do matter because we live in an interconnected world where our beliefs bleed into every aspect of our lives. What we think about people will color in and out of the lines of how we treat them. We cannot ignore people because we still have to live with them. We cannot throw out why they think the way they think because we still have to work with them. We can’t move forward if we’re all moving in different directions and we can’t switch our direction without knowing where we are going and why we are going that way. I hope when people vote, they are voting for good, for life, for peace and for love. I pray that when we don’t understand why people act or think or vote the way they do, that we open the lines of communication and come to a point of understanding rather than contempt. And understanding does not mean acceptance; it only means having an insightful comprehension of the thoughts that lie before you in the minds of people just like us – people who were also formed by an all-powerful all-loving ALMIGHTY God. I pray that as people heal, we all seek peace. I pray that we hope for the best and not fear the worst. We are not called to live in fear “for God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” (2 Timothy 1:7) I’m not asking us to live in ignorance. I’m asking us to be the change we want to see. I’m asking us to sit back and think before we attack one another. I’m asking us to dive right into trusting God, and just love each other whether or not we like each other.

“Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8)

New year, new semester, same me

I’ve heard a lot of different things from people: you’ve changed, you’re glowing, you seem so calm, oh now you think you’re all that, you look so happy, you’re not as sassy, what happened?

These are just what I can remember off the top of my head. I don’t know how I feel about it. At this point, done with my first week of classes, tired but ready for the annual Winter Jam, I really don’t care. Talking tires me now, and I don’t feel the need to impress people with funny interjections and witty comebacks. I don’t feel bad if I sit somewhere else because I need to focus, and I don’t shy away from talking to the ‘right’ people and avoiding unnecessary conversations.