islands where no islands should go

so i'm at the point again, which seems to be happening ecclesiastically (yep) where everything is make it or break it. i'm totally willing to put effort into anything having to do with getting me away from everything i have. i'm not, however, willing to invest in anything that will keep part of me here. i'm 100% admitting that this is silly and unhealthy. so yeah, situations are changing and i'm so excited for the next step that it's negatively affecting how i view or feel about people and it's just not okay. my current worldview just isn't the same as everyone else's and my reaction is to run away. turns out this is just how i handle that. sucks, huh?

I need you so much closer

it's been a very long time since I've been this frustrated with my life. I'm not bored or confused or even complacent, I just hate it. I just want it to be different. I always say that but this time it's painful. I feel like I'm going to hyper-ventilate every time I see the same faces again, or hear the same sounds - the door slamming shut, the buzz of the door unlocking, the white noise from the tv that never gets turned off. I'm having a long, slow panic attack. I've never had comfort in consistency or commitment. I can't get away from the things I want to leave, and the only things I want are too far away. I'm so close to running away.

I went to Chicago on Tuesday for no good reason except just to be away from the everyday. A few hours in the car alone and a lot of hours with some favorite people was perfect and now it's everything I can do to stay here for more than 2 days in a row. Seeing the boys was a painful thing. The part at the beginning of that talk from Don Miller about having true community and it being painful to be separated from it is really true. There's so much that I don't share with them, but I didn't have to justify my words or thoughts or actions or feelings to them which made me accept them myself. It was one really long good conversation, 24 hours of that thing that happens after like 2 beers where you feel like you just get it, even if you really don't. At one point I was sitting in a crowded gay bar shouting above the trance music at the top of my lungs what I know about how God feels about sex, marriage, love, and why I care, and I was being heard in a way that could only happen in that context. That's what I want. I was screaming love louder than sin, even though my sin was so much louder, and it wasn't my love, and that's the gospel. And now I'm back to sitting silently in the dark every night in fear that we might actually communicate, and closing my door and hiding in my room to get away.

In the midst of all this frustration, I think God keeps giving me glimpses of accomplishment. Nothing significant, just visual pictures of things advancing. Helping out at the Broadway spot, painting my apartment, luke and i standing eye to eye, moving cars at the dealership, etc.

I love how he does that.

i should have bought more sweaters

so i've been watching felicity lately (i'd like to thank blockbuster online for facilitating my guilty pleasures) and i decided that i directly blame this show for my unsuccessful college career. it definitely set up unrealistic expectations for what college life really was. i also blame my so-called life because that show was so much like high school that i had a reason to think it was in any way accurate. i think the connection is in how similar the music is in the two shows. oh and it's definitely emotional fornication, just for the record. oh and i never knew janeane garofalo was sally. and now that i've noticed that the entire show is side-lit, i can't stop thinking about it.

okay a note about this weekend. it was so good to see aaron and dan. there are really only two or three people with whom i can just pick up where we left off and it's amazing. low maintenance friendships are definitely the new pink. there's a level of comfort that can only come from over 10 years of friendship or 5 years + dorm life. so it was good to catch up and talk about jesus and drink too much and update each other on the lives of the people we still keep in touch with. driving with matt wasn't too stressful (i was worried)...in fact i wish we would have talked more. i'm still afraid of his reaction when i get honest. the wedding was beautiful but un-organized and mchenry really won't ever be the same which is sad but good.

i'm thinking it's good that everything is changing right before i leave. it'll be easier to have the bottom fall out of my expectations than to feel really comfortable with how things are then come back to something strange.

also - my brother is as tall as me.

oh and as we're crossing the street, all dressed up in wedding clothes, aaron stops me and gets down on one knee and pretends to propose to me. much laughter ensues and cars start honking and yelling. so then he pretends that i said yes and the cars really go nuts, (but really probably just wanted us to get out of the way) and we walk away holding hands. jess said i should have slapped him and ran away. maybe next time.

woo!

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this. Emergent/Postmodern 82% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 75% Reformed Evangelical 68% Fundamentalist 68% Neo orthodox 61% Charismatic/Pentecostal 61% Classical Liberal 61% Modern Liberal 36% Roman Catholic 25% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

I'm done.

Get me out of here. Why am I here? I never really thought about it before because the only other option was home and that's just not really an option. So what if there were other options? I mean there really aren't so it's not actually a possibility, I'm definitely going to stay in Iowa City, but now I'm thinking about it all the time and it's making me feel discontented and worthless. I'm sitting here at an almost empty coffehouse. It was so easy to find a seat. It's not supposed to be like that. I'm supposed to stand akwardly looking for an open chair while everyone facing south glances up without staring, feeling a bit smug that they already paid their dues and stood waiting.

A guy just came in and sat right by me and he's wearing a shirt that matches my shoes but his shoes are gray and falling apart. The barista just brought him his fancy pink smoothie. I wonder if he would have ordered a girly drink when this place was full of sorority girls whispering giggles while they turned the pages of their communications textbooks.

What's with the holding patterns all the time?

but i fear you aren't listening because there are no words

So I'm moving away. Temporarily for now but perhaps permanently. This fact has put a lot of things into a whole new perspective. Mostly relationships of course, but also the availability of internet shopping for shoes and outdoor gear.

I'm trying to figure out how to "reconcile" things with my birth father (calling him that is probably a step in the wrong direction). I've tried to figure out whether or not he is capable of any seminence of a relationship, or whether or not it's even worth it. He has no idea that this is even a problem which at least takes some of the pressure off. Vicki (my work mom) reminds me often that I'm not the parent and it's not my job, but it's make it or break it and a ten-minute conversation twice a year just isn't going to cut it.

I'm also trying to figure out my relationship with my brother Steve. I've told myself over and over that I've forgiven him but it just wasn't true. The amount of tears that happened when I talked to Cate about this (the ease at which I talked to Cate about it was one of the only things that gives me security in the longevity of our friendship) made it pretty obvious that I was totally lying to myself. I think I just kept waiting for forgiveness to be a feeling and it never happened. So I'm thinking, okay, Jesus took forgiveness pretty seriously, perhaps it's not as fleeting as emotion...duh. So it's a decision, it's not a feeling. So I did it. I forgave him. For taking money from my bank when I was little, for scaring me from outside my bedroom window after he got kicked out and making us sneak him food, for selling drugs from my grandma's house...to my favorite person in the world...which killed him. Killed them both in a lot of ways. The fact that no tears are happening while I sit in a coffee shop and write this is my proof. (The fact that I'm listening to Jars of Clay songs that usually make me cry while I do this is definite proof.) Not that there needs to be proof.

How sad that my post are never witty or entertaining. Oh well, this blog isn't really for you anyway. I have to go back to putting enormous amounts of music onto my hard drive now. Woo!

who is this kid?

What I Remember About the 7th Grade
by Luke Benson

Converse and Vans are running rampant
CSI were the three letters I heard most
Girls passing notes around the classroom
Guys sitting and acting cool

Famous people made a comeback but mostly for the worst
Michael Jackson the prince of pop on trial for child molestation
Britney Spears has a "bun in the oven"
Green Day is a greeting card with a bomb in it, they're nice to see but bad to open

Mrs. Jenson is scary and smells of death
Ms. Myer is awesome and funny
Mrs. Hendrickson is nice and opens your mind
So many teachers some bad but most good

I wresteled for three weeks and broke my wrist
The track team wasn't bad but not the best
And most people were disappointed when the Patriots won, again
Football was short and full of surprises

Megan, Shelby, Lilja, and Ulfers
These were my friends and each unique
Megan and Shelby were stereotyped
And Ulfers and Lilja were stereotypes

I hope not much has changed byu the next time you read this
These days were fun and change isn't always
So when you look back at this old English project
Remember the day that you wrote it


(Mrs. Jenson really is scary and really does smell like death, he's not kidding)