"... as soon as we succumb to someone else's definition of who we are, we lose our sense of true self and of our right relation to the world. It makes no difference if those projections make us the hero or the goat: when we allow others to name us, we lose touch with our own truth and undermine our capacity to cocreate in life-giving ways with 'the other.'

...So the woodcarver resist people's efforts to name him from the outside in. With simplicity and clarity, he claims the right to name himself from the inside out: 'I am only a workman: I have no secret.' When we fail to take this first, critical step of fending off projections and reserving the right to name our own truth, we become lost in eternal smoke and mirrors and cannot even find the trail head of the path into our inner lives.

... What projections surround me? where do they come from? What drives them? how do they distort my sense of self? How am I dealing with them, and how might I deal with them better? How can I name and claim my own truth? Such questions, and our answers to them, are critical steps on the journey toward and undivided life."


-- Parker J. Palmer,
A Hidden Wholeness

who is the neighbor?

"But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said,' and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have..'
...'Which of these ... was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?'
...'The one who had mercy on him.' "

Often, the parable of the Good Samaritan is interpreted as a bit of a holy reprimand, telling us that if we are to be the "right kind of Christian," we ought to get over our likeness to the Priest and Levite that could not get over their own selfishness or whatever internal struggle that kept them from picking up the man in need and be the bigger person and do what is right. While I agree that that it is so important that we become people of compassion who molded into people who care for the broken, I often find these sort of church-y explanations a bit hollow-- a pull up your bootstraps and get it together lesson. But earlier this week, as I was sitting in quite a broken place myself, I was shown a new perspective on this example of mercy.

I have heard arguments before that this parable could in fact be about Jesus, about somehow he takes the role of the Samaritan in his death somehow, but I never really understood it. I think, the struggle in comprehension here came from a lack of ability to place myself in the story somewhere. But suddenly, all is changed when Jesus is the Samaritan and I am the man, beaten and robbed on the road. There I lay, broken and helpless and often all the people that I expect to fulfill and heal me fail-- they walk right past, oblivious to my pain and it feels that they have left me for dead. Then, along comes the unexpected, the ever-illusive, abstract One that I often struggle even to see or comprehend, puts me upon his own donkey and cares for me so very lavishly.

A short time after arriving here in Idaho, I was speaking to my mentor over the phone and something she said to me during that conversation has stuck with me throughout this whole experience. "Every time I find myself praying for you," she said, "I get this sense that God is wanting to teach you that he is enough for you. I don't know if that means anything to you, but I keep coming back to it." In that moment, it did mean something to me, even though I had no idea what such a thing meant at the time, but I think I am learning more and more.

If Jesus is the Samaritan and I am the bloody, broken, naked-- voiceless, identity-stripped man laying weak and helpless on the road, things suddenly shift. It is sort of like when in movies when the camera pans around two characters and suddenly everything looks different from the other side. He does not rebuke the man for traveling along on a road he knew was dangerous. he does not accuse him or ask him what he has done to deserve this-- how has he made a choice to bring this disaster upon his bloddy self. No. he silently, quietly, gently, full of pity-- consumed with pity-- comes to the broken man and lifts him up upon himself. His own, his personal rights, property, selfhood, gives it for the restoration of the man. He came to where the man was. he left the man in the care of another, but promised to provide all that might be required for his care. he is still the means of sustenance, even though he leaves us to the arms of another.

A question that I often face is if God is supposed to be enough, as the trite cliques so proudly display on plaques, why did he make us for each other? Where is the reconcilation between our relationship between the father, the creator, and our community. How do we lean into the arms of others when we know that there is only One who will not fail us. But listen to what Jesus says-- he leaves the man in the care of the other and promises to provide for anything that the innkeeper needs to ensure the man's care and healing.

I find myself in a bit of a state where I wonder if I really want to take the risks of truly being in relationship with others. I feel quite insecure with the friends that are closest to me, I fear they will know my secret heart, that the questions I have for them, the fact that the only words come to mind are not going to come out prettily, but actually quite ugly and painfully. I fear if they knew how small and weak I really feel, they will abandon me, ask me to get it together before our friendship goes on. And so I often find myself silently praying, "Lord, here is my end. My weakness begins here and I do not know how to handle this person, this situation. The whole truth in love thing in turning out quite badly."

I wonder if this was how the innkeeper felt. He simply could have said, "hey man, I don't have the financial capability for this kind of medical care." But Jesus-- I mean, the Samaritan said "let this man lean fully into you and I will compensate for where you fall short. Just do all you can to care for him."

As of late, I have felt very much like the man left for dead on the side of the road. Some days I do well-- the sun is out and I feel good. But there are other days when the clouds roll in and I feel beaten. There are days when the only thing I can think of to say to people are "I am not doing well." I don't have words or explanations for why I feel the way I do, why I feel trapped in my own body, scared to death of hurting those around me because I don't understand myself. I am in place of deep exhaustion and I feel it taking its toll on my body. And because I can't explain it well to anyone and sometimes wonder if it is really real, I feel like I am lying on the ground, unable to speak, naked and bloody. Even as those I expect to help walk by silent, I know not how to cry out.

And so what if Jesus was the Samaritan? It suddenly truly becomes a parable of mercy, I write in my journal, when we realize we are the broken recipient. When I am the broken one in need of rescue, it gives me hope in my weakness. It makes me realize that I am not condemned when I am too weak to be the Samaritan at the moment. Surely the beaten man saw Samaritans and the broken differently after this experience, but in this moment, it was not the time for him.

I think often the way we look at this explanation from Jesus in strange lenses. But what if it really were true that Jesus came to show us what a God who has placed his image in us is really like? What would that mean? It means that Jesus became the Samaritan-- the one who had mercy-- first. That gives me hope that as I am healed, as I am seen and given mercy, it gives me the strength to have this mercy for myself and then those others, bloody on the road. It helps me to see those who don't have the answers, who don't have the words, who can only sit naked not as people I ought to look after for my own heavenly brownie point--so I am who I should be, but I see them as my brothers and sisters, people like me. People with heads spinning and hearts hurting who feel trampled and weak and lost-- just like me. And then I am able to become the one who had pity-- just like Him.

Today I am taking a great deal of hope in the fact that the one who is Mercy sees me. He is watching as my body cries out against all I have put it through these past few months, he hears my heart ask delirious questions in the dark of the night, trapped in its own twisted isolation. These past few days as I have struggled with why the neurons in my brain don't seem to be cooperating, I have taken hope somehow in the reality that he made me-- he knows my physical body and he knows the heart that it carries. He is the one full of mercy, standing by to lift me upon his own donkey and lavishly provide for that which I can no longer pretend I am able to find myself.

So that's me today. Broken. Very physically reminded of my own weakness, emotionally confused and lost. Please be in prayer for me as I wade through-- and if you have no idea what I am talking about, what has been going on behind my silence on my current condition-- please ask me. I am slowly trying to peck my way out of my isolated shell and let people in to help me.

I realize I have come to a place where apparently I still care a lot about what people think about me. I think I'd like to stop...

I wake up dizzy
My head spinning
The world Spinning
My life spinning
swirling
Swirling.

Observe, she says
Look around you
Stop and listen
I feel like I have stopped
but my world continues spinning
Drunk on confusion
The only voices I hear
have no voice
No substance

Just trying to find some footing
Some dry land to rest my head
Some log to grab hold of just to keep afloat
As the river of vast oblivion swirls about me
I can't see me
So I can't see you
Hard as I try

And you
you who cannot begin to understand, it seems
Simply tell me to pull it together
figure it out
or leave
Stop staring out into space

And so she says
Listen
Watch
Observe

And here I observe one after another
My sisters
Calling out to me
Be my anchor
Tell me the direction to go
And suddenly the world comes into focus
Even just for a split second
It all makes sense
I find the spinning stop for a moment
As I am reminded of something outside of me
And the bigger meaning of it all?
I know not
But for a moment it makes sense
To put it down on paper
ink to pulp

So maybe someday the world will stop spinning
But for the moment I just hold on tight
Anchored to this moment
The center that I grope for
And wonder if we are all lost?

The sun came out today
And warmed the clouds
Stacked
Stacked
Stacked
As far back as the eye could see
Heavy with wonder
Strong with rainfall
Light with joy
And serious with beauty

I was reminded today
Of the way you summon your creation
The greens real and deep
The blues brilliant and unmistakeable
You take your hands
Overwhelm us with your beauty
Call out our names
Summoning
Summoning
Summoning
Love, you beg
Love!

Stop your worry
Let down your loads
And look
See the depth of the clouds
Laughing with joy
So full of cleansing rain
Enjoying the sunlight as a rose touched by Midas
Sparkling
Stacked
Stacked
Stacked
Far back as the eye can see

The sun came out today
And warmed the earth with its beauty
Love! it all shouts
Love.

So please don't judge me
Stop telling me to make up my mind
Stop telling me to figure it out
Stop trying to fix me
And please just see me
Love me
Enter my grief
Put your arms around me
Stroke my hair
And simply say,
"I'm sorry"
"I have nothing to say but it is okay"
Stop belittling me
Treating me like a mixed up child
I have done so well
SO VERY WELL
And I have grown
Changed
Become something good
Moved closer to love
Closer to me
And I need you to see that
Acknowledge that
Shaming me is unnecessary
So please just see me
See all of this as the things that I love
Love them too
See the aching in my soul
And celebrate them with me
See my longings
Not my shortcomings
See not my weaknesses
But how far I have come
I am not lost
Just changed

So please just cut me a little slack
Just love me
All I need is a little grace
All I need is a little understanding
So please don't judge me

I suddenly realize that I have come so very far and when the Father looks at me, when anyone honest looks at me, there is an image of beauty, of hope, of goodness, and change that ought to be celebrated. For me to be tired and confused in this moment, to long for the comfort of home is not a sign of failure or waste-- it is a sign of love and normality and even rational. I suppose I have this sense that because I look forward to returning to school, getting back to the place I really love, I am doing something wrong. That I ought to be ashamed of such a thing. That for me to simply long for home means I ought not be here. But I don't think that is true. I really need some community celebration of all that this semester has been for me. It has been good.

In retrospect, this semester really simply served as an opportunity for me to get away, an opportunity for me to stop and assess my life and reality. One of the goals I hoped to reach upon coming here was to learn how to love well. I never planned on staying forever-- I never vowed to stop loving Colorado and in all honesty, feared loosing my love for home, for school, for my life there. I feel very much like I have accomplished what I came here to accomplish. I would really like the opportunity to spend the rest of my time here celebrating that, not worrying about how else I am failing.

I don't really feel as much I like I have gone backwards in maturity. I do feel that my perspective has completely changed and I am quite a different person than from when I arrived. I have witnessed the weight of relationships, seen a shift in balance of priorities, began to see the world in bigger, sometimes overwhelmingly large ways. I look on my time here and am overswept by all that I still have to learn. It has been impressed upon me my own smallness, my own inadequacies and all that I have to learn about trusting in my frail frame all the same.

These past few weeks I have been thinking a lot about my age, about my independence, my "adultness" and my "childishness." I have been feeling very young, very small. I've been feeling a little like people treat me like I am 12, unexperienced and incapable. I used to take so much pride in my independence-- my "adultness." And I'm not sure what to make of this place now. I suppose it is okay for me to be disturbed by being told I look like I am 14 or treated like I don't know how to drive. It is okay for me to want to be treated like I know how to speak and think. For people to recognize that I am fully capable of living on my own, taking care of myself, doing my own grocery shopping and managing my money, finding a job and doing it well is not unreasonable. I feel like I have lost that respect somewhere. And I think maybe I need it back.

I am coming to terms with the idea of acknowledging my own needs. That for me to have needs in a relationship and not only be responsible for the sensitivity of others but also have the rights to be seen and heard as well is actually acceptable.

I have given way to despair when I ought to be proud. I have stopped loving myself, stopped caring so much for myself, stop celebrating what is good in me. I lost it somewhere and I need to find it. I think this is the lostness I feel. The loss of rights to myself. I gave up the right to be okay with me and conceded to making what others think and understand about me what drives me. I have but one judge. And I think this is where the freedom I long for comes from.

Abba, I beg for your strength here. I ask that you would restore to me myself. I ask that you would free me from this compulsion to live for the expectations of others. That you would take these discoveries I have made tonight and continually make them true in me these coming days. I ask that you would remind me of the celebration that you sing over me. That I would see where you are leading next and that you would give me the strength to enjoy this moment. That I would know in the deepest parts of me that there is no condemnation for me as your child. That I would rejoice and celebrate all that is good and true in this moment, in this place, wherever I find myself. Give me strength in that freedom. Give me the strength, the courage, the love, to pursue that freedom. That you would be my defense, that you would be my stronghold and that my freedom would be found only in that. Penetrate me with the truth that you have spoken into me tonight, permiate me with the reality so I can be free.

Is it actually possible to move backwards in maturity? Or maybe the growth in maturity is actually letting go of the illusion of maturity. The obsession to grow up is suddenly released-- or maybe it is picked up again along the way.

For quite some time now, I have been wrestling with this sense of a lost identity. All the things that I thought I was are suddenly empty, missing, absent. All the things I used to take pride in seem to have melted away and I find myself standing in a personal wasteland of questions that are not even formed. I feel small and stupid and weak and incapable. All the things that I used to be able to do despite my reservations feel heavy and impassible. I feel as though I have nothing left and my thinking has become cloudy. Too much to think about and yet no actual thoughts seem to be forming. I only feel that there is no one in this world who can understand this miserable emptiness-- not even me.

This weekend I had a lot of time to think, a little time to talk in-between the thinking. Thoughts about trusting myself and breathing room and offending people and worrying about what other people think. Thoughts about feeling trapped in a box, invisible from the world and thoughts about solitude and locking myself in a room to be alone with the only One who seems capable of comforting me in this time when I do not even understand the type of comfort that I long for.

I feel more afraid and more insecure than ever it seems-- although in a different way than ever. I am deathly afraid of offense and the overflow of my heart. Everything feels black and muddy and strange. I feel that I am walking through a fog and it takes every fiber of energy within me to muster the strength to attend to anything in concrete reality. And I feel a bit like no one understands that, that I am here, in this mirky box alone, waiting for the clouds to clear and life to begin again.

A few weeks ago someone made this observation about me: "You seem to be very concerned about being misunderstood." To which I could only answer, Yes, very much so. Thank you. And I have been thinking about that and wondering what to make of that in myself. I don't know why and I don't know how to change it-- all I know is that it is true and I feel very far from being understood at the moment. I feel like it would help to tell someone about this place, but the words never come and all I can do is stare silently and wait until I can go back home and go to sleep again. Becuase I don't know how to begin and I don't know how to ask for such a thing as understanding when I do myself do not actually poses it. This grayness that has no name just settles over me and I am lost.

For the first time in maybe my whole life, I find that I have little care or concern for what my life might look like after school is done. Suddenly the security of some grand career matters little and only today and the steps I take in the immediate tomorrow matter. And I find that to be very peaceful, very freeing. I think it frees up some energy for the real stuff.

This weekend I observed all intelligence, ability to form full, coherent and useful sentences totally absent from my person. Listening to directions and relaying them to another utterly impossible. Saying what I really wanted to say unquestionably disastrous. And as I contemplated how this could be, I began to wonder if the semester has been spent trading mind for heart and now I stand at the inevitable crossroads where the two must reconcile and I am alas redefined. But still this place feels mirky and dirty and in more poignant ways than ever, I feel ugly, rejected, and inadequate. I know not how to find the breathing room I so badly need. I long for just one other to understand and yet am crippled with fear at the thought of opening the door of it to another.

So I suppose that is all. I feel the need to apologize, to beg mercy for my lostness, my weakness. I beg for understanding, one once of grace, which I begin to wonder if such a thing must come only from me.

it's 11:11 and as exhausted as I know I am, too tired even to hold up my head, I cannot sleep. These last few days I have been very aware of the state of my body--how tight, how tense I am underneath all the ways I try to ignore it. I feel very hardened physically and I am becoming more and more aware of that same hardness in my spirit as well. I long for a softening, an embrace, a let down and I am not sure where to find it. I am weary of thinking about work, of this habit of always being on my toes, always ready to take an order, always ready to be thinking about what needs to be done. More than ever I have become aware of how unhealthy my current buzz is. And I long for an opportunity to let my hair down. I think this is mostly what I feel when I sense a desire to quit-- I am so tired of holding things together, trying and trying and trying. Avoiding toes and hurt feelings. But I am in this state of tenseness that has become so familiar. I feel that a great number of hours of just sitting, staring out into space would do me some good to clear my head, my heart, my body. I long for cleansing, a newness, a new strength. That restful sleep would come. I feel like I just need a chance to shut off, but I can't seem to find the power button. who holds the power button here anyway?

Dissolve this hard white shell
I plead
As I watch the candle burn
Melt me like wax
To see the white glow beneath
The dark crusted wounds

I long for a hand that cups
But a numbness now remains
A learned wall
An acquired taste
For the hand held
At arms-length
Taught
Tense
Untrusting
Please don't come near

My back aches from the hardened shell I carry
Accustomed to held breath
Beneath the embrace of arms
Afraid to feel
Unaware of the anesthetic
Been too long under

And now I long for second chances
Understanding
A dissolve of this hardened shell
Built mineral upon mineral
A vow
To never trust
Not me
Not you
Not anyone

impenetrable shell
You feel so fragile
And yet so real and so hard
This wall that keeps the words
In
Never to come out
As truly-- as deeply
as I mean them
As dearly as I long to speak them

I beg you
Never to see inside
Never the chance
To trample
These pearls that are mine

To never hear those words again
No
You were wrong
You are too much
Too fragile
Too small
Too lost
Too childish
Too inadequate
Too dependent
How dare you

And I fear the day you will leave
So I never attach
Never engage
Strickly business
I understand
I see
Sure

And so I plead
As I watch the candle burn
That once
Just once
I will melt into the arms of another
That those infamous words could emerge from my lips
In sincerity
No second thoughts
No holding back

I wonder
If that day will ever come
I wish
I beg
I pray
That that white shell
Would dissolve
That little by little
Chip by chip
piece by piece
I will be free
The me on the inside
Will be brave enough to come out of the cupboard

But all I can muster now
Is a prayer
A plea.
I watch as the crusted wound glows
Atop the purity of the white beneath
And only ask for someone to care for it
To caress it
So I can stop hiding it

So that I might begin to trust
and be free

Today I reminded of how complex life really is. Some time ago, someone said something to the effect of "Life is really complex and it is hard not to check out." And I think about that idea often, that if we are really tuned in to the complexity of life, it is really tempting to just tune out, to turn on the TV, and ignore the depth. We put up walls. "Boundaries" we call them, which are in some cases I think healthy (I haven't really figured out how yet, but people say that, so I suppose it could be true. I haven't decided yet). Either way. We limit ourselves. We put boxes around our time, our relationships, our money, our energy, our resources. And I am just wondering if this is how life is supposed to be.

The culture we live in moves so fast and is full of so much-- it is like breathing to become busy, to fill our days with doing because we "have to." And soon we are doing so much, rushing so much, paying our respects to the man so often that we loose track of the intensity-- the ferocity-- of life.

I've been thinking a lot lately about this feeling that I have of walking on egg-shells all the time. I find that I often spend a great deal of consideration before I speak becuase I want to speak in truth-- I want be honest in the deepest sense. I find myself trying to find the words to be honest without sending a message about someone's worth. How do I communicate the truth of a situation that is less than pleasant while also communicating to the person to which I speak that he or she is vitally important and loved regardless. I am working on changing my language from judging to observing, I suppose you could say. And you know, that is so very draining. Often, it seems, no matter how long I spend in careful consideration of what leaves my mouth, it still doesn't come out right and I wonder if I have done more hurt than healing.

And I wonder if we are "polite" and we say the things that people want to hear just so we don't have to face this conflict. I think this is why it is hard to find real, hard, deep community these days. Because it takes so much energy to delve into that and we have so many opportunities for distraction, so many open doors just to check out that it feels unnatural to really be honest.

I think about my life, again in the midst of determining my priorities, sorting out how I want to spend my time, how much time I want to spend "doing" and how much I want to spend "being" and I am seeing that it is tempting to be so busy doing whatever because if we were really to take the time engaging, battling, sorting through the real stuff in our relationships, it would take up a lot more of our energies. I mean, what would happen if we made our priorities really getting into each others' lives. What if we sat down and asked the hard questions? Became honest about what is really going on, our insecurities, our fears.

And I feel a bit caught. I am in this strange place of transition between being polite and having the courage to speak truth in love. And I think becuase I am entering this place in a new way, it feels so insecure, so full of mistakes, so akward. More and more I am learning how honesty is a huge part of my personality and the way I relate to people. And I am in the midst (like at this moment) of the question of why that is-- and I wonder if it is a process of finding victory over shame in my life that I feel I must be honest, that I am learning that I have nothing to hide. But more and more I find that even though it is often more difficult and more energy-consuming, honesty lays everything out on the table. Honesty goes right though the matter, even though going through things is more blatantly messy. And this is why life is so complex. This is why it is so difficult not to just check out for fear of the intensity.

So what is my point? I what I am getting at, what I am trying to get through to myself, is that there must be grace for those moments when I am simply speechless. there must be grace for me in the midst of this journey to find the words that I really want to say. And there must be grace for the fact that this process is simply exhausting. And there must be grace in the fact that I cannot be anyone's savior, that if they are depending on me to be validated and loved, that is not my fault or ultimately my responsibility. I think in the long run, the road to loving well often leads through battle zones with detonated bomb shells along the way. You can't win them all and sometimes you have to say really stupid things until you get it right and laugh at the wrong time and feel embarrassed a good piece of the way.

Maybe I am getting to the point where I just can't hide as well anymore. I laugh when I feel uncomfortable, my eyes give away my judgment, and my fumbling can only be excused by, "I just don't know what to say to that yet." I think we live in a world of sit-coms where the scripts are polished and everyone hugs in the end and we forget that real people don't live by those rules. It is a lot messier than that and unfortunately we have surrounded ourselves with enough fig leaves (only now they come in the form of computer chips and text-messages) that we are far from that reality. We are so far from the intensity of our own hearts that we've lost the grace for others.

So life is really intense, really complex, and it is so tempting just to tune it all out. We become comfortable in the drone of white noise and still search for the deep richness our hearts long for. I heard once that in Genesis, before the flood, the air was so thick that even breathing would be exciting-- that people could walk thousands of miles because air was so saturated. That people would be high simply off the oxygen content. And I think about that and think that must be what God really intended for our lives-- that we would be so saturated with all that he had made that it nearly knocks us over as it enters our lungs. But we have trained ourselves to take smaller and smaller breaths. We choose not to take it in anymore.

So I am faced with a bit of a decision, I find. I am faced with the decision of diving into relationships further or taking this change to back out, to withdraw, to say no before someone else can say no. but I want that intense life. I want a saturated life that sometimes requires long breaks in the desert. This is what I want. So, I continue, I take one more step deeper into the forest. who knows where it will lead next?

after all that has happened and after a few weeks of insanity, I think I need some time to rediscover Abba's love for me. I am ready for a break. Ready for peace. Ready to stop and simply be. So I think I am going to take this opportunity to do that. For the first time in quite a long time, that feels like the best. hm, breath.

I am feeling very inside out. I find that I am back in that place of just feeling really overwhelmed, lacking in direction and lacking in clarity. I feel like I am just buried under a hundred things and there is this expectation (from me or maybe from other people) that I ought to be able to sort it out or have the energy to really being doing well and in reality I am just too tired to care. I feel like there are a lot of things I should do, but I avoid them becuase I know if I were to actually do them, I would be sleep walking. I don't really feel like my heart is in much of anything except for the things that I am forced to do. I don't know. I think part of it is that I am really physically tired from getting up early and working hard and not knowing how to rest afterwards.

But regardless of why I am tired, I have found in the last week a lot of longing to be back in Colorado. And I don't think it has all that much to do with being present here, but it is a longing for more of a purpose, more of direction, being back in my element, where things are familiar and home. I miss the lifestyle that I had. And I think that is good-- I feel that is a good thing to crave.

But unfortunately, I have felt a lot like quitting, whatever it is that I am doing. Not quitting my job-- I am really enjoying that-- but I just am so tired of the half-hearted lonely shell of everything else. I don't mean to offend here, but I realize that I am back in a place of feeling a little isolated, a little short on accountability and support and I feel a little like I am going through motions that no one really seems to care about. Yes, I think that is a good way of putting it. I feel like I am doing a lot \to look like I am busy, but it doesn't feel much lke it matters to anyone. I can do whatever I want. And so I want to stop doing things because I should. Part of me just wants to stop doing things and just work and read books. Take a rest. Just the thought of that is quite refreshing. I feel like I want to be free of this--- whatever it is for whatever purpose.

I ask myself the question, what is it that I am striving for? I said that I really want to make the most of the rest of my time here, which I do, but I think that maybe I was looking at that as being just chasing after doing things and hoping that maybe some meaning would come out of that. And yes, I have a few little ideas of goals in the back of my mind, but they seem flimsy and ill-supported. like they are just my own halucinations and no one else is really involved.

And so tonight I just feel like quitting. I don't really feel all that bad about that. The thought of just being off the hook for the things that I feel only obligated to sounds marvelous. Wonderful. I am really weary. I am tired of feeling like I need to have it all together and I am tired of making things up to look busy. And I am beyond tired and must open tomorrow. So there it is, out there. good night.

so tonight marks the end of my BSU classes. Well, technically after I send my last assignment to my speech teacher, then it will be the official end, but today was the last day that I have to actually step foot on campus. I would be lying if I said I was unhappy about that. But today as I walked through the rain to Drawing II for the last time, I put forth a few more thoughts concerning why these classes were so unenjoyable for me this semester. Why? Why was it so hard to pull myself out of the sick attitude slump? To be honest, I feel ashamed and disappointed in myself for the attitude that I had towards my classes. I feel like such an mean person for the thoughts that I had towards the instructors, the institution, probably if I was going to be really honest, I would say toward the students as well. I don't like to face the reality of was going on in my heart and mind. I was focused on "getting through it." And now I am through it and I can't go back, can't take back any of the thoughts, can't reclaim any of the opportunities I might have had if I hadn't been so cynical and lacking in love. Can't go back.

And so, as I walked through the rain, I thought about how present I have been this semester. I thought about where my mind has been since January. I told a friend a few days ago that it wasn't like I felt like I was just being transplanted here and then I'll be transplanted back-- I said I thought it was going to be a continuous thing. But now, I wonder. Was I lying? Was I lying?

Here's the thing. I think I have been looking at a lot of this experience as an asset to my other life-- not just part of my life. Do you know what I mean? I was viewing this experience as a tool that I can use in my relationships in Colorado, use as a student at CSU, use as a teacher in this structured world. I think I have been viewing so much of this from a consumer perspective, despite all that I said I was.... I am suddenly seeing that there is a great deal that I did not know. I am beginning to see again how childlike I can be, as much as I try to act like I'm not.

And so here I am. For most of the semester (there may have been a few select days where I felt differently) I felt a certain disdain for BSU. If I am going to really spill my mind, I would say I think overall it is "stupid." Yes, that is a very technical term. Stupid. And I hate to admit that I am the person thinking those types of thoughts, but if I am going to be true, I have to be true. And so the question I have been contemplating is why? I mean, it has to be a viable university, even if I don't think so. There are intelligent people coming out of the institution, surely.

And I wonder if it has to do with this idea that I haven't really been present. I haven't really dialed in. I haven't been a part of the experience here. I have always been an onlooker, with at least one foot, if not most of the other foot as well, at home. This probably explains my initial frustration that I wasn't "doing" anything. There was really no resume building going on. And it drove me crazy. I didn't see any proof that I was expanding my educational horizons, I wasn't really doing anything that was going to make a name for myself. I was just sitting. And part of me really enjoyed that, but another part did not.

But these past few days I have been thinking about what my life just as a life looks like. I've been thinking about the bare bones of where I sleep at night, the roads that I drive my car on, the things I spend my time on. This place is where my life is. I am not exactly just visiting. I mean, in some ways I am, but in other ways, I am not. I am here and my life is happening whether I chose to attend to it or not. It is all so conflicting, changing, moving.

I've also been thinking about whether or not such rapid change is really good. I have sort of prided myself on being able to say that in the last two years, I have lived five different places. But I am beginning to wonder if it would be nice just to sit still for a few minutes longer. I don't know.

I sat down here with the intention of working through some of the thoughts I have had towards my classes thes semester, amd I keep getting off on trails. ?But waht I keep trying to say is that I think my struggle has had a great deal to do with not being present. To be honest, I feel disconnected from the univsersity as a whole and I don't really like being a student without that connection. It feels silly and it is hard to concentrate. I've been frustrated becuase I have been distracted. As I sit here, I sort of regret having taken the classes at all. I know that it was important that I did for financial reasons, maybe some structural reasons, but I feel like they were just in the corner of my eye, even though they required a little more attention than that.

I keep thinking back to my frist semester at CSU. There were days then, too, that I didn't not like it. But as I grew to find more belonging there, I gegan to love it more and more. When I went home to visist, I walked around campus and just fell back in love with the sense of belonging I have there. "This is mine," I thought to myself as I walked across the Plaza, perused the student galleries and announcements in the art building, walked around Old Town. It felt like a place for me to belong and I like that.

I have been thinking a lot about how belonging is so important to me and oftentimes I get
frustrated because I find it so difficult to find belonging. And maybe that is why this place I am at is so werid-- belonging seems to take time. At least it does for me. It takes me a long time for me to establish trust.

Anyway, I am feeling extremely tired and even though it is just 7:00, I am falling asleep. I'm sure there will be more processing to come, but not tonight. So, in closing, I thought this MAy Grant song, which just so happens to be playing as I finish up this post, would sum it up well:


This is one of those moments
When all that really matters
Is crystal clear

We are woven together
By whatever threads of life that have
Brought us here

We are stripped of all our layers
We are getting to the core
Tell me something real
And nothing more

Cuz I don't know why
I don't know how
I don't know where
Baby all I know is love

So I'm here between the bookends
Of everything that was and What will be

There's a wealth of every nation
Not so many answers
It seems to me

So I face the unfamiliar
And nothing's clear
Only blinding faith can carry me can carry me from here

And I don't know why
I don't know how
I don't know where
Baby all I know is love

Hold my hand and hold this moment
Time sure feels precious don't it
Life is always changing
This I know

I don't know why
I don't know how
I don't know where
Baby all I know is now
Baby all I know is now