Thursday, December 26, 2013

the hardest semester of my life.

Sometimes I just have to laugh at myself. Do you ever have those days? Where crying is an option but you've been sad for too long and it would be silly to be sad about this thing and so you have to laugh at yourself? I had one of those moments just now, thinking about how long it's been that I've been seeing myself as invincible. 

Like I can bounce back from anything, or like nothing can really hurt me. 
Like coming back from two months in Paraguay and thinking six days was enough cushion time between re-entering the country and beginning my senior year of college. 
Like taking 18 hours for the third semester in a row when the first time I had to drop the extra class, the second time I nearly died trying (I literally locked myself in the attic until my work was done...except I pulled up the fold-y stairs behind me and I couldn't get down until my roommate came home), and the third time, well. I dropped the extra class and then nearly died anyhow. 
Like how in January, I thought I could handle 22 hours of extra-curricular activities per week, 18 hours of classes (really 15 hours the first half of the semester and 21 hours the second half--online classes are only half a semester), sleeping, eating, an hour a day with Jesus, Working out, and interpersonal relationships without a hitch. 
Like when, during high school, I thought one of my closest friends killed himself because I couldn't handle his secrets. I cried myself to sleep for a month, dripping in guilt and regret and tiredness. And then someone told me it was time to get over it, and so I did.

I don't think people are made for things like this. I think when we make ourselves bounce back too soon, we break ourselves. I think our minds and bodies are made to tell us when enough is enough, and that is something I have been through this semester. 
For a long time, I have been saying that all I want is for everything to stop. Have you ever had a day, or a week, or a month like that? When everything moves so quickly and so relentlessly that it's just exactly like you're the guy in the movie, flying downstream, bashing his head against the rocks, just trying to catch a little gulp of air whenever his chin comes above water? You go to bed at night and it's like your little heart is tired. It just can't go anymore. 
And so for almost ten months now, that's what I've been saying. I just want everything to stop, for six months, and I can just lay on the ground and stare at the sky. I imagine little birds coming like in Princess movies and wrapping up all my cuts and bruises. I imagine the rainwater filling my mouth when I get thirsty. I imagine the ground and the air and the sky being my friends and the world being good and agreeable again like when I was little.
Well, the problem is, I don't stop. I am always adding another thing to my schedule. I am always agreeing to be in charge of something else. I can't help it! I want to be useful and helpful and I feel like anything that's not running how I think it should is my responsibility. Or anything that needs a leader. Or anything that needs anything, really. I am always doing. I don't stop doing, because when I stop doing things, I feel as if I've lost my purpose. 

The hitch, however, is that when I am busy like a bee, I lay down at night in my bed and I think of all the ramble scramble things I am doing throughout my day, and I wonder what I am actually accomplishing. I wonder what I am really doing, of consequence, in this world. What am I actually changing? What effect have I had? Why can't I see it better? WELL. I suppose if I am not having a visible impact on my environment at all times and I don't see a big relational shift or ministry-related result everyday, I MUST NOT BE DOING ENOUGH THINGS. Or maybe I'm not doing my things well enough! Something must be fixed.
And then I am off to fix it. [whatever that looks like, haha]


This semester, however, was bound to be a little bit different. 
It was bound to be from the start because I didn't even buy my school books until two and a half weeks of the semester were past. I would sit outside the coffee shop staring at the sky and people would stop and talk to me. My favorite professor passed by one day and he just looked at me for a moment, and then said, "you're not back yet, are you?" And I said, "no," and I bit my bottom lip and tried not to cry. 
I cried in public, a lot. 
It was bound to be different from the start because I didn't know what I thought about God anymore. That's a great thing to not know when you're in charge of the campus Prayer Room. 
I knew it would be different because there wasn't enough sunshine in my blocky basement dorm room and my kitchen felt like it wasn't really mine and the people in my house (at school) are clearly not a family. Because my camera was broken and so I stopped looking at trees and birds and the sky. Because it became a burden to interact with people. Because I didn't know any of the new freshmen. Because my mentor went back to Cambodia. 
And in all of this, I thought to myself, "I don't know how to mourn." And so the problem became my lack of ability to mourn my losses, and I set out to fix myself and my problem, but on the way, everything got so heavy.

I don't know how much experience any of you have with Depression or Anxiety
But those are the stickers I have now. I think what happened is that I have been going all my life... I have never stopped doing things, but last semester, Everything In Me Stopped. I had one class that I didn't do one single assignment for until the last three weeks of school. Somehow I came out with a D+, but I think I'll still have to re-take it for it to count towards my major. 
But I stopped. All of me, just stopped. And some people told me to put myself together, and others told me to let myself lay in pieces and I scolded myself quite a bit for not doing better or being better or something about Better. But I woke up in the mornings and there was no reason I could see for me to go to class or chapel or talk to people. I lost interest in every single relationship I had except for maybe two. I said "fuck" a lot. I slammed doors and ran away from people who cared. I got irrationally angry at all the questions. I stopped being able to do homework. I threw things against the wall. My ADD took over. I started going to weekly counseling. I gained 40 lbs from laying on the couch and in the bed and on the floor, staring at the wall or the ceiling or the sky. I watched three seasons of Dr. Who and I cried so hard when Rose got stuck in the alternate universe. I stopped thinking about important things (God, the future, my relationships, the "real" meaning of what was going on with me, where it came from, how to fix it) because they were too painful and difficult. 
I used to be the least broken of all the people I knew. I used to always be the mother and the healer and the listener. I would always have a BandAid and some neosporin. I would always be cooking for other people. I was the kissy monster to all the kids I knew and I was the one that people came to for hugs and advice and a good smack upside the head when they were being stupid. 
But now I am the most broken, messy, fragile person I know. I don't know anyone more messed up than me. I tense up when people stand behind me and I don't like anyone standing too close to me and I get angry about silly things and I am quiet a lot. I don't sing as much as I used to and I want to be alone more often. People make me tired. I am glad for the camera my grandma gave me for Christmas, because now I have a reason to go outside that doesn't have to include people. 
Sometimes I just want this to be over, and sometimes I wish for an easy way out. You know what I mean. But I have never been a giver-upper, not on anyone else, at least. And I think I deserve the same chance I give others. 

Also, there is something that has to go. 

I argued with myself a little over whether I should put in the sentence about how often I say "fuck." It's an ugly word. People react strongly to it. People's mouths look angry saying it. 
But it's not the end of the world. The important things in this life don't revolve around how often i say "fuck." My identity is not based in how often or with how much severity i shout "fuck" when the hot oil spits on me while I'm trying to make plantain chips or when I stub my toe on some heavy box someone left in the dark hall on the way to the bathroom or when the light changes three seconds too soon and I'm in a hurry to somewhere important.
The problem is that I have been censoring myself all my life. My roommate, Pexia, from last year, wrote this in one of her first blogs about "Grace," her OneWord for 2013. 
“I heard somewhere that humans were not made to withstand every shake. Just as tall buildings in earthquake-prone areas are made with a bit of flexibility to them, so also are people made to ‘wobble’ a bit. Grace is what lets us struggle like buildings in an earthquake. If we were always strong, we would never wobble, and a single catastrophe would ruin our lives. But if we allow ourselves to struggle, if we allow ourselves grace, we will not crumble at the first sign of disaster. We will weather the storm. Don’t bottle it in; let yourself feel and move and wobble.”
Touchy-feely though it may sound, this shit is real. I've been standing up straight for twenty-two years, and this year broke me. I've been leading things and being in charge and having people's eyes on me as an example almost since I was born, and I always said I wished I had a real testimony. Because I never felt like God saved me from anything. I went to church before I was born. There's never been a time I actually fully truly got lost. 
Well, here I am, and I've always been kind of loud, but I think this is the kind of messy we're supposed to be. I don't think we're supposed to hide our struggles and look nice and I know I've said that before but this time it's me. I think if all of you know that I say "fuck," we might be better off.
We might be quicker to say, "i'm not okay" when someone asks how we are. So when I say that wholeness is the OneWord I've chosen for 2014, I am serious. I mean I am going to be all of me. I am going to allow myself to be okay with the struggle. I am going to forget about facades. I am going to ask for help when I need it. I am going to stop wallowing. I am going to allow myself alone time. When I thought of "wholeness" before, I thought of "wholesome," which means things that are earthy or green or good for you, meaning only the presentable side of me. The side that runs a prayer room and gives advice. But wholeness isn't about the best parts of me. Wholeness is about all of me. 

I saw a video from Ted Talks once by a lady whose name starts with a B. She talked about vulnerability. I've seen the video three times, and I could write about it for you, but I think you'd better just listen to her. Anyway, she says something about whole-hearted people, and I think that's what I'm going for. 




And so what I have come to is summed up well by Gungor lyrics:
"This is not the end, this is not the end of this.
We will open our eyes wide, wider."

2 comments:

  1. What a blessing it was to wake up this morning and read this. I just want to wrap my arms around your neck and not let go, ever! Undertaking the journey of growing into yourself is worthy and will probably feel like crap sometimes, and I am so proud of you for doing it. I love you.

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  2. This resonated with my soul. The best part of being a mess is that you realize how much else there is in the world; there is so much knowledge and so many options and so many emotions! I never knew how much I could really feel until I fell into a million-mile wide mess-puddle. When everything is streamline and put together, you make the mistake of thinking that you know everything and that you can do everything. You just really live. And you're automatically happier because you aren't forcing yourself into anything or into feeling a certain way. Being a mess makes you know that you're human and it's a little bumpy and a little hell-ish sometimes but it is magnificent and, boy, do you learn.

    “The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”
    - T.H. White, The Once and Future King

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