Every year, I ask for something for my birthday that really only God could give me. Sunshine ranks 9.87 times out of 10. This year, I am asking for enormous things. This year, I want two things. First, I want a new job or some huge positive steps toward a career that actually fits the things I have learned about myself in the last two years. Things like: I love being part of a team. Conversely, I really hate working an 8 hour day alone. It's a long list...and most of it tells me that my current job (and most of the jobs that I am qualified for) is a poor fit.

For my second gift, I want to make some new friends who are passionate and honest people. I have a deep need to be known and encouraged but when I look at the friends that I have here in Portland, many of them are weighed down with their own surviving and I do not feel like there is room for me. I would love to help shoulder the weight of their day to day, but they are so busy doing it themselves that I feel like I am interrupting. I am tired of trying to fit into their lives. Other friends seem to be unwilling to be very open and that is hard for me because I do not have very much of a middle setting in myself. And I hate the feeling of sharing more than I will ever receive. No one is unkind or hurtful... but they are not really available either.

And I get it. I am wired all funny where I feel really deeply about all sorts of things that the stereotypes don't include. I love talking to strangers about justice but I can't seem to make small talk with people in church. I love working with my hands because it gives me so much time to think. And I love to think, especially about people and what they are made of like which insecurities line the walls of the hope and good intentions that they try to build with. I prefer to just get conflict out in the open so we can go after healing and reconciliation with all that we have. I am terribly honest too. That makes things hard. Moreover, I do not apologize for telling the truth. In fact, I am learning that I have been apologizing for all of the wrong things all of my life. And people seem to resent it when I stop. But I do try my best to apologize when I am wrong.

Anyway, this birthday I want some people and a cause to pour my love and loyalty and gifts into. And sunshine.