October Leaving

I kept a pretty thorough log of 'doing one thing everyday that scares me'. A lot of days were pretty uneventful and I really had to examine myself, but I succeeded everyday except for October 11th. Most of the things I was scared of had to do with hurting other people even if I needed to do what I should (like tell the truth or just say 'no I can't do that') or with not feeling equipped to handle a situation and being afraid that it was going to end very, very badly. I was just going to post the list, but things repeated a lot and I have decided I do not like the list format. It kind of divorces the fears from their context and I'm not so much a fan of that.

A few of the highlight events that revealed these things were my oral and practical exams for my mechanic's certification (I have never tried so hard to do something I didn't want to do!), dealing with some family/financial drama, trying very hard not to pick a fight with my landlady, and trying to learn how to cope with life without shutting down my emotions (apparently that means I stay home from school if I have a migraine, say what?). Oh and I bought a dress and danced with my boyfriend *in front of people*.

All in all, I am very glad October is over...not so that I can stop doing scary things, but because it was a very full month. My prayer for November is that it shows a little mercy. However, the mercy I receive may or may not be related to the mercy I allow myself to take in. October was confronting fear, maybe November can be about receiving mercy and grace. October, unrelated to the confronting fear, taught me a lot about my shortcomings, faults, failures, and the way in which I hurt people. I am very acquainted with all the things which make me ugly. I could use a healing balm. I expect anything that could bring healing to initially be terrifying, but I may just be ready.




Oh, also, I am an A&P mechanic! That was one of the gifts October left me with.

9 of 10

I learned how to build home on the topography of my father’s emotions between wandering the woods and chocolate chip cookie making. He was a man still working through the rubble of his own upbringing and so he brought me up in the crowded space between his own tears. I learned to read him the way sailor’s read the stars, the clouds, and the sea. I learned to sail him like he was the only ocean I could ever love. I tried to learn the words that could bring us both home.

He taught me everything I know about emotions and feeling. “Don’t bottle them up and stuff them in.” he’d say, “They’ll always find you because they are not the sort of things that fade unless you face them.” So while he told me not to keep them in, I resolved to be better than that. I chose, instead, to keep them always out.

It took years for me to figure out  that short cuts are just longer ways to the same place for those who want to put off confrontation until it hits you from behind, knocks the wind out of you, and demands your silent attention. It may be the shortest distance between two places; but there are no places or paths for lessons like love, forgiveness, and getting over yourself. Those are long roads you have to walk yourself. Do not skip a step or you may miss it altogether.

It took me even longer to realize that sometimes the act of sorrow is all you have to give. There are no wrong ways to feel, just wrong ways to cope with the feeling. Still I forget and so I say again, there are no wrong ways to feel.

I have now been brought up as far as anyone else can bring me. I do not always feel the things I know. And I do not always understand the things I feel. And yet, the longer I spend trying to feel truth and questioning the why’s and the how’s of feeling, the more I stand by that statement. There are no wrong ways to feel... but my emotions are often malnourished, ignorant, and a little disconnected.

The struggle is to bring all of me into agreement. The struggle is to learn my own coastlines, correct my compass, and learn to sail a new sea. The struggle is to connect and educate all of my emotions in the hope that the daughter I do not yet know if I will have will never have to try so hard to ride my waves, weather my storms, and bring me home.

And then it was June.

Life has a new rhythm.

It is a good one too, despite the apprehensions that try to persuade me otherwise. Leaving my apartment was more... emotional(?) than I thought it would be.

It was my first apartment all unsupervised and pretending to be grown up. My first time not living with a stranger in some capacity in over a decade or so. It was the healthiest living situation I have ever had. I guess it makes sense that I would be attached, but the depth of that surprised me.

For nine months, I built life and living and home with my roommates and they are family. We did not just live together and occupy the same space. We shared our dreaming, our loving, and our growing. It is weird to me to think of that apartment as it was after they left and I was moving

out...devoid of all the fondness I had attached to it. And I knew I did not belong there anymore. I could look out the windows and see the same things I always did, but it was not my home anymore.

It is exceedingly strange to me that we should spend so much time pouring hope into a place. (I swear the walls and carpet are saturated with it.) Hope for where we would go and who we would be and what we would do. And then we outgrow it.

We leave to build new hope. To be those people that we hoped we would be or even those people we did not quite dare to be while in that former place or possibly those people we always hoped

to escape.

Whatever it is that we do after, we are forced to build or rebuild hope, because you cannot keep old hope alive in the face of change. At least, not as it was. Hope has to grow with you. Or else, it begins to stifle your own growth. By its very nature, it must elude your present abilities.

Perhaps that is what it means when Romans says that "hope that is seen is no hope at all". This frustrates me because it seems to negate any idea of rest or peace. Is that really life? To always be running and never arriving? I think so.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that it is not without its triumphs. My discomfort comes from my continual battle to appreciate and respect things (especially myself) in process. Just because I know where I should be does not mean that I am yet equipped to be there. It is often far more acceptable to take time in transit than I make it seem.

Yep, still learning how to be a balanced, holistic person which apparently means moving slower than I think is reasonable and going about things the long way. It is a good thing. It makes hope less harsh though the striving and elusiveness continue.