Keep All Paper Away From Me After Midnight

I've been writing for a couple hours every day.  There are first drafts and penciled marks everywhere.  It's very professional.  An unfortunate side effect of my responsible habit is my tendency to turn everything into a story.  This is especially true at night, when I lie in bed and my creativity decides to wake up.  Last night I kept turning sentences over in my head until I had to turn my light back on and hunt for paper and pen.  This morning I read what I'd written.  It's quite genius, which of course means, yikes, I wrote this some time after midnight.  I don't bother to hide my weirdness that late at night, I suppose.

For your amusement:

A chair popped, or a floorboard settled.  Maybe the drawers were shifting in the dresser.  Whatever made the noise, it startled Janie from her almost-sleep.  "What the frak?" she moaned blearily.  "Shouldn't furniture be stationary?"

Her parents had taught her never to curse, but then she'd seen Battlestar Galactica, and frak seemed like a good compromise.

Another crack from somewhere in the room.  "I hate you!" she shouted, and threw a pillow in the offending noise's direction.  She hit something that oughtn't have been hit, and now there were lots of noises.  They didn't bother her, though, because she knew what their cause was--her.

Janie regretted the loss of her decorative candle collection, but even more she missed her pillow.  She tried to will it into her hand, but unfortunately, Jedi powers didn't magically activate after midnight.  She flomped onto her stomach and grumbled into her remaining pillow.

A last candle hit the floor, late to the party or maybe suicidal in the face of the great candle massacre.  Janie gave it a pass because she valued a cushy headrest more than teaching that candle a lesson.

The next great American novel, obviously.  Though I am quite pleased with the word "flomped."  I'm like Shakespeare.

Nap

My goal for this month before school starts was to get serious about my writing.  Since being at home is distracting, I've been using Starbucks gift cards to get me out of the house (and not waste a ton of money).  It has been great!

Until today, when I took a nap instead of leaving the house.  I must have been tired from all the nothing I was doing.

Books and Budgets

I'm mostly okay.  Last night Jess asked if I wanted to watch The Bachelorette finale with her, and I agreed, because you don't turn down an invitation by a housemate you want to get along with.  It was three hours long, and I am happily ashamed to admit that within five minutes, I was totally sucked into the reality TV romance.  I like to think Jess and I are now super close to BFFdom.  So the house front is good.

And I'm navigating Dallas alright.  I have a few haunts already, and when I don't know where I am, my handy dandy phone GPS is there to save the day.  There is a surprising lack of fast food restaurants within close proximity to my house, which led to an embarrassing display of emotion when I turned a wrong corner and came face to face with an Arby's.  "Arby's!  I've missed you!"  Then I stared it down seductively, promising with my eyes to return at a later date.

The last time I was in Jackson, Jennie showed me this app on her phone that helps keep a budget.  I set mine up last night, with absurdly low goals.  I've already exceeded my "entertainment" quotient by going into Half Price Books to fill out an application.  I had to wander the store, you know, to get a fill of where I might be working, and surprise!  There are books there!  And who has zero ability to turn down books?  Me.

I found a $1 copy of Revolutionary Road, which is on Francis Prose's list of Books to Read.  Then I saw a set of Narnia books, and I realized how silly it was that I had given away something I obviously would reread multiple times in the future.  Finally I came across a British version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.  My heart stopped.  I thought, "I have the American version.  It is literally the same book but with a different cover.  But maybe there is British slang.  Maybe there are more instances of 'mum' or 'prat'.  It could be such a different reading experience!  And it's so pretty."

I'm actually a bit nervous about potentially working at Half Price Books.  There will be books everywhere, all the time.  At the library it was fine, because I could take whole stacks and they were free.  Now I will buy them!  Don't talk to me about, just don't buy them.  Please.  That is not an option.

It's kind of a smaller deal at this point, but I also did fill out an application.  Then I went home, because the thought of working, of getting to know a new system, learn new skills, and interact with new people made me very tired.  Maybe I'll apply somewhere else tomorrow.

It's not all yoga and books, though (yup, I did yoga this morning--p90x again, and I got through the Warrior 1 pose....a whole fifteen minutes, what a beast am I).  I've been doing a pretty good job of blocking out my loneliness.  Sometimes it comes out, though.  I drove to Irving, TX to sit at a Starbucks and type.  There was an interstate off ramp for Fort Worth, and my muscles all rebelled and decided to stop working.  Memories of patting Roy's head outside Kimbell or sitting on the curb at the Stockyard with Nathan and Troy and David rushed into my head, and I didn't like it.  I will never go to Grace Temple Baptist Church even though their pastor is basically Jim Donahue--I never want to go back to where I spent time with my Woodland family and said goodbye.

Liz comes back tonight, though.  We will have adventures, and discuss The Fault in Our Stars, and use our movie theater coupons, and eventually things will get better.  When in doubt, choose optimism, I guess.

Emboldened by Church

I went to a church suggested by Lisa Weber today.  It was a bit more high church than I'm used to (I mean, the choir wore ROBES), but I kept liking what they were doing, even if it felt unfamiliar.  Three women sat around me and were very kind and friendly.  I'll probably go back next week and try the Sunday School as well, but I'm hesitant to commit to it just yet.

Let's be honest.  I'm hesitant to commit to any church at all.  Going on after Woodland is like breaking up--I need a bit of a grieving period, and maybe time to play the field a little.

The pastor was gone this week, and a woman intern filled in.  I quite liked her; she talked about being the peace of Christ, and what that looks like in our world of social divisions and prejudices.  Relevant to my interests.  And then she punched me in the face, while she was talking about yoga, of all things.  She said sometimes in yoga, you get in a new pose, and sweat is poring down your face, and you want to either cry, curse, or collapse.  But just as she was about to give in, her instructor said, "Practice begins when you want it to end."

Last night I was complaining about God, about how He pushes me past my limits, and how I wish He would just stop.  This morning one of His people told me that when I reach that point, practice has just begun.

Yup. Here's the Depression.

This morning was awful, saying goodbye to my mom and the Woodlanders.  Watching them drive away and return to life in Peoria without me was harder than I anticipated.  I spent the day alternating between productivity (I got a library card!  I organized my room to neatness!) and sadness that I had no one to share it with.

I have exactly one friend in Dallas, though she is definitely a great friend.  Gone is the easiness of church programs filling up my week.  Gone is randomly stopping by a friend's house because I'm in the area.  It will take me at least a year to build up even a passing resemblance to what I have at Woodland.

Which made me think:  Why am I doing this?  Why move nearly 1,000 miles away from my friends and family?

Because I felt like God led me here.

And you know what?  I hate that answer.  Last night I went to the Mission Serve celebration worship, and the pastor talked about the demoniac who asked, upon seeing Jesus, "Are you here to torment me?"  That's how I feel.  I feel like God has continually put me in new places with new friends, only to yank me away from them when the relationships get really deep.  It feels sadistic.

I know that there is a part of me that longs for change, who loves the newness of cities and people and jobs.  I cannot sort out how much of this move to Dallas is something I want and something I blame God for.  But I know that it is easier to blame God than acknowledge that I did this to myself.

I want to trust God again.  I want to love Him, to genuinely love Him from my heart rather than reciting facts and theories from my head.  I don't right now, and my persistent ignoring of Him is only hurting things.  But that's just it--I don't WANT to be close to God.  I don't want Him to win me over only to screw with my life.  So I'm ignoring Him, and have been for months.

This has happened before, and I'm resigned to believing that it will happen again.  I will choose to leave a group of people who are more family than friends, and it will hurt.  I think part of my desire to move frequently is to avoid getting attached.  I have this idea that my life will be frantic and mobile, so why not turn off emotions and never get too close to anyone?

I haven't gotten very good at that yet.

Forced Adaptation

I've been in Dallas for five days now, and I am deceived into thinking that I'm the best transplant in the universe, that I'm handling this super well and am only a tiny bit stressed all the time.  Then I remember that my mom is staying with me and my church family is 20 minutes away, and the panic increases.

It will be hard to lose my support group.  Not just the people who support me, but the people who I can support.  I can already feel a purposelessness hanging over me.  I don't have a job to contribute to society, I don't a church to volunteer my time, and I don't have friends to talk to and encourage.  There is no one who will call me out of the blue and ask me to help with something.  Getting to that point will likely take months of intense pro-active work, and I am very aware that I'm not great at being pro-active.

Still, I keep remembering what one of Liz's friends told me in January.  She had just moved to Dallas a few months before, and she felt like the change was a way of God keeping her on her toes.  She felt like He would lead her to live overseas one day, and so she didn't want to get too attached to any one place or group of people.  She was purposefully making herself into a nomad so that she would be ready and prepared whenever God led her somewhere.

That stuck with me.  I have no idea what God will do with me.  Maybe I will live in Asia.  Maybe I will return to Peoria.  Maybe I will stay in Dallas.  Who knows?  But I can see wisdom in forcing myself to change, to adapt, to trust God in difficult situations.

This doesn't mean I'm any more confident about being in Dallas, but I respond very well to being given a reason.  I may not like being secluded here, but at least I know why it might turn out to be a good thing.

Let the Games Begin

I've arrived in Dallas, unpacked most of my things into my baby bedroom, and met two of my three housemates.  I'm feeling pretty good about this moving thing, although since I'm still around my family and since my Woodland family is only twenty minutes away, the reality of leaving hasn't hit yet.

I'm super excited to be living with Liz again.  I arrived at my house a few hours before my family and the moving truck, so we had a chance to drink coffee and talk together.  We went to the Mission Serve church so that I could introduce her to all of my people.  It was nice to bring her into my world a little, since I will soon be fully immersed in hers.

When Roy and Mom arrived, we unpacked the truck and analyzed my tiny bedroom for a long time before coming up with a solution that results in a nicely furniture-heavy look that still allows quite a bit of floor space.  Then Liz and I made dinner, and we kept referencing how similar it was to cooking together in Senegal, only with the amazing conveniences of bottled spaghetti sauce and apples that didn't need soaked in bleach.

I sat and talked with Jessica late last night.  She's my housemate who already graduated from DTS in Biblical Counseling.  She seems quite normal and fun, which is good.  I half believe in seminary stereotypes, but she gleefully told stories that highlighted those stereotypes and then assured me that not everyone was that way (especially in counseling, apparently).

The third housemate is in Sudan right now, but she left a dog here.  It's so nice to have a pet!  Paisley instantly makes things seem more homey.  She is also a spastic lap dog, which is just enough like Rory to make me less sad, but not enough like Rory to replace my fantastic cat.

There's no cause to be sad yet, since like I said, most of my people are here with me.  That will come later, but for now, I'm quite excited to be in Dallas!