I Reserve the Right to Change My Mind

I have told so many people, "So you know how, like, five days ago I told you I was definitely going to stay in Dallas?  Well....I have completely changed my mind."  It's gotten a bit old, eating so much crow, but I probably need to do one big blanket explanation.  Plus when I'm old and writing my memoir, these blog posts are going to be invaluable information.

Last Monday I was finally able to Facetime with Dina and Argyris.  It was so great to see their faces.  We spent the first five minutes gushing about how crazy it is that we first met each other ten years ago (when I was a baby 16-year-old!), how we've kept in touch this whole time and supported each other however possible.  I felt my heart melting for this amazing couple.

"We want you to come for six months," Argyris said.

"A year," Dina corrected him.

"I'm trying not to scare her!" Argyris said.  "But, yes.  The longer you can come, the better.  These women have been abandoned their entire lives.  I don't know what you feel God's calling for you is, but if you want to stay in Greece for the rest of your life, we would love that."

I laughed internally.  I WAS SO RIGHT.  In the two months of no contact, I'd worked myself into thinking I was over-reacting, reading dramatic requests where only minimal ones existed.  Not so!  They were just as passionate and friendly-demanding as I was.

"What if I just came to Athens for a couple weeks?" I asked.  I was trying very hard to hold on to my previous decision.  "I care a lot about supporting you guys, and I would love to help raise awareness about your work."

"We will take you in whatever way possible!" Argyris assured me.  This was the worst thing to say.  If he had downplayed the usefulness of a short trip, my rebellious stubborn nature would have done it to Prove How Useful I Am.  Instead, his genuine acceptance melted me further.  Two weeks wasn't enough.  I had to go for a year.

I began to freak out at this point, and it was with some relief that we ended our Facetime.  I walked around my house in circles.  It was suddenly clear that of course I had to go.  All of the reasons why I was so excited three months ago came rushing back.  This was perfect.  But what about the reasons I had decided to stay in Dallas.  What about my desire to experience long-term relationships?  What about my tendency to avoid intimacy?

The more I thought about it, the angrier I got.  I am a vulnerable person.  I over share, some people say.  Of course there are some things I don't share with just anyone, and of course I am learning to show anger and tears in real life.  But I'm not the emotionally closed off person I like to think I am.  As for leaving long-term relationships...I DON'T.  Moving to Jackson, to Senegal, to Texas...it twists my stomach to think of those decisions as mistakes.  Each time an opportunity presented itself.  I didn't seek it out.  It happened, the choice lay before me, and I decided to take it despite the fact that it meant leaving dear friends.  Dear friends that I carry in my heart and chat with on Facebook.  I'm not interested in leaving them.

And anyway, I LOVE people.  I think the key difference is that while I love the people I am with at the moment, whenever I see a new group of people in another state, another country, I think, "I want to know them!  I want to know how they learn and love and work!"  I want intimacy with everyone.  I want the whole world to be my friend.  That's not a deficit.  That's a gift.

All of these thoughts convinced me I ought to go to Athens, but....what if I was wrong!?  This had all happened way too fast. 

I Facebook messaged Kim, since I knew she would understand the conflict of "when is something big enough/worthy enough to choose moving over staying?"  She refused to make the decision for me, but said things like, "Not everyone has your spirit of adventure" and "Don't ever make a decision based in fear."  I countered each of her thoughtful comments with a "But...."  Finally she said, "Stop considering all sides of the argument and BE STILL AND WAIT."

So that's what I did on Tuesday.  Every time I felt myself arguing a pro or con, I told myself to shut up.  As I turned off my brain, I kept thinking about how God is a wild God, how "he is not safe, but he is good."  I realized staying in Dallas and building a private practice would be the logical and easy decision.  But how often does God do the logical and easy thing?  Not very often, as far as my Bible studying has gone.

I've always loved the story of Gideon, loser extraordinaire.  As my friend Ruth said, "I can't tell if he's a hero or a douche."  "He's a hero and a douche.  That's what makes him so great!"  I didn't even get to the part about him, though.  At the very beginning of his story, an angel appears and says, "God is with you."  Cowardly Gideon is threshing wheat in a winepress, and he grumbles, "How can God be with us if the Mideonites are attacking us?"

My heart stopped.  That is exactly the sentiment I imagine women who have been abused and trafficked would feel.  "How can God be with me when all these horrible things have happened to me?"  I wanted nothing more than to fly to their side to say, "I am God's ambassador, I am his arms and legs and eyes and mouth, and I came halfway around the world to be with you, to know you and care for you, so that someday you might believe that he loves you, he is with you!" 

My brain knows that the best thing to do is stay in Dallas.  But my heart is 100% convinced that I should go to Athens.  I'm going to follow my heart, especially since it felt, for a moment, like God's compassionate heart was beating in its place.

On Wednesday I emailed Dina and Argyris and committed to staying at least one year in Athens.  I did learn from my previous decision.  I do want to live more in the present without looking ahead to the next thing.  So I'm moving to Athens.  And I'll stay there until I know I ought to be somewhere else.  0_0

One Direction Manifesto

My blog has gotten decidedly too serious of late.  The best way I can think to remedy this is to fangirl about why I love One Direction, the English-Irish boy band who slowly invaded my psyche two years ago and has turned me into a 26-year-old tweenager.

 

A few things about the band as a whole before I detail the excruciating ways individual One Direction members have ruined my life:  Boy bands are pretty much designed to appeal to my ideal male aesthetic.  Cute guys forced into ridiculous outfits/situations/poses?  YES PLEASE.  The combination of attractive and silly is the Instant Highway to my heart.

I first heard about One Direction when some adult bloggers I follow started falling in love with them and writing wonderfully horrific posts about the hell that is being a 29-year-old who follows every move of a group you are nearly two decades too old for.  Haha, I thought, how embarrassing.  But the way they write about these idiots is pretty hilarious.  And then I started...unironically looking forward to the newest pictures/interviews/gifs.  That's so Louis, I would grin at my computer.  Wait, NO.  I don't know him.  I don't care about them....oh no.  I'M IN TOO DEEP.  Somewhere around a year ago I decided to stop pretending.  I love One Direction!  It's embarrassing and wonderful!

Of course, there's the fact that they are musicians and I almost don't care.  I heard singles from their first CD on the radio and cringed.  But you know that weird transformation where unattractive people with great talent start to become attractive to you?  Well, this was the opposite.  Not very talented people with great attractiveness started to become talented to me.  It's gotten so bad that at this point I legitimately don't know whether they are a good band or not.  Their fourth album leaked online, and I gagged and fake-sobbed in the car with intense pride at how much they have grown lyrically and musically.  Are they still manufactured pop?  YES.  Do I care anymore?  NO.

Okay, I think I'm ready to delve into the mind-numbing beauty and idiocy that is each member of life-ruining boy band One Direction.

Louis Tomlinson

Louis is my favorite.  This started because I felt very creepy loving a teenage boyband, and as the oldest member, Louis was only four years younger than me.  That was a suitably minimal amount of creepiness.  But what began as a crush of necessity has turned into an obsession.  Louis is everything I want to be!  Louis is loud and brash and obnoxious!

He loves pulling pranks and breaking rules!  He demands the spotlight and will force you to love him!!

He is horrible, but he's protective of those he loves.  His brash exterior cannot hide his TENDER LOVING HEART.

He is a preppy pretty boy turned trash monster, and I support all his forms of "fashion."

 

 

He will give you the most disdainful glance in the history of entitlement, and you will beg him to do it again.

   

Harry Styles

As the youngest member of the band, I did not allow myself to crush on Harry.  Plus, everyone in the whole world agreed that he was the best/cutest member, and I resented his star status.  If everyone loves one thing, I will purposefully love someone else (re: Louis).  But, I mean, whatever.  WHO AM I TO RESIST THIS MONSTER?

I read a BuzzFeed article recently about Harry's disgusting descent into hair horror.  I could not disagree more vehemently.  While his baby curls are iconic, I think he peaked with the pirate headscarves, but I am more than happy to gaze on his messy man bun.

 

He's clumsy, awkward, and the dorkiest rock star I've ever seen.

My heart is stolen.

Zayn Malik

MORTALS, avert your gaze!  Zayn is an angel trapped on earth, he is a gift for our eyeballs, he is the prettiest man in the world.

That is my full opinion on Zayn.  I can't look on him very long without doubting his humanity, or maybe my humanity, or maybe the humanity of all these lesser men and women walking around on the street.

Just kidding.  Of course there's more.  I also love that he got pigeon-holed as the "dark, mysterious one" when really he is just a shy little baby who likes to sleep and be alone!!  My heart. 

Liam Payne

Liam Payne wins the Puberty Award, because HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

 

From this to...THIS!?

He is a bit simple, a bit unremarkable, a bit just there.  Like a puppy.  Which is FINE, and people like that.  But I want more!  He truly shines when Louis gets his greedy claws into this good ol' boy and convinces him to bump up the mischievousness.

Niall Horan

In real life, Niall would be the one you'd want to hang out with.  He's funny, carefree, and is pretty attractive for a blond guy.

But he's TOO NORMAL.  I'm so sorry, Niall, but I cannot fully love you when you're just a regular dude.  I mean, I'll smile at your pictures and maybe even chuckle a few times, but you just don't get my heart racing.

Not to worry, though, you have plenty of other fans to keep your ego up.

 SO THAT'S IT.

That's the boy band that stole my heart.  Clearly Louis and Harry occupy the largest corners of my brain/soul/hormone control center.  BUT ONE DIRECTION IS NOT COMPLETE without any of these weirdos, and you could not pay me anything to kick one out.

What an embarrassing thing to love.  Boy bands!  But being embarrassed has never kept me from screaming about the things I love.

Playing Chicken

There are a great many reasons I was so attracted to the idea of moving to Greece, some more personal and some more idiotic.  One that lies in the middle is the way I play chicken with people's affection.

When I told Supervisor that I was staying in Dallas, he accidentally cracked his neutral counselor's face and smiled.  Then he asked that we eat lunch together, where I discovered he had already planned the next three phases of my working at The Vale and the unique ways I could contribute to the team.  Oh my word, I cannot describe the warm glow of feeling wanted.

I called Wendy to update her on my decision.  "I would be happy if you stayed or went, if you continue growing or sit on the floor eating chips, but I have to say I'm glad you aren't moving halfway around the world," she said.  "I don't want that to--"

"No," I said.  "I need to hear that people would miss me."

"Tricia," she said.  "Of course I miss you.  I wish you would move back to Peoria and blah blah blah."

I couldn't hear the rest of what she said because I had started crying.  "Thank you," I garbled when she finished.  When she heard the tears in my voice, she started crying, and I thought, Oh my God, I'm doing it.  I was vulnerable in telling her what I needed, and she gave it to me, and now I'm crying and it's okay.  We still laughingly hung up with the promise that not every conversation had to make us feel things, but it was significant.

The point is, I think I play this desperate card out of a fear that no one actually cares about me.  "I'm moving to Senegal/Texas/Greece!" I declare.  And then I wait and see if anyone says, "No, don't!  Stay here!"  My word, what a manipulative way to gain scraps of affection.  Sometimes it works, but it's never enough.  There are too many supportive people who want me to follow God's leading, who say they are so excited for my opportunities.  Inevitably their well-meaning voices win, and I swerve out of playing chicken and pack up my bags.

This is not the only reason I move.  Not even close.  I genuinely think Tennessee, Senegal, and Texas were wonderful and necessary places of growth for me.  But I do wonder if I might not have left somewhere if enough people had screamed at me to stay.  I don't know.  I can't control other people, so I'm learning to offer up my neediness in vulnerability rather than passive aggressive stunts.  And I'm a lot more likely to grab a friend by the shoulders when they consider moving and say, "DON'T DO IT.  I will miss you desperately, and I don't want you out of my life.  I mean, maybe it's the best thing for you to do, and I will grudgingly support you no matter what, but just know that in my heart I will be so sad to see you go."

Decision

I'm staying in Dallas.

For two reasons, the first of which I mentioned in the blog post about my group therapy experience.  The second reason was an unintentionally thought-provoking statement by my brother.  We joke sometimes, trying to convince each other to move to our own city so we can live in the same place again.  "I just think you're unreliable," Roy said.  "If I moved to Dallas, within a month you would have decided to move somewhere else."

He wasn't wrong.  I kept turning the phrase over and over.  It made me laugh.  It made me feel good that he knows me so well.  It made me flinch, knowing that people see me as unreliable, and worse, that they are right to do so. 

A couple days ago I decided I didn't want to be that person.  Ever since I started looking for colleges, I have always had my eye on The Next Thing.  I don't let anywhere become my home because what if something new comes up?  I'm not averse to moving, and I haven't had some crazy change-of-personality...the idea of staying in Dallas for the rest of my life curdles my stomach.  But I'm deciding not to look for somewhere to move.  I'm deciding to say Dallas is my home, I will be at home here, this city is my home base.

As soon as I made that decision, I realized I had blown the Greece option out of the water.  Dina never once asked me to move to Athens.  She never said she wanted me there next summer.  Suddenly everything fell into perspective.  I do think this opportunity is uniquely suited to my interests and passions.  But the things that excite me most--blogging about it to raise awareness of her work, providing support to the staff--are things that fit nicely into a two-week trip.  A month.  I can stay in Dallas and take a month-long trip to Athens.  I don't have to move there.

It all seems very obvious from this side.  Three months of worrying and stressing... *eyeroll* 

The Spiritual Gift of Mercy

In my Pauline epistles class, my professor said that instead of thinking of our spiritual things as something we enjoy doing, perhaps they are something which requires sacrifice on our part.  I don't see why they can't be both.  I've gotten to a place where I automatically reject any Christianese anti-joy stance, because I firmly believe God desires for us to enjoy life and the gifts He gives us.  But it makes a lot of sense that in our broken world, the things that ought to bring us joy will also bring us pain.

A couple years ago I asked some people from church to identify my spiritual gifts, and instead of continuing to listen to my professor (who I really do love, but well, I have a short attention span when I'm interested in something else), I searched my emails.  There it was, Joel saying he thought I had the spiritual gift of mercy, long before I considered studying counseling and making mercy a career.

I thought back several months, when I spent an agonizing evening with my friend Libby, opening up for the first time to a friend about how the weight of the world sometimes feels like it will break me, how my bouts of depression are more often global in scale than personal.  The ways people hurt each other, the inevitability of war and abuse and my helplessness to do anything about it--this can feel unbearable.  Libby said I take too much responsibility for other people's feelings, and she is absolutely right.  But I think there is something else to it.

If my spiritual gift is mercy, and if spiritual gifts require sacrifice, then this makes sense.  Mercy only exists where sin exists.  Being tapped into the richness of mercy necessarily means being tapped into the depths of sinfulness.  There some days I find this exchange more acceptable than others.

I have always been an emotional sucker for underdogs.  I cried for Gollum more than any other character in The Lord of the Rings, because he just needed unconditional love, oh my God.  My absolute favorite part of counseling is when a client tentatively admits to some secret, and by not reacting in horror, I get to watch their faces open up just a tiny bit in trust before the rest comes out.  All the shame, all the horrible things they have thought or felt or done.  I love being the person to hear their worst and to say, "I'm so sorry you went through that.  I understand why you would have done that.  I'm so grateful you shared that with me."  I hadn't really thought of it as mercy before, but of course it is.  I love seeing someone at their worst and saying, "I'm not going to punish you for that."

My overabundance of mercy is counterbalanced by an incredibly diminished capacity for justice.  I hate war, I hate revenge, I hate the death penalty, I hate giving up on someone.  My church is going through Joshua right now, and I very much appreciate how nearly every week whoever is preaching addresses the complexity of what it means to serve an occasionally genocidal God.  I struggle with that a lot, and the concept of God's justice in general.  There are exceptions, though.  I think of the men and women who kidnap children and naive young women, who sell other people's bodies for sex and abuse, who buy homes paid for by someone else's nightmare.  I think of those people, and my capacity for mercy shrivels up until I understand God's justice.  I understand His disgust with our sin, His desire to see it--to see us--utterly destroyed.

That's unusual, though.  And honestly, if I met someone who worked in the sex trafficking industry and managed to talk to them, I'm sure I would discover their own background of abuse and neglect and pain.  I'd like to think that I could learn to empathize with even these disgusting people, that I could learn to show mercy to them.

That doesn't negate justice.  I understand that justice is an attribute of God, despite my usual inability to fathom it or especially to appreciate it.  But I just read G. K. Chesterson's Orthodoxy in which he states the inherent paradoxes of Christianity.  Ours is a religion, not of balance, but of passion.  Christianity has inspired the gruesomest wars in history as well as an enduring community of people committed to non-violence.  Our God is entirely just and entirely merciful, and I think His people, being finite where He is infinite, are able to inhabit and display just one or two of His attributes. Someone else has justice covered.  I've got mercy, for worse and for better.

Ambushed by the Bible

For the past two weeks, I've been leaning more towards the "stay in Dallas" side of the future.  I had a breakthrough in group therapy that involved me crying in front of people, feeling horribly embarrassed at displaying vulnerability, and then being invited by a friend to talk about it more afterwards.  It was a lovely departure from my core belief that people won't like me if I open up.  Combined with the fact that I just read Vital Friends, a book about the benefits of working with friends, I was feeling like it would be super dumb to leave my Dallas support group.

As a result, I have taken no steps to contacting Dina and continuing the conversation of moving to Greece.

But.

My church is going through a series on Joshua, which is this consistently annoying reminder that God calls His people to do crazy things outside of their comfort zone, often with very little clear guidance beyond "Do this step.  Okay, now this one."  On top of that, my friend who took me out for further conversation accidentally compared me to the person I am annoyed with who only reacts to things, but rarely acts.  "Oh," my friend said.  "So like how you don't like to do anything unless someone else decides for you."  :|  On top of THAT, I started thinking about all the ways this opportunity came up, how so much of it seemed, well, supernatural.

It reminded me of the parable of the talents.  God gives people passions and opportunities, and if you use them and grow them and try, then He rewards you with further passions and opportunities.  But if you freeze up and do nothing, well...you may never get an opportunity again.

I was telling all of this to my friend today, and then she had to do homework, so I pulled out my Bible.  My small group at church has a challenge to read all four gospels in a month, and I am doing very poorly at it.  I opened up to my current location, which was....the parable of the talents.  Since it is the Message translation, I read, "That's a terrible way to live!  It's criminal to live cautiously like that! ...And get rid of this 'play-it-safe' who won't go out on a limb.  Throw him out into utter darkness."

Well.  Well, okay then.

So I emailed Dina.  It's not a decision, but it's a step away from being paralyzed with fear.

But Then I Think

I've been napping more often, which is only unusual because I've been sleeping a normal amount.  This didn't strike me as odd until something deep inside told me, "This is what you do when you're stressed," and intuitively I knew that was true.  It isn't really that I'm more tired than usual.  I just...sleep.  Oh, a bit of extra time? I subconsciously think.  Might as well be unconscious, then I don't have to worry about anything.

I'm in a weird state of limbo where Greece plans are concerned.  I have no new information, since I am letting the Petrous have some family time in the midst of their son's surgery and recovery.  However, this means my attempts to plan my future are happening without the most important part--the side beckoning me forward.  Without that lifeline, I feel like I'm stumbling forward for no reason at all.

I found out that accepting a job at my internship will, best case scenario, mean living off the same amount of money as I've been making these past two years.  Possibly even less.  While it has mostly been fine to live on $1,000 a month, I was kind of hoping that was a grad student lifestyle.  My supervisor assured me that, as with any new business, I shouldn't plan on actually making real money for the first three years of working in private practice.  This means that if I stay at my internship, I will need a second job.  A job...like nannying.  Although it feels a bit humiliating, I'm not above telling my bosses that I was mistaken--counselors don't actually make good money for awhile, and could I please continue to work for them?  I'm sure they would say yes.

What worries me is Greece.  If Greece is temporary, say three or six months, and I return to Dallas...what will I return to?  I could work at my internship well enough, but my bosses will have to find someone to replace me.  That means looking for a new second job.

It feels so much like life in Dallas would be easy.  Well, not easy.  This whole continuing-to-live-on-the-poverty-line is not great.  But if that's what it means to work in private practice, where better to do it than somewhere I have an understanding, supportive second job family?  Am I an idiot for giving that up to move somewhere new?  Does there come a point in maturity where pragmatism outweighs passion?

But then I think--God uses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise.  It's feeling incredibly foolish to walk away from a career laid out for me with minimal obstacles.  If it's foolish to go to Greece, does that mean I should?

But then I think--there are plenty of foolish things that I don't think God is necessarily leading people to do, like when I ate a bag of Twix candy bars.  God might love using ridiculous situations to show his glory, but that does not mean all ridiculous situations are his specific plan.  What if this is my pattern of leaving a good place, of being scared of the intimacy and commitment of settling down?

But then I think--what "pattern"?  Why am I determined to view all my personal revelations as necessarily bad?  So what if I moved from Peoria to Jackson to Fatick to Peoria to Dallas?  Each time I moved, I felt peace that it was within God's plans, and in every place I found a new family--people who cared for me and encouraged me to grow, people I could serve and love and miss.  I don't think any of my moves were wrong.  I think, for whatever reason, God gave me a passion for seeing new places and experiencing new things, and he has given me many opportunities to live this passion.  Why think of that as a bad thing?

But then I think--well, isn't it?  Aren't community and commitment good things?

But then I think--of course they are, but why can't both life paths be good?  Staying is good, and going is good.  They both offer separate rewards and separate challenges, but one is not necessarily better than the other, nor is a decision to follow one necessarily what the rest of my life will be characterized by.

But then I think--

But then I think--

But then I fall asleep.