All I want to do is be more like me and be less like you.

Lately, I've been feeling very "at peace" with everything. It's very weird, actually. I mean, I guess it is true that things are going pretty well for me. Work is good. I'm finally happy with my job. And I'm happy now, I'm not looking for anything MORE from it.
I'm planning on going back to school in August. I don't really know what I'm going to decide on for my major. Psychology is definitely out. I'm thinking about law school still. Maybe a double major in PoliSci and English with a Spanish minor? Honestly, I think the important thing is that I'm going back. I'll figure the rest out eventually.

So yes, I'm doing well. But sometimes I get so frustrated with myself because I want all of my old demons to be gone once and for all, and they aren't. Then I start wondering "when will I ever be okay?".
But maybe I AM okay.
Maybe the trick to living instead of existing, the key to surviving, is not that one day I wake up and everything is sunshine and roses, but that I learn, little by little, how not to let the bad moments define my life.

And the bottom line is that I am doing well. I am absolutely determined to keep my two most important New Year's resolutions. And I intend to do it without cheating. An entire year with no cutting IS possible. I'm at 160 days.
And the other resolution is going well too, so far. I just can't discuss it here.

I'm also working on not punching things. For the past few years I've learned to channel depression into anger because anger is a more "socially acceptable" emotion (even though for women it is still not "normal"). But I am aware of the fact that the main reason I punch things is because it hurts...not necessarily at the time, because if I'm mad or sad enough I don't really feel it, but later, when my hands are swollen and bruised for days, it hurts. Which makes this yet another form of self injury.
I was going to just focus on not cutting for now, but the past couple of weeks I've been resisting the urge to hit things as well.



A few big things have happened lately that have really impacted me. Some are work related, but a lot of that has been resolved. And although there are still some questions floating around out there, I'm trying not to worry about them. I'm fine for now, and I'm working on having a better future so that I don't have to worry about any of this anymore.

The biggest thing on my mind recently has been an old friend who is a marine. We were really close about six and a half years ago, when we were 15.
He had been in Afghanistan for four months when he stepped on an IED and lost his legs. He survived, and he is now in a hospital in Maryland.
This has been on my mind almost constantly from the time I first heard about it. I don't know exactly what to think. I don't have the words necessary to talk about it.
His testimony started floating around on Facebook a few weeks ago, and then a video of his testimony. I avoided watching it for a while. When I finally did, I couldn't hold back tears.
I don't understand. How can he be so okay with everything? How can he have such complete faith in God through all this?

A story like this would get my attention regardless, but the fact that it's Jake just blows my mind. When we were 15, we both claimed to be atheists. Now here he is, and he has changed so much. It's not a complete shock because we have mutual friends and Facebook makes it easy to keep up with the basics of what is going on with people I haven't talked to in years. But still. Just wow.

I mean, I've changed too. I'm not the same person I was. It's normal to change. I don't know exactly what it is about this that has hit me so hard. But after watching the video and listening to a podcast interview he did, I really don't know what to say.

This is his video. Also, his website is JacobRomo.com. Pass it along and share his amazing story with others.




This next thing may seem insignificant and irrelevant, but it's been something I've thought of A LOT over the past four years.
There is an episode of Roseanne, towards the end of the ninth season, where Darlene and David's baby is born premature. She came two months early, and the doctors told them that there wasn't much chance of her surviving.
The first time I saw this episode was my freshman year of college. It was shortly after the Virginia Tech shooting, and I remember thinking "how could God do this?". I could almost accept things like Virginia Tech and Hurricane Katrina because people aren't perfect and the Bible is full of stories of punishment and destruction. It still doesn't seem right or fair, but it seems more fair than an innocent baby girl being born only to die.
Darlene and David's baby didn't die. But what hit me was that in real life, babies do die. It happens all the time. How can that be justified? How is there and rhyme or reason is that?
I've struggled with this for years. This is the first thing on my list of issues I have with God.

I've been watching Roseanne on Netflix, and last night I finally got to this particular episode. I didn't watch it until this morning. It still makes me cry. But today I realized something else.
No, it doesn't seem fair at all. But through the baby's miraculous survival, the entire family began thanking God for their blessings.
I guess my point is that although it might not make any sense to me, God has a plan and He knows what He is doing.

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11


I don't have a lot of answers. I'm not really trying to find them either. But I do think I'm finding myself. I feel like I'm learning to accept myself and my flaws and my issues. It's all a part of who I am, so I might as well learn to deal with all of this I stead of waiting for it to get easier or just go away.

Some thoughts on God and religion and stuff

I went to Winter Jam tonight. It's a big Christian music concert I've gone to every year since like 1998. It's funny that I wanted to go though, since I have been avoiding church for about a year (this time...before that I'd avoided church for the most part since I moved away to college in 2006.) It's mostly the nostalgia. The bands change every year. I'm not as into the Christian music scene as I used to be, but I still know who they are. This year I wanted to see Kutless. But also, Newsboys, even with Michael Tate as the lead singer (I don't think that will ever stop being weird to me. Newsboys is supposed to be Australian. I can't sing Shine without an Australian accent. And I grew up listening to Michael Tate in DC Talk. I mean, come on, this is weird.) has so many old memories.

I think I block out the memories of the preaching every year. Otherwise I wouldn't keep going back. Music I can do. Preaching makes me want to run away. I usually don't, but the thought is almost always there. So anyway, I was sitting there listening to Tony Nolan, and I kept thinking. A lot. Usually, when I'm at church, I write. Not notes on the sermon, just thoughts that are sparked by the sermon. Sometimes sarcastic and argumentative, sometimes deep. Just whatever is on my mind.
I wished I had my journal with me, but I didn't. So I started typing on the notepad on my phone. This is what I wrote:

I don't have a problem with God. I have a problem with organized religion. I have a problem with Christianity. I have a problem with Southern Baptists. But the only problem I have with God is that He is associated with all of this.
I don't know exactly what my problems are with religion. I think it's mostly the self righteousness and the hypocrisy. There's more though, I just can't put my finger on it exactly.
I've had all of the cliches of Christianity drilled into my head for so long that I can't ever seem to get them out. It drives me crazy. I hate feeling so brainwashed. And I hate that I tend to go so completely in the opposite direction just because I don't know how else to deal with feeling like I have little or no control over my own thoughts and feelings.

I don't want to admit that I was wrong and everyone else was right. That is a small part of what holds me back from returning to the faith of my childhood.
But I also don't want to go back just because everyone wants me to.
There is no point in going back. I cannot and will not go back. The problem I'm having now is in moving forward. How do I move forward when I can't get all of these teachings out of my head?

I don't know who I am or what I think or feel or believe because I don't know how to think about that apart from all of the beliefs I've have drilled into me since birth. I don't want to be running toward these belief systems or from them; I don't want to be running at all. I was to be still and at peace. Is that too much to ask?