In Decembers, I miss God.
I recognize that that's an odd sentiment to share (and to have) but it's the closest way I can think to communicate how I feel.
Belfast and I have reconciled. We are good friends now. My second semester there was beautiful in every way, and even the first semester was necessary.
But in Decembers....I get in my own head. Can't shake it.
Decembers taste like unending, UK-attempted green bean casserole, apples, puzzle dust, cold tea, grief, and vomit. It smells like I need to shower. It sounds like "Merry Christmas, Here's to Many More" and "Dark Horse" and songs I still can't listen to. It feels like darkness crushing into each cell.
Last December, I spent my time with friends at graduation in Belfast, laughing with my housemates, loving and being loved by my handsome boyfriend, holding my family. It was a good time.
This December, I'm so happy at work, at home, in Tulsa. I am so blessed. I am so happy.
and yet.
and yet.
In Decembers...I feel it all. As though nothing present were present.
As though I were still there.
Still alone.
Still dying.
Which, I recognize, seems like an incredibly hyperbolic thing to say. But I never felt as dead-souled as then. In all the other months, I don't think about it, I don't feel about it, I don't write about it. In this month, though, it is around every email, song choice, nap, bend in my drive.
You know when you're sick and all you want is your mom?
No matter your age or situation, your mom is your first instinct to call out for. You want her. You need her.
Even though I'm better--wonderful, in fact--that's how I feel. I feel sick. My mom wasn't there, couldn't be there, the first time it happened. The one who took care of me--geez. the only one in that whole stinking country who cared about me, it seemed at the time--was God.
So now, when I feel sick at heart and soul from feel-backs and uncontrollable sentiments, I miss God. We aren't separated, but we aren't together in the same way.
My mom and I talk all the time. We go shopping, we enjoy one another, but our relationship is very different when I'm ill.
It's the same with God. We spend time together, but it just isn't the same kind of need.
Either way, here I am. Feeling. Sick at heart with no reason to be. Missing God, and thankful for my savior. Thankful to have been saved and loved and have my life and my favorite country redeemed.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Friday, November 13, 2015
We Made Them This Way
Last night, I went to a college night in a very small town that I'm sure is very nice, but I've only had weird experiences in.
Sometimes, Arkansas lives up to its reputation and, unfortunately, this is one of those towns that keeps the stereotypes alive.
The reason I admit this is because it became very clear that it isn't personal prejudice--this is what they are seen as by the general public.
How do I know this?
We were put on a panel and each "college" spoke for 3ish minutes on the highlights of their schools.
Each and every one of them talked about their welding programs, their mechanical programs, their 8 week programs, their agriculture programs. Even the non tech schools focused the entirety of their elevator speeches on their technical programs.
Two of them even told the kids in prettier terms that college wasn't meant for them and they would drop out/fail out if they tried.
Ultimately, the message being sent to these kids from 20 different presenters was: "You can be anything you want to be!!!!...in the technical industry."
What I have disliked about these kids before last night is that they are undisciplined, they've got gnarly test scores, they are rude and loud and crass, and they seem to just not care about themselves at all.
What I realized last night is that for their entire lives, these kids have probably been sent the message that they aren't smart or good enough to succeed, that they are meant to be future garbage collectors, mechanics, chicken collectors.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with those careers, no shame in them at all. However, when they are presented to you as your only aspirations, I get this twinging feeling that something is wrong.
Maybe it's the millennial in me that says, "No! We can do anything we want to do!" or maybe its the deep seated sense of justice and fairness in me that thinks that maybe if these kids were raised to believe that they had worth and meaning and the capacity to learn and grow and be then they would maybe take more time with their studies and personal care.
Speak words of truth and hope always, to old, to young, to those you know you'll see every day after, to those you know you'll never see again. Never allow yourself to contribute to the self-fulfilling prophesy of worthlessness in another person's life.
Because no matter their age, no matter their station in life, no matter how sticky or stinky or snarly a person is, everyone has value and purpose, even if they don't see that yet.
Sometimes, Arkansas lives up to its reputation and, unfortunately, this is one of those towns that keeps the stereotypes alive.
The reason I admit this is because it became very clear that it isn't personal prejudice--this is what they are seen as by the general public.
How do I know this?
We were put on a panel and each "college" spoke for 3ish minutes on the highlights of their schools.
Each and every one of them talked about their welding programs, their mechanical programs, their 8 week programs, their agriculture programs. Even the non tech schools focused the entirety of their elevator speeches on their technical programs.
Two of them even told the kids in prettier terms that college wasn't meant for them and they would drop out/fail out if they tried.
Ultimately, the message being sent to these kids from 20 different presenters was: "You can be anything you want to be!!!!...in the technical industry."
What I have disliked about these kids before last night is that they are undisciplined, they've got gnarly test scores, they are rude and loud and crass, and they seem to just not care about themselves at all.
What I realized last night is that for their entire lives, these kids have probably been sent the message that they aren't smart or good enough to succeed, that they are meant to be future garbage collectors, mechanics, chicken collectors.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with those careers, no shame in them at all. However, when they are presented to you as your only aspirations, I get this twinging feeling that something is wrong.
Maybe it's the millennial in me that says, "No! We can do anything we want to do!" or maybe its the deep seated sense of justice and fairness in me that thinks that maybe if these kids were raised to believe that they had worth and meaning and the capacity to learn and grow and be then they would maybe take more time with their studies and personal care.
Speak words of truth and hope always, to old, to young, to those you know you'll see every day after, to those you know you'll never see again. Never allow yourself to contribute to the self-fulfilling prophesy of worthlessness in another person's life.
Because no matter their age, no matter their station in life, no matter how sticky or stinky or snarly a person is, everyone has value and purpose, even if they don't see that yet.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Prozac Nation: A Confession of Allegiance
Today, I am starting anti-depressants.
It's a decision I have made willingly but have a history of staunchly refusing for the majority of my life.
No, I'm not depressed, but episodes of depression, headaches, nausea, and a whole host of other symptoms have added up to a long, frustrating history with chronic anxiety.
Whether it's social anxiety or the anxiety disorder I've been struggling to conceal since I was a child, anxiety has dominated most every conversation and interaction and self-reflection I've ever had.
I have long feared making this decision because I feared the consequences of what would happen if I were to go off of the medication. Would I be plunged into an even deeper pit than before I started them?
I think I was also scared of feeling "normal."
I've never felt normal.
My happiest moments in life have all been tinged with anxiety. Happiness in itself scares me. I've always worried that if I'm happy, it just means that unhappiness is about to catapult itself toward me in the subsequent moments.
I've gone to counseling, I've joined support groups, I have an accountability partner from group I don't even know the last name of, I've coped, I've exercised, I've gotten fidget tools, I've taken homeopathic helpers, I've prayed. It. Doesn't. Help. Not long-term, at least.
There's a weird mentality about being Christian that if I am a good enough Christian, if I pray hard enough, if I am prayed over, then this will subside. There's a mentality that this is spiritual warfare, not serotonin.
The truth is, this doesn't have anything to do with my faith:
I love God.
I lack the necessary amounts of serotonin receptors.
It is as uncomplicated as that.
I've never wanted to start them in the midst of a major depressive episode because that would be admitting defeat. If there's one thing anyone knows about me, it's that I'm tenacious. I'm insanely tenacious. If I can fix it, I will fix it.
Another frustration in friends and family pushing pills is that they don't deal with my anxiety. They may deal with the effects of my anxiety, but they have no idea what my disorder feels like. They just want me to chill the heck out.
You aren't taking pills! You don't know!!! Don't sell me on something you know nothing of other than researching them.
A year ago, I joined a support group. It's all online, just enough to troll through responses and whatnot. Through that, I met Lubs. She and I are similar ages, struggle with the same thing at the same level of severity, and get on really well. I never went back to the forums after that; we communicate, commiserate, and collaborate.
Her symptoms temporarily subsided around 6 months or so ago, and we lost touch.
Last week, she reappeared and we started our talks again. She had tried all that I had as well and finally had given in to trying medication for her anxiety.
For me, now, the timing is perfect. I'm still striving against my anxiety, but I'm not debilitated. I have a friend who is starting this process with the same struggles I do. I have camaraderie and I have sensibility. No one is pressuring me. It's finally my choice.
Shocker, I'm worried.
What is life without anxiety? Or rather, what is life with chemical stabilization?
I guess I'll find out.
It's a decision I have made willingly but have a history of staunchly refusing for the majority of my life.
No, I'm not depressed, but episodes of depression, headaches, nausea, and a whole host of other symptoms have added up to a long, frustrating history with chronic anxiety.
Whether it's social anxiety or the anxiety disorder I've been struggling to conceal since I was a child, anxiety has dominated most every conversation and interaction and self-reflection I've ever had.
I have long feared making this decision because I feared the consequences of what would happen if I were to go off of the medication. Would I be plunged into an even deeper pit than before I started them?
I think I was also scared of feeling "normal."
I've never felt normal.
My happiest moments in life have all been tinged with anxiety. Happiness in itself scares me. I've always worried that if I'm happy, it just means that unhappiness is about to catapult itself toward me in the subsequent moments.
I've gone to counseling, I've joined support groups, I have an accountability partner from group I don't even know the last name of, I've coped, I've exercised, I've gotten fidget tools, I've taken homeopathic helpers, I've prayed. It. Doesn't. Help. Not long-term, at least.
There's a weird mentality about being Christian that if I am a good enough Christian, if I pray hard enough, if I am prayed over, then this will subside. There's a mentality that this is spiritual warfare, not serotonin.
The truth is, this doesn't have anything to do with my faith:
I love God.
I lack the necessary amounts of serotonin receptors.
It is as uncomplicated as that.
I've never wanted to start them in the midst of a major depressive episode because that would be admitting defeat. If there's one thing anyone knows about me, it's that I'm tenacious. I'm insanely tenacious. If I can fix it, I will fix it.
Another frustration in friends and family pushing pills is that they don't deal with my anxiety. They may deal with the effects of my anxiety, but they have no idea what my disorder feels like. They just want me to chill the heck out.
You aren't taking pills! You don't know!!! Don't sell me on something you know nothing of other than researching them.
A year ago, I joined a support group. It's all online, just enough to troll through responses and whatnot. Through that, I met Lubs. She and I are similar ages, struggle with the same thing at the same level of severity, and get on really well. I never went back to the forums after that; we communicate, commiserate, and collaborate.
Her symptoms temporarily subsided around 6 months or so ago, and we lost touch.
Last week, she reappeared and we started our talks again. She had tried all that I had as well and finally had given in to trying medication for her anxiety.
For me, now, the timing is perfect. I'm still striving against my anxiety, but I'm not debilitated. I have a friend who is starting this process with the same struggles I do. I have camaraderie and I have sensibility. No one is pressuring me. It's finally my choice.
Shocker, I'm worried.
What is life without anxiety? Or rather, what is life with chemical stabilization?
I guess I'll find out.
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
In the Office and Off the Road
My travel season (the main portion at least) has finally ended.
The odd thing about travelling is that while the months seem to go extraordinarily quickly, they finish leaving you feeling as though you have lived 8 months.
That's actually a pretty fair assessment since you're (willingly) dragged from city to city to hotel to hotel to school to college fair to random restaurants and crappy fast food joints and awesome holes in the wall. Thousands of people, thousands of stories.
Then home, you hope, to breathe, breathe, breathe, but in reality it's to attend meetings, answer emails, answer the phone, facilitate preview weekends and tours and visits, drop by local schools on your list, eat food you froze knowing you weren't going to be home long enough to buy more groceries, see your housemates and workmates and "special friend", and go home to crash every night.
My schedule this year was pretty nice because I was basically on a week, "off" a week. However, since I have local schools, my weeks off were spent out of the office as well. At least I got to sleep in my own bed, though.
Another counselor was out of the office for nearly 6 weeks straight.
Even then, though, we have it so good. At fairs--which we love because we get to meet other counselors who understand the job and don't say things to us like, "Oh, your students see you as professionals? I thought you were, like, student buddies"--we talk with one another, and it always makes me cling so tightly to my school when I hear them talk of how they are set out on the road for 9-12 weeks at a time.
When we're on the road, it's hard to remember our office and real lives are still existing without us. We miss announcements, jokes, fun local events, birthdays, etc. What we gain is time with our applicants, our soon to be applicants, family members of our applicants and soon to be applicants.
We love it. I think the time that we realize just how much we missed home is when we turn the car toward the barn or when we get that first hug and can't seem to let our loved one go.
On the homefront, it's a season of deserts and floods.
You try to cram in all the love and snuggles (and emails) you can before you leave and in those intermediary pieces between trips, then spend all the time on the road subsisting on text messages, crappy internet connections, and promises.
Now I'm home. Time to settle back into routine as well as I can, buy some groceries, re-learn how to spend appropriate amounts of time with my friends (reassuring myself that I can see them again the next day), do my chores, and sleep.
The odd thing about travelling is that while the months seem to go extraordinarily quickly, they finish leaving you feeling as though you have lived 8 months.
That's actually a pretty fair assessment since you're (willingly) dragged from city to city to hotel to hotel to school to college fair to random restaurants and crappy fast food joints and awesome holes in the wall. Thousands of people, thousands of stories.
Then home, you hope, to breathe, breathe, breathe, but in reality it's to attend meetings, answer emails, answer the phone, facilitate preview weekends and tours and visits, drop by local schools on your list, eat food you froze knowing you weren't going to be home long enough to buy more groceries, see your housemates and workmates and "special friend", and go home to crash every night.
My schedule this year was pretty nice because I was basically on a week, "off" a week. However, since I have local schools, my weeks off were spent out of the office as well. At least I got to sleep in my own bed, though.
Another counselor was out of the office for nearly 6 weeks straight.
Even then, though, we have it so good. At fairs--which we love because we get to meet other counselors who understand the job and don't say things to us like, "Oh, your students see you as professionals? I thought you were, like, student buddies"--we talk with one another, and it always makes me cling so tightly to my school when I hear them talk of how they are set out on the road for 9-12 weeks at a time.
When we're on the road, it's hard to remember our office and real lives are still existing without us. We miss announcements, jokes, fun local events, birthdays, etc. What we gain is time with our applicants, our soon to be applicants, family members of our applicants and soon to be applicants.
We love it. I think the time that we realize just how much we missed home is when we turn the car toward the barn or when we get that first hug and can't seem to let our loved one go.
On the homefront, it's a season of deserts and floods.
You try to cram in all the love and snuggles (and emails) you can before you leave and in those intermediary pieces between trips, then spend all the time on the road subsisting on text messages, crappy internet connections, and promises.
Now I'm home. Time to settle back into routine as well as I can, buy some groceries, re-learn how to spend appropriate amounts of time with my friends (reassuring myself that I can see them again the next day), do my chores, and sleep.
Monday, October 12, 2015
Struggles to Human
Let's talk plainly about social anxiety.
Personally, I find it frustrating.
Yes, also debilitating at times, but frustrating.
For me, I gt so angry with social anxiety because social anxiety feels selfish to me.
There's an event, usually very casual, that's designed to be fun and easy and you, because you just can't handle it and just can't help it, make it about you.
At the same time, I recognize that it isn't something that I can think myself out of, though I have indeed tried.
There have been some methods of coping that I have learned and have imparted to other of my socially anxious friends. Things such as going to check out that restaurant/school/baseball field/shopping mall before you have to go there with a friend or date.
Things like searching on the internet for a campus map if you're visiting a university friend or a museum or a hospital.
Knowing the name of the person you're dropping by to see: "Hi! I'm here to drop off materials for Angie Smith".
Doing anything to get acclimated to the new surrounding.
For me, a lot of my social anxiety is over-stimulation.
I can handle brand new location if I'm with someone I'm very comfortable with.
Or, I can handle a brand new person if I'm in a location I'm comfortable in.
I can even handle brand new location with brand new people so long as I have one solid person I know.
It's when everything is new, everything is unstructured, everyone is new that my ears drown and I can't hear what anyone is saying to me and I can't differentiate shapes and shadows and my heart starts racing and my nails start sinking into my palms and I have missed that gap in time where I can recover and cope and have disappeared into the dark place where I need to run away and cry and find solitude and silence.
It's embarrassing. It's selfish. And yet, at the same time, it isn't intentional even a bit, which is a key aspect of selfishness I think. More than anything, we'd like to feel like we were a part of the wallpaper, able to observe without the pressure of engagement. Able to exist without being noticed too much but still kind of noticed. Noticed enough.
It's a struggle I sometimes feel I've learned to manage.
And it's a struggle that still knocks me completely flat and bepuddled when it isn't on my radar to prepare for.
Personally, I find it frustrating.
Yes, also debilitating at times, but frustrating.
For me, I gt so angry with social anxiety because social anxiety feels selfish to me.
There's an event, usually very casual, that's designed to be fun and easy and you, because you just can't handle it and just can't help it, make it about you.
At the same time, I recognize that it isn't something that I can think myself out of, though I have indeed tried.
There have been some methods of coping that I have learned and have imparted to other of my socially anxious friends. Things such as going to check out that restaurant/school/baseball field/shopping mall before you have to go there with a friend or date.
Things like searching on the internet for a campus map if you're visiting a university friend or a museum or a hospital.
Knowing the name of the person you're dropping by to see: "Hi! I'm here to drop off materials for Angie Smith".
Doing anything to get acclimated to the new surrounding.
For me, a lot of my social anxiety is over-stimulation.
I can handle brand new location if I'm with someone I'm very comfortable with.
Or, I can handle a brand new person if I'm in a location I'm comfortable in.
I can even handle brand new location with brand new people so long as I have one solid person I know.
It's when everything is new, everything is unstructured, everyone is new that my ears drown and I can't hear what anyone is saying to me and I can't differentiate shapes and shadows and my heart starts racing and my nails start sinking into my palms and I have missed that gap in time where I can recover and cope and have disappeared into the dark place where I need to run away and cry and find solitude and silence.
It's embarrassing. It's selfish. And yet, at the same time, it isn't intentional even a bit, which is a key aspect of selfishness I think. More than anything, we'd like to feel like we were a part of the wallpaper, able to observe without the pressure of engagement. Able to exist without being noticed too much but still kind of noticed. Noticed enough.
It's a struggle I sometimes feel I've learned to manage.
And it's a struggle that still knocks me completely flat and bepuddled when it isn't on my radar to prepare for.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Pregnancy, Weight
Though it's called the miracle of birth, and we get so excited when we learn of a friend's pregnancy, there's something sinister about pregnancy.
For some women, like my mother, it actually has the potential to be kind of a miraculous experience. My mama and her birthing hips had a lovely time during pregnancy.
For others, not so much.
Currently, all of Siloam is pregnant it seems.
I've got a whole theory about the role that essential oils is playing in this (they are not an alternative to birth control, friends), but nevertheless, cute pregnant bellies fill the streets here.
A friend of mine (home birth types) just gave birth (in a hospital) after being more than 2 weeks late and after more than 48 hours of labor.
Another friend has been ill every evening at 5pm since she first learned of the human in her belly.
The wife of a professor friend--the one responsible for getting myself and Julius initiated and integrated with our church--has horrible pregnancies. Horrible.
He is a compulsive coffee drinker. I remember as a student in his class during her last pregnancy that he made his coffee on the porch of his house because it would make her vomitous.
During her last three pregnancies, she's been ill to the point of hospitalization.
This one was awful as well. But with pregnancy, unlike other diseases and abnormal growths, there's a heightened layer of joy and anticipation to pair with the anxiety and nausea. At the end, you'll have a squirmy life.
However, though she was an invalid for a couple of months, she found joy and comfort in the fact that through pregnancy acupuncture and other homeopathic remedies, she had been able to avoid the hospital and had finally made it back to church and most of her normal life.
Today, we received a short email from our pastor--The family mourns the loss of their unborn child...pray for her as she'll have to go through delivery soon.
I've heard mothers compare labor and delivery to a lot of things I can't unhear, like volcanic eruptions, dinosaurs escaping, being dipped in acid.
None of those are comforting images.
Again, though, they are mixed with this peace because it's worth it. It's worth it to finally be with this creature that you and your beloved have created together, procreated in the image of God. And it's beautiful. And it's valuable. And it's good.
I've just got this image in my head, though, that I can't release myself from.
We are not meant to grieve like those without hope.
But finding hope in more than "We'll be together one day in Heaven" is surely impossible in the midst of excruciating pain that will leave to the inevitable delivery of death.
Today is a reminder to be thankful for children, thankful for nieces and nephews, thankful for our own lives and the lives of the women who gave birth to us.
Some miracles become people. Some, hidden miracles I suppose, are an opportunity to grow closer to Christ, as that is the only option, the only source of true reprieve when our hearts feel like they're being torn out.
Thursday, September 3, 2015
I Only Dog Paddle
All I've gotta say is that something's in the Texan waters this year and applications are pouring in.
We are already at 50% of the total number of applications that I received last year and it's only September.
Yesterday, I was on the phone for four hours calling prospective students.
45 new applicants just this week as well as 13 meetings so far just this week and travel planning galore.
You could say that I've been drowning just a little bit, but it's the very best kind (minus some of the meetings. Really. So very many meetings could be an email).
Our first call to a student is known as an APN call, APN standing for APlicant Not yet contacted.
When we call them, it's this bizarre interaction knowing that there's a chance that this may not just be a phone call to a student, this may be the start of a year long relationship with a student, ending with orientation leaders swarming their vehicle and moving all their belongings into the dorm.
It could end with the start of a new life here at John Brown.
On Tuesday, I took one of my new Freshman students out for coffee because she was feeling a bit homesick and needed to see a familiar face.
While we were talking, I couldn't help but think that I had known her longer than anyone on campus. For more than a year, we have talked once a month at least.
All those interactions--going on a tour, calling when I got her application, a text upon reception of her transcript, seeing her when I visited her school at lunch, her acceptance call, a note on her birthday, ecstatic texts and calls when she raised her test scores to scholarship competition eligibility, a hug at scholarship competition, lots of tears and hugs when she shocked everyone and won the scholarship, class registration advice at early registration, a welcome at move in--became a year.
I've gotten to see her grow up a lot, as I have many of my students as they've gone through the process.
Each one of my APN calls has the potential to become part of our future.
While it may feel right now that I need to just desperately reach out for contact with my enormous list, it's worth the dog paddle, taking my time, feeling the potential gravity of the 5 years ahead.
We are already at 50% of the total number of applications that I received last year and it's only September.
Yesterday, I was on the phone for four hours calling prospective students.
45 new applicants just this week as well as 13 meetings so far just this week and travel planning galore.
You could say that I've been drowning just a little bit, but it's the very best kind (minus some of the meetings. Really. So very many meetings could be an email).
Our first call to a student is known as an APN call, APN standing for APlicant Not yet contacted.
When we call them, it's this bizarre interaction knowing that there's a chance that this may not just be a phone call to a student, this may be the start of a year long relationship with a student, ending with orientation leaders swarming their vehicle and moving all their belongings into the dorm.
It could end with the start of a new life here at John Brown.
On Tuesday, I took one of my new Freshman students out for coffee because she was feeling a bit homesick and needed to see a familiar face.
While we were talking, I couldn't help but think that I had known her longer than anyone on campus. For more than a year, we have talked once a month at least.
All those interactions--going on a tour, calling when I got her application, a text upon reception of her transcript, seeing her when I visited her school at lunch, her acceptance call, a note on her birthday, ecstatic texts and calls when she raised her test scores to scholarship competition eligibility, a hug at scholarship competition, lots of tears and hugs when she shocked everyone and won the scholarship, class registration advice at early registration, a welcome at move in--became a year.
I've gotten to see her grow up a lot, as I have many of my students as they've gone through the process.
Each one of my APN calls has the potential to become part of our future.
While it may feel right now that I need to just desperately reach out for contact with my enormous list, it's worth the dog paddle, taking my time, feeling the potential gravity of the 5 years ahead.
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