the rundown

i know, it's been way too long since i've written... the trouble is, i haven't exactly known what to say. I don't want to talk just to talk, i want to be saying something meaningful, something from my heart. How much is too much, is too honest and angry and broken and ugly?

Around the time i had those two Relient K songs stuck in my head i quit working at Powderhorn. A member of my church needed someone to babysit her daughter overnight while she had someone else's shift for three weeks. I only did this twice a week (as i recall) and i didn't think it would conflict with work at all. I've done this for her in the past and felt obligated to do so again: she only asks me when she's having problems with her older daughter. So i suddenly realize sometime later on that the girl is going to a new school, her mother is working later in the morning than normal, and i can't leave in time for work. So i call in and quit saying that i have a new job.

I had been wanting to quit working at Powderhorn for a while. It seems to me that the places that i work that are "Christian" in ownership and creed always turn out to be the ones with the most anger, bitterness, rudeness, etc. I didn't enjoy working not because of the work but because of who i was working with. I felt surrounded by negativity and was exhausted. I would be gone around twelve hours a day simply going to work and coming home from work. I no longer had a life or the energy for one. I had been planning to just stick it out, quit if i could find workstudy, but now that i had given my word... i felt obligated to quit and watch the girl.

Working during school would bring me just as much money as workstudy would. I hadn't gotten to snowboard more than fifteen runs (on the bunny slope or midway) my entire employment. Plus i thought i would be housesitting for a coworker of my father's for about a week and a half and i knew that would pay well. I just didn't have the time to do the things that needed doing before school. The pay was a pittance. I was nearly at my breaking point.

Not working was bliss. The housesitting job fell through (they took their pets on the trip) but i didn't let it bother me. I started snowboarding once a week with lessons at a discounted rate through a homeschooling support group my mother is in. My snowboarding really improved a lot and i felt that i was actually starting to recover and do something worthwhile with my time, knitting and reading and rest and cleaning.

When school started back up again i didn't realize until Thursday when i received a call to inquire why i hadn't been at Spanish the night before. I thought--because of my catalog--that classes didn't start for another week. It was really stressful to me only making it to one class my first week back. My teacher's perception of me (if they noticed the absence) must be that i am not responsible or punctual and that's so not me. Worse than that i've been tardy for Spanish the past two weeks (this week because of a wind storm that forced me to drive ten miles under the speed limit most of the way). And i've been unable to find workstudy. There was simply nothing advertised or available that seemed plausible.

So now of course my family disapproves of me yet again. My mom wants me to pay her back. I didn't get to bond my car yet (though i did find out that it will be a lot easier than i originally thought so now i feel stupid because, despite numerous searches through Google, i was unable to find this info myself and had to be informed of it by my sister). I'm not virtually broke and still need to file FAFSA for next fall.

All this have led up to the past four days of depression. i had been ignoring everything for so long, trying to suck it up and just forget it. Feeling sad doesn't help anything, i don't have the time to be human, to be real, to do anything but try to shut out the dark. But it was hanging over my head that i have been trying so very hard to pull myself out of this abyss and once again i have failed miserably. I think it was Friday or Saturday night that my parents started making not very subtle comments about how stupid i am to want a tattoo or to pierce my navel, especially a barcode "mark of the beast". And as i had just spent the past week slowly working my way through Dark Angel season two i too special offense at this because i was starting to rediscover...

~ i'm not fighting the dark anymore
~ i don't have hope anymore
~ i don't have a love (not even one that i've lost) and Valentine's Day is around the corner again
~ i love Dark Angel even more now that i've been away from it for a while
~ the barcode still has meaning to me as a symbol

My parents don't seem to care that i'm trying to do the right thing because it's not their definition of right. My mom said to me sometime over Christmas break that i'm too hung up on my definition of truth... but it doesn't matter what my definition is to me. Sure, i have big ideas, and if God tells me that they're wrong than i'll freely admit it and adopt his ideas. All of this begins and ends with truth, and Jesus is truth. Am i honest about the truth God shows me? As much as i can be when surrounded by people who just don't give a ---- what i think. So it's not my truth that i'm talking about from my perception, it's His.

On Sunday morning i didn't even have to think about it, i knew i was going to have a bad day. You try to keep your chin up, you try to ignore it, it still comes. In Sunday school it felt like no one cared what i wanted to contribut to the class and for weeks its seemed clear to me: 1, this is where God wants me and is speaking to me the most, and 2, my parents are getting uncomfortable about me being here because they don't feel free to speak openly about their relationship with me and their perceptions of me. The rest of the day was like the heavy silence before a storm. At the end of AWANA. See, we have a drawing each week for a small prize and you get more tickets for each section you say. There are special sections that you don't have to do, but if you do them all you get a special sticker to put them on your badge. There are four of these activities at the end of every group of sections, two "silver" and two "gold." My mother (the Director of T&T) said at the beginning of the year that you get one ticket for each of the silvers you do. My sister did two and had only gotten one ticket. She was upset because in the excitement of a game she's lost some of her tickets. i was trying to make sure that my sister Katie (who is in my team) had gotten all the tickets she deserves before we drew for the prize.

And then my father came into the room. I could tell right away that he was stressed out from something and was bringing it with him. The air was tangible, was heavy, with his mood. He said it didn't matter without even knowing what the whole deal was about. I tried to continue the conversation with my sister (she was really upset and thus being very disrespectful and stubborn towards me) and... well, i don't quite remember what my father said, but basically it was to shut up. I just looked at him for a second and all i could ask was:

"Why do you have to be like this?"

Because i was quibbling about symantics or some such. He didn't throw anything, he didn't yell, he didn't need to; the message was clear, that i am worthless, that i am stupid, that i have nothing to offer, that he will never see me as anyone worthy of respect or praise. i said fine, i'm leaving, and i left. i couldn't stop crying for half an hour. It still makes me cry. i have been afraid of my father for longer than i can remember. When i was about three he spanked me for being too close to the road after he told me not to play in it (it seemed to me that i was obeying, that i was far away from the road after he had been unhappy that i was near it). When i was four he once gave me some gum when he picked me up from preschool, and i accidentally swallowed it and started crying because i thought he would be angry.

The reasons i didn't want to move back to Colorado are many, but the main two are because i didn't want to be a financial burden to my parents and because i knew that i couldn't handle living with my father. The wounds are still too fresh.

I've tried so hard not to care what anyone else thinks of me (anyone but God) but it never works. As a female i am wired to see the approval of my father and husband. I don't have a husband and it seems my father will never approve of me. Worst of all, it seems like God doesn't approve of me either when He is so silent and seems so far away. I don't know how to forgive my father no matter how hard i try because i am afraid of him and he still offends nearly every time we are together. But no matter what God does i cannot hate Him or turn my back on Him: my life is still focused on Him even though i've subconsciously been trying to ignore it because it's too painful and too hard for me. I don't know what to do.