i am utterly confused

i mean it, i am utterly perplexed. i struggled this week to clean house, get some things done with my day. i still don't have a job. i still don't have the slightest idea what's happening with Brad because he will not communicate with me. And i have no idea what is going on with God for the same exact reason. i am just hopelessly lost and don't have the slightest idea what to do. i am just... lost. The more i try the more lost i become. i am just so tired of trying to figure things out, trying to not figure them out. i hate waiting!!! When is this madness ever going to end?!?

i am trying

Right now, i'm trying to take care of myself. For a while, i couldn't really get up, so i didn't. i would stick to my bed most of the day, playing WoW, or watching a movie. i've had insomnia, can't fall asleep until dawn, so i just stay up all night trying to distract myself from the pain while really it's all in a search to find some way to deal.

i'm perfectly aware of the fact that feeling sorry for myself (even though my throat doesn't hurt) and wallowing in self pity. What of it? When i catch my breath and regroup i will get up and continue fighting this hopeless battle. Yes, hopeless, for i have no hope without God, if He is absent then there will never be joy or answers or victory or rebuilding. So i take it as it comes (and it comes all the time) and slowly recover my strength.

God put me in the dark, i will not ignore it. There must be some reason He wants me here, i do not know what it is, but i must embrace it. There are times it is too much for me, like the past couple of weeks, so i hide from it, yet it consumes me. Then there are times where i alternate between ignoring it, acting as if it isn't there so i can grasp at the roots of normalcy, and starting to get back up. When i reveal my troubles to people, i get very contrasting responses. Some people think i'm paranoid, some acknowledge the issue but have nothing to offer in the way of help, others are forced to help but fight against it. This i can understand this last response, for it is the same situation i am in. i chose to follow God no matter what, certainly, but if He would have told me what was going to happen, the darkness and hardship that i would have to endure, i would have run the other way just like Jonah.

Anyway, i'm going to try to read my Bible every day again, and i will choose to believe what it says instead of what my eyes tell me. i'm going to try to find a job, and hope that it doesn't kill me. i'm going to try to start knitting and maybe painting again, and getting my chores done more faithfully, and praying and worshiping Him more often. i am going to stop trying to protect myself from the dark and embrace it, because it is what makes me unmundane, it is what proves my devotion to God because it is what He has asked me to endure.

Actually, this insomnia stinks from an exercise standpoint, but if i do get the job my shift would be right in the middle of it. One can only hope.

down for the count

The past month has been so hard. A month ago, i was in the middle of Brad's visit. It was wonderful, to finally be kissing, hugging, touching, in a relationship. But i was scared. i knew it couldn't last and i knew it would be horrible when the visit ended. A week later, i was happy because i had forgotten my fear and everything seemed to be going so well. Brad seemed inclined to stay longer. A couple of days later, his mother insisted that he come home, at the end of two weeks (as had been the original estimated time), and i was crushed. He didn't want to go, i knew, but he felt obligated to. It felt like he was choosing his mother before me, that he didn't love me enough.

His departure was too abrupt. One day, he was going to be staying, the next he was already gone, and we hadn't had a chance to talk, to discuss what this meant. To make matters worse he had forgotten his cellphone, so i didn't get to talk to him for days (we had been talking almost every night before his visit). So i fell into depression for the first time since before Christmas. At night, i couldn't sleep, i would be paralyzed with the loneliness and sorrow and hopelessness. One night, i was even allowing myself to have suicidal thoughts, something i have not done since junior high. In those moments it is not that i want to die, it is that i am overwhelmed with the intense emotional and physical pain, pain that is unrelenting, controlling my every thought.

The pain has dulled, some, but every day is still a battle. The moment i feel that i might be doing okay is when all the bad luck (to put it nicely) is unleashed upon me again. Talking to Brad used to make me feel better, but now the few times that we have gotten to since he left have really only made me feel worse. He's depressed, too, and we're both not dealing with it well at all. We're getting on each other's nerves, getting irritated at faults that didn't matter before, are too quick to get angry. i know i'm being clingy and he doesn't like that. He's not willing to contemplate visiting or continuing the relationship for six months, and he is unhappy with my weight, so i'm not happy about that. I've already lost forty-five pounds, i know i don't want to stay at this weight, but the way he says it... like he'll only be with me if i'm thin. All of my ideas for solutions are taken as nagging, all the conversations are initiated by me, i'm tired of pursuing him... it's just like every other relationship i've ever had. i do all the pursuing and ultimately the other person doesn't want to have anything to do with me and will probably willfully hurt me in an attempt to push me away. Brad wants to take a break, but i don't know if i can wait, want to wait, but what does that say about my love? It must not be strong enough then.

When he first left, it felt like it was already over. i have doubts now where i didn't before, doubts about his anger, his lack of communication, his level of maturity, the way he closes down and chooses to ignore something he doesn't want to discuss or believe. i still don't know if this relationship is ultimately going to work out or not, all i know is that i don't want it to end. i don't want to be alone anymore. i know that getting married to the wrong person can be even worse than staying single, that being alone and at odds with the person who was supposed to be the solution is horrible, but i just can't stand being alone. i used to want Brad because of who he is, now i'm not sure if i love him enough or if i'm just settling, and i don't want to do that to either of us. Before Christmas i was finally trying/starting to get used to the idea of never getting married or having kids, and then this relationship started, and now i cannot go back to living in misery like that. So the relationship is on hold, and i am waiting and living in misery anyway, and i can't let go. i thought that he would be enlisting this summer and was silly enough to believe that we would be getting married by this fall at the latest. Now i know that he is not going to go into the military, that he's unable to find a job, and that i won't get to see him until Christmas at the earliest. He says that he'll be free then, but that's so far away, i don't know if our relationship can handle this. It's not supposed to be hard like this, but then, that's how everything in my life is... hard. Nothing in my life is ever easy or fair.

i can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Sure, six months isn't that far away, but it's actually six months added to years of waiting. Everyone's advice is read your Bible, pray, go to church, have faith, believe in yourself, find friends, find someone to confide in, put God first... i don't know how to do those things anymore. Those things are exactly what i've been doing for eight and a half years (for my entire life, really), and my life has only gotten worse because of it. i read my Bible, i become more depressed because what it says is the exact opposite of what God is doing in my life... so which God do i believe in? The one i read about in the Bible or the one that's absent from my life? i have always believed in the one that's in the Bible, but now even that faith falling apart. i try to pray, but my prayers are still not being answered.

i go to church every week, and i finally have found a good one where the pastor actually delves into God's Word, but i don't know which small group i would fit into. Should i go to the young adult group where everyone is five years younger than me and probably not seriously contemplating marriage? Or the women's group where everyone is probably married and it would be awkward because i'm single? And can i even go at the designated times, or would that interfere with the job i might be starting in a week and spending time with the only friends and ministry that i do have (i mean the ones i play WoW with online). Everyone i have tried to confide in can provide no solutions other than the ones that i have already been trying to adhere to, but that have yet to provide any solution either!

How am i supposed to believe in myself? i do find it sweet and heart warming when people actually say nice things about me (thank you so very much!) but i have a hard time believing that these words are true. It's not that i do not trust their judgement! It is only that, for as long as i can remember, my peers have treated me as i was worthless, someone that should be at best ignored and at worst abused and used. This is putting it in harsh terms, of course, but no one would play with me in preschool through elementary school, friends that i pursued broke my heart, my classmates in high school merely used me for my brains, my volleyball coaches and some teachers were intent on tearing me down, i now have had bosses that have done the same, etc. I guess lots of people have said good things about me to my face, but it's always easier to remember the bad things that i have heard voiced and seen displayed every other day in remembrance. People started telling me i was fat a decade before i actually was... why wasn't there ONE person who would tell me that i wasn't and that i was beautiful the way i was? In other words, losing weight will not solve these issues of being unpopular and socially awkward, because i wasn't popular when i was thin.

i want to be loved for me. i have always said that i am nothing without God, and have fully believed it. i do not sing because i think my voice is beautiful (in fact, i hate my speaking voice), i sing to glorify God. i know that God loves me, that He sent His Son to save me, etc... and yet He won't even look at me, acknowledge me, answer a decade's worth of prayers. Two decades worth of other people telling me i was worthless (with me all the while constantly fighting against believing the same thing as them)... and now God seems to be saying the same thing. Which i know is a stupid thing to believe, in all reality He had absolutely no reason to look on me as a sinner, it is by His grace i am saved. But i've spent over twenty years serving Him, putting His will first, trying to be like Him, giving up on dreams and embracing the new ones He gave me, and now... i don't know how to put my heart back together again and He isn't interested in doing it, either. i don't know how to shut out the naysayers and believe that i am anything but worthless.

Brad has said that he doesn't want to break the relationship off because i have invested so much, that he cares about me, and doesn't want to hurt me. It still hurts to be apart. Nothing is certain. i don't want him to feel obligated towards me, i want him to love me and never leave me. And that's how i feel towards God, too. i have invested my entire life, and what am i left with? i can't support myself, i'm in debt, i am as good as single (i've still never even been on a date) with my options forcibly left open, i am depressed, have tons of emotional baggage that no one can figure out how to deal with and God seems to be uninterested in taking on...

Everything in my life is about trying to please God. It irritates and offends me when anyone says something that even remotely insinuates anything less. Every step, ever inch i have crawled, have been in an effort to glorify and obey Him. i have believed in the impossible and the naysayers have always been proved right. i know that my words are harsh, that i'm not pretty, i don't have the strength to pretend. i don't have any patience anymore, i don't know how to forgive people's thoughtless cruelty anymore... i have decades of that stuff that i always ignored, forgave, and yet still cannot forget. It weighs on me, i don't know how to get rid of it, i've tried throwing it away. i am fallible, i will say that before anyone else, i say that i'm sorry daily. And i know that i am weak, but i don't know how to try anymore, to go on. i don't have a Samwise to carry me up Mount Doom and i don't have a Gollum to bite my finger off, i'm just an epic fail.

All i have ever really wanted was to get married and have children. Acting, writing, singing, school, working, that is all something that i wanted to or had to do in the meantime. i can give up on those dreams, but married and children is engraved on my heart, was a dream that i had before i have memories or had the brain development that's necessary to willfully make such decisions. This is the way we are wired, "be fruitful and multiply," and my biological clock has been ringing since before i can remember. i always knew i would have to wait, so i did willingly fill my life with these things in the meantime, this "busy work," if you will (which is just a stupid figure of speech for doing something because there is nothing to do). But i'm not over my quarter life crisis anymore, i've slid backwards. i don't know where the light is, i have lost all sense of direction. i don't know what God's will is, He hasn't enlightened me in a very long time. And i feel entirely too weak to get up or try anymore. i still need God and don't know how i can ever feel whole without Him, whether Brad is in my life or not.

i don't know if writing about it helps. i try to read the book i got for Christmas, i try to read my Bible, i try to pray, but it all seems hopeless. i keep trying even though i don't really believe that my problems will be solved anymore. i know God can do anything, i do not believe that He will at all. If He was going to, why didn't He after 1, 3, 5, or 7 years of prayer? Seek Him and He will come running, easy for them to say, they should try living in a reality where it isn't true. But how can it not be true, i keep think of Dogma, where the universe will be destroyed if what God said is proven to be untrue. i don't know, i can't understand, so i stopped trying a long time ago (Proverbs 3:5-6 and all), but my paths have only been straight into more despair.

How do i forget years of pain and baggage? How do i ignore what my eyes are telling me and believe in myself and Him? The three words i hate more than anything... i don't know.