I Don't Think The Crazy's Gone

Throughout my life I've had one major goal: Don't disappoint people. I've joked often about setting expectations low so that you can always meet them but this isn't what I mean. In how I live, how I think, how I work, and how I make my decisions there's always an element of who will be disappointed by what I choose and who will be glad. Even while I'm in times of turmoil I don't do the things that I really want to do or need to do because I'm afraid of who it might disappoint.

A few weeks ago I got drunk for the first time. It wasn't a big deal and I hated most of the experience but it was also so freeing to do something and not think about who was going to be disappointed in me. Until later. When I told some of my friends about that party, they were, in fact, disappointed in me.

I want to be a Christian but I also want to process things and do things in my way, not the mainstream way. I know we're all supposedto be good and well behaved but trying to fit in these bounds have been suffocating me. There are some things that I just seem to see fundamentally differently from other Christians.

Yes, I know God hates drunkenness but Jesus provided wine at a party where people were already drunk. Yes, I know that we are called to modesty but the definition of modesty is culturally determined. Nudity doesn't bother me, small amounts of clothing don't bother me. Maybe it's from nine years as a dancer but I just don't see it as immodest unless you are dressing to bring attention to certain body parts and flaunting it. Yes, I know there are so many things I'm supposed to do differently than I do but I'm just not there yet.

Maybe I have trouble believing because I'm too busy thinking about what I should be thinking, doing, believing, saying, etc and not allowing myself to actually think, do, believe, say, etc.

I haven't actually abandoned this blog but I have been focusing mostly on my weight loss blog instead. 30lbs later, I'm thinking about some of the bigger issues in life. Yes, there are things out there bigger than my ass.

The nature of truth and reality, just to name one, is of course much bigger. I've been in a existential meltdown for roughly the last three years and it got worse this year. Maybe I'm making progress though. It hit me this morning, the point at which I am now. I believe again but I'm not ready yet to actually call myself a Christian again. I believe the word view and the theology but I'm just not ready to give myself up. I want my life to be my own. I guess that this is really a trust issue. Deep down I still fear the cruelty I have been through in my life and that God will deal with me with that same cruelty. I don't want it.

Sempre Libera has been my motto yet Sempre Fedele has been the cry of my heart. I haven't been able to reconcile the two.

But I'm not.

Today has been one of those brooding days. I spent nearly the whole of it wondering what I really want in life, what I really believe, and what I should do about it all. This, of course, means that anything that should be done about it doesn't actually get done because of the brooding.

I always seem to have two people fighting within me, dueling over each and every issue in life. On one side is the devout Christian who was ready to give up everything, move to the jungle and become a missionary, one the other side is a champagne drinking, diamond wearing gold digger who is ready to put on her new stilettos and head to the opera... or rather star in the opera... (Since they are internal waring figments of my imagination I figure that I get a little lisence for embellishments on my talents.)

There, though, lies a common problem with me. Either way, my ambitions exceed my talents (or at least my discipline).

I suppose if I am honest, if I felt no obligation to any outside forces, I would be an opera singer. It's only the sometimes faith and feeling that I should be serving rather than singing that keeps me from doing so... that and discipline as previously mentioned.