Social "leechery"

Break has created a little bit of space to breathe (despite the 1000 plus pages of homework to read before I return to SC!). Seeing friends and family, being surrounded by familiar haunts and faces I know have all contributed to the restorative experience that comes with a Christmas in Turkey.

I've been keeping an eye on both my present and past experiences as I process last semester and my other rough transitionary periods, and I'm trying to come up with a definition of independence and aloneness that works within the constructs of who I am and what I have to work with. Let me decode that poor little word puzzle for you. :)

Essentially, I'm realizing that I'm not as independent a person as I thought. I'm not someone who needs to have people around me all the time, and I think I confused the trait of being able to enjoy doing some things alone with the schizoid preference of doing everything alone. My new conclusions, upon studying two instances of difficult (and utterly alone) transitions, clues me into the fact that I do not, in fact, do well in transitions when I transition alone. I can make friends anywhere if I have a social base from which I operate and to which I can return at any point.

The implications for treatment? (My gosh, I'm becoming utterly noxious in my counseling treatment lingo). When I make transitions in the future, it would be best if I transitioned into an already existing social network or transitioned with a social network (ie: moved with a friend). This is all fine and good in theory, but I'm not sure how to apply it without becoming a social leech. I don't like leeches.

Suggestions?

Four Themes

I keep trying to write a blog, but it just isn't happening. I usually go into "emotional processing" zone somewhere along the way, which leads to me pitching a hissy fit and rolling around on the floor in tears, while hysterical laughter issues from my mouth, because what am I, three?

So I'm just going to try to re-cap this semester in as quick and straight-forward a method as possible:

Patience has been a bit theme. My timing is off of God's by about 6000 billion years, and it shows. One of us is wrong. I vacillate with regard to which one I believe that to be.

Surrender has been another big theme. I'm nowhere near there yet. In fact, the thought of surrender makes my head ache and puts my teeth on edge. We'll see how this goes.

Along with the surrender comes crushed dreams. Not necessarily crushed, per se. But surrender means that they can't undergird my existence. And let me tell you, giving up dreams can an emotionally taxing experience.

Finally, woundedness. I have literally become a person who can turn on the tears within seconds and with very little provocation. I just have a lot of seeping wounds right now, it's taking longer (ahem. . .patience) than I had hoped to de-seep them. It's funny to be doing so well, yet be so emotionally filleted at the same time. We'll see where that goes.

There's a re-cap. It's been a very bad semester, if one judges the goodness of a semester by the amount of pixie dust and giggles found per square minute. It's been a very good semester, if one judges goodness by the number of times God has smacked one upside the head.

I can't really say definitively that it has been bad or good, hard or easy. . .it's just been. It's one more semester that I can place in that little record book of my life, and while it included some failures and some successes and some surrender and so much rebellion I'm nowhere near the root of the problem and have already considered giving up. . .it has been.

And that in itself is a good thing.

Kicking and Screaming

I fully intend to phone in the rest of the semester. That's probably not what Jesus would do, but I'm done trying to use that line as guilt motivation, and have very little inclination to care about school or goals, or anything or importance, at this point. Instead I watch House and drink coffee. Not a bad life, all things considered.

Truth is, I am feeling intense cabin fever right now; I'm really fighting the thought of being here for another semester, let alone another several years. Part of it is the fact that this program is so harrowing that crap I never realized bothered me is suddenly making me run to my car to cry after class (where some now-traumatized 16-year-old boys caught me yesterday. That was amusing, to say the least). Then, of course, I wonder what's wrong with me and when it's going to get better, because I can't afford to go through life leaking all my bodily fluids. I'm already dehydrated from all the coffee.

I'm looking into volunteer opportunities and advocacy groups here in Columbia. That's the best way I can think of to help me reconcile with being here until I'm 26 (or longer). The justice oriented part of me, the passionate part, the part that I like best because it isn't focused on my petty life, has been dormant since getting here. I need to nudge it back awake. I need to make changes in the way I live. Graduate school Lauren, so far, is a bit of a disappointment; so I guess it's a good thing I'm going to be here for so long to rectify that, isn't it? :)