fear, or something like it.

today was a pretty great hair day.

i spend most of my life these days either a) laying on caroline's bed watching her pack for college, or b) eating breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner with people i haven't spent real time with in a year. That's my little cycle. For instance, on Tuesday night I had dinner with some of my friends from high school, then last night I went out to a little Abingdon townie pizza place called Bella's with the same group minus one person. And then I met two of those girls again for breakfast today, then went and had a pedicure and lunch with one of those girls...and tomorrow morning I have a breakfast date with the original four girls that this all started with on Tuesday. What the heck? I mean, I like it, but I've spent like $50 on pizza and breakfast sandwiches and potato soup in like...48 hours. And when I'm not eating food with friends from high school, I'll just roll over to Caroline's and see what she's up to. What a life I have.

But there's more to all this...I've discovered (or observed, more like it) something a little unsettling. When I'm home, I hang out with some derivative of two basic groups of people. Group A is the three girls that were my d-group during my senior year of high school; Caroline, Bridget, and Lauren. They're all a year younger than me. Then, Group B is made up of girls I actually graduated with; Julie, Julia, Jessica, and Brittney. And I've been around both groups pretty much every day this week, and I noticed today that every single one of those girls is either in some sort of serious relationship, the only exception being Bridget, and she just got out of one. And it makes me feel like a third grader. Like, I have had absolutely nothing at all to contribute to any conversation I've "had" this week, because they've all been centered around these boyfriends. And it's weird. I never noticed it before. Everyone around me right now is in sort of serious relationship...and it's a little suffocating. I don't mean that to sound like I don't want to be around people, I just think it's a little...funny. Maybe that's why people think I'm quiet all of a sudden, because I don't have anything to add to the "how we first met" story times, and can't talk about things that my boyfriend does that drive me nuts, and I can't really give any of them advice on anything either, so I just sit there and drink my diet coke and take it all in. And it's not like all my close Abingdon friends are about to get married or anything, it's just that a couple of them are in pretty legit long-term relationships; I'm talking about girls my age with third year anniversaries coming up next month. And I'm pretty sure that most of them "see themselves" marrying the guys they're with.

And it's starting to make me feel defective. I mean, I don't have low self-esteem or anything like that, but I feel like I just noticed this and missed the boat on some "this is what you're supposed to be doing right now" memo in girl world. I mean, I made the conscious decision to not date my first year of college, because I wanted to fall all the way back in love with the Lord before I thought about that sort of relationship with a man of God. And my best reasoning for that desire stems from two long-term experiences; one from my parents teaching me that love was to be earned, the second from pseudo-dating a boy for two years in high school who made me feel like no one else would ever ever love me. All in all, I started college with the skewed notion that I was completely inadequate in and would never be worthy of love. And I know this to be untrue; I know that God tells me otherwise. He tells us, "All beautiful you are, my darling. There is no flaw in you" in Song of Solomon. I know and trust fully that God loves me, all crap included. My hang-up, however, is believing that people do. I mean, shove me in a room with that guy from high school and it's like, all of a sudden my confidence shatters and there's a voice in my head saying, "You're not pretty. You're not fun. Nobody wants to be around you, you have nothing to offer, you're worthless," which I strongly believe is Satan trying to completely wreck my life. And I don't think there's anything I hate more than that. So this one situation with that one guy has affected and scarred me so deeply that I never ever want to get close to another guy. I have zero desire to date, I have zero desire to even entertain that thought. I'm not ready for that, at all. I mean, I think about it sometimes, but then when I say no when I get asked out by or set up with perfectly nice guys. When I got back from Frontier, people were a little shocked that I didn't come home claiming that I was in a relationship. So what it boils down to is that I'm actually pretty disappointed in myself that I haven't bounced back from this relational catastrophe from high school. I mean, for two years, I had this big "stay away" tag on me because I was chasing after some idiot who backed out on prom two years in a row and only really "liked me" when it was convenient. He was not my boyfriend. On the other hand, he wasn't just a friend either. Instead, our relationship was elastic, stretching between those two extremes depending on whether one of us needed the other for something, if there was a dance or some big event coming up where a date was necessary, and other varying factors. This was exactly what I wanted, as commitments had never really been my thing. And it wasn't like it was hard, either. The only trick was never giving more than you were willing to lose. And that turned into a big mess where I literally was existing in desperation, I never really "gave up hope" until he started outwardly emotionally abusing me, and by the time I realized that was going on, it was pretty embarrassingly late in the game. And I never did anything physically scandalous, I've never even kissed anyone, so that really tells me that all this pain and reservation is strictly emotional. I've been in these big awful emotionally deteriorating situations and I can't really sing praises about them; I feel unloveable and unwanted, and am at the point where I'm about to move to Texas and only come home for Christmas because I feel like my relationship with my parents is going nowhere fast; I don't really know I believe them when they say they love me. They do, they just don't know how. One day I'm going to feel safe, and happy, and wanted. Surely I am those things now, but I don't see it or feel it or know it to be true because if I have ever felt loved by someone, it's been temporary or very conditional and I can't live that way. I can't love that way, that's not what Love even is. Because I've seen what love is; God is love, and I have Him, so I have real love. Everyone says love hurts, but that is not true. Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. Losing someone hurts. Envy hurts. Everyone gets these things confused with love, but in reality love is the only thing in this world that covers up all pain and makes someone feel wonderful again. Love is the only thing in this world that does not hurt.

And yet, I have pain, but I also have all this contentment within Christ. I'm actually pretty confused as to what my problem actually is...that I have the love of God but won't let myself accept human love? I can't figure this out, really. I was talking to a staff wife at Frontier who is actually a therapist, and I remember making the comment to her that I would be okay if no one ever really loved me, because I knew that God did and that was good enough for me. And she was a little taken aback at that I guess, and she grabbed my hand and said, "Oh honey, but He doesn't intend for life to be that way."

I still can't really figure out this Texas deal. It all fits together somehow, I know it does. Somebody somewhere is going to love me, or maybe someone already does, and maybe they're in Virginia, or maybe they're at Wofford, or maybe they're in Texas. And maybe my parents will become followers of Christ, and maybe everything will work out. I'm pretty sure it will work out. I'm not even sad about all these things...I mean, I am, but it's not the kind of sad that overwhelms my life and robs me of my joy, and for that I know I am lucky.

I guess this is all what makes me the way I am. I guess figuring it all out is why I'm so quiet.