Where I'm At ~or~ Far From Home

So it's been a while since a general life update on here, or any kind of consistent posting. I wish that wasn't the case, but things got pretty busy really fast this summer, and this blog kinda slipped in the old priority list.

But now--now, I'm stranded here in Tulsa, alone on a Saturday night with a mountain of reading and writing to do and a complete lack of any desire to do it. It was out of moments like this that this blog was birthed.

I guess I should start at the beginning. Of June. This summer in El Segundo was amazing. Absolutely incredible. It was probably the best summer of my life. The city is gorgeous and friendly and everything I hoped it would be, with a bustling Main Street within walking distance of just about everything, tons of local-owned sandwich shops where they enter your order almost as soon as they see your face, and a Farmer's Market that shuts everything down on Thursday afternoons. The weather is pretty much always room temperature, with a high of 75ish and a low of 65ish; the windows in my bungalow were open every day and every night. Oh, and the Pacific Ocean is just around the corner; I snuck down just to look at the water to fill up a couple of lunch hours on slower days.

While I was down there, I never really thought that I went to the beach all that much, but, sitting down and thinking about it now, I probably hit it up four or more times a week. Something about the sand and the water and the wind and the nature of it all just never got normal to me. It was always breathtaking when I reached the top of the hill on Grand and could finally glimpse the waters beneath.

The church was awesome, too. Instead of assigning me the random intern jobs that no one else wanted, they actually took the time to find out what my passions and strengths in ministry were and then worked with me to design places for me to use those in conjunction with their ministry. It was really cool and gave me a lot of opportunities to test myself in real youth ministry situations. I was amazed with how quickly the staff welcomed me into their lives and their work and supported me and valued my opinion on all sorts of things that I didn't really feel qualified to give an opinion on. It was scary, but in a good way.

The people were also great. My biggest fear going into the summer was that it usually takes longer for people to begin liking me than I was going to spend out in El Segundo, but as the summer unfolded I really quickly fell into some really great new friendships and reopened a couple of old ones. When I first arrived I thought that I'd have loads of time alone in my bungalow to read and study, but between work and hanging out with all the great people I met, I ended up spending very little time back there at all.

There was also a girl. She's pretty amazing. If you want any more of a story than that, shoot me an e-mail, or call or IM me or just stop me walking through the GC and I'll be glad to tell you all about it.


But that's the summer...I think. I mean, there are a ton more stories than that, and maybe over the course of time you'll hear them all. But for now, I think that'll do.

Now I'm back in Tulsa. I've got a ton of work ahead of me this semester. But then there's a bright glowing future somewhere after that and I can't wait to get to it.

Peace, love, and joy to you all.

Beef Nuggets ~or~ Why I'm Single

And as I wrote, I bled; big, hot, scarlet drops fell onto the parchment, forming stars and lights and shapes and heavens. [...] But when I started to stop bleeding, I realized that there was nothing left; no more fear, no more joy.

--  How the Pale and Shriveled Man Died

Tonight at dinner, conversation happened. I guess that's a very poor way to begin this story; it really smacks of lazy exposition...as in "Here we are in Spain."

Regardless, I was at dinner in a conversation with several good friends about how girls are leeches which suck life out of me. But that's not what I sat down to write; if you want to have that conversation with me, I'm sure we could sometime, but tonight is hopefully going to be something else.

The discussion of how I just so amazingly stay single came to a point of identity: am I being me or am I being someone else. Unfortunately for me, this question was asked by someone who knows me pretty well, so I couldn't just ignore it with the whole you-don't-know-me Jenny Jones response. I responded nonetheless pretty quickly that I was being me. And I believed it. I mean, I don't feel pressured at all by the people around me to behave in a certain way. I just do my thing.

But I haven't been able to get away from the question. And I guess the answer's not as simple as I wish it was. Here's why:

I'm not really sure if this is a legit reason, before I begin. Maybe it isn't. But illegitimate or not, it's my reason for this.

The person who knew me better than anyone else in the world sent me an IM over the summer that she could never be anything more than just friends with me, and then (much) later sent me an e-mail that tritely dismissed me from her life.

There's obviously much more to the situation than that. But that's not really important, and I don't know that this is the venue, if there even is a venue for that. Everything you need to know about that whole saga is right there.

I used to struggle for an answer as to what I had said or done wrong to drive her away. I don't know that there was anything that I could have done differently to change the outcome. She certainly had plenty of opportunities and solid reasons throughout the year to get rid of me, but she never did. Why over the summer?

My answer: Convenience.

And that's scary. I want to pause here to make sure that you aren't hearing something that I'm not saying--God only knows who reads this blog and who knows what about my life and those involved in it. This is not a tirade about how awful a person this girl is or was. I was so interested in her because she was, and still is, such a great person. Now that that's out of the way...

What scares me about this is that this is something which I am: convenient. The voices which gently sing me to sleep ask me if I'm even capable of a real relationship and point out that if I died, people would be sad about it for a few weeks, but then return to the status quo. Don't get me wrong--I understand that these things aren't true...but these are the echoes that haunt me, the questions that remain at the close of the day.

If I'm convenient, I'm disposable. Which is where the beef nuggets come in to play. I don't know how much time y'all have spent in the jerky aisle of a convenience store, but there are these disgusting abominations of meat byproduct sold there known as 'beef nuggets.' They look like dog food, and scare even the most seasoned colon right out of---well, this is just getting gross.

I think that's what I've been this year: beef nuggets. Inspiring curiosity, but also sending out the message to everyone to keep their distance.

I guess if you never get picked up you never get thrown away, right?


Looking back, this has kind of been the pattern to my life: girls get really involved with me until something better comes along, or until it just gets too arduous to deal with me anymore.



Wouldn't it be cool if this post ended with some revelation that made all that crap seem better or worth it?

Here's my best shot:

Take heart: though I don't know why pain is part of life, everything I do know about God, I learned in those dreadful times.

Peace, love, and joy to you all.