overexposure

I really hate that I only use this blog when I'm just too filled with yuck to know what else to do.

This is a time when every force in my life is begging for a deeper committment. Relationships, mostly.

Part of the draw of one of these forces will require me to- yet again- give my testimony.

And honestly, I don't know that I have it in me right now.

Is that bad?

I feel as though I've been an opened door for so long. I've been everso forth coming with my past and my vulnerabilities that I've exposed to what ever enemies are out there just exactly where to stick the knife. My Achilles heels are too prevelant and prominant.

I do not remember the last time I've wanted to be more of a recluse.

Sometimes, I get really down on myself that I just can't snap my fingers and be someone different. Someone who doesn't take things too personally. Someone who doesn't expect the worst. Someone who doesn't get so wounded and refuses to heal. Someone who I would consider more valuable.

Someone less awkward.

I often feel that I never aged past 15. Adolescence was more of something I failed at than lived through, so it seems. The insecurities. The cluelessness of how to have friends. The sting of rejection. And all has become so much more difficult to wade through as the years have passed.

I so wish that everything I wrote was inspirational. That I was inspirational. For the good.

And it's not that I'm not happy. Because I am. And grateful and thankful.

It's not so much that I want life to be different. It's me I want to change.

Let's not talk about this.

a movie about my life that didn't star me (they'd probably cast me as a hasbeen)

So, I'm using this space instead of my usual because I'm about to go all wordy and deep, and I'd like to avoid that one reader who--even after being told it's probably not appropriate for him to keep reading my blog--still insists on doing it.

And he'll probably find me here, too. And that comment is probably going to get me into trouble...

But this entry isn't going to be about anything to do with him.

It's actually about a movie.

Jon and I just got back from seeing 500 Days of Summer. We saw this instead of seeing Away We Go because I'm pregnant and could probably not have made it through a movie that started at 9:00 pm even if it was all for John Krasinski.

I may end up spoiling it for you, but it's not my intent. Nor am I setting out to review this film... It's more to confess some junk that this movie has evoked in me.

In the first minute of the movie, you discover that even though it's being tagged as somewhat of a romantic comedy, this flick will not end happily. Or at least, not for one of the characters.

Before any image appears on the screen, the watcher has some reading to do...

It's one of those typical disclaimers about how the story is fiction, and none of the characters resemble anyone in real life on purpose.

But then, there's an additional line which sets up the entire movie. It reads:

"Unless your name is Jenny Beckman. Bitch."

Who is Jenny Beckman? The audience is left to wonder...

I soon found out who she is.

She is me.

The general plot of this story is boy meets girl. The twist is that the boy believes in true love, fate, and happy endings. The girl believes in living for the day and having fun.

The boy- Tom- is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who forever to me will be Josh Wilson's look-a-like) and is who you are supposed to be rooting for. He's a gretting card writer because he couldn't cut it as an architect (I didn't see the parallel either). He's a romantic. Brooding. Angst-filled. And only made more adorable because he's the victim.

Summer (Zooey Deschanel) is aggressive and adament about not wanting a relationship with Tom, so they are in a very intense one together that she pretends is just them being friends.

For 450 of the 500 days of Summer, Tom is on a roller coaster of highs and lows, agonizing over what the right thing to say or do might be to secure himself in Summer's life. And each day, it's enough for him just to be hanging by a thread.

And then she dumps him.

Summer's whole reasoning behind her ways was that decided that after her parents' divorce that no emotions were permanent. It was better to just enjoy people while the good feelings lasted. And so that was what she did with Tom.

And when it was over, she was done. And she expected him to be her friend.

As I sat in my seat, hating this girl for reducing this boy to weeks in his bathrobe with a bottle of Jack Daniels and countless Hostess Twinkies, I suddenly recognized her very clearly.

So much, it actually startled me.

Granted--Zooey Deschanel is prettier, and her character dressed better and had a way cooler apartment and sense of independence than I ever did... But still, I knew her.

Because I was her. And I did what she did.

When I was young--very young, like a child even... I dreamed of being beautiful. I wondered what it would be like to be the "love of someone's life." I always wondered if anyone would ever have retrospective montages of me in their mind and refer to me as "the one that got away."

I romanticized that idea because I wanted to matter. I wanted to leave an impact by these silly, imaginary standards. The idea of someone being alone in their 30s because I had ruined them for all other women somehow made me feel important. Special. Valuable.

And although these fantasies never became actual intentions, the reality of the damage I caused in many of my relationships is pretty much indisputable.

Ironically, a lot of times it was because I really didn't think that anyone could really care for me so deeply as to be wrecked if our relationship ended. I used and believed that excuse very often.

But I know that this justification doesn't detract from how much real pain I inflicted with my actions.

I can hardly even believe that that girl was me. I did some very horrible things.

To people who loved me.

Once I saw myself in Summer, it was hard for me to villainize her. So many times my heart changed on a dime. And there was always someone next in line to turn my attentions to as not to have to deal with my responsibility.

She had to have some redemption, right?

I know I did.

Hers she met while reading The Picture of Dorian Gray in a coffee shop. She married him just months later. And while she was explaining all of this to Tom, she illustrated to him how he'd been right about love the whole time. There is something bigger than us, directing the chances of meetings and chemistry. She thanked him for teaching her that there was something out there bigger than what she felt for him.

She found what he felt for her with someone else.

My redemption I met in a parking lot while moving into an apartment. He happened by and helped me carry up a box. I was in a casual relationship at the time with a boy who loved me very much. And I married Jon just months later.

Now, my ego isn't so big that I think there are boys from my past still pining away for me in darkened apartments where the refrigerator contents are ketchup and baking soda...

But I'm also not so obvlivious to know that I cruelly caused many a heartache in my past. Selfishly. Unfairly.

Not that I don't believe that Jon and I are meant to be. As he put it the other night--He's my lobster.

And I can't belive that I'm actually going to use this reference, but I have to.

I watch the Duggar's Bajillion Kids and Counting because theirs is an alternative lifestyle that fascinates me. Among one of their beliefs is that dating shouldn't transpire between individuals who aren't courting for marriage. The line that they each blindly (a word I see both positives and negatives to using, but see truth in both) repeat about the reasons for this is--When people date, they are giving little bits of their heart away. God wants us to save our whole heart for that one person we marry.

As cornball as this after-school-special-pick-up-line is... I am proof that it is completely true.

The romantic part of this movie made me swoon. Watching Tom hold hands with Summer for the first time... their first kiss... it all gave me butterflies. The newness of a relationship is a feeling by which this world goes around. Every love song is written about experiencing it or losing it. It's basically an industry.

I have had many of those times. With many, many boys.

But except for Jon, they all ended the same way.

With a lot of pain. Anger. Hurt. Bitterness.

And those feelings cloud the retrospective.

And the good memories? If I enjoy them, I feel guilty for indulging in the memories that aren't of my husband. I have given pieces of my heart to a whole lot of people, and I reserved just what was left for the one I will spend forever with.

How ideal to have only the memories of new love with just one person. The one who I will always be with, and the memories won't be clouded by the pain of the relationship's end. If only someone had planned it all that way from the very beginning...

Now, I know I'm not Jenny Beckman.

But she's out there somewhere. And I wonder if she has ever drawn the same conclusions that I have. I wonder if it took this movie to show her the hurt she caused.

I wonder how many there are of us.

And I totally am feeling grateful that I never dated and scorned any up-and-coming filmmakers.

That's definitely not the impact I want to leave on this world.

lessons learned from the WB

Now that I'm done with One Tree Hill, I'm going to have to start wasting my life away again in reruns of Capeside.

But seriously, there was one episode of Dawson's Creek where Joey gets an assignment from school which forces her to choose the one person who knows her best, and that person has to write an essay about her.

I think about that assignment a lot.

Hands down, my husband knows me best. Now.

But aside from him, I'd be absolutely terrified to read what anyone else would write.

Is that normal?

I am still in the Three Kings mindset... "no one knows their own heart."

Does that mean that our only inklings into who we really are lie in our interactions with others? Or, does it mean that our true identities are simply a mystery on earth and will be revealed in heaven?

If I don't know who I am, how can I change it?

I should stop trying to philosophize teen soaps.

But I could totally rock out on an essay about Pacey.

i don't recognize her

I've heard it said that all of us look at the past wearing rose-colored glasses.

I didn't think that was true for me. I'm a realist, after all.

But, I think maybe a defense mechanism or two have kicked in since the good ol' teenage years. Or maybe it's just that I now have enough distance between myself and who I used to be, and I can finally see just how I used to be.

I wish that there were spot on the space-time continuum where all of my selves could just meet up. Although, I'm not sure what sort of preemptive measures I would have even known to take.

All this angst is stemming from the pages of a diary I wrote during my high school years. I recently found it in a box in the basement of my mother's house. And I hope to heaven she never read it, because I'm sure it would have broken her heart if she had.

It broke mine.

From cover to cover, I repeat the same mistakes. I'm horrible in what I say about myself. And I don't think I ever mention being happy about anything. Not even once.

Instead, I'm boy FANATICAL. I'm self-disparaging. I'm abused by "friends." I'm horribly mean to people. I'm angry. I'm scared. I'm trying to prove myself. And I am constantly giving pieces of myself away to anyone who will take them, and the result is an empty, sad mess.

I agree that most teenagers are probably melodramatic at best in their journals, but for some reason, I guess I'd always thought while I went through my share of junk in my youth, I somehow rose above the remnants graciously.

Instead, I know recognize just how incredibly out of control I was.

I think that the worst part of everything I read was just how cluelessly I spoke about God. And actually, what's most surprising is that I've come as far as I have despite who I thought God was back then.

I think that this is the first time that I don't feel 17. I feel like that girl I was then is a stranger, and I am actually a grown-up.

And you know what? The context of those pages are probably no different than how most teenage girls are nowadays. It's obvious what approval I was seeking. It's obvious the things that I valued. It's obvious I was lost and lonely.

There are hints that the author is a part of the me I know today, and those similarities are frightening. While I've come a long way since 14, I'm still struggling with confidence in any and everything I do. I feel as though I'm mostly a coward. And I've never learned how not to expect the worst.

And my biggest fear? That history will repeat itself. I don't kid myself that my daughter will be exempt from the trials of coming of age... But, if her teenage diary is anything like mine, I won't be able to help feeling like a failure as a mother.

My mother would agree that I know better than she did. My mother was an very young mother with lots of odds stacked against her that I don't have.

I'm not asking for a gaurantee about anything. But is it too much to ask to change history a little?

I know that the knee-jerk reaction to all this is to just tell me to be grateful for the victories in my past. To know that I am who I am because of where I've been. There is value in that, I know... but is it wrong for me to just want to NOT have been who I was?

I didn't know I was still this fragile.

Saul, David, Absalom

In light of reading A Tale of Three Kings, my heart is heavy.

If all authority comes from God, then when is it proper to challenge the authority?

When the authority contradicts God’s?

Am I supposed to have that sort of discernment?

How does democracy play into this?

What is the definition of authority in this context?

Is it every right for authority to be overthrown?

Who makes that decision?

What about Hitler?

At the same time, what about Jesus Christ?

Why is it that I read books to get answers, and I only end up with more questions at the end?

“…authority from God is not afraid of challengers, makes no defense, and cares not one whit if it must be dethroned.”  I feel that in small ways, I’m learning this.

“A man cannot know his own heart. “ This is both terrifying and comforting to me. It also makes me feel like I’m a stranger to my own self, but it reaffirms why we need community, people to speak into our lives.

Evidently, to understand the bible to the degree I desire, I must go to seminary, get a Master’s in history, learn Koine Greek and Aramaic, and discover the Ark of the Covenant.

Or maybe I should start by just praying for wisdom.

silence

It's times like these I really wish I had a private blog.

Well, I suppose not... because if that were true, I'd be writing everything down in a journal that only my eyes could see.

Instead, I wish I had a blog where I could freely write everything going on in my head and in my heart. But, circumstances what they are... It's just not possible.

I always liked the idea of anonymity as a writer. The idea, but never the reality. I mean, I write because I have something to say, and if I'm going to say it, then I need to own up to it.

Maybe I just keep hoping for that wise reader who stumbles upon my blog and from their non-place in my life can speak into my struggles such truths that I cannot deny the Divine Intervention.

But, nevertheless, I know that it all ends well.

And not speaking is giving me a chance to listen.

babble on

There have been only a handful of times in my life where I have felt the Holy Spirit.

I don't even know if that makes sense to any of you... or me actually. But, having felt what I have felt, and having the vocabulary that I have... that's the only way I know to describe the happening that sometimes takes place when I am in prayer.

Yesterday, sharing a devotion with one of the staff, that is what happened.

I felt completely filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit. And, like every other time in my life when this is happpened, a huge part of me panics.

It is so overwhelming. I can't tell if I'm going to float, going to fly, going to melt, or going to disappear... but I feel like something is trying to happen.

And I just don't let it.

I've never invited this to happen successfully. There isn't a trend to my prayers which evokes it. It's not something I have control over happening or not happening. It's up to God.

And yesterday, as I was praying... I felt so strongly that God was trying to pull something out of my mouth. Physically. I felt as though I were on the verge of speaking something that I had no idea meant. I felt like I didn't have control over my own mouth... but that God did.

But I didn't surrender to it.

I have never spoken in tongues. I have heard it once, and I totally believe that it's a legitimate form of worship and is from God.

I just never believed it was something I would do. Or could do. Or that God would choose to do through me.

Oh, me of little faith.

And so, whatever message was supposed to come out yesterday, I didn't allow it to.

This was awesome and terrifying at the same time.

And PS- I'm not crazy. But I guess that doesn't matter either because some people will crucify me for saying this anyway.