"I imagine it doesn't feel great right now," one friend wrote, "but who knows what kind of wonderful outcomes it could bring along."
"I think something good will come from this..." another friend wrote.
(Before I move on, I want to say thank you to all of you. I consider it an enormous blessing to be constantly surrounded by friends, family, and readers as supportive as you.)
I was a wreck on Friday, better Friday night, and a wreck again Saturday afternoon. I couldn't seem to convince myself to move past the embarrassment and insecurity. I was so sure everything was ruined that my number one thought was not how to move forward, but whether or not it would be easier to just throw in the towel.
It wasn't until Saturday evening that I'd had enough of myself, realizing how stubbornly sad and half-heartedly irrational I was being, and I ended up calling my therapist to get a little sense thrown at me.
It's all in your head, she told me. Stop letting it play over and over again. Either challenge the thought or stop thinking about it.
So, I challenged my own insecurity. Earlier that morning at volleyball, someone had said to me in response to my last blog post, "You're a Christian, right? Look, God's got it taken care of. It's going to turn out the way he's got planned. Trust me, I've tried to f*** it up multiple times, but He just wasn't having it."
Hearing those words that morning had had little effect, but thinking about them again that evening set me straight. Sometimes I forget that I'm not the big picture. Sometimes I forget that there's someone greater than me who has my back.
I consider myself a fairly religious person--a regular church-goer and someone who aspires to love and serve others--but in everyday life, I tend to lose a lot of the context that frames that effort. I tend to forget why I spend 3-4 hours a week at mass or choir, why I end each day with a prayer of gratitude and a short reading from the Bible. I tend to forget to give Him credit, on small and large things alike. And with that forgetfulness comes an uncertain trust.
"Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."
"Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing."
"My Lord and my God!"
Doubting is my default mode. I worry. I fret. I consider and reconsider and consider again. I hesitate to let people take care of me. I hesitate to let go of things that matter.
Trust in romantic relationships seems to work in much the same way. B and I are just getting to know each other, but after hours and hours of talking about ourselves and the Big Life Things that we've experienced, I'm starting to trust. Not so much trust that he is who he says he is (though we joke about that), but trust that we're on the same page. Trust that he won't break my heart. Well, not yet, anyway.
It turns out that Blog-gate might actually have been a good thing, just as my friends had thought. For one, B now knows unequivocally that I like him (I mean, I told him, but he really knows now). More importantly, it got us talking about all sorts of things we might have been otherwise too nervous to say.
It also opened the door (Get it? Blog-gate) to both a discussion between us and a personal reflection on my own about the purpose of this blog and what I'm trying to achieve in writing about my life. Sure, it's a practice in openness, but it is most importantly a testament to the people and events in my life that have brought me to where I am. "I want to respect the people that show up in my blog," I told him. "Normally, respecting people's boundaries isn't an issue." And that's true. My friend "Edgar" has repeatedly mentioned that he wouldn't mind seeing his name show up in the blog at one point or another, and my friend Mick (who requires no quotation marks) usually jovially curses at me via Facebook comment every time his name appears. People tend to like it.
I'm beginning to realize, though, that B and I are a different story. This is not smack talk on the volleyball court or friendly advice. These are deep and intimate conversations. We're being open, just not with the outside world.
It's a new thing for me, opening myself up to one specific person. It's pretty scary, and with the little experience I have in mature and serious relationships, it might take me a while to get good at it. But it's also exciting, and satisfying. It's like having an inside joke, but even better. Like an inside pun.
So from here on out, you might not read that much about me and B. I imagine his name will appear from time to time, but the personal stuff between us isn't really mine to share. It's ours, and I expect it's better kept that way. Because trust and intimacy matter, and I want him to be able to trust me.
Plus, his jokes about release forms are getting old.
I think you and "B" have huge potential--and believe we'd all be better off if we could be as honest with each other as you are in your blog.
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