zippy’s blog

So, Brittany wanted a new post. Here it is. I hate writing on here even when I feel I really need to, because when I finish, I read it and realize how depressing and pathetic I sound, and feel like I need to say something uplifting and positive to make myself sound like I'm not debbie downer. The reality is that I am depressed. Almost all the time I feel like I am on the edge of breaking down in tears. I hate being alone, because being alone means time for me to sit and think. To think about how lonely I am. About how I manage to make things worse no matter how hard I try to make things better. About how everyone else's lives seem to be moving forward except mine. How I don't even know what I want. Abouth the harsh reality that the one person I want, I will never be good enough for. Every time that I begin to feel that I am over it, he seems to show the slightest interest in me or even in someone else, and I am back where I started. People try to make me feel better by saying that I will find someone else or whatever, but that does nothing to minimize the sadness in my heart that I feel right now. Or the ache I feel knowing it is just a matter of time before he has someone else, and I am completely and utterly brokenhearted and alone. I don't understand. I have tried to do everything I can think of to help with this chronic sadness: excercise, spending time with people I love, working on projects, writing down my goals, listing things/people I am thankful for, even listing positive features/talents/etc. It all just feels so fake to me. Last night one of my patients was on suicide watch. I had to sit there in her room with her while she talked about not wanting to live anymore and how hopeless she felt and depressed she was. I had no idea what to say except for to agree with her that her situation sucked and that although its hard to see it now, she has to believe that it will get better. I don't know if I even believe that. I just couldn't stand to see someone that sad. I know it gets old to tell people you are sad, I can see it in people's faces when I tell them, that it gets old to tell them the same thing. I can understand--I am sure I would have the same reaction! So in the meantime I feel like I am in limbo. Will this ever get better? I sure hope so. But I don't remember being happy at any time in my life. I don't know if I ever was or if I have just forgotten because it has been so long. I just wish I could be a strong person. I wish I could just deal with it. I feel so lame being this way, and think maybe this is why I don't have anybody. I don't know. I just want to feel like a normal human being.

So yeah, September has been a really crappy month. It started with all the drama with Mike. That really took a toll and made me feel like crap. Some of it was laughable, but at the same time, someone said alot of really hurtful things about me, and that sucks. Last week, my friend Stephanie from work died suddenly. No one saw it coming and the events leading up to it are still unknown. She was one of the funniest, happiest, most hardworking people I know, and brought alot of joy to patients and coworkers alike. She just had a 25th birthday party a couple weeks before. Finally, this Wednesday is the 2nd anniversary of the death of someone else that I cared deeply about. When Mr. Mac died, it was like a part of me died. A part that I really liked, something that he brought out of people that was really great. I get a feeling people are sick of hearing about him so much, but to tell you the truth, I think about him and miss him every day. I think about the things I would like to talk with him about, the paintings he would have done, the movie nights, the light he was to everyone who knew him. My responses to these recurring thoughts seem to be limited: a feeling of bleak numbness, or of complete sadness. Death is a strange thing. I can't seem to wrap my head around it. It is just too hard to believe that it happens, especially to people that aren't old or weak or sick. People who the world needs to keep around. People who are instrumental in the lives of so many, and bring light into darkness. I am so sad...

Is it worth it to tell someone something that is burning inside you, and run the risk of them simply disregarding what is causing you pain? I don't know if there is anything emotionally more painful than spilling your guts to someone, someone you consider to be safe, trustworthy, a deep, close friend, and having them ignore, brush off, or belittle the situation. Or then again, can your pain ever truly be real to someone else? There can be sympathy, maybe, if people have the compassion and kindness to listen deeply and let your hearts be broken together. But your burden of pain is not theirs, and they cannot carry it for you. And chances are, they will get sick of hearing about it, even though to you, the pain is still there. You just have to keep it inside again are risk being "the bleeding heart". What if that person is the one causing the pain? Then what? If they don't have any idea (which is unlikely to be the case), you can tell them, and they can agree or disagree with it. They can accuse you of being too sensitive or apologize and make an effort to change it. Unless they don't want to change the situation or for whatever reason cannot. This is why I wonder if it is worth it? I wonder if it is worth sharing...It is an intense reality for me to realize that my actions have an effect on those around me too. I think I would want to know...or maybe I wouldn't.

Sad kitty

Fond of animals, Einstein kept a housecat which tended to get depressed whenever it rained. Ernst Straus recalls him saying to the melancholy cat: "I know what's wrong, dear fellow, but I don't know how to turn it off."

How it all started:

"I'd been living in London when my world turned upside down and I'd had to come home. By the time my plane landed back in Sydney, all I had left was a carry on bag full of clothes and a world of troubles. No one to welcome me back, no place to call home. I was a tourist in my hometown.

Standing there in the arrivals terminal, watching other passengers meeting their waiting friends and family, with open arms and smiling faces, hugging and laughing together, I wanted someone out there to be waiting for me. To be happy to see me. To smile at me. To hug me.

So I got some cardboard and a marker and made a sign. I found the busiest pedestrian intersection in the city and held that sign aloft, with the words "Free Hugs" on both sides.

And for 15 minutes, people just stared right through me. The first person who stopped, tapped me on the shoulder and told me how her dog had just died that morning. How that morning had been the one year anniversary of her only daughter dying in a car accident. How what she needed now, when she felt most alone in the world, was a hug. I got down on one knee, we put our arms around each other and when we parted, she was smiling.

Everyone has problems and for sure mine haven't compared. But to see someone who was once frowning, smile even for a moment, is worth it..."

I have a love-hate relationship with these shows...

And I don't know what I will do with myself until next season :-(

BTW--an interesting website for those who share the LOST obsession (only look if you have seen the latest season)

LOST Blog

Sigh...back to reality :-)

I think I have a vague expectation that my life will at some point be everything that I have dreamed it would be. I imagine someday: myself skinny, with beautiful hair, and perfect skin. With an incredibly handsome husband. A mixed bunch of kids, some adopted, some biological--but all attractive, funny, intelligent, and talented. I will be a great mom and wife, but have a life that is not solely defined by those roles. I will become a nurse. I will have lived for whatever length of time in Africa somewhere, my husband and I living every adventure imaginable, and experiencing God together in a new way. Our marriage will be beautiful, based on a true understanding of one another, and God existing as a guiding light in all that we do. At some point, I will feel whole. At some point, I will be healed. At some point, I will be ok with me. I will be ok with God. Someday...

But even deeper inside, is the feeling of doubt. How do I know that I will ever be ok? How do I know that I will ever find "the one"? How do I know that I will ever have a grasp of God and what purpose he has for my life? The truth of the matter is that I don't know these things. I feel like there has been no true glimmer of hope, nothing to show me that any of this will actually happen, and if nothing has changed up until this point, maybe it never will. Sometimes I feel like if I never try, then I at least know that I haven't tried everything and that there still could be hope. Creating false hope. But what happens when you make every effort to change, and still feel the same? Then what happens to hope? I need to have hope. I need to have faith. I need to trust God that he is here. That he loves me and has special plans for my life.

I feel like with all of the deconstructing I have been doing of various pieces of my life--taking apart Christianity as I have learned it, who I think I am, who I think God is, etc. Maybe he will get angry with my lack of faith. Maybe I will find that he isn't everything that I hoped he would be. I have been afraid that the deeper I dig and the more I doubt, maybe he will disappear. But that fear is something that could not come true. I still feel God right here. I felt today like God was telling me: "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. Doubts don't scare me. Weakness and brokenness are my specialty. I love you no matter what you do, think, say, question, etc. That love is unshakable, unchanging, and immovable. I delight in you. You are my child. I am right here..."

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"...Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. He goes before you and will be with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you..." Deut. 31:6,8

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39

 "I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen Ephesians 3:16-21

"...Continue to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling..." Philippians 2:12 

 It's weird. I have been wanting more than anything for this semester to be done with! I was so stressed with all of the assignments and lack of personal time and taking an hour to get to and from school, not to mention the fact the feeling of guilt every moment that I was out with friends, watching t.v. etc. Well, I just submitted my last 10-page paper to my teacher, which marked the official end of this semester. And I find myself sitting on the bed, staring at the wall, thinking, "Now what?" I feel sad or something. It's weird. I have planned alot of things to do between now and summer school, but in this moment, I feel like a deer in headlights. Should I...eat? Read a book? Read my Bible? Watch last week's greys? Take Sammy for a walk? Clean my room? I haven't even taken a shower yet b/c I was working on my paper. I have been wanting to do all of those things for so long, and kept telling myself "As soon as the semester is done, I will do that..." But in this moment, none of them sound appealing. I don't even like sitting here, but I don't know what else to do...

Here are some of the things that I want to do on break:

• Have lunch dates with friends that I haven't seen in a long time
• Go to Steamboat w/ anyone who wants to come!
• Read some books again, and some new:
  

  Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
   
  

  The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical
  

  Searching for God Knows What

Plus, Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch which didn't have a pic :-)

• Spring cleaning 
• Find some fun adventures
• Start a running routine
• Go climbing
• Get a tan
• Do something fun with Ashley
• Practice Guitar
• Cook some amazing dinners
• Engage with people about God
• Engage with God
• Sell my textbooks
• Get a haircut
• Work to save up some money (For Seattle and for the fall)
• Laugh alot....

I'm going for a walk! Peace out!

I talk too much...

It's not fair...

Ok, so I am going to stay hopeful. I am officially looking. I know that it can happen, because I have heard of such things. I am looking for a "church". I have become so negative when it comes to church(es), and it has been a vague discontent. But in having some conversations with Brit and Megs, and doing some reading, it has become much more clear. It goes back to when the first "church" or body of believers fellowshipped together. In Acts 2:42-47 it says this:

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."

I have always really liked that passage, because it is so beautiful. It might sound a little bit like hippy communism, but since these people began church so close to the time of Jesus, I can only conjecture that this is how the church is supposed aspire to. I don't know how long this lasted, because soon after, Paul started writing letters to churches in various cities, admonishing them about different things, but it is important to have the purest idea and goal in mind when thinking about church.

Therefore, I am looking for a group of people who consider Church to be more than an environment to gossip. I am looking for a "place" that takes the words of Christ seriously as a prescription for life. I am looking for a community that has the courage to keep its members (especially me) accountable to the words of Christ through honest concern for one another--including both admonition and encouragement. I desire a "safe place" where honesty is encouraged. I want to be a part of a group of people who recognize their need for grace and a necessity to show grace to others. People who have a goal of making sure that all are "without need" by making every effort to affect physical needs along with spiritual needs. I want to be surrounded by people who are respectful of every person as someone deeply loved and created by God, regardless of their experience and circumstance--loving unconditionally. I want to learn to be more like my Savior, and I feel this does not take place in a vaccum. It takes place in community.

I realize that we are all human, and fallible, which is why true community and accountability is so crucial. I believe this kind of church is out there, and I am praying that God will reveal this to me. So if you know of a place/group, or are also searching, please let me know! I would love to hear people's thoughts also.