Questions

I am that crazy person who checks her motives at the first sentence of each blog post.

Why am I writing this?
Why am I writing this here?

When I was around the age of five, my second cousin Christopher threatened to give me a "knuckle sandwich" every time I spoke, because I had to question everything. Considering how terrible my memory is and how few specific childhood events reside in my memory vault, it's pretty pertinent that I can remember multiple family members tirelessly telling me to, "Stop asking questions!" You may be thinking that was rather insensitive of them, seeing as I was just a young, curious child. No, they had reason. I really did question everything, including the answers. I played, "But why?" on repeat.

It can be somewhat unsettling to look back on childhood patterns and say, "Oh, not much has changed there..." In some of my processes of psychoanalysis, I've been fairly certain that I asked the same questions over and over because I never listened to the answer. I was too invested in the question.

If this pattern doesn't sound familiar to you, I can point you to more than half of the posts on this blog.

The ringing truth in this assessment gets most unsettling when I think of that mantra: "Jesus is the answer!" The side of me that wants so desperately to remain kindred to my non-Christian friends is the one that won't accept the answer, the one still playing "But why?" on repeat.

But I also know I can't go on a schizophrenic attack against the curious side of myself. The God who transforms hearts allows for renewed minds, and I have no clue what He actually, specifically wants that to look like in me. Still, I don't think it means God wants me to stop questioning things, because there are a number of things He has told me to question.

But anyway, I only bring this up and blog about it, because it has been a consistent characteristic of my four years of college. Through all of the change I did undergo, this string of sometimes dangerous curiosity continues. I'm hoping a future Katie on the edge of mental crazy can look back on this and recognize the pattern for what it is. There's only so much I can beat myself and others up about until I have to get to the answer.

Underqualified

Here's a sort of reflection-y post for you. I am currently sitting with multiple tabs open for editing my class website. It took me entirely too long to weed through the CSS in my chosen wordpress theme just to change the background color of my header, so now I'm taking a break, realizing how long this could actually take me. My professor intends for these websites to characterize our professional selves in order to tempt potential employers with the endless possibilities of what we can do based on what we have done.

One thing about college that has always eluded me, though, is how little it actually does prepare you for the professional world. The greatest of my digital endeavors is an edited image of Justin Bieber's head on the screamer in Edvard Munch's "The Scream." Hardly professional. Sub-amateur even.

I can't help but wonder if my professor is just mocking us or giving us a reality check. Like, "See? You're not ready for the world. All you can do is fiddle around with CSS for half an hour and then get distracted by YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook." Is it true that I won't survive in a digital age if I don't catch up on CSS and HTML? If I don't run my own domain, will I really be that much less successful at life? I like a challenge, but I don't like living my life in or-else mode. My mathematics degree supposedly wants to send me off to some sort of computer or engineering job. That is, unless I want to teach. Still not sure about that one either. The seeming problem is that after all of this time and supposed preparation, I'm still daydreaming about what I could be and where I could go. I fear the slap in the face I'll get from my diploma next Saturday will crush my daydreams with the harshness of reality.

It's like I'm slipping into survival mode.
"Get a job!"
Which job?
"A job!"
Oh... well, okay.

I have a tendency not to fear the future, and I figure everything will be fine no matter how much effort I put into that guarantee. Part of it is laziness, part of it is because I've always had parents to make sure everything really is fine, and part of it is because I have no idea what the hell I'm doing.

You better bet this song will become traditionally blared into my children's rooms every Easter morning.

Intents and Purposes

"To the Life!" was my stab at optimism once upon a time. I was sitting on my bed in Arrington Hall when the concept popped into my mind. Surrounded by linoleum floors and cold, white walls, the clinical environment of Arrington aptly cocooned my healing soul. This was sophomore year when I built a slew of friendships and started to learn what it meant to love not only my friends but God. "To the Life!" said, "There is so much here for me to learn. There is a God I know so little about. I am now charging myself to learn those things and turn my compass to the life God has provided for me." I didn't want life to go by; I wanted to pursue it.

Of course, there have been a lot of fumbles along the way. As it turns out, life is as exciting as my naivete projected, but it's equally difficult. I knew there would be bumps along the way, but I really never grasped how severe those could be. My mind went to some dark places my freshman and junior years, and while I did say that I was "spiraling into depression" during those times, I didn't believe it to be true. I didn't actually think I had a chemical imbalance in my head. Instead, I blamed myself for letting those things happen to me. I put the blame on my "bad faith" and made desperate attempts through studying the Bible to figure this whole faith thing out. The knowledge entered my mind but couldn't penetrate some unknown barrier inside of me. I started to think that I was uncontrollably cold-hearted, as if I was the devil himself. It didn't make sense that my friends and family could praise God and the wonderful things He was doing in their lives, and I had to work ten times harder to even reach a semblance of that reality in my own life. These struggles stacked onto the depression.

My sophomore and senior years, I think, were only better because of the measures of distraction I took from the real turmoil boiling underneath the surface. My entire college experience has not been a terrible one because of this, because (I really do believe) God is good, and His goodness functions through my dysfunction.

Sophomore year, I charged myself to know God.

Now three months shy of 23-years-old, I charge myself to let God.

The reality of my mental disorder is closing in on me hard, so hard that it's going to take every bit of energy and strength inside of me to walk the two minutes to my class in an hour. Yeah, this is hard, but I am now starting to see how wonderful is that cross Jesus carried. Walking in faith through this haze of depression means knowing how temporary this is, and knowing that Jesus experienced pain one-hundredfold. My Savior exists for this purpose, to walk with me through the valley of the shadow of death.

And so, I press on "To the Life!"

[daddy] said there'd be days like this

Daddy always said this wouldn't be easy, but he said it with his eyes. Eloquence pours from his soul, filtering through the wisdom of profound silence. My daddy isn't a normal daddy by any standard. He is gentle only for lack of a harsh spirit. Doesn't abuse, doesn't praise. Proverbs say less words are better, so I wonder if it's the value of the mystery.

I climb the stairs to his study.

The mystery of life. Equipped with the knowledge and wisdom to fill books and ears of congregations, my daddy sits silently before his God. Churches fail, wars wage on, destruction spreads. Daddy watches and waits.

What is a wasted life?

Surely not the one that first chooses to seek the Lord. And yet,

To go forth in faith
To hold fast to the teachings, spreading the Good News
To trust and obey

That takes the strength of God.

My daddy is a weak man, limping with the thorn of humanity in his side, daily humbled by his powerful Father. His mind full of the knowledge of the grace and glory of our God.

I stand at the top of the stairs.
I see his books on theology, his Bible on the ready, the bookmarked sites of biblical scholars on his desktop.
But then I look at him and hear his heart speak.

"I feel it, too. This life isn't easy."

a response to ineptitude

Look, O Lord, for I am in distress;
my stomach churns;
my heart is wrung within me,
because I have been very rebellious.
In the street the sword bereaves;
in the house it is like death. 

-Lamentations 1:20

For the Lord will not
cast off forever,
but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
 for he does not willingly afflict
or grieve the children of men.

-Lamentations 3:31-33

ineptitude continued

I'd like to think that every moment is a moment of Truth.
I just took a pill, because I can't handle the heaviness of life.
Honesty sucks sometimes.

Truth sucks sometimes.
I've been having anxiety attacks.
I had one when I was laying in bed a couple of weeks ago.
I lulled myself to sleep by thinking about how nice death will be.
I know that's creepy.
But mostly, I was thinking about my Savior.

Another night, I muttered to Sadie that my head was going crazy.
She laid down next to me and said this person I am during the attacks is not me.
Maybe this needs medication.

Three hours ago, I was sobbing in my bed at school.
I just drove home, and I'm now in my bed at home.
I took the pill that my mind has been screaming for these last two weeks.
At least, I hope that's the pill it wants.
If not, I'm not sure what I'll do.
Part of me thinks this is ridiculous.
Another part just doesn't know.

ineptitude

As I've said before, I write the same thing over and over on this blog. Here it goes again.

Recently, I've come face-to-face with new levels of a weighty, uncomfortable issue I have with myself, which oddly enough, is not anything I'd ever want to disclose on a blog -- not in its entirety at least. It's been crippling me, but I don't know how to confront it or write about it properly. There is not much foreseeable chance I will ever handle this one well, so I'm trying to figure out how to trust and apply what God has to say to me about it. That's really hard.

It's kinda funny to treat blogging like therapy, though I'm pretty sure that's about all I use this thing for. Back when I actually did go to therapy, I mostly appreciated that I had someone to talk to who wanted to talk straight to the depth of my issues. Sitting in front of a TV, surfing the web, or any time I linger too long on surface matters in life, I just kind of go numb. The less deep I am, the deeper I want to be until no depth is satisfying. This is about as awkward as it sounds, yes.

I'm dissatisfied, and I'm not sure why.

I found out recently that a friend of mine is clinically depressed, which he didn't tell anyone or have diagnosed for about a year. I'm perpetually teetering on self-diagnosing depression and/or anxiety. Though it's pretty sick, I admit I'm a little jealous that he has actually been diagnosed and can now actively medicate his problem. Without a diagnosis, I keep wondering if I'm insane. I wonder why I can't function properly sometimes and why I periodically get so crippled by this (like right now). I can't say it's a chemical imbalance. I often say it's a spiritual imbalance, which is true of everyone. No one is spiritually perfect. Sometimes, I blame it on being in the college atmosphere, how it feeds this part of me that over-analyzes everything.

I don't really know what it is, but it hurts. I don't have depth, and I don't have clarity.

oh, for pete's sake

There are times I think back on my life before college and think maybe ignorance was bliss. I first heard this song, "Cynical Me" back then, probably around my junior year of high school when I received Iver's EP from Becca. I thought it was a beautiful song, but I didn't reflect on the lyrics, seeing as that sort of thing didn't interest me much. Nothing interested me much unless it had to do with my non-committal relationship with a boy or some other cheap teenage thrill.

Yeah, I was young. I was ignorant and even cynical in some of the more menial ways.

Currently, I am almost too exhausted to keep on with the thoughts and conversations I used to ignorantly go without. With God, about God, pertaining to some notion of God, pertaining to some notion of no God, with myself, about God and me. Relationships, right, wrong, success, failure, strength, weakness, faith, hope, love, joy, truth, Truth, peace, turmoil, purpose. People, this is exhausting. Simply put, I am tired, and I'm not even 23 yet. In fact, 23 terrifies me. This can't go on.

I'm starting to gather that there is a purpose in my incessant need to analyze these things and then analyze them some more and then analyze them to death (perhaps there's never a need for that last one, actually), but I also get that there need to be some pretty strict limitations on this as well. The fool wastes her life by constantly seeking and never reveling in the joy of Truth. It may never come naturally for me to do this, and the discipline to do it may be even more difficult than I imagine it is and will be. But there really is little joy in being jaded and cynical. The power of the mind is intoxicating, but living and dictating according to that power is exhausting and ultimately debilitating. Eventually, my mind is able to strip everything of its importance. Then I fail classes. Then I become a self-serving friend, sister, and daughter. Then I back out on almost every commitment. Then I curl up in this chair and write another blog post that enlightens me yet again as to how encumbered I am by my pride. Then, undoubtedly, I grieve the cycle and hate life.

I'm a puppy whimpering at the feet of my Master.