There is a part of me that has been starving. Probably several parts, really, and none of them have to do with my stomach. Though I am pretty sure they are located somewhere around there. Maybe a little above, there is a core area where the sensations (pangs, maybe?) all seem to congregate.
One of them is writing. I haven't written anything longer than a couple hundred words for months. Except papers for school - which are kind of like drinking water when your stomach growls, it stops the embarrassment of the growling, but only magnifies the emptiness. I've lost count of how many times I have sat in this very seat, in front of this very computer, typing the very same sentence over and over again in various ways. And then someone calls me and I walk away, leaving half a sentence, only to come back later and delete it.
I think it must be because I don't have much to say these days. No. That isn't it either. It's because I lack an audience. There has been a confinement to my recent thoughts. A caged-ness. I have taken to buying massive amounts of pens - all sorts. My current favorite being the Sharpie Pen. I hit a Walgreens during my errand running today to buy clothespins and bought two more Sharpie Pens (I now have four, two black and two blue), and a four pack of very fine tipped Sharpie Markers - but I have no idea what I'm going to use them for. I also stood staring at all the different designs they have for notebooks in the back to school section these days. I wanted one. An old school Mead Journal, I have a soft spot for those. But I knew I wouldn't use it. I would just smell it, set it on my desk, clip a marker to it, and forget about it until I ended up buying another one.
I don't know why I do things like that.
I've been out of my house for at least sixteen hours a day, six days a week, for the last month... And now I'm home alone and I don't know what to do with myself. I went to the garage and dug my Donald Miller books out of the precious box that contains most of my old room but I couldn't sit long enough to read them. I flipped through a few pages and then I came here.
Lauren is at a church function, some kind of party to mark graduation from the junior high class to the high school class. My Dad is at work, poor guy. And Jeremy is out on a date. It's like I've forgotten how to entertain myself.
If I'm not working or studying or sleeping, I don't know what to do anymore. And I just didn't envision myself getting to this point. What does it mean? I guess it must be normal, since I've heard other people mention similar things before. But I've always been comfortable with myself. Or I thought so anyway.
Lately I've been getting the feeling that God is trying to teach me something. You know what I mean? There's like this lingering something in the back of your mind corrosponding to one of those silent groans in your gut that just means there is something to be said, or there will be, for this time in your life. This chipping away at the sculpture of life is eventually going to be something beautiful, but the shaping isn't always going to be fun. And I think there is some finishing going on in some area that I can't quite pick out. Whatever it is, it's painful, nearly unbearable at times, but it's going to be magnificent.
Good exercise shoes equal less injuries
9 years ago
