I’m different and that’s ok

I’ve been pondering about something in the last little while. It’s not a new topic – it’s something I’ve been aware of my whole life, but it’s been brought into focus lately because of a few interactions that have seemed to cause a bad reaction in me.

Let me explain.

I’m different. I don’t mean different in a negative context or that I have some sort of problem or issue. I just simply mean I have been brought up differently than many of the people that I know. Although it’s not 100% obvious – I’m an immigrant to this country. I moved her from Zimbabwe when I was 6 months old, and my parents did not grow up in this country. They are Rhodesians with British/Scottish heritage. That makes them (and me) different because we don’t necessarily have the same traditions as many of the people I hang out with on a regular basis. I use/understand different words and expressions at times. I may be more reserved when it comes to table manners. I may feel obligated to have a clean house before I invite you over. There are many other examples – but I am unique when it comes to my experience. And that’s a good thing because it makes me unique.

It’s just that in the last few months, I’ve been feeling more and more self-conscience about it. And sometimes I feel downright persecuted for it – prompting me to make sterner comments than I like because I feel like people are laughing at me. And I’m frustrated by it. If I had an English accent, no one would question why I use the word “slippy” when describing ice on the ground and not “slippery”. People would not make fun my description of the squirrels scrabbling in my ceiling. But yet these things are pointed out to me and I feel totally made fun of.

It’s like a bad flashback to grade 4 when I wrote a heartfelt description of my trip to Africa when I met my family in person for the first time in my life – I talked about meeting my Granny “O” (which stands for Osler) – and I had every person in my class laugh. One particular girl, Cheryl, purposely used it to torment me for weeks on end because it pointed out that I was not a Newfie, I was was weird and stupid. GAH!

I know we’re all thinking kids can be mean – and they can – but kids can also point out the obvious. And in this situation, the obvious became a means of ripping a strip off my back instead of being something to learn about. I guess that’s why lately I’ve been feeling like I need to stand up a little more when I feel like I’m being pigeon-holed with the label of different. I fly right back to being the misunderstood freak that would never fit in. I couldn’t stand up for myself then, but I can now so I do.

Maybe it’s a weird sense of pride. Something I have to defend. I don’t know. I think I need to ponder it more. But I do want to say that in some ways, I’m very glad to be aware of this internal struggle, or whatever you want to call it. It places the power in my hands to change my actions so that I don’t persecute other people for being different than me, at the very least to the best of my ability at the time.

I’ll figure it out, and I’m sure the Big Guy will point me in the right direction.

Overwhelmed/Sabotage

Tonight I’m feeling a little emotional and overwhelmed.

It’s not something that easy to explain, other than it relates to a tough moment of having to face something I hate to admit: I need something.

That may sound simply enough to admit, but this isn’t just something flippant I am saying. This is an incredibly stubborn and proud person, who loves to solve every little problem, and love to be “fine” saying, nay screaming – I need something, I cannot do this right by me or even by God. I am broken.

Ugh – even what I am writing is too cryptic to even really make sense – sorry readers. I’m trying to find a balance between expressing my inner thoughts and keeping myself from blurting out certain things I should keep to myself into the virtual world.

Tonight, or this weekend rather, I had a couple of different things happen to me. Most of them were good – most of them involved a slight change of heart – things that have touched my jaded/scarred heart and have said “Yes, there are truly amazing things out there – things you DESERVE. The desires of your heart are not wrong.” Things like having a true best Christian girl friend, having a weekend with new and old friends, having an awesome learning moment with God. All great things.

So why am I feeling so overwhelmed and that I’m not sure what to do with myself? Am I running scared from being loved? Am I cheating myself with ingrained wordly thoughts that are telling me that I don’t deserve these things? Am I simply being sabotaged by the Dark?

I don’t know. No, that’s not true. I do know in some ways. God help me, but I do. And what I don’t know He will show me…but still…

I’ve been set to thinking about the ugly/dark things in me that have come bubbling to the surface this past little while. Emotions and hurt that are related to present circumstances, past circumstances, and worst of all childhood circumstances. You know what I mean – we all have them – little knotches or scars to wounds that we nurse/hide/heal in our hearts and minds. I see them building up into a wall around me and I am feeling like I am screaming from one side to the other. I see the light through the cracks and I want over or around this, but I am just not strong enough.

Sabotage.

But the major thing is that I do see the light. I am fully faithful that if I hack at this wall long enough it will fall down because this is God’s will. I don’t deserve God’s grace and love, but yet this makes me a person all the more in need of it. I am want nothing else that to be the woman I am in Christ.

Prayer.

Until I am, world, please be careful with me. I’m just not that strong sometimes.

Running around in circles

Ever play a “game” when you were a kid where you just started to run in a circle? There was no point to it really, it was mostly about wasting time and energy, or something. I don’t know. It was fun. These days I feel a bit like I’m stuck in that kind of circle, except the fun has gone out of it. I’m running around in a circle, doing the motions, trying to expend energy to get out of the circular pattern. Yet every time I think I’m making progress because I’m doing work, I ended up back in the same spot, staring at the same thing, and I’m just tired.

I’m going nowhere.

With toes at the edge of the cliff

A moment has arrived. I was walking the sometimes bumpy and windy path towards my goal in the hopes of having passed many hurdles. Today I have cause to pause and choose to awaken to the next big leap. The path has led me to a cliff, and I am standing on the edge with my toes floating partially into the abyss of uncertainty.

And I am having trouble moving.

I have run along a few side paths trying to avoid the cliff, but I will not go down to the valley of the shadow of death, and I want to reach the victorious mount on the other side. I can no longer ignore my choice.

And I am having trouble moving.

I teeter, I shrink back from the edge, tears welling up in my eyes. The next step is my responsibility and I cannot stay on the edge forever. The burden of choice lies upon my shoulder and it is becoming heavier every day. Like Atlas, I am carrying the world.

And I am having trouble moving.

Part of me know that if I jump to hastility I could fall to the dreaded valley. Part of me knows that if I make the right move I will find the not so visible but secure stairway that will guide me upwards. I just need a little faith.

And I am trembling.

And I am watching my toes.

And I lift my first foot…

A not so jaded heart

Every now and then I like to take a moment a reflect on old thoughts and musings. Usually I do so with my journal, but today I took a moment and re-read my post on my jaded heart from last October and it’s funny…I understand why I wrote what I did. In fact, I still agree with the feelings that I expressed. It’s just interesting to see that there have been a few changes in my heart since then.

For instance, I wrote “My fear is that my heart will become so jaded about this one small thing, and this will bleed into all my relationships, and I will eventually close my heart.”

Wow.

Since then I feel like so much of this has changed – the walls have been broken down and it’s just humbling to stop and reflect on how God has healed me. It almost seems easy to say that I don’t even think that my heart is closed off anymore; however, there is caution in uttering that because there is still a ways to go. I feel like I’ve learned how to be more open and receptive to what people say – and to accept things. The whole world isn’t out to cheat me. My close friends aren’t holding back from me. My jaded heart is also not the world’s responsibility. Resentment doesn’t come from anyone else’s actions but my own. I am responsible for my own heart.

We are constantly bombarded with darkness and death and it seeks to seep into our lives like a slow acting poison. I see so clearly now that I let the hurt of the past poison my heart, and I set up walls to protect my battered inner core. But those walls did nothing else but cause me to hide like a scared little girl who fears she can never be love. Instead of protecting me, they blocked out the Light. Yet I underestimated how badly the Light wanted in, and it was strong enough to burn a little hole into the walls so that a ray could come through. And the little girl saw the Light and broke down crying because it was so much more beautiful to have a small bit of that Light than to sit in the dark. Maintaining the walls cause energy to be squandered in a wrong fashion. Light changes that. It makes the walls seem thick and unnecessary, yet paper thin and destructible.

I swear, with His eternal strength, I will rip down these walls and surround myself with Light because that is my true calling. Amen to that.

Sometimes you need to find a weekend Barbie

So, this was an ok weekend – I’ve been realizing lately that I need more time to just me than I’ve been taking and this weekend I managed to get a little “me” time. I’ve gone through a few up and downs and I’m not quite sure, but I think I’m coming out on top tonight, though still feeling a little bruised. I’ve been pondering a lot lately about things that I should be doing, and as my friend Karl pointed out on Friday – maybe thinking too much isn’t a good thing. In the case of the last little while, seeing as more often than not my true searching has been getting truncated, I’m finding myself inclined to agree. I’ve been too focused on my inabilities to do certain things and my inability to understand my steps that I’ve put myself into a self-depricating cycle – and well, that’s just crappy.

In fact, I was really cranky all day yesterday. Interestingly enough, I came to a realization. I am angry right now. I’m angry at my job, at people, at my own claustrophobic position in life and my willingness to take a stand-still position. I’m angry at my jealously of those pursuing their dreams. I’m angry at my pent up feelings. I’m angry at my thoughts. I’m angry – and it’s making me tired.

It’s poisonous.

Luckily, yesterday I was totally blessed with a random visit from my friend Ryan – he came downtown to see the Jays and we ended up having a really good long talk – our first outside of work, actually. It was awesome. We talked about a lot of things, and he listened to me flushing out my anger. But what was particularly wonderful was his outstanding ability to be really uplifting. This is a genuine, loving and caring individual. He’s young, but he’s got a really good head on his shoulders already and I’m glad to be able to call him friend. Really. It was an invaluable moment in my weekend. It was just the breath of fresh air I needed. Something that took me out of the motions and mixed two different worlds. Plus, he spoke some really good words of wisdom that I might just have to think about. Especially his encouragement to stop thinking so much about my own tasks, and start focusing on the world outside – something that I think is a VERY important next steps for myself and many others that I know.

Ry, thank you, and I see the wooden horse will come and when it does, you’ll be the first to know.

Parades, charades and facades

According to Mirriam-Webster:

Parade: a pompous show
Charade: an empty or deceptive act or pretense
Facade: a false, superficial, or artificial appearance or effectYou may be wondering why I’m thinking about these definitions. It comes about because of a little personal growth that’s being nudged along in my life that’s lead me to think about the way I portray myself to the outside world on a daily basis.

Lately, based on some conversations I’ve had with friends, I have been pondering my “selves”. I say “selves” because the truth is, yes, I do have different facets of personality that come out at different times, and that are, in fact, so contrasting at times that I really can seem like I am more than one person.

I first began to notice my distinct selves within the last year, when I began to ponder how I was viewed when I was at school. I would have two different types of interactions for the most part. The first was with my Christian friends, the group of people that seemed to have it all together, the ones that were just right in their walk with God. And I wanted to be one of them, really, I wanted to be 110% Godly, and I wanted to seems like I was a good Christian girl, and I wanted…well, I wanted it too much to really feel it was possible. I found myself trying to pretend that I was so much more pious than I was really feeling so that I wouldn’t feel like I was so much on the outs when it came to salvation. I became, in some ways, a fake Christian, one who pretends to be in tact…at least to the outside world.

My second personality that came about, and that can still come about, is what I like to call my wild streak. The part of me that just wants to rebel against everyone’s view of me as a good little girl. It’s the part of me that wants to be a bad ass. It’s the part of me that will make inappropriate jokes, and flirt, and do things just for the sake of proving to others that I will do them. The wild steak often takes a hold when I’m with certain groups of people who are well, more relaxed in morality than some of my other friends, and it often gets me into sticky situations. Often after it takes a hold I’ve come out thinking that what just happened wasn’t really me. The daring part was, yes, but the actions were just…off…

Over the past year, I’ve really tried to tie these two elements of myself together in such a way that I’m real. That means cutting away the crap, the fakeness, the parades, charades and facades that I want to hide behind. I try to consider my actions in a way that is Truthful. Luckily I’ve made some great friends this year who are really wanting to see me be the true person that I really am. I feel I’m doing better. I don’t feel like I have a dual personality as much, although there are moments when both the pious and the wild seem to be in charge. I’m beginning to see how important it is to be consistent.

When you really think about it, it’s just astounding how much we hide from the world. Whether it’s by something superficial like makeup (yes, Karl, “the mask”) and clothes or whether is in defensive mechanisms that have been built up because of many years of emotional baggage, the older we get, the more we want to conceal ourselves. Or rather, the better we get at our abilities to hide hurts deep down inside. In some senses, we teach ourselves to be less transparent, to keep the “realness” behind wall. But often this backfires, simply because the deeper we place ourselves in the middle of unreality the more transparent the falsness becomes.

Is there really any value in hiding?

I understand that there is a difference here in hiding versus guarding your heart. So just to be clear, I’m not talking about circumstances where it is necessary to protect your heart a little from evilness and hurtfulness desgined to cut you to the core, I’m talking about hard formed walls and masks that we wear so that to the outer world we seem whole, perfect and flawless. That’s what hiding is. It’s taking all of yourself and shoving into a neatly articulated and well groomed package. Or as I’m guitly of doing, placing yourself into easily adaptable and interchangeable facades that you can slip between depending on the moment. Facades that become second nature, facades that show just enough of who you are in a specific time and place, without showing what you think about in the truest parts of you, your inner-most self.

It’s funny how these walls ended up hurting you rather than protecting you.

This week, as I’ve been writing this post in bits and pieces, I’ve been thinking a lot about what kind of troubles I’ve landed myself in by not being able to open myself up fully in a natural way. Wow, it’s tough to think about. Really. But at the same time it’s good to think about.

It’s made me realize just how I’ve hurt myself more than I ever intended because I’ve have wanted to protect my deep self from being exposed to the world. I think about the way in which I’ve never really let someone love me because I couldn’t share all of me. You never want to loose your whole self, that’s just not safe, right? I think about the ways in which I played into certain roles in the attempts to make myself feel powerful, and in the end I just sold myself short. I exerted a part of me that was not whole, a self that was fake, and still that part was rejected. And that hurt way more because not only was I left feeling cheated, used and cheap, I also had to deal with my own anger towards myself for not being a person that I really wanted to be.

And it stings. Oh, how it stings.

My friend pointed out to me this week, that trying to walk around pretending to be perfect isn’t natural. It’s really not. Each of us has flaws, each of us has biases, and each one of us has emotional baggage. The best we can do is acknowledge this, keep on walking through life,and stepping up again after we stumble because of any of the above mentioned things. Really, what else can we do? If we build up a wall, a moat, or even a mountain of booby-traps around us, the more and more we’re just going to find that we’re being slowed down and separated from the life we want to live. All our strength will be placed into the upkeep of a peeling-off label instead of letting the whole and true product be maximized by love.

So, here’s to keeping it real.

A glance into the mind of a girl

Sometimes I enjoy being a girl, other times I just get annoyed with myself. The reason? The my abilities to over analyze and self-depricate. Yikes. Though most of the time it’s unecessary, sometimes it’s good – it allows me to realize something is wrong. But right now, in the last few days, it’s just been tough to deal with. I’m torn…in more ways than one. I’m generally happy – I just started my new job and I’m enjoying it, some friends of mine are having a fantastic day (Go R-Dawg and J-Sonic!), but there is a part of me that is stumbling through some major hurt feelings and dissapointments. They aren’t new types of feelings and it’s not really even a new situation, but still, it sucks.

Ever find it hard to balance things like hope and dispair? Yes, it’s one of the lovely dichotomies of this world. Most times I enjoy two sides, but really…

Honestly, I’m trying to be cautious in what I say – this is a blog that so many people read, and well, I don’t want everyone questioning my sanity or something (ha!). No, really, it’s just hard to be completely vulnerable over the internet! But regardless of those concerns, I did promise insights into a woman’s mind, right?

The situation is thus – once again I am feeling the unduly dissapointments of feeling like an object of infatuation rather than an object of admiration. And well, it really, really feels wretched. It’s just awful to constantly feel like boys are looking at you as someone who would be lovely to shag and not someone who is worthy to snag. It’s only your dear friends who sticks around long enough to see you for who you are, and relationships aren’t meant to be in the picture with them. Other boys come and go and some are bad, and some are great. And you find yourself hoping that well, just maybe, maybe this one will want to know me, for real. This one will want to talk, will want to flirt, but most importantly will want to be your friend and lover (used in a Jane Austen suitor-type way). Yet something always happens, ALWAYS – and you find yourself hurt and teary-eyed, wondering “What’s wrong with me?” You see other girls – boys seem to be willing to bend over backwards for them. You wonder “Am I just someone who’s around to boost boys egos for a while until they find the real thing?” – like a rainbow, pretty and nice to admire, but just really something to follow until you find the pot of gold. The rainbow just fades away…

When I consider all these pent up feelings, it’s tough to realize just how affected I have been by my past. You see, I’m really good at hiding stuff when I don’t want to confront it. More often than not I will blow off a situation thinking “Whatever, it doesn’t matter that you were hurt, you don’t need that person”. Luckily I’m managed to step out of most of the cycles of feeling like I’m not worthy at all – it’s a long uphill struggle from hating yourself to loving yourself (11 years and counting…) and I can deal with dissapointment in constructive ways, and I learn. I pray for more strength. It’s just certain times, I revert back to being a very unconfident young teenager who heard it said of her that she was “probably a great lay, but nothing more” – and that part of me that believe this screams in agony, and the part of me that knows it’s not true stumbles a little…

And I pray for more strength and see how much I’ve grown, and that I’m no longer that girl, in fact I never was. But the situation still hits hard because that little piece of you that isn’t jaded, that little piece that still hopes and is willing to be vulnerable feels like it’s been slapped in the face…again. You feel like you want to puke.

Eventually you move on – quickly or slowly it doesn’t matter – and you begin to forget about how you got hurt and you start to hope all over again. You never know, it might just stick some day. And if not, you can always get yourself a new pair of shoes. Because in the end, boys can come and go, but you will always need shoes!