Feelings

Warning:  This post is about my feelings.  If you're male, you may opt to abort now.  Even if you're ok with feelings, if you're into logic, this may not be the post for you, either.  Fair warning.  What I'm about to say doesn't make a lot of sense.  Read at your own risk.

So here it is.  I've been here for 4.5 months.  But it's really only week one of being committed to being here. (and by that I mean admitting that I don't have anything in the works to help me escape)  But I haven't found any other job yet, and there's not really anything on the horizon, so I'm working toward being here.  Or maybe I should say, Being Here.

I'm trying to focus on the positive and not complain.  A problem I'm finding, though, is that I seem to be hesitant to acknowledge the good stuff.  And I think it's because I don't want to be happy here.  I don't want to be here very long, and when I leave I want it to be easy.  It won't be easy if I'm attached, either to people or things here.  And so, though I'm miserable here because I'm not attached to anyone or anything, I seem to want to push away anything that seems good, in some sort of weird, premature self-protecting and yet self-destructive technique.

I believe I feel this way because I'm still so close to saying goodbye to my life in Quito.  It's not that I've never gone through the saying goodbye process.  But it was only a few months ago.  And I had been there for three years, so I had real friendships and my own niche.

Ah, the niche.  Niches are good, but they're hard to walk away from.  And so I find myself trapped in this place, unable to leave, afraid to really STAY, and uncertain about what might be to come, either way.

Before you say it, let me clarify that it's not because I don't trust God.  People say that to me a lot:  God's in control.  God has a plan.  YES!  I know!  But I also know that God's plan may or may not be what I want.  Maybe His plan is not that I get to go home, or have a reliable job, or find someone who loves me, or get to raise a family.  Maybe His plan is for me to be alone.  Do something hard.  Be far from my family.  I get that He could want that for me, and I get that those things could further the Kingdom and make me stronger and other good things.

But it takes a certain amount of strength to be ok with that possibility, you know?  Selflessness and internal strength and, mmm, something else that I can't identify and that I have sometimes, but not now.  Right now, I don't have it in me to be that person.  The good Christian who's sacrificial, and ok with giving up what she wants in order for God to use her.  I've been that person before.  I imagine I'll get there again someday.  But right now, I'm far, far away from that place.  I just want to be safe.  Emotionally safe.  Close enough to my family to feel like I'm part of a family again, instead of alone.  Surrounded by people who know me and love me anyway, without the hard work of getting to that place in a new relationship.  That is what I want, for what it's worth.  The End.