As many of you know, one of my favorite things to do is climb things. particularly mountains. particularly ice covered mountains.
A mountaineer that I admire greatly is Steve House. He is the brother of my mom's close friend and coworker, and he does some amazing things. In March, he had a pretty rough accident. I thought I should share his blog with you all today, as he reflects on how that accident has affected him as a person. He shares a sentiment that I think is REALLY important for all climbers to keep in mind: " I fell because I was 100% sure I would not fall. Or at least I fell such a distance, around eighty feet, for that reason. I did not give as much attention to my protection as I would have if I was scared or intimidated by the pitch. I wasn’t scared at all. Quite the opposite: I was rushing. I was climbing as if I couldn’t fall. As if I was invincible. I was being cocky." None of us are invincible.
anyways, here's Steve's blog the things he's done are things I dream of doing.
I'm off for the next few days, doing a little bit of backpacking in the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness with my new boyfriend and his "bros". See y'all Wednesday.
I just saw this on my new friend Mary Crow's facebook, and it made me think a lot.
I think this is where I am in my life. This is pretty dang true:
"All i'm interested in is Jesus. The man I want is the man that is pursuing Jesus harder than he's pursuing me."
One of this parting words to me was to tell me how resilient he thought I was. He said he knew I'd be okay because I was so resilient. But in reality, I'm not resilient at all. Every single day this loss chips away at my will bit by bit. The only way I'm holding it together is because I'm forcing myself to believe that once the chipping is over there'll be something salvagable underneath. I cling to God out of fear that without his stability in my life, I will lose my capacity to go forth in the world.
I am trying so hard to live each day intentionally. To live each day with the intention of really following Christ and really loving such a pure love with all the other parts of the body.
But I'm so flawed in so many ways. I make such questionable choices so often.
There are a great deal of things heavy on my heart right now. But I don't know how to vocalize them right yet.
One thing I'll foolishly admit: Even though I know that I am not in a place emotionally, psychologically, physically, spirtually, right now to progress romantically with ANYONE...I still pray constantly that some day God will find me a man who will love me well. I pray that I didn't mess up my one chance for a future happiness with another person. I pray that I am worth loving and that I am not as replaceable as T's actions have made me feel this last week. I pray for love. and I don't know if that's the right thing to pray for, but I do.
Looking back on the last year of my life is very disappointing. It is hard to watch your future collapse in front of you. The choices I made that I was just SO certain about. Leaving Vermont to be with Tanner being the most obvious, but there were so many others.
Where do we rebuild from?
Much of my future was invested in the life I planned with another person. We had built our dreams together, built our dreams around one another. There were children, and years spent in foreign countries, and degrees and houses and cars and books. But in the end, there was a fatal flaw. One of us didn't actually believe in the possibility of that future. The hardest part of all of this is being the one who did.
The last month and a half has been nothing if not emotionally and psychologically difficult. Trying to be happy on my own, happy in this life that I am trying to build for MYSELF. I am trying to learn to enjoy my own company. It is hard because I do still miss him, always. It is hard every day to wake up and reinforce the knowledge that that future we had planned doesn't exist anymore. I must constantly remind myself of this.
I have been blessed with so many opportunities. I am working two jobs, which in this economy is a blessing I can't describe. Both of which are hard work, but good work. My bank account will be happy at the end of the summer, which is more than I can say about how it has been lately. Moving out on your own is expensive as heck. Shopping for one is ridiculous as well. Everything goes bad before I can get to it!! Ugh. But I'm learning, slowly. All of this is making me grow up a lot and consider my finances in a pretty significant way.
I have realized that I need to put my focus back on God and his role in my life. He used to be the centerpiece of everything I did, everything I wanted. But I allowed my relationship with Tanner to become that. Now that relationship is over, and I feel like I'm starting my life over again. My fatal flaw was forgetting the most important thing. There is something bigger than myself, something that will center me.
My first Sunday as a single woman was my first Sunday back to church in months. It was pentecost, which was the warmest welcome I could have asked for from the Catholic church. My parish here in Sellwood is lovely, and charming, and I feel so blessed to be recieving the eucharist again and reconnecting with Christ again in that way. My priest passed away two weeks after I began attending the parish, which has been a struggle for the community. I feel like God is calling me to serve him there, but I don't know how yet.
God has also brought me to the amazing community of Adsideo. Adsideo is this amazing and beautiful Christian Community that's here in Sellwood. They are the most loving family of christ I have ever seen, and I can honestly say I have never felt so immediately welcomed into a group of people. They have this radical, unabashed, passionate love of Jesus that I am so in awe of. They are teaching me to open myself completely to the holy spirit, and how to listen to what God actually wants of me. I want to give more of myself to this family. I feel like this is where I belong.
I am caught, as always, in a web of confusion between the desire to join and fully devote myself to Adsideo, and the foundation of my faith, which is the catholic church. So far, these two faith communities are in complete harmony in my life. But I fear that as I become more involved in each of them that I will be called by God towards one or the other, and I am worried that I will cling to the familiar. I think I already know that whatever this journey of Adsideo is, it has a lot in store for me and Jesus. I already feel so nourished by it. I don't know where I will go from here, and it's terrifying me a little bit.
Now, I'm off to work. Another day, another dollar. I hope to blog more, but I have so much going on that I can't keep track of.
Writing is very hard for me right now.
To put it simply, Tanner and I were having some relationship issues. So we decided that I should move out. On my first night in my new apartment, he chose to have an affair. We were still together at that point, and I would have never believed that he would cheat on me, but he did. We are no longer together. And my heart feels about like it's going to explode into a million pieces, because he and I had made so many plans for our future together,
because I had invested so much of my self into our relationship,
because I loved him endlessly, and for some reason that was not enough.
and because we split up less than a week ago, and he's already totally moved on to someone new.
I am trying so hard to be the strong, independent, woman that I once was, but I have never felt so much like a failure. What kind of person fails at love? What kind of person am I that the person I loved more than anyone in the universe went back to someone who made him feel terrible about himself rather than be with me. Am I that unloveable? Am I that unappealing?
I love my new apartment. I love my roommates, I love my friends. But It hurts me to know that he's already with someone new, and that even though I feel hurt, and betrayed, and destroyed in the most catastrophic way, I would take him back in a heartbeat. But he doesn't want me. He said he didn't want a relationship, but the truth is he just doesn't want me. Which is evidenced by the fact that he's spending so much of his time with her.
I don't know where to go from here. I have never had such little direction before. I never thought I would be single again. I never thought that I'd be this alone.
Hopefully a plan unfolds soon. Hopefully someday I'm able to move on. Hopefully someday I won't feel so lost. Hopefully. Hopefully.