Grieving requires more strength than building barriers

Grieving requires more strength than building barriers. As I have been processing my week in the last couple minutes, I found tears streaming down my face - not tears of frustration or sadness about the week, I actually feel rather freed - but grief. Relationships force us to look in the mirror and really see all our flaws. Loving someone else, really loving them, makes us so aware of our shortcomings. I have a lot of thoughts in my mind and understand sort of what I realized this week, but I'm not sure how easily I'll be able to unpack it all. Since my boyfriend and I hit the six-month mark in our relationship a couple weeks ago, I have found us becoming a lot closer -- like a lot of my barriers that I so carefully put up over the years, and a lot of his, have been coming down. This has been so good for our relationship as we have really gotten to know each other for our real selves. I thought that from the beginning I was sharing my real self, but that real self has been so covered in layers of armor just to function as a "normal" person. Letting it come down has been a little bit scary, but mostly just freeing. In the last few years I have come to think of myself as a "strong" person, someone who, although emotional, is able to remain un-phased by most things. I "don't let things get to me" and I usually won't cry in front of other people. I pretty much always, in the last few years have smiled. I thought it was because through the toughness of having to move a lot growing up I had developed a "tough skin" and although that might be true to some extent, it's more like strong, impenetrable armor.

I am reminded of Hilary Duff as "Holly" in the movie "The Perfect Man" - one of my favorite guilty pleasures being her friendship/relationship with the cute comic illustrator "Adam"- and how he drew her a picture of her as "Princess Holly" who "doesn't need an army to protect her." She was really hurt by that and it made her want to move away because that's how her mom had unintentionally taught her to deal with guy problems. He is finally able to get the picture to her via her mom who tells her what Adam said, which was that every picture has two sides. On the back is a drawing of her and him and his caption reads, "I'll always be there for you."
Maybe I have some things in common with Holly. She grew up constantly moving -- not because her family was called to the mission field, but because her mom was bad with relationships and whenever she would be dumped or would dump someone she wouldn't just find another guy, she would move to another city in another state. It's hard to constantly move - I am now at my record for the longest I have lived in one city at a time - 5 years - and even within that time, I have lived in two houses. I'd like to think that after living in the United States again for 9 years, even though that's pretty evenly split between two states, that I'm pretty well adjusted. And on some level I am. On the surface I appear to have a good number of friends. I have a job I love. I have my family nearby. I have this pretty great coping mechanism that I call my "silver linings philosophy" which is where I try and always focus on the good in a situation. On the surface, those things are great. Below the surface is this pretty thick steel layer and under that are things that have hurt me but have gone mostly un-processed and un-grieved. There was a time I remember believing that "love was a weakness." What I meant by that was the kind of love that is purely emotional - really more of a crush, where the sight of someone makes you weak to your knees, and where your brain goes fuzzy when you're around them. Now, I know that love that is purely emotional isn't true love. It's a feeling, and feelings fade. True love is a choice. That choice is not weakness. I also saw crying to some extent as a weakness, because for some reason it felt weak to need someone else to comfort me, to not just be able to pull myself up on my own. I know that we're supposed to lean on God for strength, and I did that sometimes, and to be fair, I have leaned on other people at times as well, though often I would just tuck away my hurt, pushing through it, not always acknowledging it. One of the problems with moving a lot is that - and I really have just begun realizing the extent of this - I am hesitant to let anyone close. On the surface, I love and care about people, but I'm scared to really let people in. I'm scared to really let people get to know me, the real Jen, the Jen that hides below the thick metal armor, and I'm scared to really get to know others as well. The fear I think was/is (I mean, I've realized this but it doesn't mean it's solved yet) that if I let someone close they would see my pain and my emotions which I had classified as weakness, and I wanted to be seen as strong I think, to prove that I had grown up an MK and somehow turned out ok. I think I was scared of people seeing my imperfections and rejecting me for them, but it's more than that. The more I learn about someone and truly get to know them, the harder leaving is. The problem isn't that I want to leave, but that based on my life patterns, moving away is inevitable, and truly loving another person and letting them love me is scary. It's not only vulnerable, but if the friendship or relationship is ever severed for whatever reason, or people move, it sucks. I grieve because I feel like there are a lot of friendships I've let go by the wayside or just never really invested in because of fear. I'm afraid to invest in other people because I'm simultaneously afraid of losing them and of them getting to know the real me and not liking what they find. And so I realize that 9 years after graduating high school and moving across the world I am still dealing with MK stuff. It has been so freeing to let someone in, especially someone who genuinely cares about me and loves the real Jen that he is finding beneath the surface, someone who doesn't expect me to be perfect and who isn't perfect - what a relief. And so I find that God has been teaching me some much needed lessons, and it hurts, but it's so necessary, and it is so good.

And so I am back to where I started - grieving requires more strength than building barriers. What I mean by that is that it is out of weak fear, not strength that I put on armor and build walls. Strength is grieving the things that need to be grieved. It's allowing people into my life and letting them really know me, and really getting to know them as well, even though it might be hard sometimes. It's being willing to care about things, to have opinions, and to get my feelings hurt sometimes, because having emotions is not a weakness.

Boys masquerading as men part 2

Boys masquerading as men.

I was going to title this post, "Why are Men idiots?!" but then I realized that the ones I'm speaking of don't deserve to be called men, but boys, and some men are not idiots. Also, some boys are not idiots, just young and naive. I remember when I was in eighth grade and attending Bethel church in Richland, WA, that among some tracts that the church had as available resources there was this book (meant to be a joke) that was called, "Everything that man has learned about woman"... I'm pretty sure it was pretty small, short, and blank. I've never understood why guys have such a hard time grasping how women think and what they should or should not do in order to be respected and liked by women. First off, we're all people. Women are not some separate race and we're not from different planets as the book, "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" suggests. To be fair, it has taken me a long time and I'm only just beginning to understand how men think. I'm only just beginning to realize just how visual they are vs. how un-visual I am - despite being an artist. I care a lot about aesthetics, but it's different. About a month ago I told a boy I liked (yes, definitely a boy masquerading as a man) that I liked him, because I wanted to force the ball into his court, because I was so tired of dribbling it and not getting any sort of response - well, I thought I did for awhile, in fact part of why I developed a crush on him is because it seemed like he might like me back. He didn't even let the ball stay in his court. To go with the analogy, he either hit it like a hot potato way past my court so I wouldn't ever hit it back into his court again, or he took a dagger and stabbed it so it lost all its air -- yes, we're going from tennis references to... some kind of a handball or basketball type thing. It was fine. Yes, it sucked, but finding out he wasn't interested, I was able to move on surprisingly quickly. I think it's because my eyes were suddenly opened to all his flaws that I had previously been aware of but let slide - because after all, no one is perfect. There are two things that annoy me about the scenario. First off, he said he could "NEVER see himself being romantically interested in me." (Way to know the future, man, I realize you're working hard to not string me along, but really did not need to be that harsh, and honestly when people say "NEVER" it does feel like they're trying to play God, just a little bit.) Secondly, I haven't known him for very long. This really is a secondary annoyance, because it's related to the first. If you don't even know me that well and haven't taken the chance to get to know me how can you be SURE that you'd NEVER be romantically interested?! Again, I've already moved on, and if he's wrong and changes his mind, I will not be here for him to come crying to, mainly because how he responded intensely annoyed me, and I have since then become aware of all the reasons why I'm really happy I'm not dating him. I would rather be single for a very long time than be his girlfriend, because he's also not a very considerate person and his life priorities are in really weird orders. Basically, he's a boy masquerading as a man. He needs to grow up a bit before he'll be good boyfriend/future husband material, and not for me, for someone else.

So, as a reaction to my frustration with boys masquerading as men, I decided to sign up for online dating. I know. Best move to find men who are not boys. (not.) But I do think there are some good guys out there. I keep thinking I've found one or two of them, but the online dating scene really is not satisfying. I've been talking with this guy for about a month now, and he seems scared to meet in person or talk on the phone or Skype. He doesn't live the closest, but not really too far away either. He seems like a great guy! But I don't do well just typing all the time, especially because I always write way more than he does -- talk about someone not being reciprocal! And it's so frustrating not seeing body language or hearing voice intonation. That's so important for proper communication!

Someone else I was talking to, the reaction was opposite. He asked me out after messaging for like two days, then I was the one who panicked and canceled on him at the last second. I felt really bad about that... and have since apologized. It was too fast for me, not because he was moving too fast, but because it had only been a few days since I had been rejected, which is what prompted the online dating in the first place.

There are a couple other guys I have talked to that have been positive conversations, but again, it's been a couple weeks at least for both, and I'm not really satisfied long term with just sending message after message. That can be the start of getting to know someone, but then you have to actually meet, and talk in person, and hang out and stuff.

There was also a guy who I was talking to - I decided he looked a little young for me, though he wasn't too young, and since he messaged me, I replied. Then after a few days of talking he admitted that he didn't have an account (this was on eharmony) and gave me ways to find him in the real internet world. So I did and the next thing I heard from him was, "sorry, I'm not interested." That was probably the worst, because what he didn't see on the eharmony profile was my pictures. He finally got to see pictures and he said, "no." I know I'm not the thinnest crayon in the crayon box... I'm like a crayon for four year olds, not the super skinny big kid ones, but I'm not ugly, and in my opinion curves are freaking attractive, and I am well blessed with them. It makes me want to throw up my hands in despair.

I know I shouldn't let conversations with people I've never met affect me so much, but I don't get much better from the people I do know. I guess I know a lot of idiots, or boys masquerading as men. I am so done. But in reality, I know I'm not. I love guys. No matter how much they infuriate me, I love them. So I sit here typing, with tears streaming down my face because I haven't found one yet who treats me well and from the deepest parts of my heart, I am pleading with God to change that.

I guess I collect people.

Looking through my Facebook newsfeed just now I was realizing how much I care about people I haven't seen in a long time who I don't know very well. I have a hard time going through and deleting old connections, not because I need to feel liked with the assurance of many "friends" but because I genuinely enjoy and care about people. I like seeing news from time to time, good and bad, and celebrating and mourning with old connections from afar. Those summers I worked at camp? I still crave updates from the people I worked with, even though through those summers we mostly knew each other by alternate names. They were a part of my growing into who I am now - each major parts of learning about life and how to live it, well. I know people who think it's crazy to have 200 friends, and I know people who have a couple thousand. At about 750 friends, I know that I don't keep up with everyone on my list. Some of them I barely remember how we connected in the first place. But then there are the treasures of people that I may have only known for a few months before they were out of my life again, but who have impacted my life forever.

I guess I collect people: their stories, smiles, sorrows, laughter, and love it when they let me enjoy those with them.