Thought of the Day: Faith (or Belief)

A few weeks I met a girl I really liked. We were sitting on the steps of a library on a Friday night, when she looked over at a church and sighed, “I always wanted to have my own church.” I laughed, because she’s an atheist.

That’s a lie. I also laughed because I know how she feels. Churches, or religion seems to create a community where people belong, where they take that leap of faith into believing in something other than themselves, or the material world ahead of them. Sometimes I wish I could go and take the leap, maybe to find a community, or a part of myself that felt that close connection with something substantial.

I’ve often wondered how much faith comes into play in other parts of our lives. I don’t mean trust, but faith. I’m more trusting than most people, often to my detriment. But trust can be built, or destroyed based on past performance. It requires some sort of empirical evidence, the hard facts. There isn’t much room for misinterpretation with trust. It’s either there, or it’s not. But with faith, or some sort of spirituality, it requires a trust in the immaterial world, where facts and evidence cannot be used to measure the success of how things will turn out. And maybe that’s the part that scares me. Last week, I kind of scared my counselor by when he asked me, why don’t I trust men? I’ll admit, even the answer I gave him was pretty mean, but the question I was perhaps answering was, why don’t I believe in men? Then again, I find it hard to believe in people in general, because it requires that leap of faith. To give something to people, even when it may be more than you can give out, to hope (not expect) something in return, is a process I’ve gone through constantly where it yields nothing, and I’m left in an emotional, financial, physical deficit, and I just don’t want to go through that anymore. This is hard to explain to anyone, because it’s more than why I don’t trust people. It’s, can I afford to give out something if it may not be returned? More often, the answer is no, because if I go through another loss, it’s like I’ll experience all those losses again at the same time. That’s how I felt last summer when my brother stopped talking to me after our grandfather’s death.

Here’s a question I’ve never quite wrapped my head around. How does one know that they are religious? an activist? an artist? a writer? someone who is going to make a difference in whatever they pursue? Is it something that someone is born with, and then they just progress to that stage, or is it something that is nurtured through exposure of different material? Is placing that faith that someone will become those things or is it in hindsight when all is discovered. The place where I find this question is answered is usually in people who have relationships or are married. They say they just knew that this was the person they’d spend a lot of time with, and how great being single is. I don’t believe them. Being single can suck, and no one tells us who we should and shouldn’t end up with. It just sounds like a good thing to say when someone meets someone else that they love and it worked. A few weeks ago my coworker proposed to his girlfriend, and when I asked him why, he said, “I don;’t know. We’ve been together for so long, it just makes sense for us to be together forever.” I bought his reason because it wasn’t laced with that fake faith. The faith that people attach because it sounds pretty, like the last line of a Hallmark card. That’s the bad faith.

Where did the faith go for people who haven’t yet acquired that acceptance with a certain term? Does that exist? I guess that’s my question. When I first entered college I had this idea that college would make me a writer, but it doesn’t. It just made me a graduate. I believe that you can go to college to brush up on technical craft, meet people, network, and fall in love with people who aren’t boring, but I don’t think you can teach a student art, creativity or originality. And even in undergrad I was just trying to find my voice. I think I found it, but I’m like, now what?

I guess I’m at that part of my life, and my lack of faith, or willingness to believe beyond the empirical, the scientific part of trust, is giving way to me staying inside and keeping to myself then getting to know all the beautiful people in this area. I want to believe them, but I don’t. I’m not even that far. I don’t want to believe that I can meet some nice people, have a nicer time in my life, have more comforting and gentle moments than anxious and depressing ones, but I just want to want that. I would say I have faith that it’ll happen, but I don’t. I want to believe that I desire that, or can achieve it.

Maybe faith or belief has more to do with passion, than ambition. I’ve decided already I’m not as passionate about my life as people with passions are, because I’d hate to think it’s because I can’t find the faith to believe in people. I don’t know if it’s lost, so much as it hasn’t been created or recovered. Maybe my lack of faith might have to do with my lack of passion in succeeding besides where there is an empirical truth behind it. Maybe when I’ve created an ability to understand what my meaning or my faith is, I can join all those people who have a clear purpose, whether it’s to be an activist, artist, writer, or yes, just a plain ol‘ churchgoer.

Free Write 10: Love

I know this is supposed to be one of those things where you are supposed to feel excited and have all sots of nervous energy, and experience some spiritual greatness for when love, that special l word has blessed your life, that it’s going to feel like shouting on top of a mountain or a sunset, but I always feel like crying whenever i realize that i love someone. i want to crawl under my pillows and blankets and disappear in the world, listen Sade, cry, drink cheap wine, cry, type constantly, cry, do anything but tell this person, because when i do say something it goes wrong. completely to shit.

when did love get such a good wrap anyway? i blame those movies. you know. the teen aged comedies, the romance novels, the troubadours even, because they didn’t tell us the whole story. maybe love is supposed to feel like all of that happy stuff, but when i mainly get is the sadness instead of the glory. the pain instead of the wistful acceptance that’s supposed to some with it. where did that type of love go anyway? i think that love has more to do seriousness than anything. because nothing is funny about falling in love. it’s just advertised that way. your whole being is at stake, and let’s just say, sometimes it doesn’t yield what i want it to.

here’s a riddle. what are you supposed to say to someone when they say, i love you?

i hope you answered, i love you too.

answer’s I’ve received — thanks, that’s sweet. or, i don’t feel comfortable with this, or i can’t be in your life anymore, or not even a response, but someone who hangs up on me. so maybe this explains why i don’t like telling people i love them, because when i do, they give the wrong answer to such an easy riddle. who knows it, knows that i love you is a question. it isn’t a statement because one of the worst things someone can do is laugh at your love and return it as it it’s some gift with a receipt. and whenever i know i love something there’s a sadness, a grieve, a pain in my heart because i know that it means i’ll have to let that something go very soon if i ever tell them those words. and even when i’m going through the process, i can’t fully love the person because my love is cloaked in shame. hurtful somehow. it’s like i have to accept this person will not love me, and will leave, and it’s foolish that my love has been given to something in vain.

here’s the question of year: is there any way to say i love you someone, or get them to say it to you,that doesn’t involve, tricking, trapping, guilting, cheating, hurting or lying? if love is freedom, why does there always seem to be some game as to not give it freely.

i know not all forms of love are like this. i love my cat. she loves me. i can tell when she sneaks into my arms at night, knowing she won’t do this with any other human being, she loves me. i love reading but i have a hate on and off relationship with it, perhaps because i mock writers out of jealousy. i love cooking. solitude. helping people in some form. but when it comes to the love of people, there are different loves. there are people who i’ve loved in passionate, tragic ways, and others where it’s purer, better way because id’ never ask them to change. which love is better? better yet, which love with the other not leave.
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this is a hard subject for me to write on, because i could go on and on. i think of love like a spirituality, like a faith based subject. if you believe in it, and it does good, godly things, like gives you a spouse, a great job, a cute condo and some lovely animal, than your faith in love is there. but when you get the courage, despite family disputes and confusion and the wind knocked out of you as an adult and say i love you, it could still get a bad response. does that mean you didn’t believe in it that much? does love have a special, deep intense meaning? or course not. then it wouldn’t be love. i don’t know if i’ll ever solve how i feel about love, but i’d just like to reach a point in my life where i don’t cry every time i realize i love someone.

Thoughts of the Day: Emotional Honesty

In my last post I said I was looking for a counselor, and that’s been the only thing I’ve been proactive about this week. After consulting with my boss about my health insurance, I found that mental health isn’t covered (go figure) but I did find a Holistic spiritual counseling center that has $5 sessions, so I went with that. My counselor is a nervous, stuttering student named Will. I like his name, but I’m not sure about him. Meeting him made me realize even more, that not all counselors are created equal, and I sort of miss my old counselor Brad, who in his perceptiveness found me. I did not find him.

Most of my time has been spent lamenting the state that my life has dissapated in. This paycheck has kept me inside the house all week, making me ask questions I’ve never had to ask before, like standing in line at a supermarket and wondering, do I really need to get the stick of gum? I scape pennies in the washer like nobody’s business, and my paycheck has robbed me of even buying my mom a birthday card. The last few weeks I’ve called a lot of people who say the magical let’s hang out, but they don’t call back, and that leaves me to my own devices to wonder why they aren’t calling back. Maybe they don’t like me? Maybe they’re dead. I don’t know anymore, and I’m tired of trying to figure out what I did wrong. I don’t want to interact with anyone, which is in conflict with my job, and I’ve been answering pointless surveys this week at work. I’d rather have a beer and sob endlessly over my emotional state then try to fake it and interact with people. I’ve had no new thoughts, or passions, and that creeps me out. I don’t eat as much but I’m sure I’ve gained weight. And to top it all off, a part of my tooth fell out. Our health plan doesn’t include dental insurance, so I have no clue what’ll happen if the whole thing falls out. Maybe I’ll actually lose weight if I eat less? Instead of trying to proactively deal with ways to combat, or adjust to this quarter life crisis, I’d rather read about it.

These aren’t my only formal complaints. Sure, I could give specifics about the roommate, the job or the volunteers, the friends, the loves, the neighborhood and such, but they’re not that important. Yes, it bugs me that Roommate won’t do dishes, or pick up after himself, that finding volunteers is difficult, that I have no real friends yet out here, and love — well, I’ll save that for a free write, and the unreported crime bugs me too, but that’s not what the real source of my angst is coming from. I could feel these same things and not be in this particular situation.

The only way I could describe how I’m feeling is like a total failure. If I log onto my myspace and browse for five minutes and see all the folks on my friends list who have secure jobs, happy partners, pets and some meaning to their life, I get jealous and extremely depressed. I want the closeness, that bond, that particular intimacy or knowledge that I know what I’m doing with my life. My life is wracked with so much uncertainty that alcohol takes the pain away, and being around people more than I have to be would remind me of my shortcomings and failures. And it’s a failure of knowing I can do something, or be that to someone else, but it always falls short.

Last year I talked with Chris Abani about birthdays. He was born days after Christmas and was usually neglected because of it. So I made a concentrated effort to remember his birthday and sent him a text message. Months later, he said I was a great friend over coffee, and I had all the makings of a wonderful friend. That I was loving and sweet, considerate and thoughtful, and interesting and fun, but he couldn’t understand why I was having such a hard time making friends. “Anyone would want to be your friend, because you’re good at it,” he said. “I think the only thing getting in the way of that is yourself.”

Maybe he’s right. I am condescending, insulting and defensive, have a hard time connecting with people because it always has to be on their terms which might not always be mine. I’m not extroverted. I’m not the life of the party. In fact, I’d rather have coffee and people watch than go to the club, or an activist’s meeting for that matter. I’d rather show my values than militantly explain them. I’d rather plan outings than stage them “spontaneously” hoping this person will want to be my friend.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I could say the same thing about my career, or a job, but I’ll leave that for another post. If I am such a wonderful friend, then why am I so friendless? If I’m such a good employee, why isn’t my job providing any joy? No one’s answered that question, only to say that I’d be a lovely friend, but they’ve met their friend quota for now. And maybe that’s what’s bugging me so much, along with the usual that cracks at me. Maybe I despise the fact that I’m such a lovely, but friendless friend the same way when people say I’m ambitious, but I’m not going anywhere in my life.

I don’t know anything. I don’t know where I’m going to be in the next, year, month, week, day, hour or minute. I don’t even know if I’ll make it out okay. I don’t even know what I’m going to do with this blog. I’ve considered shutting it down so many times because I don’t know if it’s helping me, or other people understand me. I’ll probably remodel it, but I’m still tempted to move it elsewhere. I am just looking for some sort of stability in myself, and maybe a way to externalize that into a successful life, if possible. And then I’m not sure where it will take me.

It’s taken a few days to write this blog, because I wasn’t sure how much access I wanted to give to myself. I know I want to be a writer, and to write, there requires some amount of vulnerability, but how do you know you’ve crossed that line? I’m not sure if I’ve crossed that line with this blog. I’m not sure what’s appropriate to discuss in any form besides what goes on in my head. I want to be able to share this, with you. With others. With myself. And yet, I keep feeling like emotional honesty doesn’t win people over, and I’m not talking telling someone how you’re really doing when they ask, how are you? I mean, I’m scared to say, I’m scared. I’m worried that if I say I’m worried, I’ll have revealed this weakness or defiency that no one else will go near. Is it wrong to say I’m worried? Or I’m scared? How about flat out, I’m miserable and I need some help? I don’t even feel comfortable writing this and letting the public see it.

I don’t know how to balance that line between what’s personal and private, in my personal and private life. How to say, you should like me because I’m sweet and smart and charming, not run away from me because I’m sweet and smart and charming. Or how to let publishers know, “Publish me!” without sounding potential.

I don’t know. I know I keep saying that a lot, but I don’t know. The bright side is that the best time of my life is yet to come and I’m sitting on all this potential. The downside is what to do in the meantime, and how to I find that balance between being honest, and being genuine.

A slip back in the rabbit hole.

Today, I did something I told myself I was going to refrain from doing for the rest of my young life. I called a counselor to set up an appointment.

This isn’t something I actually wanted to do, but figured it was something I needed to consider since I exploded on a good friend on the phone. My friend E. was my closest confidant in undergrad when he was a lecturer at UCSD. We haven’t spoken in almost a year, and he called last Sunday. Not to ask, how am I doing? Or do I like my job? Or, I’ve missed you. I didn’t get any of that. He had a friend who needed a place to stay in Riverside, and he enlisted me in helping find her a place to crash.

I was pretty pissed off about all of this, and even though I found another friend who could take E’s friend in, I still yelled at him, and explained that I haven’t spoken to him in almost a year, why doesn’t he go find someone else, like someone he talks to on a regular basis, to play house to his friend? It seems like the only time people call these days is for help. I don’t mind helping, but sometimes I want someone to ask how I am.

I wish this was going to be some self righteous post about how I told my friend better (he did apologize later) but it’s not. I’ve been stuck in this hole of depression for a while. Everything pisses me off. Getting up this early upsets me. My roommate picking through my food annoys me. I’m just plain tired. Tired of shivering because I don’t have a coat. Tired of perverted men who grab my ass on the bus. Tired of the handicapped guy who slows down the bus route to get on and off, only to get off two stops later. I want to tell his nurse, why didn’t you just wheel his ass there? Besides, you already have a ride, and I’m late to work because of you.

I’m Tired of being followed home when I’m lugging groceries, only to find some horny boy who only thinks of getting into my house. He couldn’t even offer to carry my groceries. Tired of my boss who thinks I do nothing all day because I don’t have as many volunteers as I should. Tired of doing presentations. The calls, the networking, the thank you notes and endless emails are exhausting. I’m tired of not having any money. This salary, to say the least, is sad. I don’t even like to look at the direct deposit because it somehow reminds me of how little I’ve achieved. I’m tired of not being to go anywhere because of my salary. It’s embarrassing to tell friends you can’t drink with them because you can’t afford it. And sure, there are financial programs and assistance, but I have to show my account information, and be reminded, that each time I’m approved for some assistance, that it’s such a privilege. There are jokes of being broke, but they’re not so funny when your light checkbook forces you inside at all times.

I’m tired of the coffee shops, the cafes and trendy bars, the fake friends and organic food that comes with them. I’d like, for once, to just meet up and show people who I really am, contradictions and all, without being reminded that my behavior is severely disconnected from my beliefs. Tired of saying things I don’t want to because it’s for the social good, but keeping quiet things I want to say because they might cause people to have a real moment to stop and think. I’m tired of watching endless TV only to know when something is a rerun after watching 30 seconds of it.

I overeat and oversleep. I find solace in books, but they’re not as interactive. I don’t want to think about sex because it depresses me. I don’t want to listen to my iPod, because I’m not in a cheery enough mood. I don’t want to drink endless bottles of beers and syrupy cheap wine, but I don’t want to live with this misery so strong I choke up and sob quietly during meetings. Alcohol calms that. Sleep calms that. And yet, I’m stricken with a sadness so deep that I can’t escape it. It consumes me, and what’s scary is, I don’t know what’s worse — accepting a sadness that washes over me, or faking that I like the social interaction I get when I know it won’t lead anywhere?

I’ve returned to some of my old habits, and I guess snapping on E showed me that I might need some distance. Take a step back. Talk to someone else, and I have no one else to talk to in this city about these things and not scare them, so I called a counselor. I thought I was done with this business. I want to be a sane, happy, well adjusted post college twentysomething who’s patient and loving, who knows she’ll find the right job, right location and right in due time. But I don’t want to lie to myself. I’m not at that point right now. So I called someone else. Maybe they can help me get though this. Maybe they teach me to lie to myself.

I’m not sure what I’m expecting from calling them. I want some peace, a space that permits me to act out, cry, maybe even selfishly discuss my confusion, even if I can only have it in 40 minute intervals. I want to keep telling myself I’m strong because I didn’t do what I really wanted to do, but I still feel weak, like even though I can act like a sweet, charming and lovely human being that I’m about to break down any minute. I’m falling apart before my own eyes, and I don’t know if I have the tools to do stay together. Deep down inside, I feel like an idiot. A fool. Completely confused. A total fraud.

I was once told that if I was an animal, I’d be a turtle. Wise, aged and awful around others. Does this apply? Can I find another who could help me be a little more at peace? Especially with myself?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions. If I had them, I wouldn’t call on anyone else, like a counselor, to help me.

Thought of the day: A History of Blogging

In the Diary of Anne Frank, she writes that she prefers pen to people because people are more patient. I wonder if she would’ve said the same thing when it comes to blogging. The reason I ask this is because for the first time in a while, I’ve gone without my journal.

I’ll explain. I’ve had a written journal for about 13 years. I started when I was ten, when my father died. I didn’t cry at his funeral, but I had a major meltdown a few weeks later when I failed a math test, and my (then) best friend said I would’ve gotten a higher score if I had studied. My counselor gave me a journal, and told me to write in it whenever I missed him. So I did, and I continued writing in one, for over ten years. I went on and off with writing in it. I didn’t keep a journal in high school, but I did in college, and so far I’ve written about five hundred pages of whining, complaining, 500 secrets, fantasies, feelings and thoughts that I’ve felt too scared or vulnerable to share with anyone else. It’s also allowed me a freedom to express myself.

Then I started blogging. I began blogging in 2003 on xanga.com and it was really personal. I stopped writing about things so personal and unorganized when I studied in London and got a myspace profile, and kept a blog called “On the Other Side of the Pond” to keep contact with my friends at home and tell my friends what was going on with me. Two years ago I shut down both those blogs. In 2005, I got a blog with livejournal, a blog that had intrigued me since I heard about it in 2003, because the accounts were finally free, but that blog is private, and I didn’t write in it that often. In January, I got a blog on blogpost.com, and kept up there, but only blogged sporadically, and in March of 2007 I stopped blogging on myspace, and in April decided to give it another try on blogspot.com. I’ve kept up with this journal, and I’ve blogged more on this one. I blog twice a week, since my posts have decreased since I graduated college and therefore, spend less time in front of the computer. I still have my blog on livejournal, and it’s still private, but I haven’t posted in that one for a year or so.

I’m thinking of all of this since I ran out of my last page or my journal. I mean, I could easily get a notebook and journal away (I’m not that broke) but the question is, what’s the purpose of blogging? Why do people blog?

I was drawn to it by the comments. I admit it, I wanted to be popular on in the cyber space since I wasn’t popular in real life. But now, I do it less for the comments, although they are helpful. It’s a nice way to connect with people on intimate subjects and know I won’t run into them in real life. When I don’t have a real journal, I get anxious. I like writing, but I also like having some sort of privacy when it comes to writing. And I like writing and I want to be published in my lifetime. The thing is that I need to let people see my vulnerabilities in order to have some success.

So that’s where my history of blogging comes in. I finished this journal sooner than I thought I would, and I’m wondering if I should post more material on here. This would be an easy question if I liked livejournal, but I like blogspot more than livejournal because of the community it provides. With the community though, people would be exposed to raw material if I posted more indiscriminately. I’m not sure if it’s worth the trouble, but I’d like to see if I could post material that’s closer to what I want to publish. I’m not looking to steam people’s glasses, or become a comment whore. I’m just looking to see if I should give up the paper journal, or should spend more time here.