the art of cathedrals and connecticut
Shopping; spending my money like the irresponsible young teenager that everyone talks about. Retail therapy is “good for you”, but at the same time, it's like a form of self-harm (quote-unquote one of my roommates). Walking around in Malaga Central is weird, especially because the last time I went there was to visit the Picasso museum and cry my absolute eyes out. I totally forgot about visiting the cathedral, but that's okay. Nothing the Sistine Chapel in Italy won't fix.
We're going to be in Oregon soon. It's actually time to think about the next step, the next step that people have been telling me not to think about a month ago. It's time to think about volunteering and taking control of my own things, and raise enough money to hopefully stay in YWAM, and if not, then to leave for North Carolina, hopefully New York. Some fateful day.
It's all fun and games until you realize being a kid is slipping away from you, and you either have to go back home or fend for yourself. Those loose little thoughts are slipping in--slipping in like an easy breeze. And people laugh at what you're doing or look at you wrong or judge your discernment, and you wonder if even adults are adulting the right way. Is anyone even adulting the right way?
It's so sweet and fast. Innocence, the beating of my heart. The green grass, the red-and-yellow kid cars, the easy homework and class assignments. Taking the missionary route instead of the American dream. Living off of donations to go to a different country with random people, watching everyone around you living their normal lives in a place that is totally unnatural to you. Knowing everyone you know back at home and grew up with is in college, soon to get their degrees, and then start a good-paying job and get their own place. Meanwhile you're far behind, or whatever defines far behind anyway. Maybe it's ahead for all you know.
It's beautiful--time. I hope it never lets me go. I hope it holds onto me as tight as it can, gripping into the fabric of my clothes, the skin of my body, holding on with all it has. Holding, keeping these memories close to my heart. This better life. This life that I can't and won't ever let go. The people that dug roots into my heart, instead of gutting slender pieces out. The people that embedded themselves and made a home in my heart--to stay, to keep, to drink milk and tea and lay their heads. My heart beats and my feet move along with it, and there I go. To Connecticut, to North Carolina, to Texas, to California, to Baltimore, to New Jersey, to Virginia, to myrtle beach, to Florida, to New York, to Oregon, to Spain, to Amsterdam, to North Africa, to Paris, to Oregon again. How it never lets me go, how it never lets me go.
Whatever this in-between phase is, it sucks.
I want to go home, but I don't, I want to get volunteering over with, I want to staff, but I don't. I have to figure out what I'm doing for Christmas. Everyone already has their own plans and here I am, still stuck in this tight little plane of time. Still thinking, trying, failing, and then thinking again. Forever in the cycle of my mind, the cycle that is trying to make me better and trying to make me improve, but forever failing.
Anyways, it's stupid to think about my future. God has a good future for me, and He would never lie. It's better to think about what I did today. We went to the Spain base to help out with some cleaning, and to reunite with the crew there, and the school that's going on. It was so weird to be there when they're just starting out and we're already ending ours. I'm envious of their house though. It's so peaceful, quiet, in the middle of nowhere, with a balcony and a view of the mountains. a little place in Spain just for them. You would never think it's a base, and more of a beach house (that isn't on the beach) than anything.
After that was rest, rest, and more rest. It was a weird feeling, lying there in a room for so long. I felt like I had to be somewhere, doing something with a group of people, and that raw boring horrible feeling came back that I used to have in North Carolina. Which explains why I always need people, and sights, and things. My brain is just conditioned to the thought of more, when I wish it could just be happy and normal with less. It sucks when your brain can't do the things you want it to.
Life, family, friends--I want none of it and all of it at the same time. I don't want a job. I don't want to be alone. The fear of ending up alone one day is driving me crazy, I don't want to end up sleeping everyday just to escape loneliness and then living a miserable life and working a full shift and coming back to an empty house again. I guess that's just irrelevant problems. I need to stop being a baby, like everyone and everything tells me and reminds me. I just go with the flow and get what's given to me. Spain, Africa, Europe. Back home again, to America. Hopefully I'll be okay.
11/3/23 12:10 AM
I have 50 minutes to type something so I might as well make it worth it. I need to take advantage of downtime so I don't end up working out around midnight. Anyway.
Today a small group of us found a Five Guys, just like in Connecticut. Or New York, or wherever it was at the time when I was around five years old. I remember driving with my grandma and my cousin to the YMCA (back when I lived with her and my mom was still in school) and taking swimming lessons, getting thrown into the deep end to end the day despite my many protests. Facing my fears. I wish I could still do that now without the extra help and push of someone else, but I guess some things never change, and some things I just never learn. But after swimming lessons we'd stop by Five Guys--and I don't remember exactly what we'd get--but I remember standing by the counter and waiting for our number to be called, and the bright red and black and white checkers on the floor and walls.
We went in there, got a burger that was absolutely delicious that I threw half of away because I felt like I was going to throw up--and sat there, the three of us, staring at the bright red countertops. We talked about our futures, and what we all hope to be doing one day, far down the line in the future. I still had nothing to say about myself. Afterwards we crumpled up our brown paper bags and I drew "Jesus te ama" and pinned it to the wall full of their flyers, just as a little reminder of us. A little piece of us to leave behind in the Five Guys in Spain, before we leave for good.
We looked at thousands-of-dollar clothes that we couldn't afford, prayed to God, walked around, and prayed some more. I got bitten by a spider for the first time and the red dots on my leg spread like wildfire. It was our last day of Spain evangelism, and I think it was a good one.
We laughed in the wind late at night, while it was dark on the train tracks. These tracks weren't like the ones in North Carolina, and thank God they'll never be. It's a different feeling, to be on the train-that-feels-like-a-subway, knowing that you won't be here forever, and that this moment is a fleeting moment that soon will pass and become a memory like everything else, so you have to soak it in all you can before it passes away. I looked out the train window, and I could see V's reflection in the glass, and the train moved fast and bumped and made me dizzy. I stood up and the wind blew me backwards as I hopped out of the train. I felt alive. I felt like I was in New York, speeding down those light tunnels that the cars drive through for a few precious seconds, but I could actually stick my head and my arms and hands up and out and into the air, and breathe. Please God, never take this feeling away. Never take this freedom away from me.
Spain will always have a place in my heart, as the first place of freedom. The first place my heart flew and there were no nets to catch it. The day I let go of the balloon and let it soar--far, far away, to inescapable heights where I couldn't see it, but I knew it was there. To reach its eventual home.
Well, another long day, another 24-hour period of no rest. I seriously don't know what I'm doing anymore regarding reading, eating, sleeping, and thinking about the future. I kind of like it that way. Not thinking, having no plan or mindset about anything. it really helps you go with the flow and not realize how horrible things actually are.
We went up to the mountain. It's funny, because at the beginning it was supposed to be some huge massive existential-self-discovering-hike, but it ended up being a short gondola trip three days before we leave our outreach. It was so cold up there, and I didn't go up the mountain any further because my legs and knees were hurting from my workout the previous night. So I sat there in my long sleeved shirt pulled over my fingers, back turned to the wind, watching a Brazilian and a four-year-old play uno while we waited for the rest of the group to finish.
My ears ended up stinging from the pressure, and I know I'm a crybaby. I need to find earplugs for the plane. Thank God for God, and that He's taking care of me. Don't know what I'd do without Him. Everyday I try my best for Him, and I know He sees it.
Thinking about people is what's getting me worked up at the moment, especially when marriage is "supposed" to be in the picture. I really don't want to get married, or think about that at all. Everybody has their future husband, and I have my future studio apartment in New York. That may sound selfish, or it sounds totally normal. I hope it sounds totally normal, because it sounds nice to me. And yes, I do keep going back and forth in the world of emotions, love playing a tug-of-war game with my heart, but being that no one attractive is here I've regained my past sense of not caring about spouses or the potential future spouse. If it happens, God forbid, it is what it is. If it doesn't, I'm going to Rome to see the only love of my life--Roman architecture (and sculptures).
Anyway, forgetting that whole tangent--I'm okay with whatever the future has for me. I'm finally back. and I really freaking hope that never ever ever changes because whatever I went through turned me into a freak show. Thank God I'm back to normal.
11/5/23 11:40 PM
I haven't had much time to write. My phone is full of unanswered messages and I feel so alive. Outreach is over, I'm in a family vacation house, and I made it. Throughout midnights, and classrooms, and crying and doubting and 6 months of gut-wrenching-heart-tearing change. I made it. And tomorrow is my mom's birthday. I was working out near the roof, and standing at the top over the stairwell, I just felt so alive. No one can feel as alive as this. So alive. So powerful. So accomplished. I made it. And I'm going to be back in America soon, looking towards the next step, finally.
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