Jack's Personal Growth Chart: 05.2005

5.29.2005

Quick Update

Internet still down---I have 3 minutes here at my dad's house, so I can't really blog much. Just wanted you to know I'm still alive, but things are still very strange right now.

I'll be back sometime... Hopefully this week.

- Jack

5.19.2005

Argh

Something's wrong with my internet connection at home---they say it's probably my modem or whatever. I've got a tech coming out to look at it tomorrow afternoon, hopefully my connection will soon be restored. I'm at my dad's house right now.

I have oral surgery tomorrow morning at 9am... A couple of severely impacted wisdom teeth will soon trouble me no more.

I'm. So. Scared. I hate going to the dentist.

In other news, I don't exactly know what's happening to me lately. I recognize some signs, I think, but I'm not sure what it all means. I've quit just about everything. The only commitments I'm maintaining are Tate, work, and counselling (for now--but that may go the way of the wind if it proves to be too much). I've also switched music genres... You can tell a lot about where I am emotionally by what's currently coming out my speakers. And every once in a great while, I go back to this genre...

Anyway, I think I'm just rambling to take my mind off the next day's events. But just to let you know, something big is afoot. Whether good or bad, I don't yet know.

Later.

- Jack

5.06.2005

Unsure...

I'm unsure of why I'm here, why I'm blogging... But since I find myself here, I might as well make the most of it and just blog away.

I'm so sick of being alone.

I know that's uncharacteristic coming from me, but it's true. This is just going to be a horrible weekend. Mother's Day, eh? I don't have a mom anymore... Dad's out of town visiting his new fiance... Rachael and Teddy took Tate to Georgia for the weekend to see my other sister... so there goes all that. And I sat there tonight and listened to all these different people talking about their relationships... or complaining about their relationships... or else I witnessed them, firsthand, interacting within said relationships... And it just made my heart ache. I can't even believe I'm admitting this right now. I won't even admit how I feel to myself, and here I am blogging it at midnight on Friday, May 6th... Mark this date in history---the stone-hearted Jack has finally cracked.

But this is when I hate myself the most. I've never in my life hated myself more than I do right now. I loathe this weakness in me. I despise this utter lack of self-control. I'm stronger than this... Damnit I'm stronger than this.

At least that's what I tried to tell myself in my last post. Truth be told, I'm not as strong as I'd like to think. I'm just really good at putting up a show of it. Y'know what, though? The saddest part of all is that admitting it won't change a thing. I'll still pretend to be tough as nails. You don't have much of a choice when you're me.

So yeah, mood of the moment, since I'm being so honest? Alone... utterly alone... I've never in my life felt more isolated. Most of it is my own doing, but that doesn't change the circumstance. Regardless of how I got here, I'm here.

Sorry this is so fragmented and pointless and dark. Those of you who've been around a while will recognize this as one of those "lows". I'm in the dark place, the withdrawn place. I knew it was coming, I tried to hold it off, but it happens. I just need to learn to deal effectively with it instead of letting it overtake me like this.

Tomorrow is another day, right?

-Jack

5.03.2005

So...

... hi. Sorry I haven't been around. I guess I've kinda been avoiding my blog. I'm not wanting to deal with things, and I'm sorry. To you and to myself. I set out to share this journey, and I've not really held true to my intentions. So yeah... I'm sorry.

So much has been flying through my head the last few weeks... I feel rather like I'm in a whirlwind. Or maybe I'm a freight-train barrelling along, full speed ahead without a brake...

A brake... The train analogy was brought up by my counsellor tonight. We were discussing my former marraige, and what went wrong and why and trying to unearth the feelings wrapped up in it all that I was basically too young to recognize. Ordinarily that would all sound like psycho-babble to me, but there really were things that I knew I felt but couldn't articulate. At any rate, we got onto why I didn't want him and what I really do want...

I want strength... solidity... I want someone that makes me feel safe and secure, enough to where I can be free to be myself... Someone whose wing I can thrive under... Someone who wants more for me than even I want for myself. I am a strong woman, and I will settle for nothing less than a stronger man. I was trying desperately to find the right words to express this notion that's always been in my head... Suddenly I realized it was rather akin to the freedom we find in captivity to Christ. In an effort to help her understand, I used an analogy that I made up for Tate's dad, when he struggled with accepting the "limitations", as he saw them, that the convictions of my (seriously underdeveloped) faith put on me and on our relationship:

Say you're in a meadow... a massive, rolling meadow that stretches out far as the eye can see. There is no limit to where you can go or what you can do or what lies ahead... it's bordered by a beautiful forest, and you're free to roam as far as you like, do whatever you want... But there's a section of this imaginary place that is fenced off. It's not a giant wall, or a menacing barbed wire fence... Just some posts with beams set in them, a simple but clear marking off of territory. Inside this area is nothing really spectacular that you can tell from outside...

I said to him "You are out there. But this is where I have chosen to dwell--in here. Here I am protected, here I am safe--there is no fear, and as long as I stay here, I know I am doing what is best for me--there is nothing out there that can give me any more fulfillment than what is around me here. Here I have everything I'll ever need, here I can be all I was intended to be. You can be here with me... But I will only be here. I will not go out there with you. It's your choice."

...Or something to that effect. I recall the imagery of the analogy much more clearly than I do the wording. But I hope the meaning carries through sufficiently for you... That was at a time when I was very slowly but also very surely returning to God. I was, bit by bit, turning away from the sin that I was entrenched in, mostly with regard to our living arrangement. Thinking back, he was probably wondering what kind of crazy woman he'd gotten himself involved with--sleeping with him was ok to start with, but now we have to stop? Eh? I don't think it made any sense to him at the time... I'm grateful that it does now, and that he's accepted Christ and has recently married a wonderful Christian woman who is nothing but good for him.

At any rate, where was I? Oh yeah, therapy (insert cringe). So I told her the analogy, and she said it was great, it made perfect sense... I told her that's one of the ways that I view a relationship as well, or at least my ideal, I suppose. That as Christ is the head of the church, so should a man be the head of his family--and that includes the wife. Not in some abusive, chauvanistic way... but in the way it was intended--a beautiful comingling of the differences between man and woman that God created... merging together to create something truly amazing... We ought not be trying to downplay and trivialize and erase our differences, rather we should be celebrating them. I wasn't designed, in a marraige relationship, to worry about certain things... so when I do have to worry about responsibilities that God did not intend for me to have, it feels unnatural and makes me uncomfortable and unhappy.

In the discussion that ensued, she mentioned her own analogy, or one that she'd heard, that she thought might apply... That women can sometimes be like freight trains out of control, and we need someone strong enough to stand in our path and stop us... a brake... not in a manner of proving how strong he is or in a controlling way, but out of love, out of a desire to protect us from even ourselves if need be... it'd be really really nice to have a brake...

As usual, I don't even know if I'm making sense. My brain goes so fast that my hands often have trouble keeping up, and I have a tendency to omit entire trains of thought without realizing it. So if that didn't make sense for you, leave me a comment stating such and I'll try to clean it up.

But all of this is for naught if I don't really want someone, isn't it? I'm not ready to go there yet. I'm just exploring the notion. I'm still leaning more toward permanent singleness--maybe because my standards are too high. My intellect has a tendency to permit my heart only to desire those things which it knows to be so improbable as to be safely out of reach.

I haven't found a man other than Christ who could live up to my expectations (though that guy is starting to get too close to my expectations for comfort with every new thing I learn about him, but we won't go there)... and for now, I still say I'm better that way.

-Jack

Jack's Personal Growth Chart