Selfishness or Curiosity

Around this time last year I was just returning from a trip to Oregon. A couple of friends were getting married and I was to sing at the reception. On my flight over I had a window seat, for which I was very thankful. Somehow being able to look out the window made being stuck on a plane for three and a half hours more bearable. I know all of you who have taken longer trips are scoffing but it's hard for some of us to be stuck in one place for long periods of time.

From my view at the window I looked down on the flatlands of the Western States, places like Kansas and the Dakotas, and as I looked I saw these long, straight, treeless roads stretching from one corner of my window to the other. Every now and then they were broken by houses or barns. Silos. And as I looked down from that great height I realized that people lived in those houses, going about their daily lives. Someone was probably out tending to horses. Someone else was fighting with her brother. Another was probably not home, out at the grocery store or to visit family or going to a wedding or, heaven forbid, a funeral. None of them knew or cared that I and a hundred others were flying overhead. I found myself wondering about the people below. What are their lives like? Do they have friends? Have they lived anywhere else? Suddenly the thought that I am the center of my universe was laughable, just the naivete of a smalltown girl.

The problem with most humans today is that they can't think about anyone but themselves. We get caught up in our own wants, needs, desires and forget that other people are affected by the way we handle ourselves.

During my trip down memory lane to the gardens in Portland and the air above Utah I thought of something.

For years I've had extremely low self-esteem. There was this lingering feeling that I wasn't enough, no one liked me, I had no true friends and there was nothing about me worth being around. I wasn't pretty enough, thin enough, exciting enough, funny enough... And yet anyone who saw me wouldn't have any idea I felt that way. When I'd drive to WalMart my music would be up loud as I dangled my arm out of the open window, the sun glinting off my sunglasses. As I walked through the automatic doors it was with the air of belonging, as though I proclaimed "I own this store. Bow to me!"

At my college one of our buildings has doors that, when you open the inside doors forcefully, the outside doors automatically open. I guess it's a handicap feature designed to make life easier. If the doors stayed open long enough it probably would. These doors, in truth, are a vice for the underappreciated. If you happened to be the lone person to be yelled at or to mess up your lines during dress rehearsal for the upcoming production, or you were just in a bad mood these doors would help you regain your sense of purpose. Shoving the doors wide you stride out, epicly unafraid, hair blowing in the sudden wind into the wild darkness of the unknown called Muskingum College, stretching your arms wide you scream into the night sky "I am Spartacus!"

Who wouldn't find a sense of purpose with a scenario like that?

Even with my obsession with doors and feeling better about myself I eventually began taking the side door. The one for mere mortals. As I wander campus or search the aisles or fly overhead in a giant silo with wings I find myself glancing at the people around me. What's their story? Even now, as I sit at home alone every day, praying for God to give me a job and end my boredom, I hear voices on campus and I wonder who it is. What are they doing? Why are they out in the darkness of the night? Or I get on Facebook and see a cryptic status. What happened? Why do they feel that way? Sometimes I make up stories about them, pretending that they've answered my questions.

So today, as I thought about this I wondered about those people who can only think of themselves and I realized, I can't do anything without wondering about someone else.
Yes, I'm still selfish, still wallow in self-pity, but all I can wish for is to meet new people, find new faces, learn new stories... perhaps its the writer in me. Perhaps it's because other people's stories are far more enticing than my own. So many people outside of my little world with stories and adventures and ideas that are completely foreign to me. One friend spent an entire semester in Africa because, as he told me, he wanted to go completely outside of himself into a new place. New world. I was fascinated. Being a person who believes she has nothing to offer I often wonder what these people, with all the experiences, can teach me. What will I learn from them? Because obviously they've learned enough, I've nothing to give.

I have to wonder... is this tendency good or bad? Is it selfish, to want to learn from others experiences? It's such a slippery slope that it's a hard question to answer, let alone ask. Unfortunately I can't answer. It was just a thought.

Complaining and How to Stop

It's that age. The age of double takes. The age of being in between. The age where daily life is so confusing that Alice in Wonderland makes sense. The age when jobs are needed but few, where friends are married and names change and people we thought we knew aren't the same. The age where life should be starting but instead the world has become a box even the greatest magician can't escape from. The age of discouragement. Rejection.

Twenty-two. It's a terrible age.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if God just skipped this age? You know, like how Louis Sachar skipped the nineteenth story because there is no nineteenth story in Wayside School? The floors went directly from eighteen to twenty. Even in the sequel the skipped story became a place where the work was impossible, like memorizing the dictionary from beginning to end and no matter how badly you wanted out there was no escape. It sounds exactly like being twenty-two. If Mr. Sachar's book could be interpreted as a sort of life story, perhaps he chose to skip the nineteenth story because the story of his nineteenth year was one he wishes to forget. I'm making that up, but what if? Had I story I wished to skip it would be the twenty-second. If wrote a book with that many chapters twenty-two would be missing. It's an unlucky number.

It seems that whatever is looked forward to the most either turns out to be one hundred times better or one hundred times worse that we thought it would be.

I remember going to Washington D.C. in the eighth grade. I was so excited even if I was rooming with three girls I barely knew, and during the trip we played on the statue of some man's half buried body, added chewing gum to the gum tree outside of Ford Theater, ate chicken every day, the toilet broke, and I got sick the last night we were there. Not to mention the typical thirteen year old drama.

My senior year of high school I couldn't wait for band camp because finally, after years of torture, I would be on top. It came, and the second to last day I found out my cousin died and I went home to a funeral.

When I hit college I couldn't wait until I turned twenty. Finally I wouldn't be a teenager. I love the Anne of Green Gables books and in Anne of the Island she talks about how when she was younger twenty seemed like such a ripe old age. This, of course, totally makes sense because somehow it sounds more mature when you can say "I'm twenty" as opposed to "I'm nineteen". There's really a huge gap between the two.

Twenty wasn't my favorite age either.

I turned twenty-one and the day after my birthday I accidentally stabbed myself in the hand with my pocket knife and fainted. I had to skip church and spent the day in bed. I still have the scar. In fact, so far, the twenties have revealed themselves to be completely horrendous minus one or two minor things. You know, like marriage. Or having children (eventually). Or actually finding a good job. Or finally graduating from college and realizing you'll never be tortured by school again. But what do those matter, really, when confronted with other much bigger things?

Really, though, when it comes down to it what good does it do to complain? Living on earth means that life won't always be wonderful and perfect and it's something we eventually get used to, like moving to a new place or finding out you can't have chocolate anymore. So in the end the moral to the story is, things will happen that you can't stop but dwelling on it won't change what has happened. Silver lining, kids. We only live on this earth once.

Just For Starters

I decided it was time to start a different kind of blog. I don't like xanga much, not since it tried to become like Facebook or Myspace, and I'd rather have a blog that's more private anyway.

Mostly this blog will be stories, ideas, a place for me to practice my writing and to put ideas or thoughts that I would like to share instead of keep to myself. I don't consider myself a very good writer, so please bear with me. This is just practice, after all.

For now, I figured I would just throw some thoughts out into the void.

During church this morning I discovered that there are parts of worship that I don't really enjoy. We were singing a song, I forget which, but the words are "I will not not hold back anymore". It's the bridge, and apparently the worship leader considered it a highly powerful part because we sang it over... and over... and OVER until I just wished the song would end so we could move on to something else. The point of worship is more than repeating the "powerful" parts. I prefer to think of it as the time to commune with God on our own, to really place ourselves in his presence, but on our own time and in our own way. The leader, however, seemed to be taking her own method and shoving it, gracefully and musically, into everyone else. Maybe I didn't want to sing that part five times over. There's a song that I love that I've sung in many places and for some reason the part I like the most is only sung once while every other part is repeated. Perhaps it's just me, but I don't like feeling as though someone else's personal worship time is infringing my own.

Secondly, it kind of bothers me when whoever is on stage says anything along the lines of, "Take this time to talk to God, repent of your sins, etc, etc". I rather resent it and tend to do the opposite of what others tell me in instances like that. Standing there, just after singing, I'm usually not in the mood to really pray and even if I tried to do what they asked I'm never given enough time. Usually I'm interrupted.

I'm not saying that these things aren't good things. I'm glad our worship leader feels the spirit, more power to her! If she didn't feel anything I would question her right to be a leader in the church in that way. And I know other people appreciate the chance to do some of their own praying. It's just my nature, to prefer praying or really worshiping in my own time, on my own terms, during a time where I really feel I can communicate with God.

All through the service I could hear the words of my discipler from a few years ago. She told me once that there were certain songs she didn't sing because she really didn't believe the words. Why bother telling God something that you really don't believe, or don't agree with? That's rather how I felt today. I wish it wasn't the case, but it is. Perhaps someday it won't bother me so much, but today it was rather poignant.

Part of me feels like the reason I don't feel free to join in with the leader's kind of worship or why I don't particularly like being directed on what to pray for is because of my feelings on my church in general. Having attended my church for so long because that's where my parents go has begun to wear on me. It's not a place I enjoy being, not because it's not filled with the Spirit or because people are evil, but because I am alone in my age group. The church is one that is full of either parents with younger children or older people, both married and not, and it's just not a place where I feel I belong. Sad, but true. After all these years I no longer feel as though I'm welcome in my own church. Eventually, someday, hopefully soon, I will have moved out and moved on and this won't be a problem. Luckily that time is sooner than it feels.