Waaaayyy Long and Muddled

So this is just my strangely public way of organizing my thoughts a little. I've been a bit unpredictable lately and I think it's because I'm about to graduate from college and become a fully independent adult in just a few months. I didn't have much time to think about the gravity of this transition in the fall, but Jan-term has left me with time to think about my future, and as I've tried to form some definite plans various demons of uncertainty have jumped out at me, almost without my recognizing them.

I've only recently begun to notice that I'm more irritable lately. I'm discover that I DO have a bit of a temper and an unfortunate tendency to lash out when I'm in a bad mood. I've learned to ride out my mood swings, because they're often completely unfounded, but now I seem to be taking them out on those I respect and care about. If I've done so to you, I truly apologize. I probably didn't even think about it at the time, although I don't know that that's to my credit. If I do unexpectedly snap at you or otherwise act like an ogre, please bring my attention to the fact. I want to be aware of when I'm treating my friends unfairly. So please confront me about it. And thank you for forbearing with my sudden outbursts if you've had to deal with them. At least I'm now aware of the problem and it's something I'll have to be on my guard about and work on. On the flip side I'm becoming more outgoing and gregarious too. I seem to bounce between a slightly more extreme set of highs and lows, exhibiting fewer inhibitions in either case. My fear is that as graduation gets closer, it's only going to get worse. Hopefully now that I'm thinking about it I should be able to retain some control over myself.

As I said, I've been brushing off how big of a deal this upcoming transition really is. I remember feeling jittery and nervous prior to freshman year, but I was also excited because I knew I was going to a good place. Now my future is like the blinking cursor of a blank Word document at three in the morning. All I can think is: Start typing! Start typing! I'm only just realizing that this is an even bigger transition than going to colleg was, because it's so open-ended and puts such a final cap on childhood. Recognizing this has allowed me to give myself permission to be a little more emotional about it. I'm not being stupid or trite if I express that I'm nervous or overwhelmed, because it IS a big deal. The fact that everybody else goes through it too doesn't make it less of a big deal. I don't know why I always have such an aversion to being like everybody else. It's totally a pride thing. I want to be superior and above the silly problems of the common herd. Sick really. Stupid too. As though I were invincible from all that drives the lives of others.

And so I think a lot about what I want to DO with my life and how I want to live it, realizing that I'll now be able to define myself with a freedom I've never had before. I love the idea of this, of creating my own living space and being able to live out my philosophy of life through its expression in my work, hobbies, relationships etc. In a way I'm already doing this, but with limitations. I have an idea of who I want to be as an adult. Not what I want to do or accomplish, but the kind of person I want to be. There are some things about myself I want to change and probably will never be able to. There are other things I want to change and probably shouldn't. Nevertheless I have a very clear picture of how I want to function in life.

It's funny (as in peculiar, or perhaps just telling) how God gives us what we need, but not until the exact moment we absolutely need it. Fosters trust I suppose. I've recently discovered a certain inner strength I hadn't been aware of before. Of course it's not exactly self-reliance. Self-reliance is, in my opinion, a lie. Nobody can achieve that for long and be sustained. But January has allowed me to spend a lot more time with God and from that is springing a sort of self-assurance I didn't know I was capable of. As a teenager, like most teenagers, I craved acceptance and approval. I found that at Whitworth, only to discover I didn't really need it after all. Finally I don't have to run around worrying what people think of me.

This new found strength coupled with my restlessness about my future (as much as I commit myself to trust God, and one thing coming out is definitely an increase in that, I cannot be serene) are I think making me a bit reckless. I can sense my parents' anxiety that their little girl is about to venture out into the big bad world alone. In a way I can see their point. I almost feel like a danger to myself in my blind naivety. I'm such an idealist that all I want to think about is potential, not possible danger. Yet as much as I tell myself to be careful I also keep responding that I cannot be motivated by fear. You have to take risks in order to do something worthwhile. So be it.

Still, I wonder how much of my ambitions are rightly motivated. I feel excitement at some of the prospects of independence, but indignation and even boredom at others. I feel like I'm willing to embrace all the attractive aspects of adulthood, but that I want to avoid all the inconvenient ones. I will take on responsibility as it suits me and pick what obligations I feel are "worthy" of me, but reject those that seem too difficult or unpleasant. In short I applaud the IDEA of self-sacrifice but when faced with the actual spectre, not just some abstract idea of something noble and honorable, but the cold hard reality of what it means to give up something important for others, even the least thing, I turn away. I wonder how many of us really know the meaning of the word sacrifice. I wonder how many of us would really voluntarily submit to it. I wonder if we're even capable of it. My hunch is that true, unselfish, rightly motivated sacrifice is only possible through Christ. In fact that's more than a hunch, that's a basic tenet of faith. Just an implication, a part of believing that Christ is the only true model of it. In order to truly mature and live life in a way worthy of my professed relationship with God I must submit to Christ and ask for grace over and over again. My plans may all be very well, and my desires may be there for a very good reason, but they will never come to much if I stubbornly pick and choose only that which is agreeable to me. I will learn far more, and LIVE far more fully, if I allow God to take away what he will and direct me how he will. I don't really know the half of what this means. I know it's not clean cut black and white. But it's comforting somehow. So I will try to slow down and be patient and not worry about tomorrow.

Vic Bobb is Amazing

Friday was the last day of Crime and Punishment. Gosh I will miss that class. We had more than our share of dynamic personalities, off the wall discussions, random stories, and excellent debates. Plus spending a month with the likes of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Perry Mason, Phillip Marlowe, Henry Merrivale and Cordelia Gray to name but a few is to spend a month in pretty excellent company. I reflected that if I had actually taken something practical I would have missed out on making the acquaintance of one of those rare "kindred spirits" as Anne so aptly calls them, for Vic Bobb is certainly that. When not throwing out excellent reading recommendations he was reminiscing about life in rural Washington or sharing my own admiration for landscape photography.

So for all the oddities of the class, I felt sad to leave it on Friday. On entering the room I saw that Vic was arranging a large collection of mystery novels on his desk, as though they were a display in a bookstore. I recognized the omnibus edition of Father Brown I had borrowed from him over the summer. They were, I assumed, books for us borrow. He said he had originally been going to assign them based on what he thought different people would like, but had eventually decided to let us pick our own reading material. How great was that? I already had a stack of John Dickson Carr novels on loan from him and felt a little guilty choosing more from his library, but I wanted to read some more P.D. James or Raymond Chandler. I would wait though, for the rest of the class to pick. Class began and Vic announced that we each would get to take one novel from the desk. "Wait, you're giving them to us?" someone asked. "Sure." What!? He was GIVING these AWAY? I couldn't believe it. If that was the case, I knew which one I had to take. It was so funny. I had almost bought the complete Father Brown with an Amazon gift card I got for Christmas, but had decided against it in favor of getting a couple of movies. And how fitting that I should own the copy that Vic Bobb had loaned me before he knew who I was. So now the beloved volume is sitting in my room, an excellent souvenir from an excellent class and a great professor. If anyone would like to borrow it, let me know.

Cussedness

Sir Henry Merrivale, known to all as H.M., is very quickly becoming one of my favorite fictional characters. We're reading "The Judas Window" in Crime and Punishment, and I find it to be quite excellent, not least because H.M. is a barrister who addresses the jury (and others) with "Well, my fatheads." But the following passage was the clincher and simply had to share its amazingness.

"I love to be a Corrector of Cussedness. You've heard me talk a lot in the past about the blinkin' awful cussedness of things in general, and I suppose you thought that was only my way of lettin' off steam. But I meant it. Now, ordinarily, this cussedness is supposed to be funny. You can't help bein' amused even when you kick the wastepaper basket all over the room. I mean that the one morning you've got an important engagement is the one morning you miss the train. The one time you take your best girl out to dinner is the one time you call for the bill and find you've left your wallet at home. But did it ever occur to you to think how that applies to whackingly serious matters too? Just think back over your own life, and see whether most of the important things that happened to you were prompted by anybody's effort to do malice, or anybody's effort to do good, or, burn me, by anybody's effort at all: but simply by the sinful, tearin' cussedness of things in general."

"You don't make a religion of that, do you?" I asked. "For if you think that things in general are all banded together in a conspiracy to administer a celestial kick in the pants, you might as well retire to Dorset and write novels."

"Y'see," said H.M., with ghoulish amusement, "that goes to show that the only sort of cussedness you can imagine is the kind that lands you in the soup. Like the Greek tragedies where the gods get a twist on some poor feller and he's never got a chance. You want to say, 'Hey, fair play!--take a few wallops at him if you must, but don't load the dice so far that the feller can't even go out in a London fog without comin' home with sunstroke.' No, son. Everything works both ways, especially cussedness...Call the whole process by any fancy name you like: call it destiny or Mansoul or the flexibility of the unwritten Constitution: but it's still cussedness."

Wow

Well it's been kind of difficult to post anything about break because we have no phone. But just an idea of what I've been up to.

1. Getting snowed in with friends (specifically Katrina. We watched six movies, researched WWI, and learned how to make eggs in a basket).
2. Getting snowed in at home and reading a lot. I read Persuasion in a day (which was very good Katrina, I can see why you like it so much although I think Mansfield Park is still my favorite Austen). Two days later I stayed up until about 4:00 in the morning and finished Jane Eyre in a day... Wow was I expecting it to be different! I was expecting delicate Austenish satire. I got a gothic Christian romance novel. Although I think Bronte's literary merits go above that description, so don't get the wrong idea.
3. Went sledding, a lot.
4. Walked out to the highway several times, for Christmas and baby showers and such.
5. Went to First Night Spokane with Karen. Had a lot of fun and ran into a lot of Whitworth kids.
6. Was plowed out by the National Guard on New Year's Day! It was pretty cool.
7. Played the piano, a lot. I will become a good sight-reader. I am determined.
8. Finally was able to check my grades and I got exactly what I wanted.
9. Will be heading back to Spokane shortly, the Lord willing and the creek don't rise.