Seasonal Relationships

I have a lot of prospects ahead of me. In a week and two days, I'll FEEL graduated (I assume). I'll be done with the MCAT, meeting with my future employer, and finishing up med school secondary applications. My graduation reception will be two weeks after that, and I leave the country a week after THAT.
Depending on some factors, I'm most likely getting my phlebotomy certification rather than EMT, primarily due to a full-time job offer.

Here's what I'm getting frustrated with. PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T GROWN. My friends who went to college, or at least to a school of higher learning, had to leave behind most of their old friend groups and find new ones. Even if some weren't far from home, they may have stayed close with family, but with regard to friendships, they had to leave the old ones behind for a time.

My friends who have grown the least since I left, who were the furthest along before that time, have hardly moved. Their friend groups remained mostly unchanged. They found where they were comfortable and familiar and squatted, so that now, they know nothing else. And they will often speak to me as if they cannot stand to grow distant from someone they've known for so long.

Well, guess what? You become a better person when you can allow relationships to be as seasonal as they are meant to be. 'Cause here's the thing: to grow, you will have to say no, to put relationships on hold, maybe leave friends behind for years.

One of my best friends since junior high is someone I've only had the chance to see a few times a year since he switched schools while we were in high school. We saw each other even less when I went to college. But every time I see him and his family, we can goof around just as easily as we had in the past. To be honest, we don't even usually feel the need to catch up, beyond the update on current school and work. Plus, between Snapchat and other social media, I haven't felt all that distant over the years.

I have another friend that was my accountability partner (not really a practice I feel is all that necessary) through our later high school years, and to grow, to find out why I wanted to be a doctor, to learn to be who I needed to be, I had to go on a medical mission trip to Uganda and miss his wedding. I would have been a groomsman.

To grow as a person, you need to be committed enough in your walk in The Lord Jesus Christ to consider all other relationships as rubbish for His sake, and be willing to go wherever He wants, whenever He wants.

P.S. Don't take this to an extreme. All our human relationships are incredibly important, and can only be minimized when compared to the surpassing importance of your relationship with Christ.

2 1/2 Weeks

2 1/2 weeks until I take this MCAT. 2 1/2 weeks until I get to have a summer, however brief and filled with prerequisites for EMT school. Unfortunately, it's only two weeks until my mom and sister go on a cruise, so I cannot join them (even though I'm fairly sure my mom would have paid for my ticket). I'm not trying to be all whiny. KIDDING! I totes am. It's just that I don't really get to feel like I'm done with school until I take the MCAT, and then, in my mind, I'll be graduated from college. The studying will cease.

I have created new fantasies in my mind. I had often daydreamed about returning to Belfast in Northern Ireland, to sit in the Starbucks and watch people through the big windows there, of drawing sketches of things in Victoria Square... But I'm kinda tired of only dreaming about Belfast, and I can only listen to Snow Patrol's Hundred Million Suns album so many times before the inspiration stops coming. Now I wish to do something I did when I last went there, that I didn't realize (at the time) would be such an impactful memory. People watching in bars. I began my first Juice Journal that way, just writing about those I saw while I traveled alone, and that gave the journal character. I'm excited to just go to Dallas without any intention of meeting up with friends, and just sit and watch people, writing about them. Maybe even sketch a lil' bit.

It's looking like I'll have a real job this fall with a neurologist, and it makes me wonder whether I'll get to travel. The idea of being unable to travel ruins me inside, especially since traveling is all I'll want to do after I get my med school interviews (assuming I have any) done with. Making money is nice, but I'd rather be poor in Europe than rich in the States.

P.S. Secondary medical school applications are the worst. I was already asked to write one 5,000 character essay with two 2,500 character optional ones (and you never leave a blank), but these secondary applications are requiring a few 3,500 character essays per application, most of them specific to the school I'm applying to. I don't think I've had to write this much or this well in my last two years of school combined (which, granted, isn't saying much, but I'm still annoyed).

Directions And Peace

In the midst of thinking about this med school and the alternative possibilities and my hopes and dreams for the coming year and my studying for the MCAT, I realized that I cannot afford to do what I did at the end of last semester, ignoring God. Not only for myself, either. I'm once again around so many messed up people, those who are sleeping around, who can't get ahold of themselves emotionally, who are sick of where they are, and I look at myself and wonder "why me?", what made me so special as to avoid stupid relationships and so many bad decisions, keeping my thought life pure for so long (with a few bumps on the way, of course)? How am I so much closer to the ideal person I actually want to be?

I went to a church service today where they said not to ask "why me?", but rather "what is God trying to teach me?" Of course, I understood that the generally accepted meaning behind the original question is more like "why is God punishing me and making me go through all this?", but, well, there was another meaning in there for me. I'm here to bring healing on multiple levels. I don't have as much internal conflict going on, which means that I get to focus on others' conflict and help out. Plus, when I do deal with crap, like, say, needing a job or internship or help getting into medical school, people genuinely want to help me make it because I am the type of person they'd want to have that job.

I just felt kinda worried and panicked about that Caribbean med school UMHS (I remembered the initials by thinking "umm, high school..."), and then I remembered the last major educational institution I went to, and how I got there. It's all about what you feel peace about (which can be subject to change, because let's remember that I DIDN'T go to Boston University). Right now, I have a lot of peace about waiting a year, then going to med school. I have peace about EMT school and the potential neurology internship I have this fall. And I continue to dream about visiting Europe.
But what I feel more at peace about is my ability to help my friends here who don't know what to do with themselves beyond getting drunk and getting girls (or guys, as the case may be). And I can help my family. There is much to be done here, and if God keeps me here, I am confident that I can do much.

Uhhh...

I’m just feeling unsure, inadequate, and unprepared. Every little errand I run takes so much time, and so does eating, and socializing. And at the end of everything, I realize that I haven’t studied nearly enough, and that I’m scoring low on quizzes over the studying I have done. And this medical school, UMHS… it’s not accredited in the U.S., which means that although it’s showing promise starting out, it’s still kind of a risk, and I’m gonna have to work harder to remain competitive for residency programs. I mean, harder than you normally have to work to make it in medical school.

I do have that EMT course in August, and that neurologist internship/job in the fall… I just don’t know. God, what do you think? I mean, I want to finish med school as fast as possible, and starting this semester would get me in that year ahead (or, really, the year I should have been aiming for). And going to the Caribbean school would satiate my craving to travel… I just don’t know. The longer I stay at home, the more I’m able to help my family, but I don’t feel settled enough. Bah, I don’t know.

Birthday Spews

I turned 23 today. Please hold your applause, vomit, and hisses.

I’m at sort of a crossroads. Maybe the next week, but more likely the next month, could reveal what I’ll be doing this fall. God, what do you want for me? What God wants most is for me to hang out with Him, but I don’t think I even know how to do that while also working so hard without being forced into it on a mission trip. This past year, I didn’t have nearly as much quiet time, and look where it got me. I can relate to other people now, but snap, it cost me so much. So much lost… And I'm sure I could’ve learned to relate to people even without all of that. My problem before was that I saw myself as being pure and redeemed, which I was, but to the point that when other people talked about what they were dealing with, I would think “Well, I’ve dealt with that, and I’m finished with it. I left that behind. No more struggling with that sin.”  Then the only way I knew to deal with people who weren’t peachy with Christ was to see them as a mission, not as people. I couldn't help but feel like I had to look down on them, because I couldn't understand how people couldn't just submit their problems to The Lord and move on to bigger and better things. Me being unable to relate made me come across as judgmental, which was a problem. After all, a person’s a person.

My biggest frustration lately comes when I ask why I was the one of my friends who never, uh, did things. All of us hung out all the time, yet I feel like I’m the only virgin out of the majority of my peers. What makes me different? I wasn’t that different. I just don’t know.

May we know nothing beside Jesus crucified (from “Nothing Beside Jesus” by Young Oceans)

I didn’t agree with the song at first ‘cause of my love for learning, but now I’m realizing that no matter how much of this science crap I get into my mind, it’s never going to be enough, and I just wanna get to know Jesus more, which is why I got into all this stuff anyway.

I’ve been falling back into it, though, granted, it’s been in a more wholesome way. I’ve spent all my time since I’ve been home either studying, working on med school applications, watching NetFlix, going out with friends, helping out with the family, or working for my dad. All of these are good things if done correctly, but I’ve once again left out quiet time and alone time and all that.

I went to a bar on Monday night with my best friend from high school, the only one I tried to keep up with while I was in college. A girl came over to ask if we were gay (she wasn’t easily convinced), and by the end of the conversation, she had told us about her life and Cameron (my friend) had given her his number to invite her to church. I just felt like I don’t know how to evangelize anymore. It’s always easier when you’re in a group whose whole purpose is to preach and teach the gospel, and that’s the only reason you’re in a given place. Otherwise, I always feel the urge to compartmentalize the different parts of me.

I don’t know how I’m going to study all that I need to study, to learn and memorize everything I need to. I have less than a month to get everything into my head so I can do well on this MCAT, which will effectively decide my future. I know God is the one deciding it, but, well, it’s still something I am responsible for. Ultimately, all to Christ.

The desire on a slow burn deep inside of me, not often allowed to express itself, is to be in Europe with a journal and sketch pictures of what I see while writing poetry and listening to a band whose music I can tie to the place, so that any time I hear that music or think of that place or see that picture, it all ties together. That’s what I did in Ireland, and it remains a precious memory fixed in my mind.

A more easily-conceivable desire is to do what I did when I began my first Juice Journal. I went to bars and just watched people and wrote about them. Maybe people-watching is the thing.

I feel the lack from not going to church, not spending enough time with God, and not getting as much from my Word time ‘cause I don’t hit up the ol’ Bible till the end of a long day.

Anyway, I think I’m gonna finish up this Starbucks time and hit up a park to just be for a lil’ bit.