On Writing & Reflecting

Well, I admit that I have not been taking the time out to reflect, meditate, nor pray. I have just felt so trapped here. When I lived on an island, I could clearly see the borders of my world where the ocean waters lapped at the shore, but here, it often feels even more constricted. A trip to the grocery store, to see other people, is a risk to one's life and health, and then to others that I encounter afterward. I cannot go to a coffee shop to sit, write, and recenter myself.

I live at my mom's house and she is currently in the middle of a trip to Florida to help my sister move back to the Dallas area. I am so aware of myself and others that I am always trying to make my presence as inconspicuous as possible, but with her gone, I am admittedly finally feeling free to play music out loud and do some coffee shop activities, such as writing this. I miss writing. Well, I miss writing to better myself; I am frequently writing for the podcast, so I am not altogether neglecting the activity. In any case, I recognized the need to renew the habit when I saw the end of the year making its approach. I do not recall whether I did it last year, but I traditionally write out my reflections from the year. Kids, this is how we grow, and I certainly do not wish to drop such a bettering habit as I am halfway into my thirtieth year.

The joy that I once found in my faith is daily being leached out by the proclamations made by those who claim to share the same faith, and I find myself shifting between feelings of anger at them, betrayal at what they have done to what I hold so dear, and hurt, because the hate that necessarily underlines their allegiance is surely destined to be aligned at me. My friends keep changing in lifestyles and beliefs, and my options are repeatedly to accept them with an asterisk, or to simply accept them. The latter allows me to more easily love in the way that I believe that Christ calls us to love, and so I default to this approach. Unfortunately, this appears to push me fairly directly against the tribe to which I formerly belonged. To call oneself an evangelical Christian at this point appears to be to associate oneself with racist homophobic bigots, and so I am seeking a new group that is anti- those things while still holding onto that saving grace theology that keeps me intact as the world twists and collapses in on itself.

Here's to writing slightly more. In my experience thus far, I would have to say that being the first doctor in the family is a terrible tortured choice and people should just go into comedy instead. That is certainly my favorite part about being alive right now. And worse, it is also the most fulfilling.