The last time I wrote a blog was in March of last year. And I felt it narcissistic. But I am coming back. I enjoy writing and putting thoughts out there. It helps me work through things and maybe even get feedback on how others have overcome similar things. Rather than talk about all that happened last year, I'll do that at the end and rather, tackle the idea I'm having with the title here.
A while ago, I wrote about how I felt like maybe I was wanting things I thought I was supposed to want - not actually tapping into where I want my life direction to go. That murmur has morphed into a notion I had tonight as I wrote in my journal (yeah I wrote a lot there before even getting here).
The idea? Did I poorly cast myself in my own life?
I'm reading Jon Acuff's book Quitter, which I have owned for longer than I care to admit and just started reading because I'm buying Kindle books at a shameful pace. He is fabulously entertaining and freeing. He has made me re-approach how I am trying to find my dream career/job. The problem is, I couldn't even decide as a kid. There are definitely things I'm good at (like saying something that lands me in hot water) and things that I am bad at (caring about fashion and dressing myself well). But when he posed the question, borrowed from Simon Sinek "What is your WHY?" All I have is the answers and church answers I "should" say. It's like I have so cloaked over what is really in me with Christianese speak that I have fogged up the mirror on stuff that isn't sinful - I need to see it so I can go somewhere.
As I was writing to myself, I was painfully and embarrassingly reminded that I see myself in some sort of movie of myself as I view my life... some sort of romanticized moments and murmurs coming of age tripe that feels like a performance in my head. It's as though I'm trying to figure out how it should be looking without actually living at it. And I'll tell you, I fill my time with parts both good and wasteful, but some link is missing somewhere... and I think it's where my deep grief about how things just don't go how you hope lurks. At the higher elevations of my life, there is happy and there is bubbly, but in that wonderful forest and wilderness is a cavern, and inky, black sadness rises like a poisonous gas and takes out some of the trees and plants and goodness in that forest. I'm desperate to try to choke it off, but it's DEEP in there - beneath who I THINK I am.
So, I have been wrestling. And the thought occurred to me - I am a poorly cast actor in my life. I'm playing to "shoulds" a lot and it is making me have these depression episodes where I am LOST because, well, emotionally I cannot reconcile myself to this role that I am not. The reality is that I am not in a life movie... I'm in a life. And I have no clue who I'm playing to because, much as I love and enjoy people, deep down, I am not really wanting to be included in things or accepted in others - I'm actually really okay by myself. I think what some folks are doing is cool and think "why can't we be buddies," but truly, I don't think we would jive as the type of every day friend I would want. I'm not opposed, but I'm okay with it "not working." It has come down to me asking myself, but do I really want to be friends? And I don't. And that knowledge has me wondering, where else do I think I "should" want something where, actually, I don't know?
I stand at this weird precipice where I can get off easily and go about the acting gig and fruitlessly trying to make myself into who I am not and stuff God knows I know is making my life unnecessarily mopey, or I can do the work of figuring out the answer to these questions using some hardcore honesty and ignoring the church answer that is in my head. I want the Jesus truth in my life, redeemed authenticity, not the "blurb" statements of piety. I just hope I know where to start.
