Confusion Populaire

I can't get my mind straightened out about a bunch of things right now. Maybe a little too deep for something like this but everything that's been thrown at me recently has only served to add to my questions, doubts, insecurity. Especially about myself as a person. I'm not asking "Who am I?" but rather "What do I know about myself that really counts for anything?" Sometimes I tell myself that I think too much, just shut up and live life. But to do that, I would have to continue and succeed at squelching the rebellion in my heart. Yes, rebellion. I don't know how to respond to the things and people around me except the way I always have and I find myself doing it still - good, respectful, caring, intelligent. But it's almost as if there's a little demon on my shoulder watching and laughing cruelly at my attempts to be someone I've always thought is real. The other day, I pulled in next to a black truck and I said, "That truck almost looks like a demon!" And my brother says, "It is." It was so matter-of-fact I couldn't help but laugh. But now I feel like someone else is laughing at ME, as if nothing I do makes sense anymore.

This is so totally seperate from what I feel during classes. There I feel like a machine, who can think and appreciate (most of) the information that is being transmitted and nod and amen at the stuff I'm told I will need desperately when teaching. I'm frustrated with the disjunction I feel between not wanting to be a teacher anymore and the knowledge I know I have to be quite a capable teacher. My emotions, my everyday life, my singular experiences tell me that I don't want to be a teacher, that I barely have enough to exist, that I can't retain what is necessary to make any kind of impact, that I could never withstand the rigors of what I really do desire to do - work with teens. They tell me that I care more about what I'm feeling and the woe-is-me experiences than I do disciplining myself to become the kind of person that I can respect, first of all, and also that others can respect. I'm disappointed in myself every day. And yet I do nothing about it. So can I really say that I believe in God's grace and it's all-sufficient powers and can I really claim that I want it and I'm letting Him bestow it on me? Not so much.

I just feel rejected. It's a phase, I know, but I still feel like everything and everyone is turning me down, even myself. I think I desire change and revolution but then I reject those feelings by not allowing those things to come. I feel all words and thoughts bursting inside me but they come out garbled mumbo jumbo, not expressive of the original. I don't even know what the original is. Truth about myself and others has become relative. I know God's truth is steadfast but it doesn't seem to affect me much or carry over into my life. I asked my dad today how we are supposed to be able to live in the fullness of who God is and in the entirety of His truth and goodness every single day, all the time. He made a good point that we don't - we seek Him in the moments, for what each moment requires of the truth. But this doesn't help me grasp what I feel like I need or want to know right now. I feel like I'm seeking help and truth, but do I REALLY want it? Is that why He is not blessing me with answers? Or am I missing it? And I've done THAT before.

I just wish there was more to me, but that it was less confusing.