Alone but Not Lonely

It’s not unusual for me to wake up and be the only one at home. I live with several other humans, but our work schedules are on opposite ends of the day so they’re home when I’m not and I’m home when they aren’t. This set up is totally fine with me. I like having the house to myself for a few hours. It’s a nice way to slow down and have some time alone in a household that, while not too crazy, is still almost always occupied.

Something that struck me the other night was that I’m not always sure what the difference is between times when I am enjoying being alone and times when it is concerning to be alone. Because, usually, even at night, I am fully comfortable in my house. I can walk around in the dark without any worry (apart from possibly stepping on a cat). I don’t get nervous driving alone, even in the dark when my car is acting up. I like being alone. But every once in a while, I don’t. Very occasionally, I realize I’m the only human in the house and I feel… uneasy. Everything is the same. My house hasn’t changed. The cats are still there. I know where my family is. I know I’m safe. But I’ll just feel a little off, I’m suddenly worried that no one is around.

Part of this thought probably occurred to me because I’ve been watching a lot of Youtube videos revolving around weird medical conditions and also shows about first responders. So when I was emptying the dishwasher yesterday and almost grabbed a sharp knife by the blade, it made me think about how important it is to have someone around. Just in case. If I had grabbed the knife, I’m confident I’d have had plenty of time to get myself to urgent care, if necessary. But there’s always that chance it would’ve been worse than that.

I think it’s those Just-In-Case scenarios that make me grateful to live with other people. I don’t have any wild medical conditions or anything but I know that emergencies happen at the worst times. It’s nice to know that if I don’t emerge from my room for a ridiculous number of hours during the day, someone will probably notice. And even if they don’t, my mom notices when my car is around when it shouldn’t be or that it’s gone when I said I’d be home. There’s a certain level of comfort knowing that others are aware of my presence or absence in the same way that I’m aware of them.

There are certainly times I’m grateful and there are times I don’t want anyone around. And then, like I said, times I feel uneasy being alone and times I revel in it. I am often alone, but not lonely. I’m not sure what changes for me, to make me uncomfortable at times. Is it just that I’ll think about the possibilities of danger? Is it that I’m in some weird mood that I can’t track? Is it the knowledge that anything might happen when I’m by myself? Is it a concern for my friends/family, their safety because I don’t know exactly what they’re doing? I’m not sure. It’s just that sometimes I feel the darkness differently. I feel the gaping doorway of the garage more acutely. I wonder whether the crickets are hiding someone else’s breathing. I wonder if I would hear someone in the parking lot behind me. I think about how I might fumble with my keys. I think about the dewy grass, that I would slip on if I had to run. I think about the dark glass of my windows, knowing that I can’t see out but others might be looking in.

But then I remember that whatever happens, God is still God and He’s still in control. Regardless of my circumstances, He is watching over me. Even if something bad happens, He’s still there. And I can push the anxiety away and take deep breaths and not be worried.

So maybe that’s what the difference is. Maybe it’s because I forget, for a moment, that I’m a child of God. I can be alone, but never lonely, because He is with me always.

January is for Making Plans

We’re not too far into the month and I’m going to do my best to set up 2021 for success.

I’ve talked about my resolutions, now I have to make them a reality. I need to make goals for each month, build more good habits, and get into a groove that is flexible enough to roll with bumps in the road. So that’s what I’m doing this month. I’m getting myself into a good mindset for the year and figuring out how to keep myself there.

I tend to think of a lot of things I want to do right at the end of the year. Which is a bad time to be making crazy plans since it’s already the busiest time of the year, especially working in retail! So I decided last month that I wasn’t going to stress myself out about it. I was going to deal with December and then just take January to make my plans. There’s still a whole year to do things. For now, I’ll focus on laying the foundations and groundwork to make sure those things actually get done.

The last couple days I’ve been trying to write out lists (something I love doing) and it’s been a bit more overwhelming than I anticipated. I feel like I’m forgetting a lot of things. No matter how many times I sit down to figure out what needs doing, it seems like the list grows beyond my ability or I feel like I’m forgetting things. The forgetting is worse than the overwhelming. There’s something I’ve been trying to remember all week now and it still escapes me. Hopefully it wasn’t too important.

But right now I’m trying to get myself prepared for the year. January is usually an off kind of month so I wanted to take advantage of that instead of making it an excuse to not do anything. I know that the year didn’t start off super incredibly well for everyone but I am done using anything outside of myself as an excuse to stop bettering myself.

This month, my focus is research and prep. Charlotte and I are working on getting a podcast together (any tips or tricks you might share would be VERY appreciated) so that’s going to be a lot more Googling and testing out software and websites and seeing how we want to put that together this month. (We plan on officially starting it sometime in February so I’ll keep you posted.) I’m also preparing myself for the year. I’m getting back into reading for my book clubs, doing more Bible reading, and working on self-discipline as I try to maintain this mindset for the rest of the year!

I think that’s going to be my biggest thing this year. More so than even my resolutions I want to make sure I am not lazy in 2021. I’m sick of letting myself get away with laziness and a slothful attitude. No more! I will DO and BE instead of procrastinating and stagnating. Will I be perfect? No. Will I inevitably fail in some regard? Yes. I have to accept that. I’ve learned over and over that going into something expecting perfection will never turn out well. So when I fall, I will pick myself up, take a moment to reflect on how to not make the same mistake again, and keep moving.

How are you approaching 2021? Do you have a few solid goals for yourself or are you just taking the year as it comes? Whatever happens, God is good and there’s still a lot of year left to make things better for you and those around you!

The Inevitable Edge of Prepared

I’ve been pretty smug with myself about keeping up on my blog posts this year. Knowing that working retail means November and December would be extra busy, I spent a good amount of time preparing for the end of the year. I got a lot of posts done early so I didn’t have to spend time each week in a last minute panic trying to figure out what to write.

Unfortunately, those posts have run out at possibly the worst time. It’s the second week of December and I don’t have any more advance posts ready! Why did I do this to myself? Probably because I like to sabotage my own life (or I at least act like it way too often).

What happens is I create the perfect storm of laziness. When I write posts in advance, I tend to stop thinking about writing until I run out. Which is absolutely NOT the point of writing posts a little early. What is supposed to happen is that I should still be writing every week so I’m always a little ahead. That way, I can deal with any unexpected situations where I might not be able to write one week. I can be ready for anything and still up-to-date without having to panic every Friday night. But what actually happens is I push myself to write 6 posts in one week then just stop writing for 6 weeks. Because I’m naturally lazy.

So I did it to myself again. I was so happy about being prepared for once and let myself become too complacent. Now it’s the busiest time of year for work and family and I have no safety net for getting posts up.

Part of me wonders if this is a better method for myself. If I’m not ready in advance then it forces me to be creative on the spot. I HAVE to write something and it needs to be GOOD. I can’t put it off any longer, can’t throw it on the back burner for a bit, it has to be done RIGHT NOW. Which is great for me as a natural procrastinator.

But another part of me loves being able to relax and do things on my own time. If I’m prepared then I don’t have those moments of panic. I can chill and take my time to work on posts and make them super great.

These two parts of myself are constantly fighting. I get stuck in the cycle. If I don’t NEED to do the thing then I will almost always wait to do the thing. Bad habits are hard to break.

I always want to be that super prepared, wonderfully not-stressed blogger who has their posts planned out months in advance but somehow I always end up as that frazzled, last second blogger who spends more posts complaining about my own bad habits than anything else. For now, this is my post. I hope someone can relate to this, otherwise I will suffer alone (suffering that I have 100% brought upon my own self so don’t feel bad). Thank you for being here and reading my work, even when it’s somewhat rambling nonsense like this one! I appreciate you!

Behind on Getting Ahead

I realized the other day that I am behind. Behind in life, in a way. I had this epiphany that the end of the year will be very busy for me. Retail work always ramps up but the assistant general manager at my location is going on maternity leave right at the start of the holiday season. So it’s going to be a bit more hectic than usual just at work, let alone any family things or anything else going on. With those thoughts at the forefront of my mind, I wanted to get ahead on blog posts.

I’ve talked before about how every year I try to write a few posts ahead of time for the holidays. There’s just less time in November and December and I don’t want to leave my readers hanging. So I sat down to write some and have a couple ready. But the day after I wrote them, I had another realization that my manager is probably leaving around mid-October which means that, in addition to my blog, I need to get all the social media posts for my church ready too. (I run my church’s facebook page, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before but that is a thing I do.) All I could think about for the last few days is figuring out how I am going to find the time to find quotes, verses, and phrases to design into 50+ posts that each have to be individually scheduled for the page for the last two months of the year while keeping up with the next few months’ posts too AND THEN also write 8-12 extra blog posts while still keeping up with weekly posts in between now and October.

It was a little overwhelming in my head.

But, I sat down today and started working on the facebook posts. I made some, tweaked some I’d already started, and found a few more quotes and I am happy to report I have (almost) all of December ready to go. I’m glad to have some weight off my shoulders but I also have some… mixed feelings. It took me almost five hours to finish that and I already had more posts premade than I expected. So it helps to have it done but it makes doing the next months feel that much more daunting.

The same feeling crossed my mind when I finished those couple blog posts for later. It felt good to have them finished but when I thought about how many still had to be done… it was disheartening. It felt almost like I had wasted my time because all the work was just a drop in the bucket. Why did I even bother doing anything?

Which led me here, to thinking about this post. I am so behind on everything and yet somehow, ahead as well. Maybe it’s more that I feel very behind and very late on getting these things done. I have been thinking about needing to do all of this for a while. It only hit me recently how MUCH it was and how quickly the end of the year is approaching now that we’re just over halfway through. But maybe I also need a reminder that the feeling is not necessarily true to life. I may feel behind but I am, in fact, not. I have the rest of July, and all of August and September to continue getting ahead. I want to maintain a certain level of urgency but also remind myself that as long as I’m getting something done, I’m getting something done. It may feel overwhelming and a little disheartening right now, but later I’ll be really glad I put in the effort to deliver better, well thought out posts, rather than rushed and panicked last minute content.

Personality Flaws

Most of us have probably taken a personality test or two (or ten) in our lives. I’ve never been one to take a lot of them but I do like the more detailed ones. I like having more than a short paragraph to read for answers and insights. Very short tests can’t be super accurate or provide detailed information because they just can’t. They don’t collect enough information to put out much. I don’t like ridiculously long ones either though, because I get sick of them by the end and feel like I’m no longer giving good answers.

A couple years ago, one of my coworkers showed me a test called 16personalities that fits right into the long-enough-to-feel-accurate but not-long-enough-to-make-mad category. I think there’s a more psychology-esque official name for the test but the website is just 16personalities.com . I really like this test and now I force it upon my friends fairly regularly. I think it gives really good information that lays out personality types in a very fair way that brings up plenty of positives but doesn’t ignore negative traits. It’s also fun and visually pleasing so those are bonuses.

When my coworker showed it to me I realized that I had actually already taken it as part of a job interview so I already had my results. There are 16 personality types (if you didn’t guess that already) and I am an in the Diplomat category, more specifically, Assertive Advocate.

The most interesting part of my results was not the general overview of my personality type. I was significantly more impressed by the “strategy” portion. That’s the part that explains how my type deals with everyday life and how I make decisions, which is usually what I most like about any personality test. I think that seeing how we deal with problems on a daily basis (from an outside, largely nonbiased source) is far more valuable than getting a generic, “You like to make good decisions with your brain!”

The official strategy I utilize is Confident Individualism. Which sounds really fancy. But the first two paragraphs give a quick little introduction to this strategy:

“Confident Individualists tend to trust in themselves. They enjoy their own company and don’t mind spending time alone to pursue their interests. Over time, this can give these personalities an impressive range of skills and interesting ideas.

“But these types take pride in their skills for their own sake, not to impress others. They tend not to see the point in social displays and bragging. While they’re proud of who they are, these personality types don’t always feel the need to prove themselves to anyone else. They prefer substance to superficiality and personal honesty to playing along.”

This is all pretty spot on for me. I do take pride in my skills but I rarely, if ever compare myself to others. When I’m writing I endeavor to compare myself to my past self, not to other authors. I don’t need to be a better writer than Stephen King or James Patterson or Nora Roberts, I just need to be a better writer than Cornelia Grace 3 years ago. I also greatly value substance in my friendships, and I hate seeing vapid bragging and shallow nonsense on social media. So just going off the first little bit, I can tell this is going to be accurate. It’s almost scary HOW accurate it is though.

Something that really hit me hard was how it says this, “At times, Confident Individualists may miss information and opportunities that challenge their views because they simply don’t place much importance on others’ approval.” Which, first of all, how dare they call me out like that. And second of all, this is definitely something I struggle with. I especially find that if a topic doesn’t naturally interest me then it is almost impossible to make myself care about it and do more research on it. I genuinely don’t mind my views being challenged but I do fall into the trap of not even caring about challenges because I just genuinely don’t care what others think about me. I would consider this a flaw in my personality. I don’t appreciate that I am this way. Not caring about gaining approval from others can be good but I feel like I often go into apathetic overload.

This isn’t to say that I don’t care about my friends or that I literally don’t care about anything. That’s something the test results did point out: “In their personal relationships, these types tend to be strong and honest. Their loyalty and affection are genuine rather than forced. These personalities only express respect and care if they really feel them. Fortunately, if they do feel them, they see no reason to hide how they feel.” This is also accurate. I am very passionate and I care about a lot of things. I have strong opinions. I can just be pretty apathetic as well, that’s character complexity. Dual feelings/behaviors. Not necessarily contradictions, just many angles of the same person.

I did think it was appropriate that it pointed out that “this relaxed self-assurance can lead to complacency.” Because I have felt for a long time that’s one of my worst flaws. I get very comfortable, no matter where I am, really. It’s a bad habit and I felt quite called out by that statement. My sister in law recently wrote a blog post about culturally acceptable laziness. Her post, combined with me looking into these test results, really kicked me in the butt. I definitely see myself being lazy recently and it’s not because I am not a hard worker or because I don’t want to do anything but sit around in my house watching Youtube videos. It’s because I’ve become complacent.

I’ve mentally decided that this is fine. I don’t want this to be fine. I want to work for more. I want to be better. I don’t want to be complacent or lazy. I want to be better. Already, I’d been trying to work on these flaws. I saw them in myself, if only peripherally. But now I can see them clearly and I will be working on being better, not perfect, but always working on myself.

Unwarranted Apologies

It’s a pet peeve of mine for people to say sorry a lot. It’s not something that bothers me insanely, but it does get under my skin over time. A word loses meaning when it’s overused, especially if it’s used for largely unimportant things. The sentiment behind the word is cheapened. Sorry should mean something and if someone tells me sorry for every tiny inconvenience then I don’t see how that can be sincere every time. I try very hard to only apologize when I am in the wrong. When I say sorry, I want the person to know that I truly feel sorry, that I’m actually apologizing for something that I did. I want them to know I mean what I’m saying.

Beyond cheapening the apology, at some point sorry becomes a distraction. I think it almost becomes a shield for the person saying sorry all the time, like if they apologize enough then the situation will just be forgotten. But to apologize so much takes away from the focus of the situation, especially when it’s not anyone’s fault that something happened.

Not to say that when tragedy hits I won’t use the word sorry to express grief  or sadness. Everyone does that to some extent. I just like to keep a focus on correcting a problem. If I hurt someone then I want to make it right and to instantly blurt out sorry 400 times is just distracting and doesn’t help anyone move on.

When I was just out of high school I went on a trip with our church youth group. During the week, we went on a day excursion to go canoeing. I don’t like canoeing but I went anyway. The trip down the river was going pretty well for everyone up until a certain point in the river where we all had to go over some mild rapids. Most of the canoes ended up tipped, including mine. So my partner, Hannah, and I were literally up the creek without a paddle. A couple fishermen were hanging out because the rapids were a shallow spot and they helped us get our canoe upright. They pointed us downriver and we had to catch a couple paddles from the wreckage of our youth group in order to keep going. Hannah and I were less than great at canoeing, and now we were separated from everyone else: alone on the river. We ran into a lot of overhanging trees and we didn’t know how to steer very well. There were CONSTANT sorrys from both of us, even though we were equally inept.

At some point, I was fed up. I told Hannah that we needed to stop apologizing to each other. Saying sorry was a distraction. We were overly concerned with expressing our own apologies that it was getting in the way of making it through the situation. As soon as we stopped apologizing, we were able to learn together. When we hit tree branches or almost tipped, we figured it out and moved on. By the end of the river we were not experts, but we could steer our canoe. We could work together and focus on the task instead of focusing inwardly on how bad we felt about messing up.

Too often, we are only apologizing because of how we feel, not how the other person feels. We feel bad and that’s a good enough reason to apologize, sometimes. But it should never be the only reason because that’s selfish. We should apologize because of the other person. If the other person hasn’t been hurt then they don’t need an apology. In those cases, sorry is just making the situation about you when it should be about healing the person you hurt.

Of course there will always be times when you do need to apologize just for yourself too, but those times should not be the majority of apologies.

When I was on the river with Hannah, the apologies were about ourselves. We selfishly apologized because we didn’t want to be seen as the bad guy. We were focusing on ourselves and trying to fix a broken situation with a single word: sorry. But it was only a hindrance. In the most literal way to think about the situation; it wasn’t the right time for those apologies. The right time would’ve been at the end of the river, when we were safe on dry land. The right time was at the END of the problem, not the beginning and not the middle.

In many situations, sorry doesn’t fix anything. It is a gateway to healing, but I think it needs to be delivered with meaning and at the right time. The right time is not in the middle of everything. That’s the time for fixing. That’s the time for helping and the time for change. The time for apologies is when the light at the end of the tunnel is in full view. The time for apologies is when you have changed your behavior. When you have proven that you are sorry. Because to me, sorry rarely means anything in the midst of a problem. It’s meaningless because it’s overused and overly expected and, in many ways, it gives me an out of the situation. I apologized so now I don’t have to change the hurtful behavior. If they don’t like me then that’s on them because I apologized. That’s not a true apology and more people need to understand that.

The truest form of sorry is changed behavior and, personally, I would like to see that change because without that, sorry is just another empty word.

 

I Keep Forgetting About the Pandemic

Not that I don’t know what I’m living through. I’m doing my part to be socially distant and I’m making sure to wash my hands and be careful and responsible. What I mean is that… well, I will explain with a before and after look at myself.

I was not really aware of the novel coronavirus until just before the social distancing guidelines were being put into effect. It wasn’t very real to me, either, until my state started telling businesses to close. Even then, I was not overly concerned as I went about going to work and living my life. I was using more hand sanitizer, washing my hands a lot, and wiping down surfaces with disinfectant. I felt like that was enough. Then there was talk of shutting down all “non-essential” businesses. That’s when I started getting nervous. I work at a mall, which is probably the epitome of non-essential. So I dutifully and VERY anxiously watched the press conferences to see if my noble and benevolent government officials would determine my livelihood was “essential” or not. The first day I watched, the mall stayed open. Relief. Then immediate anxiety again as I knew that it was only a matter of time.

I was a wreck. I never thought I would be that nervous about these kinds of things but I was. My heart was beating fast and adrenaline pumped through me. I just wanted to know if I had a job. I had to wait for the answer and it was frustrating. It was all I could talk about and all I could think about. Shutdowns and stay at home orders and everything in between. It consumed me.

A few days later, the mall shut down and we got official stay at home orders for my state. I felt relief and frustration. I stopped following the news for a while. I made lists of things to do and tried to decide how to spend my two weeks. We had a date, April 6th that would bring the end. Maybe. It didn’t, obviously. I listened to the press conference on the 3rd and, sure enough, the stay at home orders for my state were extended to the end of the month. I remember being nervous as I listened to that announcement. I remember feeling a little anxious. Not nearly as nervous as I had been two weeks before.

Now I don’t feel any kind of anxiety or nervousness around this whole pandemic. I actually keep forgetting about it. Don’t get me wrong, I do feel sad for those dealing with the virus. I’m upset that people are dying. I’m being careful and following the rules. But I don’t think about it all the time. The difference between me at the start of this and how I am now is like night and day. Before, it was a day by day, hour by hour, and sometimes minute by minute anxiety about what would happen next. Now I barely think about it. To be honest, I’m frustrated with myself for giving into my anxiety before.

If I had family members in healthcare, or if I wasn’t a leech in my parents’ house and had to actually worry about my lack of income coming crashing down upon me, I’m sure I’d have a different perspective. I might not have been able to leave the anxious state I was in before. I have a lot of sympathy for those who are in less than ideal situations. I don’t write this post to be callous. Part of me thinks I may be under-reacting. But a bigger part of me reminds myself that regardless of what happens to me, or anyone, God is still God. He’s still on the throne.

I could worry. I could be really upset about everything going on. And that would accomplish… what? My heart-rate would be higher all the time. I’d probably stress out my family more. I wouldn’t be writing anything. I can’t see any upside to constant worry or giving into the paranoia. So for now, I’ll do my best. I’ll be responsible, wash my hands, keep my distance, and stay calm. Because in the end, God has it all together even when the world is falling apart.

“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

Matthew 6:25-26

Lack of Structure

Most of the USA is on a kind of lockdown due to the coronavirus. I’m not completely sure what to call it (lockdown? Shelter in place?) but I suppose colloquially all my friends just say we’re on quarantine. Which is as good a name for it as anything else.

Because I am a nonessential worker, I am staying at home, making no noise, and pretending that I don’t exist. Lol, not really. I’m trying, TRYING to build some kind of structure for my life. It’s really hard though. I used to use the excuse that because my work schedule varies from week to week that I couldn’t possibly make a consistent schedule for myself. Now I have no work to dictate my time and I’m at so much more of a loss.

I made a really long list of things to do. Cleaning, writing, reading, going through old papers, painting, etc. It’s a lot and it’s a little intimidating. But I know I have the time to do it now. Unfortunately, I’m just not doing it. Somehow, I feel like I’ve been less prepared than ever to put together my own life and it’s just surreal. I have no real routine and no real motivation to stick to one. Which, the latter is the biggest problem. I definitely have the motivation to get things done (to some extent). I’ve done some painting and some writing this week and I did a little cleaning. But I wasted way more time than I utilized. I feel stuck in a rut. I could do this or I could do that or maybe this other thing, I’m free to do whatever and maybe it’s just a bit overwhelming.

Perhaps that’s the thing that most gets me. After living with outside structure for so long (school, work, weekly church, etc) it’s crazy to have it all taken away at once. I don’t think I’m alone in this either. I think a lot of people are at a loss for things to do. Not that we don’t have things to do but suddenly the only person regulating our time is us. There’s no threat of negative consequences if you don’t get a task finished in a specific timeframe. I can’t really talk myself into doing some things even though I want to, because it feels like I have too much time. So I waste some time then feel like a failure for wasting it and get discouraged and still don’t do the things. A vicious cycle.

I had an entire week of nothing but free time and I still waited until 4pm today to write this post. Time management is obviously not a strong personality trait for me. But there are people who have been deemed essential in this time. I am fortunate to be able to stay at home while they are on the front lines. I salute them and pray for their safety. While I am at home, whining about being bored and wasting time, they are savings lives and keeping the economy going.

Hopefully this coming week I can get myself into some kind of routine or get myself to follow a little structure. I can definitely be self-motivated but I’m also pretty self-destructive as well. That’s just my apathetic personality rearing its ugly head. But regardless, I have things that need doing and all the time in the world to do them. I just have to kick myself in the butt to get started.

Was I Always Afraid?

So recently I’ve been thinking. A very normal occurrence for me, if we’re being honest. This entire blog is just my thoughts about my life in general. But this recent thought hit me out of nowhere. Or maybe it didn’t. Because I was sitting in church and I had this thought that I have actively chosen not to pursue my faith any deeper than it is now. Which was… a bit terrifying? I mean, I’ve been a Christian for basically my whole life. If there is one thing my entire identity is wrapped up in, it’s that.

I wouldn’t say I’ve had many doubts about the truth of Christianity. I’ve seen God work in my life and in other’s lives. I have always been one to consider logic and try to learn about what I believe. (or maybe I just thought I was doing the latter, but I’ll get to that.) I’ve watched the world. I’ve seen the hopelessness that is the world and I know that we need salvation through Jesus. Christianity is true. I never called that into question.

My journey to this very intense realization about who I am and my entire life’s belief system actually starts somewhere around when I decided to turn my back on feminism. (Which you can read about that here if you would like to.) That post and feminism don’t have anything to do with this post, but I met a specific online friend during that time. I’ll call him Jacob. I met him on facebook in one of the traditional life groups I’d joined and thought he had some good thoughts/points in the comments he would leave. He was level headed, from what I could tell, and I wanted to stay in contact with him when I left the group, even just to see what he was up to.

We didn’t have many private conversations (maybe just one actually). I wouldn’t call him anything like a close personal friend. But what happened was this: his posts and likes started showing up on my timeline. It sounds like a small, insignificant thing, right? Obviously when you’re friends with someone, they’ll show up on your timeline, that’s the whole point. But what Jacob liked and commented on was a lot of philosophy pages. He liked modern philosophers. He was involved in Christian facebook pages and groups. He replied to and discussed his faith with strangers on the internet. I was seeing these things at a time I had decided to pull back and not have online discussions.

But the point was that I started looking at these pages. I started seeing more posts. I started to see Christians giving their faith legs. While it did not feel incredibly impactful at the time, (I knew myself to be a pious and level headed Christian. I knew why I believe the Bible. I knew what I was doing with my own self.) it was planting seeds that I haven’t recognized until now and I started accidentally getting into modern apologetics.

Apologetics: reasoned arguments or writings in justification of something, typically a theory or religious doctrine. (from Google)

Despite knowing very much to the contrary, I think I always thought of philosophy and apologetics and the evidence for Christianity as being pretty settled. I knew there were people running debates and such but I think I had the impression that there was nothing new to be talked about, that there was no ‘deeper’ to necessarily dive into the conversation. And perhaps, that is the impression that truly caught me in a loop of never deepening my own relationship with Christ. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. My journey continued.

I do not remember if it was specifically Jacob who shared something or if, because of my new likes and groups that the algorithm just handed it to me, but somehow I ended up on a page called Capturing Christianity. For some reason I was drawn to this page more than others. I found his youtube channel and watched a couple videos. Through his videos I found more, similar, channels. Channels about the intellectual side of Christianity. But I stayed with Capturing Christianity and the page’s founder, Cameron Bertuzzi, more than any of the others.

Here’s where I think I started to realize that something was not right with me. Because despite subscribing to his youtube channel, I wasn’t watching his videos. I would see his videos show up in my feed and I would keep scrolling, even when I thought that it sounded interesting. And every time I did that I wondered why I kept doing it. Cameron started a Patreon and I decided to become a Patron. I’ve never become a Patron ever before but something about Cameron made me really believe in his ministry in a way I hadn’t really considered of anyone else. I pledged to support him financially and I hadn’t even watched a majority of his youtube videos and had never interacted with him personally, even through a facebook comment. But now I had financially linked myself to this page, to this ministry.

I started getting emails about having early access to videos and blog posts. I ignored them. Despite literally paying for them, I avoided them. What is wrong with me? I kept thinking. Why am I doing this in the first place?

Then came a private facebook group for Patrons. I joined it because why not? What was I supporting this guy for anyway? So now I was getting notifications from this group and I didn’t ignore all of them. I was making progress that I didn’t understand. I was reading through posts from Cameron and from members and honestly I was… overwhelmed. I felt incredibly out of my depth. I had no idea what some of these people were talking about. I knew they were having good discussions and I had a very intense desire to be part of them but there was absolutely no way was I going to dip my toe into THAT ocean. I’d probably get dragged down by the leviathan if I tried.

So I shambled on. Wondering about why I was doing anything with this group anymore. I tried not to think about it. I tried to pretend there were logical reasons why I avoided videos on apologetics and Christian philosophy. I made up reasons to watch other videos and read other blogs. Until, eventually, I had my realization. I don’t know if it was really what was going on around me in church but I know it was God nudging me. Because that thought hit me out of the blue and it hit me hard. I was avoiding depth. I was avoiding my own faith to some extent.

I was going to church. I was praying. I was (sometimes) reading my Bible. I was acting like a Christian (not perfect but I was trying). I thought I was doing everything right. But something was holding me back and I think it’s been fear this whole time.

Like I said, I’ve never had major doubts about Christianity being true. Or maybe that’s an excuse I used so I wouldn’t have to truly pursue my relationship with the Lord. Because maybe there was a question that I hadn’t thought of before that was going to make me lose my faith? What if an atheist presented a really good argument? What if I didn’t know the answers to hard questions? What if something changed my mind?

I don’t think these thoughts are abnormal. I think we’ve all had those moments when we consider something that’s very important to us from a brand new angle. But when we allow those thoughts to hold us back, we miss out on so much. Which is what I’ve realized. Because clearly, those thoughts are in some way, doubts. I’ve just been happy to ignore them for my whole life while prancing along like nothing has ever touched my grasp on reality.

I’ve decided no more.

I know that I’m missing out on a much deeper faith. I’ve seen a couple of Cameron’s interviews with people who have a rich, real understanding of Jesus Christ. I’ve seen the group posts from normal people like me who have pursued knowledge of the Holy in a meaningful way. They’ve lost nothing and gained so much. I want that too. I don’t want to hold myself back from that.

I didn’t realize how long this journey has been in coming. It wasn’t until I sat down to write this that I started connecting the dots all the way back to the beginning of last year. Every part matters. I didn’t even mention my church being part of it but I firmly believe that God has been using every aspect of my life to get me to this point. If I hadn’t joined those traditional life groups I would’ve never met Jacob. If I hadn’t met him I may never have had those posts and pages crossing my timeline. If those hadn’t been unavoidably put in front of me on my social media then I wouldn’t have found Capturing Christianity. If I hadn’t found Capturing Christianity then I wouldn’t have seen the youtube videos or joined the private group.

I am a supremely stubborn individual who needed all of those things to come together. I needed to be moved, slowly, subtly into this path. It didn’t happen all at once. It was a slow thought process where I had to be forced to examine myself from a different angle, from a new perspective.

I’m tired of running away from this. I know that I don’t need to be afraid of learning more. I know that I don’t have to fear growing in my faith. I know that I don’t need to worry about becoming more like Christ. Because they’re all good things. I know they are. Yet that fear still creeps into my thoughts. Now that I know what it is, it’s all the more present. It’s the world whispering to me that I should be afraid, but my God speaks louder than they do and I cannot keep ignoring His voice. I’ve wasted too much time already.

Lost Ideas

I have had a lot of ideas. Story ideas mostly, blog ideas too. Lots of concepts, lots of world building thoughts, lots of characters, lots of vague scenes or plots, and ‘what if’ questions. I have always been a pretty creative person but I’ve always been better at having ideas than at finishing projects. Which I don’t think is too uncommon among writers/creatives. When you train your mind to come up with things, you often get a lot more stuff than you can ever realistically use. In high school I came up with A LOT of prompts for my creative writing teacher. We did a variety of projects in that class and one of mine was making a box of ideas for everyone else to use. I don’t know if she still has the box, but I know it was useful to some of the kids in my class.

Some writers have a specific place they go to in order to come up with most of their ideas. Some have a really specific medium through which they seek inspiration. I used to draw a lot of inspiration from tv shows and books. Now I’ve moved more into just the books side of that since I don’t watch much tv anymore. I think I used to be a lot less specific about where I would come up with my ideas. I think it’s always been where I can be quiet and almost forced to be alone with my thoughts. So now my place to come up with ideas, and also to mull over ideas and think about them, is probably in my car. Because of that, I actually tend to lose a lot of my ideas.

I can’t immediately type out a detailed note in my phone about an idea that occurs to me while I’m driving. I need to focus on the road. I try to keep it at the forefront of my mind so I can write it down when I get home or get to work. But, sometimes it’s just a few minutes later and I can’t recall it. Sometimes, in an effort to not forget it, I’ll try to just keep thinking it over, going deeper and wondering about different angles. It could be a story and I start thinking about how to build the world or if it’s a blog idea and I start figuring out how to put it together coherently. Either way though, that can often backfire. Because my mind continues to wander. So by the time I’ve considered the original thought for a bit, I’ve jumped to a few others in the process and now the original is lost in a tangled web of associations.

The most annoying thing about it is that I often remember that I had an idea and how good I thought that idea was when I came up with it, yet the idea itself escapes me. I know all I need is a snippet, a few words, a key thought, to bring it back to myself but the more I focus on it, the faster it slips away. It feels like trying to remember a dream. I try following my train of thought backwards and that rarely seems to work. And even if I hold onto the thought for long enough, as soon as I drive in my driveway or park in the lot at work, it vanishes. I think that specifically has to do with my brain thinking, “Oh, we’re here so now the idea is safe” and it just lets it go.

I have had countless thoughts and ideas over the years. I have absolutely not written down even ten percent of them. So many initial concepts and thoughts and characters are just lost to the dredges of my mind, eking out a small corner to eventually pass away in. Or maybe they’re just waiting for their time to come once more. Because sometimes they do resurface. But that’s not the case for most. I’ve had to come to terms with this. I can’t possibly write every story I’ve ever thought up (and not every one would even be good anyway). I can’t expound on every blog idea I’ve ever had. In the end, it’s just as well that I lose some. It makes me appreciate the ones that stick around.