Practice.

Loneliness sometimes fills my eyes with water. Then my pride is filled with logical excuses on how I’m not alone...but the feeling, which is a good proportion of me, stays to beat me up with sorry for myself thoughts.The worst is when it comes while I’m sitting with a group of people. They’re talking, maybe about things I’m not quite interested in, or maybe I am, but any effort I make to include my words into the conversation, ends up being steam rolled...whisked away, without a response, just taken someplace unknown, where I can’t visit it. It’s not mine anymore to mull over, to wonder if I should bring it up and out...all I can do is mourn the loss, and lack of replies from my peers. It’s pretty selfish, and pretty emotionally unstable of me.

I recently got to see a friend of mine, who I had not seen since the previous summer...he’s a performing artist, and while I got to be amongst the crowds that came to see him, flaunt their latest creative endeavors to him, and talk about his. We greeted warmly, then I felt myself recede emotionally as the hub-bub began. Then upon saying goodbye, after three days of hanging around and listening, even after a workshop that he taught; we hugged and I said I was sorry that I didn’t get to talk to him very much. He replied like this:

“Oh, well...maybe you should practice talking until the next time I see you, and we’ll try again then.”

My mouth popped open (making a slight suction noise) he laughed slyly, and my smile grew into a laugh that bounced off the walls and hit my head with vibrating realization.

Sometimes I think I’m more comfortable being isolated...so much so that I cause the infliction. I mean sometimes. I build these superficial defenses...I manipulate known information about myself, and play it out, big and all dramatic like. It works for this introvert, because if you are dramatically reversing your emotions, no one notices, and you’re safe. So my very large ideas of loneliness, in room full of friends, when my heart knows all I have to do is ask Jesus to hold me, I avoid eye contact and bite my lip a little...hoping for some pursuit as I wait safely, stubbornly, in my self contained environment. Sometimes I know, that if I just said something about being lonely, confided in someone else...confessing my emotional imbalance, humility would arrive, making all the noise she could upon entering celebratory turf. Those feelings could quite possibly vanish all together, usually the darkness disappears with the rising sun.

A couple of weeks ago, my brother Drew was living in some shitty thoughts...and while I could tell his heart wasn’t quite sailing smooth waters one morning, I didn’t know how to get past asking him if he was okay, and him sighing and saying he that he had a rough night before, not sleeping very good...I didn’t know what to do for him but say “Oh, I’m sorry.”, peering at him a little deeper, and then looking away when the silence expanded. I heard his sighs, as the rest of One Time Blind entered the room and we were beginning our practice time with a bit of prayer. We were about to start praying, and as I closed my eyes I heard Drew sigh one more time, twisting in his seat, before he spoke. “Wait...”, then he proceeded to tell us what had been weighing on him, and how he thought he should be past all that...but he couldn't shake the doubt. He asked for help, and I sighed with thankfulness. Mostly I think just bringing such junk up, gives your heart and mind perspective...bringing it out, exposing it to air and wide open spaces, makes the issue shrink just a little in comparison. I always want my friends healthily unload themselves when they’re feeling pent up pressure...and I see evidence of it helping them. I however, still feel responsible to fix my problems alone, even before Jesus can lay his warm hands on me. Mostly though, I notice that this behaviour makes has me thinking more selfishly then ever, and...my issues at heart are growing fuzz and stinking of must.

So here, since I still need to practice talking...I’ll write some things down.

I’ve been feeling lonely, and empty. Mostly I know I need to work this out with Jesus, because I think I’m holding bits of me back, typical.

I’m unmotivated toward doing anything creative, pursuing, being honest about what it is that I love to do. I myself am afraid to acknowledge such longings.

And...I want someone to teach me how to study the bible, I’m sick of just being responsible to teach me things. I mean I’m constantly learning from God and his life lessons, but I suppose I miss that sort of structured teaching that I used to get out of Church...if that makes sense.

Who knows? I might be babbling, blind to anything but emotion for now...but if I’m being a dork, I wanted to at least say something so one of you lovely people could tell me to shut up. So there you go...perhaps now I'll be able to write something about beautiful Arizona. It was quite a good time.