it's been a long week

Hello weekend!! I never thought I'd see YOU again! It's been a long week, kids. With another long and possibly crazier week on the docket. I'm currently trying to form a general consensus on the new Anberlin CD, Dark is the Way Light is a Place. Bekah sent me a package and I got ring pops! The best thing about ring pops is that you can blog without having to put your delicious sucker down! Mmm. My mom's staring at me from the armchair, haha. She only WISHES she had a ring pop.

Anywho. The problem with working all day all week is that I can't get to the post office to send off birthday packages to my FOUR FRIENDS who all have birthdays this week. I may actually have to get up early and send them off before work tomorrow. Sigh. Only one more week and then it's October and my work schedule becomes much more manageable. Can't wait to have free time during the week!

It's weird not being in school. But not weird at the same time. Despite my ambivalence, I've been pondering school again. Should I go back? Where? For what? Should I finish my degree at SCSU or get a Bible degree at Oak Hills? Should I finish my degree at St. Scholastica and minor in photography? Should I major in photography online somewhere or go to Minneapolis? Or should I move to Colorado with Aimee in the spring and work at NavPress? Or should I save every cent I earn and do CTI in the summer or for a year? Or should I stay here, keep working at the pharmacy, keep trying to have my own life? Life should come with a manual.

I guess I left school because it became too much for me and ultimately I wasn't there for the academics. When people ask why I left I feel like I should be telling them that I'm taking a break to figure things out. But to be honest, I haven't figured much out yet. If anything, I deal with the same pattern of self-destruction here just as much as I did at school. I think God "took" school from me because it was something I hid behind- it was something that I used as an excuse to not make big decisions. I wanted to rest in the security of knowing I would be there and my friends would be too. Not being in school does make certain things more apparent to me, but my manner of dealing with things hasn't changed.

I was in church this morning. An unredeemed sinner, sitting there anonymously- unwilling to engage with the people around me. I know I am a sickness to myself. I know I purposely sit in my sin, in my anger and immaturity. I know that every bit of me expects God to do all the work. I know that if I change my family will think I'm crazy- if I let God radically change my life like He's supposed to and wants to, that my parents won't support me in it. They try to be patient with me. But part of me feels like they're waiting for me to come around and just settle with the kind of life they have- the safe kind of no-risks life that also reaps no rewards. Part of me would love to move to Colorado, to live my own life and let God become the kind of thing in my life that changes others when they meet me. I've always felt like God set me apart to do or be something important, something big, something great- and I'm wondering now if that has nothing whatsoever to do with my physical life. Not that I would become great or successful in my parents' eyes, but that I would become a successful, healthy person who doesn't just believe in Jesus, but who relentlessly loves- really, truly loves- Jesus. Isn't that the first commandment? Isn't that what He seems to be most concerned about?

The problem is, I'm much more comfortable with a contract-like business relationship. "Tell me what to do, and I'll do it" kind of thing- a "take notes and pass tests" kind of thing. But I think He's much less concerned with any of that when He knows that we do it out of duty and not love. If my heart is not engaged, my actions don't really mean anything. However, I am an all-or-nothing kind of person, an extremist. I don't like middleground- it's too complicated and hard to catch. And I think that lately I've landed on the side of nothing, and I prefer to take time for granted. I don't know what it will take to change. Right now I feel too much pressure to do everything and nothing. I don't know how to just live, you know?