We Heart It
I know you’ve felt it before – that pull to be one way and that other pull to be another way. I go back and forth with these pulls all the time. For a string of weeks, I want to take a load off and have fun, live lightly and not think too hard. Then for another string of weeks, I want to be serious – I want to do serious things and think in serious ways. I struggled between these pulls a lot in college as an English major concentrating in the art of writing. One week I would feel like the writing department was full of snooty professors who looked down on certain lowly styles of writing and it would bother me; then another week I would be a snooty student who looked down on lowly styles of writing and believe that this was the right way to feel, because it meant that I was deep.
Then I have the transitory weeks, weeks like what I’m going through now, weeks where I feel strung between both pulls, and instead of being pulled in either one way or another, I’m being pulled in both at the same time. It is a lousy way to be pulled by your feelings. A lot of the time I tell myself that what I need to do is find a good balance. I can be the disciplined writer who cares about people and wants to do mission trips in the future and prays at the foot of the bed before going to sleep at night AND the girl who just wants to go out with friends, dance around, get tipsy, and yell at the TV when her football team does something stupid. Or at least, that’s what I always thought. Lately, I’ve been wondering if you can have it both ways – shallow waters and deep waters. On the one hand, the one is easy to tread, yet dangerous if thrown into too carelessly. On the other hand, the other offers more space to fall while at the same time easy to get get lost in.
I am probably just being melodramatic and thinking about this too much. Surely there is even ground where I can be both ways at different times. I just fear that I’m letting myself get too loose, and that my academic brain will soften and bruise like a banana and all those times of vegging out just because I can now will unwind me until I slip away from what I actually wanted to do with my life. I’m not a proprietor of the YOLO mind-frame. I think life is more serious than that. The problem is that I find I’m not acting the way I feel, or I’m not acting the way I want to feel. And because my feelings and my desires aren’t seeing eye-to-eye, it’s causing me to feel the way I feel now, which is stoic.
I guess what I’m trying to feel is more independent, disciplined, and assertive, but what my body wants me to feel is laziness, and I’ve always hated being lazy even though I’m quite partial to it. I’ve started looking at it in two ways. First, I see life as some authors see their work – it’s either literary or mainstream; it’s either faith or lifestyle. Lately, I’ve felt like I’m more worried about being mainstream, having a good lifestyle and getting to do fun things all the time, things that are mostly concerned with pleasing myself, and not having to deal with difficult things. But at the moment, I’m in the interim of these pulls. I’m living a mainstream life, but wanting something deeper, something that makes me think, something that makes me care about things other than what relates to myself. I remember certain classes in college making me feel like that. I think that’s why I miss it so much, why I crave going back. I’ve never really thought of it in terms of getting another degree to my name, but something in the way of broadening my mind, forcing me to be more compassionate and tolerant and open.
When I think of myself as the person I wish I was, I often see myself in a house with a lot of natural lighting, wearing a white quarter-length shirt, and my hair pulled back in a messy bun. I’m either wearing jeans or gray, lounge pants, and my face is devoid of make-up. I picture myself in my grandparents old house, walking up their polished wooden stairs, stepping out onto the balcony, and looking out at the trees, the runway, the hangar, the old horse stables. In the mornings, I see myself walking by those stables, over the bridge arched above the watering hole, and to the other side where a small, wooden studio stands, inside of which I’d do my writing. I would spend all morning there; all day, even. I see myself trudging back home in boots and a thick coat, because it’s winter when the trees are bare and the air is thinner than my favorite nightgown. This person, this version of myself, seems so different than who I really am. Almost in a way that it makes me sad, because I fear that I will never become this person, because I know that if I take the time to think about her more, I will discover more things about myself I want to become, things that seem so achingly far from my grasp.
I was thinking yesterday about how far I felt from God, of how little importance He seemed to be in my life right now. The worrisome part was that it didn’t make me feel sad, just concerned. I don’t want Him to be an obligation, but that is what I’ve made of Him. I’ve always been a quiet believer, not the person who feels comfortable yelling praises in church. But then I think of the girl with no make-up and her hair pulled back, and I could see her singing loudly but horribly in a church pew. I could see her taking on New York’s city streets just as well as God’s country. She knows how to ride horses and shoot guns, and handle babies with the gentlest touch. She’s not afraid to speak her mind. She’s not afraid of anyone. She’s only afraid of the hand that God brings to the dinner table. This image of her is so vivid and clear, I wonder if she’s out there somewhere waiting for me to find her. How will it happen? Where will she be? Where, in fact, will we see eye to eye?
