Disconnect

I set aside these two hours in between classes for homework. Yet here I am blogging. Because I just got out of creative writing and I feel guilty: guilty of not writing everyday, guilty of not writing what I feel, guilty of writing contingent upon my audience.

That's the worst way to write. Worrying about what you're writing, I mean. Honesty is the best policy in clergy interviews and writing. In all other areas honesty is just a good policy.

So here I am trying again to strip away the layers and get straight to it, whatever "it" is. I find that the longer it is between writings the more layers I have to strip, the more I have to chisel through the corrosion and rust and grime. Writing keeps me true.

While waiting in line for food the other day my friend asked me about my love life. I answered her honestly but it was her prying questions that made me realize how dishonest I've been. Not that I've been lying to myself. I just haven't acknowledged the truths.

So here it is.

Once upon a time I wrote a missionary who came back and was a typical returned missionary. He was scared of a relationship so he dumped me even though we weren't together. I cried that day. I don't think I cried because he dumped me. I think I cried because it was a bad day. Two people shoved me out of their lives in one day and I was not ready for it. One friend had chosen to replace me with some newer friends and then Boy dumped me. I hate feeling replaced. I hate getting shoved.

I got over it. I moved on...mostly. Except that I just needed a bit more defined closure. So after a few months this boy and I had a little chat and expressed that things were awkward because we hadn't really addressed the elephant. So we addressed the elephant, gave him a name, and stated that we were friends. The end.

Until this semester. Boy contacted me and said he has spent the better part of a year coming to his senses and realizes that he gave up a great thing (me). Never in my fantasies of chick-flicks have I ever imagined anyone crawling back, asking for forgiveness, asking for a second chance from me.

We met for lunch. I told him that I was over him but I'm interested in building a friendship and seeing where it goes.

That was probably a month ago. I haven't talked to him since. I keep telling myself that the ball is in his court if he wants to play. I don't really want to play. I have roommates and school and work and between the three I stay pretty busy. If the ball is in my court I don't care. I'll just drop my racket and find something else to do. I don't want to be bothered with the responsibility of holding up my end of any relationship. But now there is a very small part of me that says I have some sort of obligation to give him a call and work towards friendship. The other part of me says that if you feel obligated to form a friendship then it's not true friendship and it can't be anything more.

Then there is the boy that I love. Prior to this love I have only ever had crushes and professed to love them. This, however, is real love. I know because it blindsided me on some idle Tuesday. I was sitting in the camp office petting a dog when I glanced out the door to see him and that's when I realized it. Oops. I most certainly was not planning on that. What's a girl to do?

I have never had this kind of relationship with anybody else: he knows me better than I know myself. We share the same wavelength. I'm comfortable with him. We're so opposite we balance each other out. I've never been able to ACTUALLY and successfully picture raising a family with anyone until he came along. And now I'm in deep because I love him more than I've ever loved any boy but he's on the other side of the globe. But that's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that I am devoutly Christian and he is devoutly atheist. When I picture my future family I see my family going to church together and praying together and having candid conversations about God. Thus is the problem. I want him but I won't have him. And that's the worst kind of love: self-conflicted.

And so now I wonder what I'm supposed to do. I don't want one boy and I won't have the other though I wish every day that I would. Right now I wish that love were a feeling slaked by an online purchase or a night of binging ice cream. I wish that I could love the boy who loves me and I wish I could have him without feeling compromised.

Right now I wish that I didn't have homework and I didn't have to find someone to cover my shifts. Right now I wish I could write for uninterrupted hours. I wish that I had packed a lunch. I wish that people would do what I wanted them to do. I wish that I had earned thirty stickers and were enjoying the purchased infomercial item. I wish I were in a dark closet granting me permission to shed a few tears and wail just because I feel like that would be the prime outlet for my emotions at this time.

I wish that I could sever that part of my brain that turns on when the teacher's voice drones or the lights go dim or I pull my blanket up to my neck: the part of my brain that thinks about life and the future and the past and the disconnect of where I am to where I want to be.