To cherish Loneliness.

Loneliness:o

So since this is like my online journal, I’m going to journal.

Let me spew the bitter sweet construction that is gurgling in my mind and kind of heading to my heart in tricks that are otherwise known as contemplation.

Relax; I’m not going to call out anyone and rehash by gones in a dog-eat-dog world, or reveal my girly sob story that I know you all might or might not be curious about.

I’m sure a study somewhere from some Ivy League university supports my angle anyhow. Who knows maybe all the deranged people in the world and history and thus world history would have been helped by this online blogging thing. And please help restrain and in fact refrain yourself from construing that I am in away deranged or on the verge of being so; I mean I’m doing the right thing and blogging yo! :)

Dear online Blog,

Let’s just get to the rational here.

Wikipedia says that Loneliness *don’t give me that face* is a complex and usually unpleasant emotional response to isolation or lack of companionship. It typically includes anxious feelings about a lack or connection or communication with other beings, both in the present and extending into the future.

Like! Get a load of this Wikipedia guy! No wonder they don’t let us refer to him in the essays and papers we write. That’s right Wikipedia; you are unauthoritative; especially right now because my head was thinking something else.

Real description:  Loneliness is what shows you that internally, that compass is a bit wayward. Loneliness is the sign that your inner city needs some fundamental repair. It is when the inner system needs a lot of rebooting. Loneliness is the “time out” signal. The time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself and that folks is life’s cruelest irony. Loneliness is the time to grow. Loneliness is the call to reach out to other people and not just crave it yourself, for therein shall that craving be satisfied.

I mean it is not about the people being there or not. The two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying. Here we are with neighbors and classmates and workmates and family and all these people, and all loneliness achieves is the fact that we feel misunderstood, unappreciated and invisible in these seas of people.

Like why do we have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?

Inwardly there’s all this potential in hope and making a difference and changing the world. All you have ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with your hands but with your heart. Such a noble aspiration; yet all this disappointment of life usually warps it in the end.

I realize that being lonely isn’t a bad thing or something to be ashamed of. It is natural. It is necessary. What I’m saying is, loneliness quickly shifts the focus to” me” and that is its problem. 

How I am appreciated and cherished and adored and loved and obsessed over- I mean apart from these things we are lonely right? *Girls can I get a hallelujah*

What if the point of loneliness is to tell us that we can get a little closure by being about somebody else and in fact everybody else?

That’s all I’m saying really.

Be lonely and learn your way around it; make a map of it, sit with it but we can’t again use another person as a scratching post for our own unfulfilled yearnings. Reach out to people to literally reach out to people; in that way you are reaching out to yourself.

That’s why being alone never felt right; sometimes it feels good but it never feels right.

When you are lonely it’s the best time to grow and be a blessing to someone else to be a blessing to yourself. Be lonely and stronger because of it in this way.

"There are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech. We should be better Christians if we were more alone, waiting upon God, and gathering through meditation on His Word spiritual strength for labor in his service. We ought to muse upon the things of God, because we thus get the real nutriment out of them.....Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make but slow advances in the divine life? Because they neglect their closets, and do not thoughtfully meditate on God's word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet but they will not stoop to drink it. From such folly deliver us, O Lord......."

CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON

Cherish your loneliness.

What I know and yet still wonder about.

Love <3

I usually deny this among a lot of people but I know somewhere in me, I am a hopeless romantic.

I believe in everyone having someone. I believe in the absurdities that love creates.

 I believe in falling head over heels and I believe in getting your heart broken.

 I believe the first cut is the deepest.

I believe in flowers, chocolates and teddy bears. 

I believe in dancing in mirrors and singing in showers.

I believe in batting eyelids and twirling hair.

Love is my hugest dream, my utmost hope and infinite light. I believe in everything that tells the story of love; be it pain and sacrifice, or unspeakable joy.

I believe love is strength and light. It’s that thing that makes you want to go on, but showing you how to. It’s a fire radiating with energy; an energy that achieves almost anything- everything.

 It inspires. It brightens. It provides clarity and ironically takes it away. Love is its own person.

Love is its own initiative.

 Love makes you crazy enough, the right kind of crazy.

Love makes you blind to everything else but the object of its affection.

Love is total.

Love is complete.

Love is so many things, but what is love truly? What consists of love purely? What defines love especially and completely?

What is love without the knowledge of its eminence?

What is love and truly how can you love anything or anyone without knowing the love of God?

Experiencing the love of Christ is unfathomable.

 It’s overwhelming.

 Its life directing.

I believe in love. It cannot be proved or in any way deemed logical but it always has your back. Completely and forever. The love of Christ expressed in the greatest act ever; the death of the Son that we may become the righteousness of God.

After encountering that love, you can’t be the same again even if you wanted to.

You realize strength and drink in the sight of an amazing light.

I have experienced the love of God even before I knew I was. In so many ways he poured and bestowed over me. But when I simply glimpsed at the picture in a more mature and enlightened paradigm, I experienced so much joy.

 It stripped me bare and accepted me for who I was. That’s the amazing love of Christ, embodied in the sole act of sacrifice; the sacrifice of His one and only begotten Son for me, that I may be loved eternally. That’s the thing- God is love.

It’s something that’s more understood experientially than otherwise. It is almost ethereal for lack of any other complicated word to put in that sentence.

You say you know love? If it isn’t from Christ, flowing from a relationship with him, it’s simply a reflection of something else.

“The Love of Christ both wounds and heals, it fascinates and frightens, it kills and makes alive, it draws and repulses.

There can be nothing more terrible or wonderful than to be stricken with love for Christ so deeply that the whole being goes out in a pained adoration of His person, and adoration that disturbs and disconcerts while it purges and satisfies and relaxes the inner heart.”

A.W. Tozer.

My version of Disney's "Tangled"

Pwincess and Eugene<3

It is something that begun even long before she realized it had.

He always was the good one at remaining hidden; observing others but not being seen himself.

In her mind she had wondered about him but only a little. Wondering too much seemed impolite in a certain space construct of a pondering mind and an anticipatory acquaintance.

 He wasn’t the brown haired and blue eyed rogue, the stern faced and well poised member of nobility that was a big deal because of the obvious. He was just him, in a sophisticated simplicity. The less than prosaic intrigue.  Eugene. That was his name; at least that was the name she gave him.

Had she known he would be there, she would have lived that day differently. She didn’t know what that entailed exactly, only that she knew it would have been completely different.

All she remembered being at that time was the young human still yearning for the world outside her tower that she had been lovingly guarded in, to be discovered. It was the proverbial excitement of actually singing in front of the crowd for the first time; the closest she ever got to all the artistic sentiments that were deeply embedded within her inner self. The perfect musical metaphor.

She was oblivious to his presence with great intention. It was a matter of propriety and being polite. It was one of the things you do or don’t because otherwise it would be considered an impertinence. He was there but the act of not acknowledging it was a crucial element of an invisible culture. He was this other existence that you just couldn’t wonder about in a common way.

 He wasn’t the one to take initiative in societal practice. In a normal way, that was too mundane. He was above that mediocrity. He was independent of the rest of the world. That made him supreme and her, insubordinate.

She just always wondered what he thought of her tom boyish outfit; the blue stripped shirt and the boy like sneakers; her weak and subtle personality traits that were drowned by the Switchfoot wannabe vibe.

The thing is, he saw her distinctly; he heard her succinctly.

His curiosity about her had only begun but had as well been partially saturated. He saw her, but wondered what she was truly like. There she was boyish and all, clumsy in a complicated way. He knew he wanted to get to know this unknowing uncommon commoner.

It was a sabbatical sort of time; the first she ever had, that had mostly been spent in lands she felt like a refugee in. It is no wonder that she was especially eager to spend time in the black-halled chamber where melodies echoed through time.

She spent a lot of time among the diversities; the city sounds, market smells and found herself dreaming out loud; with her voice and with words.

 Then one random day, she decided an ordinary salutation was in order. He cordially answered and commented about the weather. The cameras rolled and someone screamed, “action.”

Once upon a time, there was a girl. She dreamed, and that was her gift. She dreamed when her eyes were open and when they were closed. She dreamed with her mouth and dreamed with her hands. She dreamed that some day she would be free to wander outside the tower she had lovingly been preserved in for all of the life she had known- and that day came.

She unintentionally wandered into a familiar place in a familiar area with nothing familiar in mind to do really, just that hope that familiarity would provide what to actually do for that time she so desired; the meantime. Through the brown door that guarded the darkly painted walls, she walked, all in hand and in mind being a curiosity to what the plan and design of life was. It resounded louder and later that day. Perhaps it was what beckoned her into that place.

She casually said hello to those that she found in that dark walled musical chamber that sung with the knowledge of a something that she continually thought about, as it rung within the narrow confinement that she sat in.

Eventually she found herself in conversation with a familiar face over a familiar story; something childish and carefree. It was a story about a blue headed man who wanted to fit in the world. As she threw her head back in laughter and held her sides, she opened her eyes to the knowledge of another smiling face adjacent to her. He too knew the story of the blue headed man; childish, carefree and all.

So they laughed the evening away, throwing their heads back in laughter and holding their sides until their minds wandered to the same place, and questions about another story filled their thoughts. He wondered if she would heal him if he ever was injured and she wondered about his fake name that he propped about.

 All at once in synchronization, she brought her eyes in inquisition to his that were already searching for the questions he sought in hers as well.

 He asked, “Does your hair glow when you sing?” She answered, “No” with a subtle grin across her face. He smiled in satisfaction with the answer she had gotten.

After a sufficient pause she let out the gist of her wandering mind. She asked, “Are you a thief?” eyes attentive to reading the answer straight from his focused eyes and yet to move lips. He sighed and replied with a smile, “Doesn’t your heart still beat within you?”

 She nodded in affirmation and confirmation to the reply she had received. As soon as her back was turned to him, her mouth spread out into a wide smile and her eyes sparkled with joy.

He watched her in the direction as she walked away into the horizon as he prayed the shrieks of excitement in his heart were not too loud for her to hear.

It had been determined by either party. She knew that he contemplated stealing her heart and he knew that she was willing to promise captivity if that was what would save him.

Part two: Change is mean.

Change is so uncertain. Change is so final. Change is so impertinent and imposing.

Change is mean.

You have to reorganize your whole understanding of the world and its systems each and every time. You convince yourself the world is upside down and then change comes to tell you after that whole process that you are wrong. So much energy.

The voices in your head won’t be quieted down. The inner city is an uproar looking to you for such clarity; and then suddenly you don’t know who you are anymore. It still happens.

You obeyed your parents and went to a single girl’s school. You consoled yourself with the fact that you were in a somewhat prestigious girl’s school. You had gotten in on merit. You were proud of yourself. You had beaten those kids that sneered and called you the rejects. But the rejects weren’t together anymore. Most of you had made it to good schools anyway. You were in a different context and had to adapt. It was change’s fault.

You look around for most of the beginning identifying and getting used to the culture. In the end the easier thing to do at that moment is to go with the flow. You don’t know what you are after all. What was in vogue was in vogue for you as well. The pressure of being different was hard because you had no one to be different with. You also figured that trying alone marks you for life in the eyes of them all.

You went for fellowships because everyone did. You knew the verses because you were the pastor’s kid. You went to the dances because that’s what everyone did on the weekends. You listened to the same music that everyone did because everyone listened to that music. You were tired of fighting the tide and you knew how hard it got trying.

Soon enough you never really belonged anywhere because you were everywhere.

You were the fellowship girl. You were the rebellious girl. You were the academic girl. You were the party girl. The fellowship people got confused when you went for parties and the rebellious friends got confused when you studied.  You just went with it until you got so lost.

Home was very difficult because you couldn’t be their little girl anymore. You were all of these people instead.

Eventually it caught up with you. You had to choose. You had to choose which voices were important to listen to; which voice would be worth it in the end.

I chose the voice I knew understood me completely. That voice helped me understand myself. I chose what I knew I was called to be. It fit so perfectly- too perfectly. It’s the only place that felt like home. It still is.

I had done a lot of things with a lot of people that had gotten so used to me doing those things with them.  Suddenly wrong and right were relevant and articulately spelt out by a book that helped me see why.

 Many people say it is hard changing and letting go of a life so different, to choose the “Christian one” so full of rules and hardships. For me it wasn’t. That’s what showed me especially that it was the right thing to do. Not because it was easy by the way, but because it’s the only thing that remained making sense even when I tried other things.  It made sense because it was so hard. It still is. It will always be and shall only get harder. But I feel bound to that truth because it is true.

Just because someone says the red cup is blue and manages to convince themselves and everyone around them that it is blue, it still remains red. Truth is still true even when it isn’t.

I had to be one thing that I was so bad at. The more I understood God, the more I realized I was so bad at being his child. I hated myself for it so much. I hated myself for every wrong decision I made. I hated myself for still listening to the other voices. It revealed how partial I was. I was the weakest I had ever been. I still am. The more I grew in that knowledge, the more I understood how complicated I was. I used to say that to sound cool but I eventually realized that I was in an unfortunate way.

 I felt it was only my mind that understood what we went through. All the people around me never struggled with what I did. They never wanted to go on tours and be musicians, they never struggled staying the top of their classes and most of all they never struggled waking up on time. They still don’t. My heart had come to mature and finally catch up with the rest of the world and when it did it over compensated for the time it had been missing in action. I felt everything. Every shred of every tapestry weaved that is imaginable as an emotion. It was so inconvenient.

I was always over emotional about something until my emotions started drowning me. I was like a desperate person needing help all the time. I was always needing to let out; to journal my trivialities on paper while others were sober minded enough to study in class. I drove myself to shutting my mind and heart up because they had become their own people too. They led mutinies in me every single day. I read every novel I found until I saw that some novels made my mind and heart worse, and I always paid in full for it.

Life became the struggle I couldn’t face because I just couldn’t face life. I played the piano for hours to forget. I learnt the guitar. I obsessed myself with vampire sequels.

I journalled like an addict whose crack was emotion.

Starting this new journey had begun to end me. I saw myself ebbing away. I felt everything else had won. I was the stereo type definition of the overly depressed teenager that listened to metallica and wears black for legit messed up reasons. Mainstream had won. I wasn’t controlling anything anymore but everything was controlling me. In that mayhem I just went deeper and deeper.

No one understood how deep I was. They tried but couldn’t. Most didn’t want to. My parents simply complained about my moods. My friends were weighed down with my inevitable complacency. I found reason in nothing. It was all because God had told me the truth about myself. He was the one who had subjected me to futility after all.

So I went into the darkness and told myself to get used to being on the outside; to never belonging. My independence was my funeral and death. I was independent not by choice, but by nature. I was destined to always be the one misunderstood. It followed me ever where. It somehow still does.

I was the seemingly really cool girl that you in ten minutes, realized was like every other. I was the shiny toy that everyone wanted to play with but got tired of so fast. I was so used to being left out even among people that independence was my coping mechanism. I had to detach myself from people because they weren’t going to be there for me. Not because they didn’t want to but because they never could be. I decided everything was to be shut out. I had to protect me.

Did I get out of that haze? Yes and No. The blackness never leaves. The light always remains. Such is the universe. Such is life. I learn my lessons and have the scars that remind me of His mercy. What I’m saying is it only gets better when you decide to believe that the cup is red even when it’s easier and so convincing to say that its blue. You just have to trust the truth. The truth sets you free. And whoever is set free is free indeed. I just always have to remember that.

I am on the outside. I figure I always will be.

I am the sojourner in that way.

I just have to keep on seeing that it is freedom and not pain not belonging anywhere.

I have gotten too used to being by myself and expecting such; not being understood and not explaining myself for it. I have tried to learn to be content with not being understood.

This independence is the evidence of my futility and paradoxically my perfection.

The futility is that I am selfish and I am naturally attracted to people that are. The reason is that we just chill and talk about whatever while everyone else pretends they talk intellectual. We play our own kind of tag with people and have our version of rock paper scissors with their hearts. We have our hilarious and nonsensical inside jokes. We don’t talk about our feelings because it isn’t right, even though we have them and feel them, even for each other, we just don’t. We don’t hold hands or hug because it’s mushy and touchy-feely. We don’t do what all the other kids do because caring and dependence is too main stream. We are us. We are loyal to us. We don’t talk behind people’s backs about each other because the rule is we don’t care, especially when we do. We are individually different because that’s what we want people to see and that’s what we tell ourselves. We are the same.

 We think we are real, and that’s what we aren’t. It’s in knowing that that we strive to be apart from ourselves. We strive to be perfected and by his sacrifice we are. 

There’s a new way to be human now.