Last night's rant
I am frustrated and sad and angry and frustrated.
It was not a usual day.
Ah crap I give up writing this for other people why shouldn’t I just write what I bloody well want to.
I can’t stand mum. I can’t stand coming home to be nagged at, yelled at and told what I can’t do. I hate being treated like I’m 14. I hate it that she eternally finds the way to bring any thing not done around the house back onto anyone who so questions that it maybe wasn’t their responsibility. I can’t stand it how much she doesn’t realise that the way she speaks doesn’t get anything done.
She builds her case and I build mine. My unspoken ultimatum that I need to leave home as soon as I can possibly afford to. My mind that revels in the fact that I have job interview tommorrow that I would be thouroughly determined to get it purely for money which equals freedom and how I know perfectly well if I have an attitude like that I don’t deserve any job. Then the foolness of it hits me and there is the frustration at not allowing myself to get really angry at her because its ‘not honoring’ and I know I shouldn’t. I would like to be able to hold some kind of grude, but I can’t without feeling guilty.
She doesn’t know how to say no and leave things at that. How can I possibly respect her when all she does is present and yell at me the things I haven’t (or have and she hasn’t noticed) done and finds every single excuse or thing to blame me as a reason for her ‘no’. A simple no would work.
In truth, I should start just telling her what I’m doing, not asking. I don’t need to ask any more.
A full day. Yes I was out for most of it. No I didn’t realise this would come up.
Jess calls at 9:30pm, Iain has finally gotten on to her about where lots of the yisters are for Michaels ‘party’ ie. Hang out thing. I am flat refused by mum and Dad who just goes along with her. I am sorely disappointed, to the point where I cry. I haven’t done that in a long time. Emotional manipulation? Maybe partly, but I know it never works anyway. Leaving YITS I guess finally hits me, I will hardly see them now. I am crying and wondering what the hell I’m doing with my life.
Church pretty much sucks. I go to Gener8 tonight and feel like they are behind glass. So much show, so much show. Where is reality? What on earth can I do in this kind of church for the world. Talk talk talk talk talk. What does the stupid church do for the world? I am in a new nomad state. No longer country divided. I don’t feel ‘at home’ or even overly comfortable in a church anymore. I try my hardest to pull the good bits from the bad, but there is so much to question, so much only half presented. I am afraid I will in this environment forget what I have learnt, forget how much richer, how much harder, how much more there is. I can’t claim to be the ‘knower of all things’. Damn, but if I can see so much that isn’t being met what am I to do about it? I wouldn’t dare to bring a non-Christian within 50metres of the place, I’d be so embarassed, so disgusted at the bubble we pin to religion and church and… so ashamed at how removed and anti-cultural we are when a church tries to be culturally relevant. It’s not just Careforce stuff. I actually got stuff out of the sermon tonight there.
God. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I can do.
Where do I belong now?
I hate religion. I miss my friends. I miss being comfortable. I miss not just getting something good out of a sermon and not having to deal with all the crap and every second word that I question.
What am I doing with this ‘spare time’ that I have?
Its so self absorbed sitting a home, sleeping in, spending the day entirely for yourself. I need to get out of this house for a while. I need some space.
I’m sick of routine, I’m sick of immature Christians, I’m sick of responsibility.
I hate the difference I found in the social contrast of last night and today.
I’m very glad I went to Paul’s thing. It was not the easiest situation socially as I didn’t really know anyone much, but it’s helped me realise a few things.
You get such a different kind of person if you dump them overseas to grow up.
It’s going to be awfully hard to ever combine two social circles if you got married to someone without a lot of similar aquantinces. Hey! (mock revelation) this is perhaps the real reason why people should date. And this is just simple observation from an outsider going to a friend’s party.
I am most uncomfortable in social situations where the majority of people are just a bit older than me (not like adults) but peers plus a few years. Why? I worked this one out a week or so back. I grew up where Laura and I were pretty much the eldest females in the lot of SITAG kids. Constantly. I have no problem relating and talking to younger people. Adults I’m usually fine with. But dump me with that peers+ and I am thoroughly at a loss. It might have something to do with ‘having the upperhand’ or it simply just being what I’m used to.
I far prefer hanging out with people who genuinely lead conversations. I couldn’t care less if they talked their face off. I like being silent, I do this normally amongst people I am vastly familiar with, but I also like a decent conversation, some people this just isn’t possible with. I like people who make it easy. I hate having to think of stuff to create small talk.
I am so sick of having to meet and make new friends (and this is thoroughly pertaining to church). I am not settled or very happy at Vineyard. Something’s not quite right, but that’s no surprise, church is generally annoying.
I am frustrated at mum.
I am sad about YITS.
I am angry at how I feel about church and how it shouldn’t be that way and logically I could work myself around it and keep continually having to.
I am frustrated about life and what I’m not doing and how I don’t know what I can do because I don’t know what I should do.
How am I running the race of life?
Because I think I’m doing a pathetic job at the moment.
And how do you explain anything, when others just don’t get it?
"How admirable is thy Justice, O thou first mover! Thou hast not willed that any power should lack the processes or the qualities necessary for its results." Leonardo da Vinci
I had to voice that. Oh no doubt there is more of it God. But please hear what I’ve written. please pray what I can’t. I don’t know. I need you to know and to work on that. Please forgive me for what I’m holding against mum or people and Australian culture and the church. Show me how to love them again.
3 Comments:
Thank you for challenging me... multiple times. :)
And that church paragraph... it's like you took the words right out of my mouth. Only I just didn't know how to find them. I entirely (<--- a bec word) agree.
And P.S You are amazing Bec.
(glad to hear the job interview went well!)
Pete Murray - "Opportunity"
And so it goes another lonely day
Your savin time but your miles away
Your fly was drownin in some bitter tea
For seeing lost opportunity
Find your mirror go and look inside
And see the talent you always hide
Don't go kid yourself, well not today
Satisfaction's not to far away
Hold on now your exits here
It's waiting just for you
Don't pause too long
It's fading now
It's ending all too soon you'll see
Soon you'll see
Your coffee's warm but your milk is sour
Life is short but your here to flower
Dream yourself along another day
Never miss opportunity
Don't be scared of what you cannot see
Your only fear is possibility
Never wonder what the hell went wrong
Your second chance may never come along
Hold on now your exits here
It's waiting just for you
Don't pause too long
It's fading now
It's ending all too soon... you'll see
Soon you'll see
Hold on now your exits here
It's waiting just for you
Don't pause too long
It's fading now
It's ending all too soon... you'll see
Soon you'll see
Ahhh Bec...
The parental solution, I must admit, doesn't have to be "move out"... although it would have the effect of waking them up you your independence a bit! One of the things I've learned doing the housemate thing, is the importance of negotiation. Families spend no where near as much time negotiating 'housekeeping' stuff, in my experience, than the 3 of us... guys in our twenties sharing a reasonably boring little rental property (now with a bonus shed which we found this afternoon behind the corrogated iron sheeting that we thought was our back fence).
Church. Well that's another story altogether. An "older/wiser" type put forward an interesting analogy to me today. He suggested that I think of church as one of many icons on a Windows(TM) desktop. The available icons to click on are widely varied in their applications (excuse the pun). Each program that opens up behaves differently in itself as well. The important thing to remember is that while our program, our church, is often the most prominent thing in our focus that frustrates us with its semi-regular error messages, menu options that don't make sense to newbies, even the occasional "not responding"... the important thing to remember is that behind the program window, our desktop background is a relationship with a personal God.
I've only just started thinking about this today... but perhaps, just perhaps, any time we're dissatisfied with church, it's because it has been in the foreground for too long. We've gotten bogged down in keeping the program running. We haven't minimised everything and come back to the reason we started the program in the first place.
I think the 'ending' of things draws us into that dissatisfied uncomfortable place. Compare that routine "church kid" existence where we can plod along as participants in our "ministries" which we perhaps allow ourselves to draw too much meaning from in terms of how much they give us a purpose. It's so easy to just allow yourself to float along in the bubble, play your guitar in the youth service and step down off the stage afterwards into the warm, waiting metaphorical arms (sometimes physical arms) of long term friendships that make you feel loved and accepted.
So the happy medium? Don't abandon the church for the culturally irrelevant joke that it can often be. Don't take its imperfection on to yourself. At the same time, don't embrace the church or the relationships with in it more than you embrace God. I think that sounds like a balance.
I'm glad you enjoyed the party. I felt slightly guilty for dragging you across Melbourne to sit around without anyone you knew very well. Most of my friends were playing 'catch up' themselves so they wouldn't all have been super welcoming. The common friends thing I think just naturally happens when people couple up. They tend to gravitate towards either other. It just happens.
To be honest, like you with YITS, I sort of felt like yesterday was the end of an era. So many things have moved and changed, yet at the same time, they also completely haven't, given that the group photo at my 18th birthday contains 75% at least of the same faces. Maybe it's me leaving my old comfortable bubble? I think you might be able to identify.
Looks like some anonymous person posted the lyrics of the Pete Murray song I've been applying to all of this.
Food for thought I guess!
-Paul.
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