THIEVES ALIKE.

“How many times can I push it aside? Is it time I befriended all the ghosts of all the things that haunt me most? “ —Relient K, Forget and Not Slow Down

I’m starting to accept the fact that I can’t escape. Ever.

Let’s be honest here, shall we? I went as far away from home as I possibly could because I wanted to start anew. I wanted to leave my old life, my old friends, my old, content situation, and begin again. I was sick of being who I was where I was. The same thing over and over again… anyone would get bored. I never felt like I truly belonged (though I said I did at times, but it was only relative) and I craved something different.

After awhile, I wondered if I actually loved my friends at home. I concluded that of course, I did. But I felt it almost wasn’t mutual, or at least both parties weren’t expressing that love very well, if at all. I suppose I grew tired of that, as well as acting like someone I’m not; pretending; following; suppressing; retaining. It got boring and painful, so much that I wanted to leave. 

Clearly, I could’ve gone a couple cities away, a county, an hour. But no, I wanted somewhere where I’d never run into anybody I knew. I wanted a clean slate. I wanted to feel completely alone so I could find both myself and the people I truly related to without having home to fall back on. 

But I think I neglected to acknowledge that I’d have to return eventually, albeit for a couple months at the most. I guess Winter and Summer hit me hardest, being back home again in a place where I never felt completely comfortable and now feeling more out-of-place because of 3,000 miles. Every time, I just want to leave, escape and hide in my little protected cubby-hole of my room, my family. (That’s really the only reason I want to come back.) I don’t want to talk; I don’t want to socialize; I don’t want to be reminded of those feelings of insecurity and loneliness I felt before. 

The sad part is that I do this to myself—I isolate myself. I suppose it’s natural, but that’s no excuse. I felt lonely, I was reminded, so I ran into the depths of my heart, walls sprouting where my feet fell. 

Yeah, I’ll admit that there are lights here—certain people, certain moments—that make it all worthwhile and comfortable, but I think the part I hate about this most is me. 

It’s who I am, or rather, who I was and continue to act as. I look at my home-self in the mirror and see a self-conscious, strange, discontent, unlovable girl who is only concerned with being loved by people who have other things to worry about. I become selfish and prideful, fearful and dependent. 

I don’t know. Sometimes, most times, I just want to leave. I want to go where I feel good. 

But thinking about all that now, I suppose it’s not what I’m called to do. We’re called to love those who might not show love back. We’re called to do things that might hurt. 

I’m not doing that. I’m not showing His love. Instead, I’ve been focusing on what I want and what I feel comfortable doing. But He wants me to leave my comfort zone, even if I’m not leaving the place I call home. Maybe, when I open my heart, let my guard down, and love recklessly, I’ll find joy here and come to look forward to this place, these people. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll find that my personality doesn’t have to vary by location.

Oh, God, I know it’s going to be hard. Even as I write this, I just want to escape. I want to leave, retreat back to my little fort either in my room or in Boston. But I know God will give me this strength and the love. 

And to my friends at home: don’t ever think I don’t love you. I just have a hard time loving myself on my own.

“What I want to learn to be free from this year:

I don’t want to live my life based off of others’ opinions of me. I don’t want my actions to depend on that. I want to be free of fear.” (9.2011)

I was a shadow. 

There was a time in my life in which I only mimicked. I was naive, scared to make a mistake—scared to do something that would make people notice me. I wanted to blend into the background, to disappear into the crowd. I wanted to be invisible. 

I became a nobody. The world was a game of follow the leader; to step out of line was to be outcast.  I had no personality. No soul. No heart. No life. But I was mindless and happy. Ignorance is bliss.

But when I realized how people appreciate those who can laugh at themselves and their mistakes, my world was rocked. To see how people were honest about their quirks and mannerisms, and to see how others accepted and loved them, both confused and attracted me. Why—how—could anybody love me if I’m not perfect?

Somehow, I gained the courage to change, which all things do. Somehow, I was able to love myself. Somehow, I was able to see that your imperfections make you beautiful, and that standing out from the crowd as an individual wasn’t something to fear. 

For the first time, I loved who I was and who I was created to be, and I held that close. I realized that I no longer wanted to be someone else. Accepting this after 18 years wasn’t a small deal; I held it close to my heart and promised I’d do my best to not covet who others were. I’d only be me. 

Stunningly, when I learned this, I learned to see the beauty in others that I’d been overlooking before. I saw people’s gifts, words, actions; but most importantly, I heard their stories of love and loss, hurt and healing. I heard experiences and lessons as words of lives wrapped around me in a comforting embrace. The more I heard, the more I shared, and the more I wanted to get to know these people who I loved. Somehow, I found I cared about each person in a unique way. I’m not the best, or even good, at doing this. It’s a constant struggle. But the newfound love I felt—that wasn’t from me.

God gave me the love, the strength, the courage, the grace to reach out to people. There are others who do this better, of course, but I simply wanted to learn and love. A life story was so beautiful to me; hearing one was like holding a precious jewel in my hands, something so fragile and valuable. 

So when others did the same to me—showing genuine love, wanting to know me, of all people—I was so humbled. I felt so lucky to be dropped into such a loving family. 

But in the middle of the year, I saw I wanted to get to know people to say I knew them; these people were just tally marks to me now. I suppose I wanted to be popular, to be known. Ashamed, I backed away, disgusted that I could treat something so precious as just another pebble on the shore, something I didn’t acknowledge as unique or individual. 

I hope things have changed by now. I hope I’ve learned to love and to listen with all of my heart.

So I suppose, because of my own fault, I noticed more easily when others’ did the same—especially with me. I noticed when I became just another person, another point, another check off the list. But I refused to accept it, pushed it out of my mind. Perhaps I liked the attention, the love, and didn’t want to give that up. Perhaps I wanted to get to know the other person, too, and hoped we’d reach that level of closeness and sincerity I’ve always longed for. Whatever it was, it made me deny the fact that I was being played with.

I think it hurt especially because I didn’t understand how someone could treat another story, another life, as a handheld maze, shaking and tilting it to solve the puzzle. I was a toy, expendable and unfeeling. But time and time again, I went back willingly, hoping things would change. One day. 

But for now, I’m done. I’m tired of hoping, tired of trying. I have learned to respect people, myself included, for who they are, and that is not something to fool around with. I hope one day I can establish a solid, genuine relationship with people who I have grown bitter toward (and am working to truly forgive). Through this, I’ve learned that people are not knots to untie or riddles to solve; they have come to love who they are through pain and perseverance, and that’s not something to toy with, to analyze. They are to be loved.

We make mistakes. We learn. This is what makes us who we are. We should not have to hide or be treated like something dispensable. We are beautiful. So we all should be treated that way.

“But it’s nice to say that we played in the dirt. Here we are, we’re still here. What a beautiful mess this is.”—Jason Mraz, A Beautiful Mess

Both telling and listening to life stories takes a lot of risk.

It’s risky to look back into your past, to plunge into what can sometimes be a gaping black hole, and to maybe find there the monster you locked away. Maybe it’s risky because you don’t know if you can come back out, to snap back to the present, without remnants of the monster latched onto your heart.

Perhaps we think we are strong enough to look back. We believe that we’ve escaped, severed ourselves from those times to be able to look back with calculated apathy. We’ve grown up, so we take a deep breath and about-face.

Yes, we’ve matured. Yes, we’ve walked far enough down the road to not immediately drown in the sea of foaming memories. Yes, we survived.

But no, we haven’t escaped. The sad reality of it is that, the more we think about it, the less apathetic we become. We remember what it was like because those feelings, so strong in the past, are still too strong to ignore. 

The hard part, then, is coming back to reality: seeing what’s in front of us without blurred eyes and senses, breathing in the air of the real and true and changed. Although the past can teach and guide and comfort, it can limit, scare, and trap.

So, yes, it’s good to remember, but it’s also just as good to forget. 

“Up until now I had sworn to myself that I’m content with loneliness, because none of it was ever worth the risk.” —Paramore, The Only Exception

I thought I had numbed myself. I thought I couldn’t hurt. Not because of this. Not again. 

I believed I had pushed it aside, into the furnace where it would burn and die and never, ever, ever come back.

I assumed that everything was perfect. I assumed that the plan wouldn’t change. I believed the evidence.

I felt I was stronger, better, different.

I told myself I was wise now. I told myself I had learned. I was going to be the only exception. 

But I was wrong. 

“Everything looks so perfect from far away… ‘Come down now,’ but we’ll stay.”  

-The Postal Service, Such Great Heights

Tunnel vision. This is what it means.

“If you want more love, why don’t you say so?” —John Mayer, Heartbreak Warfare

You can say you don’t care. 

You can claim you’re fine, don’t worry, it’s all under control. You can show that you’re calm and collected, organized and relaxed. You can even shrug it off and move on. No big deal, you say.

When truly, everything is not okay. You’re not alright. You’re struggling and, maybe, to an extent, broken. But you keep it inside, holding it so close to your heart that really, you don’t even realize the truth yourself. 

See, you’ve buried it so deep that you have to dig far down into the depths of your soul to realize what you’ve feared to face. You’ve got to take a step back and see that, underneath all the layers and masks, you’ve been hiding the blunt, unavoidable fact that you do care. 

You care more than anything.