On Idealism

My idealism gets me in trouble sometimes because I think the world is supposed to sparkle. In my mind, it does. Or at least it should. To me, there are endless possibilities of adventure and nothing realistic or boring to ruin the chances of them happening like for example, a lack of funding. Funding doesn't exist in my brain, primarily because trying to fund something awesome with minimal resources is such an epic buzz kill. The vast majority of my days are spent laughing, playing and singing along to loud music. Other days, when the veil of my idealism is removed for even an instant, life is total crap and I feel like I might be suffocated by it.

I want to write a book titled I'm Fine: A Guide to Lying because the truth is that I am rarely fine. My personality does not lend itself to really ever being fine, unfortunately. I am either one thing or another. Euphoric or depressed. Laughing or sulking. Up or down. All or nothing. Consistency is a gift that I do not possess without effort. I never have. Everything that happens in my life is either the best or the worst thing that has ever happened to me.

My little sister and I went to the movies this weekend, which was important because we haven't gotten to spend as much time together since we stopped living in the same room. This weekend we had all to ourselves, just her and I. It was magical. Brittney is my (near) identical twin (3 years younger in age, 10 years older in maturity) whose personality could not possibly be more my opposite, which is perfect because her half and mine make a whole. With her, I am always the truest version of myself.

Brittney and I don't ever fully understand each other, but we desperately need one another. God thought long and hard on how to create each of us exactly right, and we know that there was no mistake. Brit is the realist, and I the idealist. She needs me to tell her jokes and pull her off the couch so she can take part in my imaginary games that make the mundane things in life more fun and memorable. She needs me to paint color in her life of factual evidence. And I need her to steady me, to remind me of what's true when my head tells me a different story, because my feelings are real but they are often unreliable. I need her to talk sense into me when I am too far up or too far down, too far left or too far right. I need her to be stable and consistent. I need Brittney for the truth. She needs me for the adventure.

On our sister date we purchased tickets and settled in to watch what previews promised us would be a funny movie. Turns out, the movie was more about life and loss and a lack of love than it was about humor, despite its hilariously stacked cast. When the credits rolled, every single character was living a life they wish they didn't have. My empathetic heart cringed because I tend to relate personally with the pain of others (even fictional ones) when their worlds don’t sparkle like they should. Brittney left unfazed and hungry. I left disillusioned and anxious.

Apparently, movies now possess the ability to send me into an emotional tailspin when the harsh realities of life mask all of my blind optimism. Brittney can view everything through the lens of her rationality. She sees the good in the world for exactly what it is, and sees the bad for what it is too. It doesn't seem to make much of an impact on her emotional stability - it just kind of is what it is. She accepts it and moves forward, like some kind of superhero of reason.

Not me! No, no no. I need to stop and talk about it, ask some questions and rage a little about all the insanity. To me, all the good in the world feels like streamers and balloons and laughter and parties. On the flip side, the bad feels like unfair punishment, kind of overwhelming and traumatizing. The good seems delightful and the bad seems bleak and hopeless. This is partly why I don't like to read the news, because my heart can't handle all the devastation. The scope of suffering and evil is so wide, the hate and fear and disgusting sexual perversion and darkness so dense, that I just sit in silent shock. The ongoing tragedy of humans is too much for my fragile heart to bear the weight of. So I’d actually prefer to ignore it completely and keep on existing only where it sparkles.

But since I can’t ignore it (because it’s everywhere), I ask Brittney for help. This has been a going theme in my life since 1991.

It doesn't take a genius to know that our lives can turn to absolute crap in a heartbeat. Just look around. One phone call. One wrong move. One conversation. Faster than you can snap you fingers, each of us has the potential to find ourselves in a place where we can't even recognize our lives or ourselves anymore. It's happened before and it will happen again. It’s an unfortunate detail in life that someone forgot to tell us. Or more likely, that we forgot to remember.

I mostly try not to think about this at all because it’s frightening and it whispers into my heart a truth that I don't want to hear. That we can't protect ourselves, or anyone we love. We can't escape suffering. And we can’t shop, sleep or date our way out of it either. Even when we think we can, the feeling only lasts for a while. It seems like God designed this whole thing so that when the time comes, we have to stand in the middle of all of it, under its weight, at the foot of the cross. Which was a terrible plan, in my opinion. No offense.

Sometimes life actually does sparkle. Like for me - right now is full of whimsy. These days I giggle a lot usually because I am being tickled. My best friend kisses me before I go to sleep at night, and I often feel loved and known when Sydney impersonates me or calls me on my (frequent) lies. My sister and I laugh so hard that we cry real tears and have to pull the car over to catch our breath. My current life seems to be sprawling out before me with a million different exciting possibilities. I feel happy and content, for the most part, which is a big deal for me since the temperatures are still in the 90’s and it’s practically October.

Somehow or another, time passes during each season. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has the ability to stop time. The world keeps moving along like wildfire, and it feels a little out of control which is both exciting and terrifying. It's better than being mechanical and predictable I guess, but as it stands, none of us are ever really sure what’s going to happen next. All we can do is keep on waking up. Keep on doing the next right thing. Keep on looking for glimmers of hope. Keep on spending time with people that are different than us because we all need each other to balance out the crazy.

Through it all, we learn, grow and are changed.  We come out different on the other side. And we survive. God, in all of his bigness and sovereignty, goes with us - which I think was always our only hope. He is closer than our very skin. He sends us specific people as company along the way to teach us the things we need to know in order to make it home. We lean on each other, hold out a hand, and hang on for dear life. We love each other as hard as we can through all the chaos. Somewhere in that process I can rediscover and appreciate my idealism and even use it to help someone, and maybe that's exactly how it's supposed to be.

I guess at the very least, it’s proof enough for me that love is sovereign - that most of the time, love bats last. It's enough to preserve my optimism and enough for me to keep on expecting good, amidst all the bad. And all the ups and downs, well I guess they make for a better story - a more radiant reality.

Vulnerability

Marriage has always seemed like a funny concept to me. Like, you just pick someone at random who seems okay at the time and then you promise to spend the REST OF YOUR ENTIRE LIFE FOREVER with this person, even if they end up in a wheelchair or they lose their mind or worse. In my experience, marriages have the tendency to end up crashing down in flames – both spouses hating and resenting each other. It seems they almost never end with "happily ever after" like the movies, fairy-tales, and butterflies promise you they will.

Regardless of devastating statistics, there is still something in my soul that wants to get married. Something deep within my heart that says I was made for it - as a means to glorifying God, of course. I have never felt the call to be single for the rest of my life probably because God knows I'm not that brave. And since sinners are the only available spouse options, I am assured that holiness - not ease or comfort - will be the end goal of that endeavor.

More selfishly, marriage seems like a great way to obtain a built-in adventure buddy for the rest of my life. Plus, you know, double the income to fund the trips.

Being an idealistic girl, I grew up imagining the man that I would spend my life with. I talked about him from time to time, theoretically, at sleepovers. "What kind of guy do you see me ending up with?" I would ask Megan. Her answers were always the best. She told me I should be with someone who could keep up with me, someone funny and loud and probably obnoxious to her. I told her she would end up with someone who was intellectual, chill, liked to hunt. I absolutely nailed it, by the way.

Youth camp counselors encouraged me to make a list of characteristics and traits that I would want in a husband. I always thought that seemed ridiculous and somehow beneath me, so I didn’t do it. How was I supposed to know what I wanted anyways? At the time, I was having a lot of trouble deciding which trinket to buy at souvenir shops. Not to mention, at the time, the primary character quality for the man of my dreams was that he played sports and didn’t wear braces. Living in Texas, this didn’t narrow the options whatsoever.

Despite refusing to make a list, I pictured him being tall, dark and handsome like every girl does. I prayed that he would be an athlete with defined calf muscles because that’s big for me. I always wanted him to have good teeth and decent personal hygiene. I hoped that he would have a sense of humor and that we would have more fun together than we ever had apart. I fantasized all the adventures I would want to go on with him, and how safe I would feel wrapped in his arms. The only thing I thought mandatory was that he distinctly smelled good.

What no one told me though, is that finding this person isn’t the finish line - it’s the starting blocks. I never even considered the vulnerable road I would have to walk with him before ever considering marriage. Vulnerability has never really been my thing, so this came as quite a shock to me.

Come to find out, I am deeply afraid of being fully known. I have insecurity issues masked in bold confidence and a carefree spirit. I hate the feeling of not being understood, and I never want to be bored because boredom usually precedes a feeling of being trapped in it. Feeling trapped gives me anxiety. So I run from that at all cost. Try not to think about it. Distraction helps. I bury fear with attempts at control. I laugh about things that aren’t THAT funny, trying to force myself out of my own head. I think that if I can laugh hard enough I can persuade myself to believe that I'm not scared. Deep down I know better.

This has been my tactic for years.

Seasons of my life have exhausted a sequence of running from fear and vulnerability and seeking something usually just out of reach. I frantically searched for something to quiet my anxiety and give me freedom but also, paradoxically, security. The fear always just ran right along with me. Changing my circumstances didn't give me reprieve, just a new setting.

In college when I started to feel trapped, my throat would feel like it was closing. Heavy weight would press on my chest like I was being crushed and heat would swell in my head. Mind racing and fingers tingling, I had the uncontrollable urge to run, cry, or enter into some kind of adrenaline rush to make it stop. My body tensed. Fists clenched. A counselor told me that this was defined as a “panic attack.” I told her that she was being really dramatic. This coming from the girl having panic attacks. 

The idea of marriage sort of evoked the same anxiety in me - less severe but still very panicked. I thought that if I said yes to the rest of my life with somebody, I would never get to be myself ever again. That my free spirit would die, my independence and personality stripped, and I would all of the sudden become a stereotypical housewife with a completely different identity and agenda. Probably bored all the time, I would be forced into a monotonous life of washing dishes and laundry. The only visible perk being that I could have children, biblically, to distract me from how horribly lonely I felt despite lying next to someone every night.

It went against every fiber in my adventurous soul.

My answer to this fear was to keep all men at a safe distance and always have an exit strategy. I went on dates but they never turned into relationships. I laughed off the idea of something serious. I didn’t know what I wanted from anyone besides attention, anyways. I developed a bad habit of drawing people in with no real intention of keeping them close. Plagued by the fear of abandonment, I barricaded my heart because maybe if I didn’t care, it wouldn’t hurt.

Not to mention, I knew all too well that deriving one's identity from another person is a short road to resentment. I had walked that road one too many times and learned my lesson the hard way. So I reveled in singleness, pushing my fear out of sight and out of mind. It was easy for the most part especially because I lived in beautiful Colorado.

Instead of falling in love with a boy, I fell in love with Scripture and with the Rocky Mountains. I fell in love with the crisp mountain air on morning walks around Wash Park. I fell in love with all the friends who helped me figure out what it meant to be authentic in my imperfection. I fell in love with laughing and with road trips. I fell in love with the aspen trees especially in autumn when their little leaves are bursting with color. I fell deeper in love with the God that created it all for me.

God in all His sovereignty guided me through this season. He needed to work out something in me that was buried deep from everything that had led me to that place. Locked down for years. Things I had grown completely numb to. He needed to redefine all the things I believed about love and marriage and so he completely removed me from the suffocating search of finding the perfect person to marry. Instead, He let me breathe easy and let me practice falling in love with other things. 

Eventually, God asked me to make the bold decision to stop running from fear, to plant my feet and turn around to face it and find Him forever faithful, as promised. First, He moved me to Dallas. That was the scariest and hardest thing I have ever done. When I got here, He quickly placed me into a relationship where I would learn how to fall in love with a person the way He designed it to happen. God’s way, for God’s will, for God’s glory. I have been squirming through the process of being honest with myself and with this boy for almost a year now.

Ten months ago, I started dating him. He changed everything. Over these months, I have had the most incredibly defenseless conversations of my entire life. Remind me to tell you about the time I told him I was scared he would abandon me on “Love Island” which of course is an imaginary place filled with the shame of unrequited love. With him, I want to be seen as strong and pulled together but I have been found more imperfect and fragile than ever before. I have no way of lying to him about how tough I am because he has seen me cry for no valid reason. One time I cried because I didn’t know what to wear. Another time I cried because he wanted to take me shoe shopping. It’s madness. I can’t hide all of the things I hate about myself in dating him. Not if I truly want it to work.

I could define dating as the biggest vulnerability hangover of my life, but at the same time it feels a lot like falling in love with my best friend. It forces me to release my grip and rest in Jesus, even when I have no certainty and no control of tomorrow’s outcome. I definitely have no control over his decisions. The realization that I am giving another human being the perfect opportunity to wound me in all the deepest ways is thick, but fear does not outweigh all the joys of teaming up with someone I believe in and trust.

God is teaching me that vulnerability is not synonymous with weakness, but is actually the birthplace of everything good. Slowly, He is starting to release me from the panicked tension that screams at me to protect myself at all cost. He replaces my running shoes with a new tactic of pressing into discomfort to tell the messy truth, knowing and believing that I am capable of being loved anyways. 

In the midst of all the excruciating vulnerability, I find the freedom and reprieve that I never found running. If I can just weather the storm of being known, the thick cloud of fear will finally catch a ray of the sunlight of belonging and confidence. Then another. Then another.

He is special. Different. He challenges everything I thought I knew. He is funny and makes me belly laugh until I am crying and pleading with him to shut the hell up. He wants to travel the world with me, and I have told him many times that I would leave tonight. He has dark brown hair that I prefer to be messy. He prefers it to look manicured and swept over to one side. I mess it up all the time because he looks good with messy hair. I have studied his face, his hands, and his feet trying to memorize all of the details. He is just tall enough that I have to stand on my tippy-toes to kiss him, and he really likes shoes, watches, and shorts that are entirely too short. He talks with funny voices, makes funny faces, and when he wears his baseball cap I nearly die of giddiness because I think he is the best looking boy in the whole wide world.

We are both such messy works in progress - so madly adored by Jesus that we can hardly stand up under the weight of his love, mercy, and grace. Next to him I feel fearless, even though he knows very well that I am not. With him, marriage doesn’t seem so scary.

As long as my eyes never shift their focus from God in all His glory, I am free to walk boldly into this relationship wherever it leads. I am free to be fully myself, regardless of his response to me. My hesitations are all non-existent in light of the majesty of our God; my crippling fear silenced in His presence. Jesus tells me that YES, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes very afraid, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am also brave and beautiful and worthy of love and belonging. He didn’t need to give me a human to prove that to me but in all of his abundant grace, He has. And the love of Jesus echoes all over the walls of our relationship.

And if I am going to do this whole vulnerability thing with anyone – I so very much want it to be with him.