You've Come a Long Way, Baby

Sometimes I have this funny little lapse of judgement in which I think that everyone knows exactly as much about what's going on in my life as I do, despite geographical distance, and my failure to actually indicate to anyone what is going on. But, most of you are not telepathic, so I will have to fill you in the old-fashioned way.

So.

I must inform you that I have joined the French Foreign Legion, which is what all us love-lorn, waifish folk who have come to the end of their ropes do. Soon I will set out for the baking sands of farthest Arabia, crossing them with a slow camel and a heavy heart, to help my comrades hold down the fort against invading Moors.

No, that's not actually true. But seriously, would you be surprised at this point if that's where I was? I swear, for the last year, not even I can tell where I will turn up next. An Arabian desert is merely a drop in the bucket to a tumbling tumbleweed like myself. BUT, if you had known anything about the Legion, you would have known that the chauvinist bastards don't accept women, and so would have quickly seen through my ruse. In actuality, I am back at the old homestead in Houston, living my quiet civilian life and trying to understand this complicated little monkey I call my life.

I have been trying most recently to untangle all that has happened in my past two months at L'Abri. Mostably, I don't know. Which makes the perennial question of "So, did you get what you needed out of your time?" question really obnoxious. The time seemed to pass by in a whisper and a nod, and mostly I feel that I progressed greatly in places that I didn't really anticipate progress, and seemed to have changed very little in the ways in which I wanted to change. The greatest annoucement, the most earthshaking change that took me two months to arrive at is that I am going to move away from Houston. Yes, believe it or not, it took me a full two months to arrive at a decision that just about anyone who had a 15 minute conversation with me could probably have advised. In fact, it seems so obvious to me now that it is unbelievable that it took so much time to arrive at it. But really, I guess if that's what it took to get me there, that's what I needed.

I think another thing that was kind of an unexpected theme was my learning to try new things. Another issue that seems pretty darn simple, but it has always been a struggle for me. Being afraid that I'll do badly has actually kept me from doing lots of things that I've wanted to try. But I have had to put myself out there so many times in the past couple months, I feel like I've had no choice but to accept the possibility that I'll do badly or look foolish when I first try something, but that's part and parcel of learning something and all that anyone can expect.

On the other hand, I don't for the life of me know where I stand on this whole God issue. Seriously, clueless. Don't even ask me, I'll just get mad and spit in your eye. In your eye! All I know is that I'm still very much in the God camp, with the strangest, most dubious relationship that anybody in the God camp has ever had, ever. I suppose I more or less have all of my intellectual ducks in a row (yes, they're intellectual, and they're ducks. They have PhD's.) but, at the end of the day, what does that mean? What good is it if you have intellectual peace and no emotional change?

But as for now, it's a blustery afternoon in Houston and I'm once again scrambling around for a job, any job please, without a lot of optimism. Houston looks like a good place to find a job, seeing as how every freaking store has a Now Hiring sign. Don't be fooled. None of those places actually want to hire anyone. It's an elaborate trick, or at least that's been my experience. Besides, who would want to live in Houston? Houston is a hole.

So I'm just going to listen to Queen and eat quiche. It's a q day.

S.