The following post is quite a bit more personal than most I write. It's written mostly for my own benefit, in reflection, though the busyness it talks about could happen to anyone. It talks about my perspective on an open conflict in my life and friendships, though it does so anonymously. Nevertheless, if you're not interested in such content or think you may be offended by it, please skip this post. The page break here is to keep it condensed and out of sight while you browse other posts. If you do decide to read it, click below.
I've been keeping myself busy this past month.
I haven't been doing a lot here, on this blog, but I've been doing lots of writing, lots of playing video games, and lots of generally keeping myself extremely busy. In the past month, there are not many nights when I haven't put myself to bed exhausted, even though I could have gone to bed earlier and gotten a good night's rest.
I haven't read any further in the Book of Mormon. I actually read several chapters ahead from where I was in my last post and have a backlog of thoughts I need to write out, but I haven't gotten to writing any of them. I've also had a number of thoughts on political and social events in the country and in my life, but I haven't posted on those either.
Looking at it objectively, I have to say it isn't my lack of time that's to blame. I've had plenty of time, I've just chosen to spend it in different ways. I spent one weekend at a friend's wedding, and immediately thereafter spent every spare moment of the next two days beating the 2013 Tomb Raider. I don't regret either of those decisions, though honestly I should have spread my video-gaming time with Tomb Raider out a bit (but it was a very good game, very different from the rest of the series, so I hear). Since then, I've spent a "weekend" with my family (another decision I don't regret). There remains, though, plenty of time in which I could have written or done something else. During that time, I wound up surfing the web, playing video games, or writing fan fiction.
I won't say I've been wasting my time, since I don't think that's exactly true (the video games, for instance, spawned the fan fiction, which in turn spawned the realization that having a career as a writer doesn't have to wait, that there are steps I can take with older stories now in order to get me closer to realizing that dream, and to help me on the road to financial independence). But I will question my motivation for being so very, very busy, for avoiding the outdoors, spiritual contemplation, and anything to do with romance (with the exception of that friend's wedding). I suspect the reason is I'm hiding my heart.
A little over a month ago, a friend hurt me deeply when she declared, without warning, that she would never have any contact with me at all, ever again. We had been very good friends at one point, but I won't deny that our friendship was in trouble. We had a quite a history, with mistakes made on either side, and even mistakes brought into the situation by a church we both trusted. I had liked her almost from the beginning, and from the beginning had felt God was telling me that she and I would have a future, were meant to be in a relationship at some point. She doesn't see it that way. In itself, that gives us a fragile line to walk as friends. But, with me agreeing, as I have repeatedly and sincerely, to respect her wishes and stay just friends, to not pressure the friendship to be anything more than that, the line should have been possible to walk.
I know, because I walked that line before for two years with a girl I knew from high school into college, and from whom I still hear from time to time. I liked her but she didn't want to be anything more than friends, so that's what we were, just friends and very close friends at that. It was a little awkward at times, I admit, mostly when she asked me for advice about boys and gushed about her own crushes. I understood that the relationship was just a platonic one, though, that my feelings weren't returned, and I didn't try to make them be returned or change the nature of the friendship. Instead, I tried to be the best platonic friend I could: sharing her exuberance over guys she'd met at college and giving her the soundest advice I could. When my crush on her wore off, I was rewarded by having a close female friend that I could ask for girl advice and share the excitement and disappointment of my own further crushes with. I still have that friend, though we've grown apart a little, since graduation, but it's a very healthy friendship, despite (or maybe even because of) overcoming a major obstacle.
We had fought, in that relationship, but I'll admit it wasn't ever as bad as in the friendship that was ended a month ago. There was, to be sure, plenty of blood in the water and plenty of blame to go around. There was a yearlong period when we didn't speak to each other after I was told to leave the church small group because I was contesting the manner in which their leadership was intervening in the situation. One year later, God brought about a series of events whereby these leaders acknowledged that what they'd done was wrong, part of a pattern of past abuses. Apologies were exchanged all around and I consider myself to have reconciled fully with the church at this point. Apologies were exchanged between myself and my friend, too. There were still unresolved issues, there was still blood in the water. Apologies don't automatically fix that. We had another fight, we apologized again. We weren't out of the woods yet, and I'll acknowledge that. Rebuilding the friendship and resolving the conflicts between us was something that was going to take a lot of effort on both sides.
But there was a way forward. We had agreed on that. We were close, I think, to taking a step that--whatever its outcome--would have laid a serious bone of contention between us to rest. If we'd continued on that path, maybe in a year or two we'd look back, as I and my friend from high school looked back, and been rewarded with a healthy, close, platonic friendship: strong in spite of or even because of everything it had overcome. That was my goal. It's possible, if God really willed it and worked in both of our hearts and minds to make it so, that we could have found ourselves with something more than friendship as well, but that would have been up to him to work out. I wasn't attempting to do that part or even decide for Him if it should be done. I was only aiming for the friendship.
But the girl didn't understand. I suppose I can understand that. She has no experience with walking that line, as I have. She doesn't know that good can come out of it. She probably doesn't even know the line is there. Her experience with platonic friendships and guys in general is, by her own admission, extremely limited, and her environment is probably only compounding that problem. But understanding where her actions are coming from doesn't make them hurt less. It doesn't make her unilateral decision to break off all contact on the verge of an important resolution any less shocking or painful. While it helps me see how she can think this is the right and healthy thing to do, it doesn't make the words any more true. It doesn't make them feel any less like arrows, telling me it is right, healthy, and good to treat me with a contempt she would (as she says) never show for a female friend. It doesn't make the loneliness of living and working without her in the place where we first became friends any easier to bear.
It's hard to feel pain. It's easier not to feel, sometimes. I think that's what I've been doing. If I bury myself in work, if I go to bed each night exhausted, then there's no room for emotions to bubble up to the surface. But I don't want to live that way. A life with a buried heart is a half life. Uncovering it and bringing it back to the surface probably means many tears, but it is better to cry and know you're alive than to feel nothing and wonder if you are already dead.
God has entered the equation as well. I cannot live without Him. I do not want to. It's plain to me from the Bible that He has no love of cold, loveless people going through the motions with buried hearts. If I approach Him, He will bear my heart. This is why I have avoided getting too close to Him. There is also that matter that He still says there is a future for me and this girl. I don't know if He will maintain that and bring it to pass. I do know that when He says it, by the very act of Him speaking into the area of romantic dreams in my life, He evokes everything the Bible says about marriage being a priceless picture of the relationship between Christ and the Church. I cannot have such a picture without Him in it, directing it. So I will not run off to pursue romantic dreams He doesn't first lead me into. If that means I wait here for Him to bring about what He's said about this girl, then I will wait. If I die waiting for Him to lead me into the picture that never comes about, I don't consider it loss. I could have run off on my own for something He wasn't leading in, true, but if I die waiting under His leading for something better, I die well, looking forward to some worthy thing, under the hand of One I trust.
I know that things are going to get worse before (if ever) they get better. I know I will be returning soon to the church I left. It is the next step I must take in my life, and in my reconciliation with the church itself. I will see the girl who was my friend again. It seems she has chosen to make that meeting hard for both of us, by making it one where her silence will be louder than a jackhammer. I am sorry she's decided to make it this way. I doubt it's a decision that will work out well for anyone. I wish I had a chance to talk with her about it, to find a way to make that inevitable meeting sweet instead of bitter, kind instead of cold. At the moment I don't. It will be painful, but I will press on, and keep my heart unburied, fully alive even in pain.
I've been keeping myself busy this past month.
I haven't been doing a lot here, on this blog, but I've been doing lots of writing, lots of playing video games, and lots of generally keeping myself extremely busy. In the past month, there are not many nights when I haven't put myself to bed exhausted, even though I could have gone to bed earlier and gotten a good night's rest.
I haven't read any further in the Book of Mormon. I actually read several chapters ahead from where I was in my last post and have a backlog of thoughts I need to write out, but I haven't gotten to writing any of them. I've also had a number of thoughts on political and social events in the country and in my life, but I haven't posted on those either.
Looking at it objectively, I have to say it isn't my lack of time that's to blame. I've had plenty of time, I've just chosen to spend it in different ways. I spent one weekend at a friend's wedding, and immediately thereafter spent every spare moment of the next two days beating the 2013 Tomb Raider. I don't regret either of those decisions, though honestly I should have spread my video-gaming time with Tomb Raider out a bit (but it was a very good game, very different from the rest of the series, so I hear). Since then, I've spent a "weekend" with my family (another decision I don't regret). There remains, though, plenty of time in which I could have written or done something else. During that time, I wound up surfing the web, playing video games, or writing fan fiction.
I won't say I've been wasting my time, since I don't think that's exactly true (the video games, for instance, spawned the fan fiction, which in turn spawned the realization that having a career as a writer doesn't have to wait, that there are steps I can take with older stories now in order to get me closer to realizing that dream, and to help me on the road to financial independence). But I will question my motivation for being so very, very busy, for avoiding the outdoors, spiritual contemplation, and anything to do with romance (with the exception of that friend's wedding). I suspect the reason is I'm hiding my heart.
A little over a month ago, a friend hurt me deeply when she declared, without warning, that she would never have any contact with me at all, ever again. We had been very good friends at one point, but I won't deny that our friendship was in trouble. We had a quite a history, with mistakes made on either side, and even mistakes brought into the situation by a church we both trusted. I had liked her almost from the beginning, and from the beginning had felt God was telling me that she and I would have a future, were meant to be in a relationship at some point. She doesn't see it that way. In itself, that gives us a fragile line to walk as friends. But, with me agreeing, as I have repeatedly and sincerely, to respect her wishes and stay just friends, to not pressure the friendship to be anything more than that, the line should have been possible to walk.
I know, because I walked that line before for two years with a girl I knew from high school into college, and from whom I still hear from time to time. I liked her but she didn't want to be anything more than friends, so that's what we were, just friends and very close friends at that. It was a little awkward at times, I admit, mostly when she asked me for advice about boys and gushed about her own crushes. I understood that the relationship was just a platonic one, though, that my feelings weren't returned, and I didn't try to make them be returned or change the nature of the friendship. Instead, I tried to be the best platonic friend I could: sharing her exuberance over guys she'd met at college and giving her the soundest advice I could. When my crush on her wore off, I was rewarded by having a close female friend that I could ask for girl advice and share the excitement and disappointment of my own further crushes with. I still have that friend, though we've grown apart a little, since graduation, but it's a very healthy friendship, despite (or maybe even because of) overcoming a major obstacle.
We had fought, in that relationship, but I'll admit it wasn't ever as bad as in the friendship that was ended a month ago. There was, to be sure, plenty of blood in the water and plenty of blame to go around. There was a yearlong period when we didn't speak to each other after I was told to leave the church small group because I was contesting the manner in which their leadership was intervening in the situation. One year later, God brought about a series of events whereby these leaders acknowledged that what they'd done was wrong, part of a pattern of past abuses. Apologies were exchanged all around and I consider myself to have reconciled fully with the church at this point. Apologies were exchanged between myself and my friend, too. There were still unresolved issues, there was still blood in the water. Apologies don't automatically fix that. We had another fight, we apologized again. We weren't out of the woods yet, and I'll acknowledge that. Rebuilding the friendship and resolving the conflicts between us was something that was going to take a lot of effort on both sides.
But there was a way forward. We had agreed on that. We were close, I think, to taking a step that--whatever its outcome--would have laid a serious bone of contention between us to rest. If we'd continued on that path, maybe in a year or two we'd look back, as I and my friend from high school looked back, and been rewarded with a healthy, close, platonic friendship: strong in spite of or even because of everything it had overcome. That was my goal. It's possible, if God really willed it and worked in both of our hearts and minds to make it so, that we could have found ourselves with something more than friendship as well, but that would have been up to him to work out. I wasn't attempting to do that part or even decide for Him if it should be done. I was only aiming for the friendship.
But the girl didn't understand. I suppose I can understand that. She has no experience with walking that line, as I have. She doesn't know that good can come out of it. She probably doesn't even know the line is there. Her experience with platonic friendships and guys in general is, by her own admission, extremely limited, and her environment is probably only compounding that problem. But understanding where her actions are coming from doesn't make them hurt less. It doesn't make her unilateral decision to break off all contact on the verge of an important resolution any less shocking or painful. While it helps me see how she can think this is the right and healthy thing to do, it doesn't make the words any more true. It doesn't make them feel any less like arrows, telling me it is right, healthy, and good to treat me with a contempt she would (as she says) never show for a female friend. It doesn't make the loneliness of living and working without her in the place where we first became friends any easier to bear.
It's hard to feel pain. It's easier not to feel, sometimes. I think that's what I've been doing. If I bury myself in work, if I go to bed each night exhausted, then there's no room for emotions to bubble up to the surface. But I don't want to live that way. A life with a buried heart is a half life. Uncovering it and bringing it back to the surface probably means many tears, but it is better to cry and know you're alive than to feel nothing and wonder if you are already dead.
God has entered the equation as well. I cannot live without Him. I do not want to. It's plain to me from the Bible that He has no love of cold, loveless people going through the motions with buried hearts. If I approach Him, He will bear my heart. This is why I have avoided getting too close to Him. There is also that matter that He still says there is a future for me and this girl. I don't know if He will maintain that and bring it to pass. I do know that when He says it, by the very act of Him speaking into the area of romantic dreams in my life, He evokes everything the Bible says about marriage being a priceless picture of the relationship between Christ and the Church. I cannot have such a picture without Him in it, directing it. So I will not run off to pursue romantic dreams He doesn't first lead me into. If that means I wait here for Him to bring about what He's said about this girl, then I will wait. If I die waiting for Him to lead me into the picture that never comes about, I don't consider it loss. I could have run off on my own for something He wasn't leading in, true, but if I die waiting under His leading for something better, I die well, looking forward to some worthy thing, under the hand of One I trust.
I know that things are going to get worse before (if ever) they get better. I know I will be returning soon to the church I left. It is the next step I must take in my life, and in my reconciliation with the church itself. I will see the girl who was my friend again. It seems she has chosen to make that meeting hard for both of us, by making it one where her silence will be louder than a jackhammer. I am sorry she's decided to make it this way. I doubt it's a decision that will work out well for anyone. I wish I had a chance to talk with her about it, to find a way to make that inevitable meeting sweet instead of bitter, kind instead of cold. At the moment I don't. It will be painful, but I will press on, and keep my heart unburied, fully alive even in pain.
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