The past week or so has been hard on me. I caused a bike accident that resulted in my blown tire and bent wheel after only 15 minutes of riding. It had taken me over 30 minutes to get to the bike trail. Also, my wireless router broke, and the replacement I bought didn’t really work. I was worried about the latest batch of homebrew, that it had been a waste. On top of that, the stress of buying a home hung over my head.

Because of these things, I couldn’t cope with normal everyday stresses. It piled up.

Today there was a departmental party to celebrate the 50th year of service by one of our faculty members. My social stamina was already depleted, and I was feeling very anxious. I was shorter with people that I meant to be.

I’m feeling better today after hanging out with the Stufflebams and returning the gimp router for a new one. But man, anxiety had a strong hold on me. It’s still not going that well. It hasn’t been this bad for this long in a while, which is something to be proud of, I guess. But man, give me a fuckin’ break.

I question God at times like these. I find myself recounting all the bad stuff hanging over my head. It’s hard to count your blessings when you feel terrible. Then I think about Job, in the bible. Job is my hero. He lost everything he had, and still was loyal to God. I have only been going through small struggles in comparison, and my faith wavers. My greatest fear is being abandoned. Left alone. Like Job was.

I’ve learned that questioning one’s faith is important. If you question your faith and can’t find an answer, what do you really believe in? Ask why. Sometimes I forget to ask why.

I feel like I’m forever in a cycle of learning through painful experience. Life (or God) pushes me as far as I can take, sometimes farther. It’s scientific. I believe something, then I get broken, so I have to readjust my belief. I believe that thing until I have reason to change. Or maybe my faith waxes and wanes, each time maybe getting a little stronger.

I am wired to want to belong. It’s such a profoundly strong feeling, and yet I have desire of seclusion, too. I grow tired of fighting. Fighting God knows what. Myself, Life, God, who the fuck knows. But I feel like I’m always fighting something. I don’t really know what it is sometimes. And when that happens, I get anxiety. Sometimes intense anxiety. Pain, frustration. Helplessness.

It’s a shitty existence. I just want to belong. To feel like I belong. To something tangible. As much as I love my friends and they love me, I still feel it sometimes. It’s really difficult.

It’s turning cold outside. I like the cold. Something about it appeals to me. It’s the same with rain and snow. Something sad in them touches me. Makes me feel understood.

Smoking outside in the rain, listening to Radiohead. It reminds me of sitting out on the Pembroke porch at Belmont, watching the rain slowly fall in front of the lights in the quad, like snow. Cold, alone and melancholy, but not lonely. Relishing the feeling. Like sad poetry. Beautiful, but a little sad.

I still like that feeling sometimes.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Watching movies or TV shows about people in psych wards always pulls something up from inside of me. It reminds me of counseling. Pulling the poison from wounds. It reminds me of what it was like to cry with someone else, even if that person was a counselor. Someone who won’t be there anymore for me now that my counseling is over, during the day to day struggle.

It also reminds me how close I feel to them, those committed people. I’m not so different from them. I’m broken inside, too. Maybe no one is so dissimilar from them. Everyone is a little broken inside. Maybe the people in psych wards are just a little more broken than the rest of us.

I haven’t cried with anyone since counseling. I’m afraid. I go through things that I don’t tell my friends about. I think it makes me feel special, knowing that I’m going through a great struggle inside and they’re not. It makes me feel special, in some twisted way that makes sense to me.

There’s a line in Crocodile Dundee, where Mick learns about psychiatrists. He said, “What’re they?” “They talk to people about their problems.” “What, don’t they have any mates?”

Yes, I have mates. I don’t tell them what I’m going through. I feel like it’s a battle that they shouldn’t have to fight. It’s my fight. So I blog. I write it down. Maybe they’ll see it. And that “maybe” makes me feel a little better.

I found myself tonight wishing I was going to counseling again, so I could cry with someone. So I could really tell them how I felt without feeling like I was burdening them with my problems. I’m probably one of the most emotional people in my group of friends. I hide it the best I can. It’s like trying to hold in a sneeze. It leaks out somewhere else.

I’m broken inside. I want to just have my little sob session so that I can get it out of my system and go back to living the way I’m used to. But that’s not how it works, is it. Changing means taking action. It’s always the hardest part. Stepping off the ledge, even when you know there’s a net under you.

I’m just afraid. I’m afraid to trust someone I know. It’s harder to change existing relationships than to make new ones based on something else. I think, “They don’t understand what I’m going through.” And maybe they wouldn’t, even if I told them. Maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe they haven’t felt the sort of pain I’ve felt. Maybe they have. Maybe they haven’t felt intensely lonely like I have. Maybe they have.

In the end, it comes down to me. It stops being about, “Look at how much shit I have to go through that no one else does,” and, “Why me?” Eventually, I just want to get better. I want to stop comparing myself to someone else. Stop asking why me and not someone else. It gets tiring. I push myself to the edge with psychoanalysis, fighting myself, convincing myself of this or that. I eventually stop and say, “What can do to be better?” It always takes a really long time. If I solve this puzzle, what will I do next? How ‘bout, be happy, you jackass. I’m afraid to let myself be happy.

But the psychologists are right. You just have to start talking. Eventually, what really matters comes to the surface.

They say being a 4 is the hardest. Small comfort. It’s a cop out.

Whenever I feel despair, God takes the edge off. Tonight I needed comfort, and I got some. I don’t feel whole, but it was enough to help me. Precious bit of rope to help me pull myself up, at least some of the way.

I don’t know why many of my friends have found their soulmates and I haven’t. God knows. He’s not telling. Being around them is a constant reminder that I’m single. My single friends are precious few, and they have lives of their own.

It used to not bother me. But, it’s hard for me to deny that it makes me feel defective. What’s wrong with me? The answer I have to tell myself is, “Nothing.” Any other answer is pointless. Suck it up, keep moving. One foot in front of the next. The sun always rises after the sunset. Twist me this way and that. I can take it. I have to take it. I have no other choice.

And when I can’t take it anymore, when I feel despair, God gives me a little pick-me-up. A little comfort so I can take some more punishment. All for some goal in the future that I don’t know anything about. I persist because that’s all there is to do. It’s the only healthy thing to do.

Heh. Healthy. What the fuck does that word mean.

God loves me. I know that. I love God, or, at least I try to. I want to. I pray for the desire to do good instead of evil.

I receive an enormous amount of support from my friends. Without them, I don’t know where I would be. They may not know how much they help me. I thank God for them every single day.

I hope that I can one day be like Job. Job is one of my spiritual heroes. He got completely destroyed, and yet his faith astounds me. He lost everything but his soul, and yet he praised God anyway. I fear that that could happen to me. I rely too heavily on some things. I’m terrified that one day it will all be gone. Paul said he counted all things as loss compared to the knowledge of Christ. Can I be like that someday? I don’t know.

Sleep time.