I don't like what I write anymore.
It's unfortunate, a bit surprising, and most definitely chaos-inducing. This revelation has thrown my brain into quite an uproar, one side demanding an explanation as to why my voice isn't authentic, the other shouting that this is just a phase and accusing me of abandoning my writer-self. There are a lot of Sarah-selves running around up there, each auditioning for the part of my writing voice.
The real problem is that I read over several of my recent posts (basically since I moved here). It's not necessarily that I dislike the things I write about and the words I use. It's more that I don't feel that it rings true, it seems as though I've tried too hard to be authentic and ended up over-shooting. My words sound hollow to me, my conclusions too final, too immovable. I tried to end most posts with some redeeming sentences looking forward from each stopping point I reached and none of the little glimmers of hope that I ended with ever took root - they never affected me after I published the post and shut down my computer and went back to my life. Not one of them. And while I fully meant them at the time and they gave me hope as I was writing them, they seem fake and empty now. Like I was putting up this facade and trying to convince myself that I was going to change my life based on some revelation I had. And I never did it. Life has remained this pretty steady stream, slow-moving, a little stagnant, wondering when the fresh water and the rapids and the adventure will come in.
Maybe the problem is that I'm in a growing season (well, I guess that isn't exactly a problem, but whatever), one that I hadn't expected, and I've begun to move away from that sort of thing - those moments of trying so hard to be real, feeling like those little bits of hope are necessary to a body of mostly somewhat depressing words and thoughts. The thing about moving is that it strips you of every bit of your image. You know, you had your people and they had their ideas about you based on what you had shown them of yourself. Once you get past those initial weeks or months or whatever, you don't have to do too much work to maintain your image with these people, so you kind of chill out and nobody asks anymore questions. Being in a new place, nobody knows you. They don't have any preconceived ideas about you because they don't know anything about you, they haven't even heard of you before (crazy, right? Like who hasn't heard of me on this planet?). So basically you start out brand new. Not that you reinvent yourself necessarily, but you more or less get in touch with parts of you you had maybe closed off before you moved because you didn't really need them anymore. Or at least that's how it's been for me. It doesn't hurt that prior to moving I was kind of being forced into this mold I didn't fit in (thanks to the sorority) so lots of little parts of me became almost unnecessary and even got in the way sometimes. (Ridiculous that I let something rule me like that, but by the time I realized it I kind of didn't have a choice anymore. Judge me as you please.) And now I'm in a place where no one expects me to behave or talk or dress a certain way and I'm free to rule myself as I choose. It's freeing and exciting and a bit of an adventure...while at the same time making me feel vulnerable and unprotected and just out there, alone. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't. But I've started to grow into this other person, this person I haven't been yet that's some interesting and surprising amalgamation of all the people I have been. I think that's what's supposed to happen when you're turning 20 (which, by the way, is weird. Two whole decades on this planet and I'm just now figuring out where and how who I am and who I'm supposed to be are supposed to meet?).
II.
I've written before about how being in a new place means that pretty much every situation is new and uncomfortable (which you can read here) and it's still true. I've got some things I do regularly now - nannying, small group, church - but still nothing is entirely comfortable, not that kind of comfortable where you sigh contentedly and sit back into yourself and just enjoy everything without worrying about how much you should talk and trying to smile a lot. I have some friends...well I guess I do. It's funny: there is no point where you officially become friends with someone, you know? No time where you both say "hey so we're friends now, right?" It just kind of happens. Which is a beautiful thing and also a nerve-wracking thing, because for a while you're both kind of wondering if you're friends or not yet and what's acceptable based on the answer to that question. But then all of a sudden everything's cool and you start letting all your weirdness come out and you have jokes and you remember to ask about situations in each others lives. New friendships are really cool to watch grow and mine are constantly reminding me of grace and beauty and humanity.
I think that I've been in survival mode since I moved here. Like an animal about to go into hibernation*, I've been continually packing layers around myself for insulation. Like I'm afraid of the pain associated with leaving some of the people I love most dearly and the city I grew up in and charting the territory of a new city and the new people around me. And I've packed these layers so tight that they deaden every blow. They stop every emotion before it hits and soften it so that it barely affects me. While useful for the pain and loneliness and discomfort associated with moving, this practice has wounded the strength that I think is most important to women - emotion. And I hate it. I can't stand it. And I can't do anything about it, really. It's not like I can just start tearing these layers off of me because I've done a really great job of securing them - someone else has to do it for me. And I have to let Him, which is perhaps even harder than it would be to do it myself. It's scarier, certainly. Like how terrifying does this sound:
Father, please, I'm begging you, tear this insulation off of me.
Rip apart my self-defenses, my cocoon.
Dismantle the casing I've put on my heart.
Repair my deep connections to life and people and myself.
Let me feel everything again.
It's asking for vulnerability, inviting pain and sadness and rawness. But it is also asking for depth, inviting Joy and peace and new skin and new relationships to grow. To make this my prayer is to acknowledge that there are deaths in living, and that there is always life after those deaths. New skin always comes after the scab, it's just marked by a scar. And scarred skin has every bit of life that the skin before it had. But now it has a story.
*I don't know if animals actually pack layers around themselves when they're getting ready to go into hibernation, I just thought it sounded like a good analogy.
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