Which to Bury, Us or the Hatchet (part 1)

In the grandest tradition of works like Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, and as a way to take a minor structure detour for the sake of breaking up monotony, today's post is presented as a conversation.  The unnamed and unrepresentative will be in quotations and bolded, while my responses will appear without.

 

"Where is the title from?"

The title is a Relient K that I've been almost completely incapable of not listening to the last few days.  There is something in it.  It could be the incredibly poignant nature of the lyrics in relation to STILL relevant events in my life.  Maybe.

"So, before we get meaty, what are you planning on re-opening with?"

Well, what do I say now?  How do I write a blog post?  There are things to be said, for sure.  But its been so long.  And while there are things, its like none of them are worth saying.  That'll come up again later, I'm calling it now.

But I'm doing it.  Here I am writing again, after nearly two full weeks.  So, why?  Well apparently taking such a long hiatus from cataloging a rather dull period of existence, at least outside my head, qualifies as grounds for a death threat.  And a death threat is, I believe, sufficient motive to do something so simple as writing a blog post.  So part of the answer is found there, that on the same day multiple people contacted me to see what had happened.  And the other is, if I don't do it, I don't know when I will.  So we hop back in.

"Now that I've asked the questions out of sequence to satisfy for your obsessive need for "proper" structure, let's ask the real, burning question:  What did you have for dinner?"

Ha, well at first it was junk food over at Jeff's, but I got proper with left-over Sicilian style pizza at near midnight with some apple slices and caramel.  Thanks for asking.

"Okay, really though, why has it been so long since you've posted?  Where have you been?"

Wow, well . . . the simple answer?  Busy.  No, really.  My family has decided to renovate the room above the garage, which has meant work days sometimes in excess of 12 hours, in an atmosphere actually worse than being outside, while we were having 90 degree days.  Add in a reading streak that included polishing off three 600+ pages books in 2 days, and so much page turning two of my fingers actually turned black, and you start to get the picture.  Add in regular jaunts with the movie club (now over sadly) and Kairos, with a racing venture on Friday night and an ill-conceived party attendance on Saturday and you've got a good picture.  The good news is that the party yielded a fantastic quote:

"C'mon, Zach, let's take off your pants and dance."

"Please don't touch me." - delivered as serious as I could manage

"Haha.  Really?"

Um, yeah.  But you probably shouldn't ask questions like that.

"Why?"

Well, seeing as how you are a figment of my imagination and therefore you already know the answer, its kind of a waste of time.  So we can just streamline everything by knocking off questions like that.

"But questions like that help "sell the sizzle" of this presentation method that is my entire reason for being used.  I mean, that's what makes it real."

*uncomfortable silence while staring ensues*

I wish I had imagined someone significantly less annoying than you.

"So did you know this girl?"

Yes, we hooked up in high school.  No, I really did not want her touching me.

Being chaste and a non-drinker made me quite the oddity that night, so much so I thought of charging admission to see me.  Yet there must of been some sort of odd appeal.  Dave ended up making me a sign that said "celibate" to keep me from unwanted attention.  Though I imagine most of those girls would have trouble with that word sober.  Why did I go?

"Great question, consider it asked."

pcchhh.  Evangelism.  Boredom.  A friend asked me to DD and was too cheap to spring for me to go watch a movie.

What's really important is that it demonstrates something I talked about with Nick the other day, which is my utter inability to meet someone in whom I'd be interested without the intervention of Christ.  See the paradoxical puzzle is this:  I'm outgoing, but typically standoffish with girls, call it intimidation, fear of rejection, call it I'm just not the go start talking to a random girl type.  I did it in high school all the time, but since I started following the Lord, well, ya know, personality overhaul.  Heather's the only girl I've ever done that with.  Those two Heathers from 4th of July weekend, they both started talking to me.

So the paradox is, I'm not the type to approach girls, certainly not at random and only marginally more so when I do know them.  And the kind of girl I am interested in, is actually something of the shy/initially quiet type, so it stands that any girl who approaches me, is not what I'm going for either.  And there's the paradox.

And yet none of that matters.  Because I know where it ultimately comes from, but I don't know how I ultimately feel about that whole area of my life.  Yeah, I started looking for something from God last week.  Don't feel like I got much out of that.  And internally, as bad a compass as that tends to be, I have no idea.  Sometimes I feel I can't wait for something to happen.  Sometimes I can't stand the idea of being with anyone, even though its in an obvious abstract.  And sometimes I can't imagine loving anyone more than I still love Heather.  What a load of crap.

"Going way far back though, you said that was the simple answer.  What's the complicated one?"

Well . . . it kind of goes like this.

There was a very odd collusion of events.  After my last post I did Kairos the next day, blah, CAKE the next night, with some odd news that's really been more of a roller coaster than the amazing news it should have.  So that night or the next I realize someone had left this fairly disagreeable comment on a recent post of mine.

I talked to the venerable Brian about it, who gave typically sage advice, "pray about it, see if there's any truth in the criticism, then deal with that."  Brain's so great.  I tell him the things I can't tell you people.

Then that weekend I put on my big girl panties and went on the CIL young adult whitewater rafting trip.  Yes, I had a great time.  No, I'm still not sure I feel like a part of things there.

The whole way down for some reason I was contemplating the abstract of having a significant other, and I couldn't stand the idea.  It sounded like such an annoyance.  The idea of having to talk to someone regularly.  Of being open like so, of gentle and vulnerable and dependable.  Of constant and shared.  Of so many other things.  Made my skin crawl.  And then that night, Nick and Jonathan and I stayed up til past 4 talking, like some middle school girls.  And it was an amazing time.  And I wanted someone in my life.  And none of those feelings really count for much.  Which is good, because they don't make any sense.  But then again, this is me we're talking about.

So then Sunday I think was when things actually broke.  For reasons I choose not to expound on, I ended Sunday in a pretty funky mood.  And despite a great time at Kairos on Tuesday, I couldn't seem to shake it.  And at some point, I'm not even sure what day, it hit me.

You sir, are not alive.

I was retreating from all human relationships.  I was completely devoid of any introspection, leaving all of my thoughtlife unexamined.  I was passing through days without ever feeling like I accomplished anything, wondering what had happened.  Feeling curtained off from life.  Feeling drawn toward sin.  Completely uninterested in reading the Word or praying.  And all that still doesn't quite describe the full measure.  I just knew.

This is what it feels like to be dead.

I was under spiritual attack.  And I never even saw it.  And I certainly wasn't ready.  And to be honest I still haven't dealt with it properly, more just recognized it.

"Wow, that's pretty serious."

Are you still here?

"This is running long, lets take a break and start another post."