getting harder to believe in anything

There’s a lot going on in my head lately.  I really need to start writing or get back into therapy or something.  I need to find a way to work out all these problems and issues in my head.  I’ve started to be able to identify some of the definite problems.  I don’t relate to people out here and they don’t relate to me.  As the days go by I feel more and more like the only thing I have in common with these people is that we’re all Christians.  They aren’t bad people, and I don’t hate them or even strongly dislike most of them.  But we don’t have a lot of common ground.  The response I get from my mother is "Why do you think your father and I left that area?"  Well, kudos Mom, but I can’t leave yet and I don’t have someone else to even share the misery.  She and my dad had each other, which is more than I have right now.  The closest I can come right now to someone I relate to and like and want to spend time with is the married man in our small group who lives in Indiana, Paul.  I don’t have romantic feelings toward him, so its not complicated.  Or perhaps that all makes it more complicated.  I don’t want to do anything that makes him feel uncomfortable or somehow come between him and his wife.  I don’t think he has any romantic feelings for me either, so I suppose that makes things simpler.  This is just uncharted territory for me.  I have married friends, but they are mostly women or men I knew before they were married.  Our friendship was established and we knew where we all stood.  Maybe I’m making more of this than it is with him, but I just don’t know.  I never want to cause problems in a marriage and I know a married man being friends with a single woman can cause problems.  I just don’t know the pitfalls.

But back to being alone…  I don’t have girlfriends out here, or good guy friends.  I’m too different from everyone out here and I don’t fit in.  Its frustrating and lonely.  I end up feeling combative and defensive, which throws up walls and facades all over the place.  I didn’t even realize how many of them I had put up until the other night when I tried to take them down.  I couldn’t.

Fredonia wasn’t perfect and I wasn’t always wonderfully happy.  I know all this and I’m trying to remember it.  But I’m starting to see some definite differences, like being un-relatable and unable to relate.  There aren’t the natural common grounds like there was in Fredonia.  But another thing is I’ve lost my sense of purpose and my "war-call" so to speak.  When I started out in Fredonia I really related to a song from the musical Wicked, in particular these lyrics:

So if you care to find me
Look to the western sky
As someone told me lately
Everyone deserves the chance to fly
And if I’m flying solo
At least I’m flying free
To those who’d ground me
Take a message back from me
Tell them how I am defying gravity….

The song goes on and there’s more before it.  But it was my rally song, my war-cry when things started getting hard.  Did I fall?  Did I screw up?  Of course, but I always knew I was flying free and defying gravity.  I don’t have a war-cry for here.  I feel like I’m floating out in this ambiguous space, without purpose or direction.

I can’t fix the relating problem directly.  I can try my best to relate and reach out, and in reverse be open and honest.  That’s easier said than done.  But the war-cry – that I might be able to do.  So I’ve been listening to music and trying to find something that fits.  With all the music I’ve got and know I should be able to find something.  And tonight I think I found something pretty close.  Maybe I’ll find something better, but right now this seems to fit the best.  It might sound depressing and pathetic, but in its acceptance of hitting the bottom, there is hope.  I may be heading for a cliff, but like the song says, I think I’ll realize I’m better off.

I scraped my knees while I was praying
And found a demon in my safest haven
Seems like it’s getting harder to believe in anything
Than just to get lost in all my selfish thoughts

I wanna know what it’d be like
To find perfection in my pride
To see nothing in the light
I’ll turn it off, in all my spite
In all my spite, I’ll turn it off

And the worst part is
Before it gets any better
We’re headed for a cliff
And in the free fall
I will realize I’m better off
When I hit the bottom

The tragedy, it seems unending
I’m watching everyone I looked up to break and bending
We’re taking shortcuts and false solutions
Just to come out the hero

Well, I can see behind the curtain
(I can see it now)
The wheels are cranking, turning
It’s all wrong, the way we’re working
Towards a goal that’s non-existent
It’s not existent, but we just keep believing

And the worst part is
Before it gets any better
We’re headed for a cliff
And in the free fall
I will realize I’m better off
When I hit the bottom

I wanna know what it’d be like
To find perfection in my pride
To see nothing in the light
I’ll turn it off, in all my spite
In all my spite, I’ll turn it off
Just turn it off
Again, again, again

And the worst part is
Before it gets any better
We’re headed for a cliff
And in the free fall
I will realize I’m better off
When I hit the bottom

Turn It Off ~ Paramore