4.5.20

I named this blog the way I did to remind me to remain hopeful; I tend toward pessimism that I call realism, and that's not a recipe for a joyful posture.

I'm on lockdown with everyone else, and the weekends are the hardest- I don't have my set work to do and so I usually sleep later than I ought to, calling it self-care- which it can be, but usually isn't- and end up in a kind of foggy, ultra-introspective headspace that makes me sad. 

I was in the shower, talking to myself like I do, and I said, "I am too hard on myself." Which is super true, I know it, my friends and family know it, but it wouldn't feel like a huge issue if it was reasonable. I push too far because once I reach the initial goal, I see there's still something to be had beyond it and call myself a loser if I don't go the extra couple, or dozen, or hundred steps to get there. When I don't do the absolute most in the most flawless way, I call myself weak, a failure, a lazy bum who won't amount to anything if I keep this same subpar work ethic up; my own worst critic. 

That also wouldn't be a problem if I didn't believe me. I believe a lot of those things about myself, and even though I know better, they have the power over me to define me to myself. Only my Lord is the rightful holder of that power, and I don't always give it to Him. 

I was talking with a friend of mine yesterday about identity. I said that I don't know how to apply the Gospel's message on identity to my life. Like we know and hear over and over that Jesus calls us loved and forgiven and redeemed, but what does that look like for me when I feel like my mom is mad at me or when I feel like if I had just said this differently, we could've avoided a fight? What does that look like day-to-day when I'm wrong?

Routinely, I tell myself that being wrong makes me bad. I am not a good person, I am not the right person, enough for everything that's around me, and that makes me bad, I say.

But, enter shower rant:

Tonight on American Idol, on of the ladies who made it to the top 20 was going over her Hollywood Week performance and how Katy Perry was rooting for her; she said that hearing Katy Perry say she 'killed it' during her performance changed the way she saw herself. Me and my argumentative self want to know why that is? Any rando on the street could tell you you did a great job and it wouldn't mean nearly as much or make nearly the impact that it did coming from Katy Perry. Why? 

Katy Perry is an expert in her field; she has a wealth of knowledge and experience that give her authority in the art of vocal performance. Her word is validated, supported, fleshed out by who she is. 

Now, imagine some guy invents a brand new field in machine technology; he imagines, designs, and builds these machines that do all types of different stuff- everything about these machines, every detail, no matter how small, or mundane, or seemingly insignificant, is put in place with by this creator. He knows each machine- inside, outside, and in the middle- he knows how each one functions, he knows how fast each one goes, he knows which ones have crooked wheels and which ones have crossed wires. 

As the creator of the machines, nothing he says of them would be false- not on purpose (he has no reason to lie about what's his), and not on accident (he would only accidentally say something untrue about them if there was something he didn't know or understand about them)- so everything he says about them, no matter what it is, is absolutely unquestioningly, true.

As time goes on in this metaphorical world some of the machines crop up as experts in the field concerning themselves; they start presenting their opinions, about which kinds of machines are best suited for which jobs, about which machines look better than the others, about what the future holds for the machines. And they're experts, they have the credentials that say how many hours they've spent and how many other experts they've talked to to learn all these things about themselves and the machines around them, and the other machines see those creds, and they see the way other machines agree about them, and they say, "How could it not be true?"

But the creds and certificates are actually overkill- the machines don't need a degree to come up with believable opinions about themselves, they just have to be able to think, and once they start in on it, they start believing everything they say about themselves, and if they're honest, they're not kind to themselves, and yet they believe that all the harsh things they beep at themselves are just hard truths, that they really are worthless, broken, damaged and defective machines; and, if they listen just the right way, they'll hear the other machines say the same.

What if though, what if that guy who created the machines, the guy who can't lie about them, the guy who knows every dent, scratch, and loose bolt in every single different machine, what if he had stuff to say to them? If he told a machine it was more valuable than all the gold in the world, that would be true. If he told a machine that he knew about its slow work, and its bad attitude, and the wheel that the other machines stole from it, and if he told a machine that- in spite of all of that- it was a good machine, that would be true. 

I was running circles in my head telling myself how much of a mess I am, how I just can't get it right, how if I would just try a little harder, we would do better next time, and I will do it again, but I know that will drive me crazy. Different stuff gets me out of it each time, and this time it was this:

I know God made me. If He made me, then He knows me, He knows about my happiest memories and my favorite music and how I love when the wind is strong enough to scare me; He knows about my addiction, He knows about my dark December, He knows my every thought; He made me, so He knows me. Because He made me, and because He knows me, He can only say true things about me. He says that I am good. He says that I am good- even with my darkness and my anger and my corruption, He says I am good. That means that I am good whether I feel like I am or not; He says that when He looks at me he calls me good and faithful. The words themselves don't change my frame of mind or how I see myself at a point in time, it's who says them to me. Because of who He is- He of all authority, all expertise, all knowledge, all experience about me- He is the only One who can say what is true about me. 

4.2.20

I've made blogs before, they weren't consistent then and this one isn't likely to be either. I'm not doing this to hold anyone's attention, I'm not trying to entertain, this is more an outlet for me than anything, kind of a way to journal when I'm not in the mood to go find my journal and write stuff out by hand.

I've read some of my old posts, and as folks tend to do when they read any old thing they've written, I finished about two sentences and cringed away... there's some kind of background motive for this to not turn out that way, I don't want to disappoint my future self. But that's also not really a way to operate, people discount the future. If you didn't, how would you function? There's enough of a feeling that someone's looking over my shoulder, I don't want to have to deal with someone staring me down as I walk towards them, too.

The title of this blog is A Work in Progress, which I am. The url is boughtandpaidfor, which I also am. I don't know when exactly I became a Christian... I was raised with the general belief system, we started going to church when I was twelve, and I really got to know Jesus when I got to college. All the in between is rocky and dark and interesting, but more than I want to unpack right now. I don't know why I feel the need to lay out who I am if I'm rejecting the idea of an audience...

That's my identity that's true, that's the already. But I am dealing with all the hang ups in the not yet.

One of those is my parents' opinions.
This virus has me on house arrest for the next few weeks at least, realistically longer, and at first that was fine; I'm a homebody by default, so having an excuse to stay in, not make plans, felt great for the first week or so. We're in the end of week two now and tensions are running high in the house.
Maybe that's an exaggeration, it's not like everyone's fighting all the time, we're not, so maybe tensions are just high for me.

My dad and I are making a kind of clearing behind our house, just beyond a thicket in the woods; we're going to cover the whole clearing surface with rocks, and in the middle we're going to put a giant plastic drum down in the ground, surround that with rocks, and burn stuff in it.
Dad and I talked up the idea sometime last year and have just gotten around to doing it. The only issue- the first link in the chain that leads up to my retrospectively melodramatic idea to create a venting blog- is that a couple months ago my mother built a good and proper firepit in our backyard. She worked really hard, and it works well; we had a family bonfire the other night, it was great.

She is less than thrilled when she saw us making the pit. She feels that A- we're going to set the forest on fire by accident, and B- that we're showing up her firepit, oh and C- that Dad and I are trying to separate from the group- the full group being both my parents, my brother, and myself.

This makes it very hard to enjoy making this thing; I feel like I'm engaging in open rebellion against my mother, consciously doing something that makes her upset, but stopping working on it so that she wouldn't be mad would be a coward's move- running from something that's harmless as soon as Mom says she doesn't approve- it's a people-pleaser move. I just want to fix it.
Mom's detaching the idea of the pit from me so she can just set her anger on Dad; she told me, 'I know it wasn't your idea,' and I told her it was, it really was both mine and Dad's idea. Why does it matter to me how they feel?

It's apparently human to care about other peoples' opinions, it's part of wanting to be known and seen and loved by the people around you, that makes sense to me. But I want to be selective with that, I want to only give that power to the people who won't ever use it badly. But that takes the risk out of it and so won't work.
I'm almost 20 years old and I forget who and how to be as soon as one of my parents says they don't like something I'm doing; I guess that's a good power to have as a parent, you can guide your kid away from stuff that's actively bad for them, but working on a project with my dad isn't bad for me, it's not hurting anything. Mom is always preaching logic and critical thinking and facts over feelings, but her feelings are illogical.

Why do they matter so much to me? She wasn't abusive, so it's not like a certain feeling triggers some warning that if I can't turn stuff around soon I going to get physically hurt. I don't like it when they disagree... maybe that's something- I can handle if both of them tell me, '___ made us mad,' then I feel like at least they're together on the thing- there are two clear-cut sides, mine and theirs. It's not Mom's and Dad's then mine somewhere in the middle... so that's a conclusion of sorts: it's less the actual irritation that bothers me and more the irritation at each other over something I'm a part of that frazzles me. But that still doesn't answer why I can't deal with Mom and I having an argument without resolving it and having to walk around the house dealing with her all angry or whatever. It sucks the energy out of me, like how am I supposed to just carry on as usual without it seeming like I'm rubbing it in her face? I have to acknowledge her feelings, I have to tell her that I see that she's mad and that I'm sorry and that I'll fix it. But that's not healthy. Her feelings aren't wrong, they don't need to be fixed. I need to figure out how to sit in the same room as them without letting them change the way I feel, but the how to do that stems from the why it's even a problem in the first place, and that's still unclear.

Could she have been manipulative early on? Maybe, but I don't know and I don't know that that's fair- or maybe I'm worried about her finding this someday and accusing me of being unfair... hypothetical manipulation could explain it- say I learned that when whoever was sad, it was my job to make them unsad, and that if I didn't then they would... what? Call me heartless, or uncaring, or mean? I don't want to be any of those things.

So say it stems from there: I don't want to be thought of or seen as not kind, as wrong, and if Mom's mad then something must've been done wrong, and if she's mad at something I did or was involved in, then I did that something wrong and I could have kept her from being angry by not doing whatever it was, by hiding it from her, by doing everything I can to show her that I'm doing the right thing the right way. I made sure to explicitly invite my brother to come work on the pit, I'm ashamed to say, not because I particularly wanted him to come along that time, but so that I could tell Mom that I tried to include him.

We're not taking sides, its a firepit, we're not trying to show you up, we're just trying to build a nice thing in the woods- open to the public. Maybe we could make a little fort or an overhang facing the fire, maybe it could be like a clubhouse or something when my brother and I have kids. I wish Mom would've seen how proud of this thing I was, how excited I am, how many ideas I've got for it...

I also wish Dad would give me a definitive direction when I say anything about the pit. I could say, 'Do you want to widen the circle?' and he'll say, 'I don't care, there's no rhyme or reason to this thing.' Yes there is what do you mean- we planned this, we had a plan when we started the whole thing, of course there's a rhyme and a reason to this thing- so with the way he was handling it, it was like it was becoming more and more my project, and more his outlet for cabin fever, and so Mom's anger about the fire pit should be directed at me primarily, because I'm the most enthusiastic about it. Disagreeable enthusiasm is met with disproportionate anger... that's a little dramatic again- Mom controlled herself and told me she's not mad at me- I could go on and on, but I won't...

There's hope. Where there's frozen ground, there's progress to be had.
Ultimately, the only approval I need is that of my Lord- His love is enough for me, it just doesn't feel like it sometimes, but that is nothing but human and is where God's strength is made perfect.