A Broken Hallelujah

I take a bath – because John and I still don’t have the shower curtain up – and I just sit there. I had just run my hair under the faucet and I just sit there because my heart had grown so heavy.

I watch and listen as the water that collects in my hair drops into the stagnant bath tub water. It is like small tears coming down from a jet black sky.

I sit in my room and stare out my window. On the sill are the little trinkets I bought or friends bought me from our travels around the world. On one side are the miniature terra cotta statues that I bought at The Great Wall of China getting taller and taller. Right next to that stands the Russian politician matroyoshka doll that my friend Lori bought me descending in size.

Next to me on the floor lay the brochure for a fresh start in New Haven, Conn. I can’t open it. I lay myself down and take a heavy breath.

I don’t know what to do. Deep down in my heart, I feel myself repressing a panic attack. Its been so long since I’ve had one of these. The feeling at first is foreign and exciting, but the familiar feeling of drowning comes back, and now I remember.

“It’ll get better soon,” they say. “Just wait a little more, and you’ll feel more comfortable there.”

I fight it every day. It creeps back more and more each day. It lurks into every part of me. It binds me. Tears at me. Steps on me. And then, numbs me. I can feel the pressure. Its why its getting harder to wake up. Its why my eyes keep shutting. Its what suppresses my voice. Its what chains me down.

I’m breaking.

Brokenness

Has done more for me than trying to uphold  this facade of strength and stability.I’ve been the most honest and most close with God when I’ve been yelling at him and telling him how mad I am and how frustrated I am at not being able to understand anything that’s going on.I’m more comfortable knowing God comes to me where I am and says, “Hey, no one’s perfect, but that’s why my son died for you.”Not that I want to continue in my imperfections. If anything, its my imperfections that cause the problems that I have now: impatience, restlessness, a keen love of rebellion, a loose tongue, etc. etc. The list goes on.But what good does it do when I go to church or talk to God and I completely hide all that from him? If I can’t even show the freaking creator of the universe and of my every individual taste buds the bad side of me, then what good am I? Who am I?Duplicity. A presupposed perfect life in front of God and the more substantive, yet significantly more human, life in front of my friends. I’d rather let God see the real me. At least then, I’m not being two-faced in front of the only person who supposedly can see the real me.What’s the point of having brokenness in my life if I plan to keep it forever? Say no thank you to pity. Its just another invitation for the wrong kind of attention. Welcome love, compassion and friendship instead from your community and from a God who created man to possess and to give those three things to each other.Embracing my brokenness and giving it up to God has been a lot more difficult than anything that I’ve ever had to do. But its so liberating to know that there is someone out there who is willing to take on my brokenness and really be able to o something about it beyond words. 

I’m Not Quite Sure Why

I torture myself so much. These days, I tend to be much more of a pessimist than I’ve ever been. I feel like I’m in high school again because, once again, I’m so unsure about myself. I’m afraid to take action, to not take action and even of the action itself. Being back in college, well, has been good in the sense that it has been distracting my days enough to keep me from running away, but its also been fairly lonely since I’ve been purposely divorcing myself from the social circles I was in before. Sometimes, I worry that I’m never going to fall in love, never going to find my niche, never going to escape this town, never going to be right with God and never find what I’m supposed to do with my life.

There Are Just Some Days…

When I just absolutely need a cup of coffee and a conversation about absolutely nothing with my best friends.

Retrospection.

Taking seven months away from school, away from North Carolina, away from the drama and crassness of the every day life I’ve become so used to was the best decision that I’ve made in the longest while.

It was incredibly difficult to go to a city like Ocala, where I didn’t know anyone, and start a new life from scratch. But the result was parallel self-dependence and dependence on God.  Its not that I never failed while I was there, but the initial loneliness I had those first few months really served to help me realize who I am outside of the academic, ethnic and geo-cultural models.

The friends I made my time in Orlando, many of whom I have known for years, became so strong that I’ve come to consider them my family. They are the ones I know that I can turn to if anything happens. And its the first time that leaving a place and a group of people has pained me so much.

Leaving my church in Orlando has been incredibly difficult as well.  Yes, I admit, that I’ve had my share of laughs making fun of the materialism that sometimes pervades our group. But the fact that they are so open about it, and that the church was more than just a building, but a haven for the brokenness that I harbor in my own life was a real first.

Now, I’m back to a different kind of materialism. Whereas the materialism I noticed at my church in Orlando was more about the hair, the skinny black jeans and the free-trade organic coffee, the materialism I notice here is who has the biggest newest house, who owns the newest most decked-out cars and who shops the most at the luxury stores at the malls.

Its not that much of a difference I guess, but at the same time, at least we weren’t trying to out do one another in Orlando with our possessions.  And then there’s the drama. The endless endless amount of drama that pervades all levels of the Korean society.  I won’t even get into that.

It’s going to be a tough year.

I’m taking more classes at one time than I ever have before. 48 credit hours in 10 months.  I’m also earnestly looking for jobs and apartments in Boston, New York, Chicago and Orlando. I’m looking for a new community of friends and Jesus followers. And I’m confused about love.

Prayer… is very vital for survival this next year.

I Hate Haircuts

Especially when they are done by people who don’t know what the heck they are doing.I made the mistake of saying I was getting a haircut today in front of some Korean women. Of course, one of them is a hair stylist and says she can cut my hair for me for $12 bucks right there, in that house.I think, ‘Why not?’ and go get changed in some shorts and a t-shirt.I show her this picture of what I wanted my hair to look like:   And instead, this is what she gives me:Which when it dries, turns to this:  …Seriously.Come on.Freaking learn how to cut hair the way the customer asks you before you decide to open up shop.Thanks. 

Save Me. I’m In North Carolina.

The moment I crossed the I-95 borderline from South Carolina to North Carolina – which is marked by the enigmatic “South Of The Border” highway freakshow/theme park/rest stop – I couldn’t help but let out a string of four-letter words of despair.

I was somewhat ready to leave Florida. It was hot, muggy and humid. I hate that kind of weather, especially after having been in Mongolia where the summer weather was 75 to 80 degrees. But I really wasn’t ready to leave my best friends and my new family behind to go back to what I felt was the chaos that I left behind back in the Old North State.

I went to church today, and I avoided as many people as possible. There were awkward hugs and handshakes, but I managed to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge – and pirouette – around the majority of people.

I have already noticed my tone and general mood throughout the day is really different than what it was back in Orlando. And when I have nothing to do, there’s no one to call, there’s no place to go.

Saturday, I was so bored that Jessica and I went to Chick Fil A and ate and sat there for an hour with Jennifer Kong – to whom I finally apologized in person for losing her Friends DVDs and gave her the ones I bought in China.

And my saving grace today was seeing Frances who went to Mongolia with me and eating the only redeeming thing about this entire state – Bojangles.

I’m very ready to go back to my friends back in Florida. I can deal with the weather. But I can’t deal with not having my best friends around me anymore.

I Skid Off The Highway On The Way Back Home

No damage to anything though.

A car cut me off and slammed on the brakes so I had to skid off the highway, nearly hit the cable guard rail and another car that had already skid of the road just ahead of me.

After we towed it back onto the road, the steering wheel was really shaky at 50 to 70 mph, so my friend Sarah Owen and I searched for about an hour and a half and 70 miles for a place that could align my car and balance my tires on a Friday late afternoon.

And here are the pictures of the fun that ensued.

http://www.flickr.com/slideShow/index.gne?user_id=11586231@N00&tags=highway

NBC News’ Brian Williams’ Reactions to the Manifesto

Brian Williams talked about NBC’s decision to broadcasting the dark and disturbing manifesto of the Virginia Tech shooter last night on NBC Nightly News.

As quoted from the New York Times on April 20, 2007:

In an interview last night on MSNBC, Mr. Williams said NBC had been concerned about the sensitivities of broadcasting as much of the material as it did.

“This was a sick business tonight, going on the air with this,” he said.

South Korea Wants to Apologize?

President Roh Moo-Hyun held a special meeting with aides Wednesday to discuss the shooting and figure out further steps to ease the situation.The president is expected to make a statement of apology at an event in Seoul Wednesday afternoon. His office has already issued two statements of condolence about the mass killings.

I can understand if the president of South Korea wants to send condolences to the victims and families, but he wants to issue a statement of apology?

That just says that South Korea is at fault for the problems of one former resident. Did President Clinton apologize after two American students in Littleton, Colo., slew 13 people?

Did Muslim leaders apologize for the radical acts of a select few on 9/11?

“On behalf of my people, I want to apologize for their mistakes.”

I saw reading the comments on The Daily Tar Heel’s story about the massacre, and I saw that someone had mentioned that because his parents are dry cleaners, that he may have been exposed to certain chemicals that made him insane.

What the hell.