Dear Augustine,
We chatted just the other night and it was lovely. I so love getting to talk with you, and for some reason, I always want to talk to you the most right after we've just spoken. I think because talking to you just feels so natural and good that it never feels like we've had enough time. I know someone is really special in my life when it feels like that. :)
I had fortuitously found my five year plan, and we talked about that fragile and raw faith...the sort that feels so difficult to share, and you're just so exhausted because you don't want to try and defend it or convince anyone. You just want to...I'm not sure. Sit with it? Stay there and hope that it doesn't fade away too quickly? Guard it because it feels precious? All of those things?
The other thing that struck me though about that piece is that...I'm mostly in the same place as I was then. I'm in the same job, same living situation, same lack of relationship. Same friendships, same loneliness when I feel the reality of how far away my closest friends live. The only significant difference in my life since then is...my friendship with R, I think. (Edit: actually...my new Master's program is new. That's unequivocally life-giving. I feel myself when I'm in classes and learning.)
It makes me feel stuck. I feel like I haven't been moving for five years, and it's not that I haven't learned a lot and done so much at my job. There has been so much that has happened since then, but nothing that's changed the circumstances of my life. I just feel older and weightier. That line of Bilbo's comes to mind...I am "like butter scraped over too much bread."
I know that changes (at least in my job) are on the horizon, and will be here sooner than I can imagine. Changes in social situation? Perhaps that will come with the new job? I do have a very close friend that just moved home from Algeria, and I've been spending more intentional time with my cousins, so that's helped a bit.
But I don't know where I'm going at all. For the most part I don't know what I want. I can't even really picture a dream job, because right now I'm just so freaking burnt out and in survival mode. I keep reassuring myself that 1) in March or April when I'm applying I might be in a better head space for it and 2) that I won't be trapped. Finding a new job doesn't mean it's got to be forever. If it's not the right fit, I can leave. Or just take breathing time to figure it out.
I read this book recently called Designing Your Life and it suggested writing multiple five year plans. Alternative paths that future!Athena could take, even if they don't all feel achievable, or if you want a particular path. I think it's exactly what I need to do...I just don't know if I'm ready yet. I don't know if I'm ready to try and put words to what I want. At least a couple of those things feel fragile in the same sort of way that that faith does. Things I'm afraid will never come true, and that expressing those dreams, even as a possible future, will just be too painful. That feeling has been sitting with me since we've talked...
I'm afraid to want things. That doesn't stop the wanting at all, of course, it just means that I keep submerging it and pushing it away. I hide it and I hide from it. Will writing it out help or just make things more raw?
I don't know and I'm afraid to find out. I just don't want to be stuck anymore.
+Athena
