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The other day, at work, I was having a particularly bad day, which is pretty rare for me. Anyone I’m close to will tell you that I’m a happy person at heart, that I love people and love life and that it doesn’t take much for me to laugh, and to laugh loudly at that.
But.
I was having a bad day. We’re all entitled, right?
Anyway, in my bad day belch of negativity, I’m complaining to my co-worker about everything. Homework. Stress. Money. Weather. Work. Definitely, work.
My co-worker interrupts me to say, “Wow. I’m not used to this side of you.”
And I respond, with a smile, pleased to be taken as a generally happy person, “I know. This isn’t like me. I’m just having a really, really, really bad day. Sorry.”
“No, no,” he says. “I like you better this way. You’re more of a 3-dimensional character this way, as a character, you know? I mean, you’re a writer, you understand what I’m saying.”
I stop.
“So, what, I’m 2-dimensional every other day? Just because I’m happy?“
“I’m just saying I like this Naomi better. You’re more real, more human.”
“So, it’s not human to be happy.”
“That’s not what I’m saying–”
“No, you’re telling me I’m 2-dimensional because I choose to be happy, because that’s how I like to live.”
I walked away.
But, it got me thinking: what’s wrong with us? Are we so jaded as a people, as a community, that happiness has become shallow and lifeless? That, to be happy, something MUST be wrong with you, because no one who’s real and respected is truly happy?
Sad.
A lot of people today have a terrible, terrible view of faith. And God. And Christianity, at that.
And why not?
Looking back at centuries past, Christians have never demonstrated faith and love and hope as Christ commanded. As he WANTED us to.
Sometimes, Christians suck the love out of faith.
We’ve established a “culture” of Christians. A stereotype, if you will. A stereotype of families that are whole, of people who do good, people who lead model lives of perfection. People who don’t leave room in their relationships for brokenness and starving naked NEED. People who are afraid to accept other people who aren’t perfect, for fear of rubbing elbows and beliefs with “sinners.”
People who don’t love each other.
I’ve been one of those Christians. I’ve been afraid for my faith to get dirty and raw, for it to mean work and effort.
I’ve got to make it about more than MEMEME.
I think, as a whole, Christians owe an apology to the world.
We’ve really messed up.
Yessss.
I made it to day two.
Three weeks of this, and this just might become habitual.
UGH.
I’m lonely.
I want to go home.
It’s strange, really. I spent my first semester here in Chicago loving EVERY fabulous new moment of it, dreading every visit home because I’d never found a happiness that lasted until I moved here. And I mean HAPPINESS in it’s most pure and full form–a joy, a zest, for all things and all parts of life.
And I’m still that happy. It’s just 7 months old now and it’s nothing new.
But…
I miss home.
Going back this weekend was not a good idea.
Actually, no. It was a wonderful idea. I’d been in near tears the few weeks before I took the train home, just because I missed my family and friends so much. Especially Joe. And Alayna and Carmen. And my girls. I got to see everyone I needed to this weekend, but not for long enough.
The thing is, they’re all still there, in Muncie, with each other. And I’m here in this city where I only have a handful of people that care about me, and none of them grew up with me or know me like my Muncie loves do.
That’s what sucks about being raised in a college town: everyone ends up staying there after high school, and if you’re brave enough, craving difference enough, to leave, then you give in to the realization that everyone you love is going to keep growing together and living together. You become the girl who moved to the city, and GOOD for her, but man, she’s just not around anymore.
And then you fall to the bottom of everyone’s speed dial.
And even when you go home, everything’s different.
I’ve changed SO much over the last seven months. For the better. But selfishly, stupidly, I assumed my best friends back home would still be my best friends when I was four hours away. I assumed home wouldn’t change. I didn’t want it to change.
It did, though.
And now, with all of these fabulous city things and opportunities around me, all I want is to go home.
I don’t want to be back with the familiarity. The predictable sameness.
I just don’t want to be missing out.
I’ve always sucked at things like this:
Blogs. Diaries. Journals.
I think I lack the dedication, the perseverance, to commit to the required amount of creativity and writing to make one of these things a habit.
Blogs have always interested me, though. I’ve always wanted to be a dedicated blogger. To blog about love. Life. The things of this world that make me CRAVE connection and people and relationships. To blog my little fingers out.
But I’ve always understood that my attempts at blogging (which have only, until now, included Xanga and Myspace–both once-prolific breeds of today’s thousands of online personality profile pages) were just a handful of words thrown out into the immeasurable monstrosity of cyberspace.
And also, I never believed my life was worth reading about.
I did the whole high school angst/drama/depression thing. The rants and raves and crying poems of dying desires I don’t feel anymore.
My blog was a cookie-cutter copy of every other teenager’s, because my life was, too.
But now, somehow, that’s all changed.
My life is STELLAR.
So maybe, now, it will be worth reading.
