Blue-Gray (86/90)

I’m not quite sure what to do with myself right now. 

I feel a bit unsettled and antsy. This is a night that if were in Tampa I’d take a long drive over the bridge, surrounded by only the blueness of the water and the grayness of the sky.

There is no distraction for a nagging heartache. And as much as I want to go, somewhere—anywhere— I know that it is inescapable.

I’ve thought a lot about my disappointment over this finality that fully realizing now and I think it goes beyond him and us.

***

My hope has been ashamed. Which of course makes hope feel, well, foolish.

I am always ill prepared for endings. Not because I don’t anticipate them, but because I’m always holding out hope for some huge transformation. One that never really happens. And I know that. But I hope.

***

I’ve spent nearly the entire weekend in, something I denied myself the past few months.

I’ve made a few associates over this last semester ones whom I’m comfortable enough around to spend long periods of time. And I’ve tried to become more social. But, as evidenced by the irritability after too many weekends out and about, I am not a socialite. And I’m allowing myself to realize that I never will be.

I needed this weekend alone desperately; the time to clear my head, to be still and quiet. And for the first time in months I feel ready for the week ahead: the last of my undergraduate classes.

Still, I am without contentment. Longing for someone here that gets me. Someone that I needn’t perform for.

***

There’s something that my old pastor used to say over and over from the pulpit, and I’m not sure if it’s meat or bones, but it’s stuck with me: People change, but not that much.

Herein lies the disappointment. It is with me. Not with us, or the end of the idea of us. 

This is my life and I’m always hoping for huge transformations that just aren’t happening.

My move here was multi-purposed and it’s hard to explain it without explaining the year that preceded it. But, I set out to add some dimension to my life. I stopped living in and for church and planned on finding and indulging in things that would fill me back up and consume my time.

That first year back was the loneliest, emptiest year of my little life.

I didn’t gain the friends that I convinced myself would be so easy to make, the Midwestern boys didn’t fawn over me the way that my mom assured me they would and I didn’t have the courage to fully pursue this dream.

I remember the lunches by myself day after day where I hid in corners and tried not to cry or stare at the people around me doing—being— everything I said I would.

This, all of it, is not turning out the way that I expected two, five, ten years ago. It’s emptier than happy-endings and new beginnings should be.

And besides hope for some huge transformation, I’m not quite sure what to do with myself.