Day 6: Mulligan

Dear Mulligan,

Thank you. 

I know you're a cat, and, to the best of my knowledge, don't read my blog, but even so I wanted to write this. 

You, my ridiculous girl, were one of the few good things to come out of my time in South Carolina (like my friendship with Calle, watching Supernatural with Evan, and realizing snails are Canadian with Jordan). I really hadn't planned for a cat, but it only took being handed a tiny black and white bundle of purring charm to rope me in. Having you curl up on my chest to sleep was the only thing keeping me alive some nights. You were a tiny, furry gift from God. 

Thank you for loving me in the weird wonderful way you do, little stalker baby. Even though you make me a little crazy when you start tripping me and talking so loud when I get up for work, I love you. There's something quiet and brilliant about having someone loving you enough to make sure they're up at dawn when you gotta leave for work that makes you feel just a little better about the day. 

Thanks, Mull. 

Love,

Jaymin

Weakness

It's been a week and a half since I came home from FUEL, but, as always, the affect lingers. 

There's a good chance that in the next few months, preferably after my niece is born, I will be moving to SC. 

Years ago, when I was in high school, I use to dream about picking up and moving to SC even though it was a place I'd never been. I'd heard stories about how beautiful it was for years from people who had family there of frequently visited, and over that time I developed a love and longing for this place I'd never been (not entirely unlike my feelings for Italy or Bali either). 

South Carolina has always been my hopeful dream. It was the home Nikky and I planned to move to after we'd decided we were done with college I still had never been there, and I was moving on faith that Nikky's love for the place, combined with my own dreams, would be enough of a reason to move. 

Those dreams never came to fruition because I decided to go back to school and Nikky met the man of her dreams. During my return to school, I did finally go to SC, and fell deeply in love with the state and the people I met there. I fell hard for a boy in SC, but when he chose someone else I let go of all my dreams for the state. 

But God likes to change my course, my plans, my heart. 

I am weak. I am worried. I am wonderful. 

God knows that I am still healing from having my heart broken, still healing from broken dreams, still doubting myself, still feeling confused. He knows my weaknesses and my fears. He knows me. 

God is filling in my blank spots, my cracks, scars, all of it. He's covering me with grace, calling me his own, and showing me love each day. 

Even more amazing? He's giving me a new dream, or rather, refurbishing an old one. 

I will move to SC. I will face fears that I won't fit in, won't be enough (or will be too much), and that I won't be able to contribute. I know that in these weaknesses He will shine through. 

I just have to remember 2 Corinthians 5:7, "for we walk by faith, not by sight," and know that God's got this. No matter what. 

(1)

I need to reset.  I need a fresh start.

Time for another round of confessions, I think.

I've never really cleaned a bathroom.  Not the formal way you are supposed to, I don't think.  Bathrooms just freak me out.  I never feel like I clean them as well as I am supposed to.  I've always gotten lucky enough to have roommates who are willing to clean bathrooms while I do more of the kitchen and general house cleaning.

I thought I was fat in high school, and I really wasn't.  Maybe I wasn't toothpick thin, but I was beautiful.

I am afraid I will someday weigh somewhere in the range of 400 lbs like one of my beloved aunts.  I have seen her struggling to move and breath and be comfortable and own normal clothes for years, and I am perpetually afraid that is what I will become.  And yet I never seem to do better at taking care of myself.

I don't really want to give up.

I am afraid that I will live in my parents' house forever.  Or, just as bad, that they will kick me out because I am too old to live at home.

I really don't know what I want to do with my life.  I want to write children's book or just books or something, but I feel overwhelmed and discouraged at the thought of publishing.  I don't know if I believe in myself enough to put myself out there that many times...it is so rare to be published early on.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I'm a good enough writer to be published.  Even if I do have a little freelance published and have won an award or two for my poetry.  I still struggle to believe it's anywhere close to adequate or what someone really wants to read.

I have an empty Boone's farm bottle that I put cash in to keep myself from spending it so that I will have money to pay for groceries right after I get down to Atlanta.

...or if I go back to Atlanta.

Returning to Atlanta may not happen.  I haven't discussed this with anyone outside of my mom and I emailed Nikky.  I still have barely been able to admit to myself that this may be what happens.  I don't have any money.  I don't budget well, I barely try, and my full-time just became hit or miss because the project they hired me for is done.  I feel overwhelmed all over again.

Plus, to be honest, I am not sure I want to put money back into an institution that has recently become terrible about treating my family well.  Do I really want to pay them when I am not sure I trust them at all?

If I decide to not go back, what do I do?  That scares me too.

Let's be honest, I am just uncertain and I am scared.  Frustrated with myself on top of it.  And I know God has got this.  Please don't give me the cliches, I don't need them.  But I am not yet hearing His voice or feeling His nudge.

I am afraid I will be looked at as the family flake.  Or that my friends will think I am wishy-washy.  Maybe it seems shallow to have this worry, but really...I was supposed to move to SC, to Ohio, to ABC, to ABC, and possibly to ABC again...and I have had things change those plans so many times.  Apparently I just make the wrong plans.  Or just don't hear correctly the first time around.

And I don't know how to classify what is happening with my heart, but I let Sam go.  He doesn't need a girl like me hanging onto him when he's not mine to begin with.  I don't need the heartache, and he doesn't need the awkward situation.  It's not his fault that I created this sideline fantasy that deep down he really was looking for me, well not entirely.  He did have a little to do with it, but the fantasy I concocted was confusing his trust for admiration and his putting me in the friend zone (big time) for his need to have me in his life.

I've allowed our relationship to trail off a little.  I've tried to avoid initiating texts.  No pet names of any kind. No letters.  No messages via Facebook.  No notes or wall posts of personal-esque nature.  No compliments beyond what is casual between friends.

The mix I posted was one I have been working on for myself.  Something to remind me that this is the end and that it's the right thing for me to do.  No, it's not really what I was hoping for.  I was hoping for something good.  Something for forever.  For me.  But this isn't mine.  Sam doesn't belong to me.  Which makes me a little sad, but the great thing is this: I don't belong to him either.

I am still free.  No one can tell me where to live.  What I can and cannot do.  That I shouldn't paint my fingernails blue.  Or cut my hair off again.  Or that I should turn off the light and go to sleep instead of being up till ridiculous hours of the night writing or reading or watching whatever movie I want.  I don't have to answer the phone.

Those things all sound ridiculous, but being able to do what I want...that is a bonus.  I should enjoy that for now.

As Kim reminded me recently, there is a time and a season for everything.  And I hate the idea of a "season of singleness" which people always say and then say things about how blessed it is, buuuuut, there's something to be said for that.  I just hope I make the best of it.  Never sure if I'm actually learning what I am supposed to be learning.

I am Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Tom from (500) Days of Summer or Ilsa Fischer's April from Definitely, Maybe.  Or, on my more frustrated days, Jacob Black of the Twilight series (books, NOT the movies).

I have barely been reading my Bible lately.  Prayer has been bizarre.  I've been praying for the people I love because there's been so much pain and frustration and sadness and hurt, but I'm struggling to pray for myself.  I don't know what to ask or to say.  And I haven't been nearly as thankful as I should be.  I am working to reclaim my faith.

And now...I desperately need sleep.  And tomorrow/today (I guess) is day (1).  That's something to smile about.

Love.