megan

Tonight I had the wonderful, surprising good fortune to be able to go see my friend Megan.  Both of our lives are crazy right now so it's a complete and utter treat when we mutually abandon the craziness for an hour and half to encourage each other to keep fighting the good fight.  I probably should have been practicing, but there comes a point where you need to be with people.  I think I reached that point several days ago and have been prolonging the agony since then...

... and as we were catching each other up on the sequence of events since last Wednesday when we saw each other, a lot of things came together for me.  Because even though Megan is a year or two younger than me, she's had a lot more experience in settling into the real world, something that I am still trying to grasp hold of, contrary to the popular belief that I have it all together.

In a nutshell, what I realized was this:  there are a lot of things that I keep trying to control (in one way or another) that I simply have no control over.  Similarly, there are a lot of things that I am concerned about that suck energy from me that I have absolutely no power to do anything about, other than to pray and give a sympathetic (yet distant) ear.  And as much as I hate this, as much as I feel like it's selfish, the alternative (to give and give and give)... well, there's a point where I have nothing more to give to either myself or the things I actually have to take responsibility for.  And then I crash.  And it's not pretty... not pretty at all.

Anyway, we were talking about a number of different things... etc, etc.  So much has happened in the past couple of weeks, both logistically and emotionally and I was telling Megan that I feel very much alone in having to deal with all of it and I have no idea how to do it successfully.  I was also telling her about an incident recently that really injured me... a girlfriend who, in what was very likely the best of intentions, gave a sympathetic ear in the form of a ridiculous comment that still echoes in the back of my mind.  It happened during "girls' night" last week -- a place where I should have been able to safely talk about things I'm dealing / struggling with.  And it was horrible and I cried the entire way home, but I've thankfully realized some things since then...

Yes, I need to be listened to on a regular basis.  I take in a lot, both verbally and non-verbally.  I absorb a lot of other people's emotions, as well as the emotions of situations, and I have to be able to get that back out at some point before I'm eaten alive with problems that aren't my own or problems that don't even exist  (it's why a dear friend of mine pushed me to contact my counselor again recently...).  But the problem isn't that I don't have a husband.  Yes, I need to be listened to regularly... but not necessarily by a husband, rather by someone who has no emotional stake in me whatsoever.  I would need to see my counselor on a regular basis, even if I were married.  The problem isn't that I'm not married or that I don't have a supportive husband to come home to at night.  The problem is that I have problems.  And the problem is that everyone else around me has problems too... the problem is that we live in a broken world.  And I can't take on the problems of the world, much as I would like to think that I can.

Megan talked about what her counselor had told her when she was seeing him a few years ago -- about the sphere of responsibility and control.  There is a sphere -- my sphere -- of things which I have to take responsibility for and have control over changing them.  Things like paying my bills, taking care of myself emotionally/physically/spiritually, and doing the things I say I'm going to do -- like accompany the choirs at Lutheran High, teach my students to the best of my ability, and prepare for lessons with Prof. Burkhart when I schedule them with her.  Playing for Stuart and Courtney's wedding also falls under this category, and so I will prepare as much as possible for that event two weeks from now.  But then there are other things that I need to stop worrying about, which I have absolutely no control over... things I totally take responsibility for all the time, which I have no business taking responsibility for whatsoever.  We'll call it the "things I'm concerned about" category.  And let me just say that this category is ridiculously out of balance... under it fall things like caring what people think, absorbing other people's emotions -- or worse, taking them on myself for them.  Ugh.  I totally do that.  Why do I do that???  I think it's probably one of those instances where my greatest strength is also my greatest weakness.  And then there are other things... things like overanalyzing.  The list goes on and on.  And yes, some of this is normal and good.  In general, concern is a healthy thing.  It leads to change -- sometimes -- and normally, you're concerned because you care, which is a good thing.  But I know that too often, I err on the side of ridiculous.  And I know that I could be a lot healthier and a lot happier if I just let a bunch of it go.  I realize now that I have no control over many of these things... things like the health and well-being of my family members.  I love them so very, very much... but they have their own lives.  And in some sense, it's time I stopped worrying about their problems, which are just as messy as mine, and let them worry about them instead.  Or things like the emotional well-being of certain girlfriends who are also single.  As much as I see their pain and feel it too, there's nothing I can do for them other than to pray that God brings the right person into their life and offer to set them up on a date if possible.  Wow.  How's that for a reality-check??

There's a reason that Megan and I are such good friends.  We have a lot in common.  We both come from crazy families (and I mean that in the best way possible).  We're both introverts.  We're both extremely artistic... she's a photographer, I'm a musician.  You could even say that we both have a little bit of a hipster side.  She shows hers outwardly a little more than I do mine.  But it's still there, nonetheless.  We both have a fair amount of sarcasm, skepticism, and irony built into us by the stories that our lives have shaped us to be.  And of course, we both have a deep faith that relies on the Lord for everything, yet still realizes there's a human component in all of this...  But when I know her story like I do and she sits there across from me in a Starbucks on an unseasonably warm Wednesday evening and tells me from her experience that she's just learned that there are certain things in her realm of concern that she's had to learn to let go, I have no choice but to realize that I need to do the same thing... lest I actually become the crazy person I feel like I am sometimes.

And yes, I'm still going to see Lynn.  She will probably have a lot more to add to all this.  Plus, I'll have someone to talk to who doesn't have an emotional stake in me, which is a really good thing... because no one person can handle all this.  The only one who can handle it all is Christ.  And let's be honest:  logistically, he's hard to talk to sometimes and get a straight answer.  I've lived the life of Katie long enough to know that I just come with a big load emotionally...

... even if I were married, I would still need help from the outside.  Probably more so.