I actually had a completely different post that was almost finished and just hadn't been posted. Thought I would try to start it over, again... something about it didn't seem like it was sincere.
There have been a number of posts that I've written and never posted. Not sure what got me started on it, but I checked out some of the unpublished posts I had written. This one was from the beginning of July:
I am in limbo now more than ever.
It's hard for me to type this up and make it coherent. The thought exists in my head, but transferring it to the keyboard is more difficult than I was hoping. After starting and erasing this several times, let's hope I can make this one count.
I don't know how to handle everything with the church and whatever. Give me a second, and let's see if this will make sense in the end. I've pretty much decided (which I know I've already mentioned) that there is an expiration date for my church membership. I'm not sad about that. But that seems like it should provoke some type of spiritual distancing from the Church, from the Gospel as it stands in the Church... and, while that was happening to me for a while, the opposite has started happening. I mean, I'm not actively pursuing the Church outside of regular church attendance, but callings, service opportunities, etc; keep finding their way into my life. I feel too bad to say "no," especially if it is the elders... since I remember how much of a pain it was sometimes to get the members to help out.
And so I find myself with no intentions of being actively active (if that makes any sense) in the church, yet in my state of indifference, the church pulls me back into it.
It's limbo. I'm not making any sense, I know. I just want there to be definitive borders and boundaries and procedures and norms, unchanging resolutions, finality, something. If I quit going to church, there would be no more going back to BYU, so that really isn't an option. But I'd just like to continue in my active but separated state... and I don't know how... I can't go back--can't rekindle that spiritual feeling because it hurt so much to have it. The occasional stinging is a far cry from the initial wound of separating and redefining. To go back and face the intense pain, again, would drive me crazy.
I'm not sure really how to follow up on that. I don't feel depressed or frustrated or anything, but something about the post resonated (maybe 'cuz I wrote it) within me, so I felt like I should actually publish it.
Summer is coming to an end. Remember how that felt when we were in elementary school? I mean, I'm still not graduated... so the feeling remains, to a certain extent. But I remember walking down to the lake with my siblings. The water would be warm, but you could tell the days were getting shorter, and there was something in the air that made it start to smell like fall... riding around with the other neighborhood kids on the golf cart, seeing the sea of fireflies across the yards, feeling some sense of anticipation for new classes, new teachers, new faces, knowing that change was inevitably coming.
I liked those times. Memories of my freshman year, my mission...
I'm hoping that I can manage to work hard for something in my life without working so hard that it becomes the only thing I can remember...
Give me a couple months before you ask me how that's going ;)
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