I don't miss you

This evening, while driving home on my bicycle, I thought about one of my best friends, a classmate, who went home early last week for Thanksgiving. I wished that she were still in town. I wished that I could see her before this upcoming Monday. I missed her. So I sent her a text message telling her that I missed her.

Which made me realize, I don't miss a lot of people. I don't miss my dad. I don't often miss my friends who live in other cities and states. Worst of all, I don't miss the guy I recently started dating who lives in another city. And all of these people, at some time or another, tell me that they miss me.

Am I cold and heartless? Am a horrible daughter, friend, significant other? Am I too selfish and absorbed in my current life that I fail to think about the people I care about who are far away?

Maybe. Probably not. I think the key is that the amount I miss people is almost directly related to how often I see them. My friends who live in town, who I'm used to seeing on a regular basis, those are the people I miss the most when I notice their absence. On Sunday, I saw a friend at church who had been out of town for a few weeks. I had missed her. Things happened that I wanted to include her in, but I couldn't. I wanted to talk to her at times, but I knew she was busy. I missed her and I was excited to see her return. My classmate I mentioned above? I see her 2-3 times a week, so after 6 days without seeing her, I miss her. Whenever I move or someone else moves? For a time, I miss those people a lot.

This applies to the friends and family who live in other cities. How much I miss them is related to how often I see them. The friends I see almost every two months? After 3 or 4 months, I start to miss them. The friends I only see every 6 months? Sometimes sooner, but by 9 months I start missing them. I'm used to these people not being a regular part of my life. I don't expect to see them more often than I do. So, how much I miss a person has less to do with how much I care about them but rather how often I expect to see or talk to them.

And the guy I'm dating? He says, "I miss you," and I say, "I'm excited to see you again." I don't miss him that often. I think this is two-fold. First, we've never lived in the same city and I don't expect to see him more often than we see each other. If we continue dating and I move to another state (which I hope to do next year), then I'd miss him. I imagine that if we were to go a day without talking, then I would miss him. Second, this relationship is so new and I'm not diving in headfirst like I usually do with relationships, so I'm still not quite used to him being a regular part of my life. In the past year and a half since my last serious romantic relationship, I've become quite happy and content with the single life I've been given here. Back in the spring, I recognized that I was happy and though I wanted to date, I don't want a guy coming in and messing with all the good things I'm enjoying now. I realized that any guy I let into my life in a significant manner better really be worth it to let him in and let him start messing up my daily routines and future plans.

But isn't this horrible not to miss the guy I'm dating? Shouldn't romantic love be all-consuming? Shouldn't I be swept off my feet and can't stand to be away from him? Maybe. Probably not.

looking forward a bit

It's been a fun first week and a half back in CS, filled with dancing, nertzing, good weather, biking, photography, shopping, cooking, flea killing, flirting, yogaing (yoging?), and catching up with my family that I love here. Truly, I couldn't ask for better times in the BCS than these.

But all good things must come to an end as the semester begins in earnest this week. And as fate would have it, the first week that I actually have things due is the same week that my computer starts freaking out on me, periodically shutting down for no good reason and then refusing to start until the next day. Fortunately, I have a new battery traveling on a UPS truck headed for my house and my roommate's computer to borrow as a backup on the days when my computer decides that it just will not start. Also, last week I backed up all of my school-related documents on dropbox.

I'm excited about this semester, for nothing else but the fact that I have more flexible time than I've possibly ever had in grad school, allowing me to schedule things like yoga classes and swing-dancing lessons during the week instead of having to plow through 12-hour day and after 12-hour day waiting for the weekend to take a breather. Still, it's an odd schedule, and I still have many things to accomplish this semester, forcing me to figure out how to structure my time in a productive manner. I'm busy almost every evening of the week until 8 or 9, but I have most of my mornings free. I tend to be more productive during the day time, but I also have great difficulty getting out of bed when I don't have somewhere to be or an imminent deadline, so I'm scheduling yoga classes, meetings with professors, and appointments with clients to ensure that I get my bum up and out and moving and doing. Hopefully I can make the most of my free time in the afternoons and mornings and not get stressed out trying to make deadlines at the last minute. Which I'm kinda doing today.

And I'm writing a brief blog post instead of reading or writing for another 10 minutes :P

summer evenings

"When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future."
Ecclesiastes 7:14

Back porch + book + baked custard – bugs = bliss

Though my baked custard didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped, though a mosquito still bit my knuckle (having only sprayed my feet and ankles with OFF!), and even though barely a paragraph into my latest chapter, I received a phone call that whisked me away from my lovely back porch back to the clinic where I work to attend to a minor crisis, when I returned from work for the second time, I was finally able to settle into my book and enjoy the last remaining minutes of daylight and enjoy relaxing yet stimulating bliss.

We’re nearing the summer solstice, and I’m loving the long summer days of sunshine that lasts nearly to 9pm, but I’m also saddened that once summer solstice occurs, the days will slowly grow shorter, and there will be less sunshine for me to enjoy. Nevermind that this cycle repeats itself, nevermind that I actually love fall weather, and come mid-July will be yearning for cooler temperatures, right now, I want the days to just keep getting longer and longer, and the thought of losing even just a minute of daylight dampens my spirit. And I hate that I’m thinking this way, and I hate that I’m thinking this way about a lot of things. Why can’t I just be, and enjoy the blessing of the moment, the present, all that I really truly ever have which is that in front of me, around me, within me?

I’m thankful that this past month or so that the few of us still here for the summer from our comgroup have been rapidly growing closer. This is such a special time for us to bond, as we’re all here in town, and many of our usual friends are gone for the season, and even though we’re working, in school, or looking for jobs, the demands and stress of life inevitably slow in the summer. The conditions have all been right facilitate more quality time together in ways that I just don’t think could have happened during the usual school year. I continue to enjoy such rich times with these friends, laughing, rambling, ranting, bantering, confiding, listening, encouraging, advising. As much as I’m enjoying these special times together, the nagging feeling that this season will end at the end of this summer is present with me. It seems inevitable that these times together will change, as people move, as fall schedules start, as other friends return. I don’t anticipate that we will grow tired of one another or that our times together will feel old, but it seems that the conditions around us will change, and our friendships will change as a result. But why I am even thinking this way, when we’re right in the middle of a wonderful, fun, precious season with each other, when we’re still sneaking candy into Pixar movies together, when we’re still staying up late on rooftop bars, discussing God and how we relate to him? Why am I anticipating an end when in many ways, this just seems to be the beginning? I know that I won’t stay close forever to everyone that I grow close to for a season, but it is possible that though things will change, close bonds will remain, friendships will continue, even if there is a physical distance between friends. Most of these friends will be living here for another year or two at least, and we will continue to go to church together, and we will continue to have opportunities to spend with one another. So even looking forward, I see continued friendships, I see growth, I see hope for us.

I guess I should blame my white American culture, but why am I so future oriented and so obsessed with marking time? So many of my thoughts seem to be looking toward the future, planning something, eagerly anticipating something, dreading something. So many thoughts given to things that have yet to occur. Things that could never occur, or that could occur very differently that I ever could imagine. And I’m always marking time forward or backwards. It’s so many days/weeks/months until x occurs. It’s been so many days/weeks/months since y happened. And usually there’s a judgment. Since it’s been x amount of time since I experienced y, I should be feeling z. Since it’s j amount of time until k, I should be doing l in preparation. I think it’s good and healthy to look back and categorize seasons and learn from them, and of course I need to look ahead and plan, but I don’t want my plans or my judgments about time to master me. I want to be more engaged in the present. I said that for the first time over a year ago, and I’m still learning what that means and how to do it. And there I go, making another time-related judgment of myself :P And now I’m judging myself for judging myself, which is even more absurd! But I’m not too frustrated at myself at the moment, more bemused that it seems inevitable that I will continue to think they way I don’t want to think, and to do the things that I don’t want to continue doing. That sounds pessimistic, but I’m trying to learn to have more grace with myself, the same grace and understanding and forgiveness that God offers to me, and that I’m trying to learn to offer more to others, I’m also trying to receive and offer to myself.

These past few weeks, I’ve also become aware that I’m approaching or perhaps have already reached what is likely the halfway point of the portion of my life that I live in Bryan/College Station, TX. There’s a feeling of accomplishment in having come this far, but it also is a tad daunting that the time I have remaining about equals the time that I’ve already spent. And with this remaining time, I’m expected to propose and collect and analyze data for a dissertation and to apply and interview for internships? I feel that I’m losing my academic excuses of, “Oh, I’m only a first year, a second year.” But I also fear that I’m losing my excuses to myself, “Oh, I’ve only lived here a year, year and a half, of course I don’t have the friends I like, of course I don’t feel more at home here than I do yet, give it more time, dear one.” But I have accomplished a lot in my short time here, experienced many new things, grown and developed in a myriad of ways, and am becoming more mature in some ways, and feel much more at home, certainly than I did last summer. Again, I’m tempted to judge myself, to judge my life, and where I should be, what I should have learned, what I should have accomplished. But I am where I am, and I’m meant to be here, and I will be further along in this journey when it’s time for me to be there. I like the me that’s 24 and one month. I like the me that has lived in BCS for not quiet two years. In some ways, it’s not the life that I hoped for at this stage, but in some ways, it’s better than I imagined. And it’s just as it should be.