Hopefully, nobody I know is reading this. But when you really have no other place to express yourself, well, I guess that's one reason why blogging and journaling exist.
As I approach 35 years old, a milestone that I will reach in exactly 6 months and 1 day, it strikes me how I am changing. Physically, I'm noticing changes, My hair is not as full on my head as it used to be. There's a bit of gray in there too. I find myself dealing with aches and pains that just decided to show up from out of nowhere. That's in spite of me doing DDP yoga several days a week.
Socially, it feels like I'm starting over, which I have had to do so many times. I just don't feel like I fit at Willow Creek church, in terms of the focus on young adults. I'm certainly not a fit in my old section. I've considered going to new churches, and I have dropped into a couple of new ones since I left my job at Gino's East a month ago. But even at some of the ones that I used to go to, I feel like a stranger. Now, some may say that I need to be assertive and introduce myself to someone. Maybe there's a small part of me that wants to be noticed and valued.
But my mental state is the part that I'm thinking about. I look at the changes over the last six months are so and it's startling. My confidence is higher, I have a job that may turn into something that I can invest in over the long run, and I think I have a pretty good group of friends. Yet I struggle with some old demons that I don't know if I will ever conquer. My anger, my fear of rejection, and beating myself up over crap that really isn't even worth thinking about anymore. Some of it can be from years ago, it doesn't matter. It goes hour by hour. I can feel so good and confident about where I'm going. Then something small can go wrong at work and I feel so unworthy of even one of the gifts I've been given by God. There's one lyric in the song "In Christ Alone" that I cannot bear to sing. "No guilt in life, no fear in death." I still cannot sing that first part. If I did, I would be lying to myself.
And with the work issues I've dealt with over the last couple of years, I understand why I make such a big deal out of the slightest thing not going perfectly at work. I've been on unemployment twice now and been denied it once as well. In a 3 year span between 2013 and 2015, I had a full time job for 12 months and I loathed it. Yet, when I lost that job, it was one of the two or three most devastating moments of my life. Ranks right up there with my dad leaving us when I was a teenager.
So now I look ahead and I know some more changes must happen. This year, I want to establish my own residence. Especially with Maggie gone, I'm not needed in the house that I live in now. And I've been here 12 years, but I would be fine with walking away. I also want to learn more about nutrition and continue to modify my diet. I don't know if it's realistic, but I haven't seen my 6-pack since I was in third grade and I'd like to change that by the end of 2016. I have a 32 or 33 inch waist, and I've had that for a while so it's not a ton of excess to drop, but I'm going to have get that food thing down. And working 12 hours a day, 5 to 6 days a week, working out is one of the toughest things to get into my schedule. So it'll take some sacrifice and discipline. And I want to get back into reading the Bible. I haven't been a regular reader of it in maybe 15 years. Maybe 3-4 days a week for 15 minutes.
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