"I Hate You"

We hear it often enough. From pouting Toddlers and angry teens. From flashing eyes and flying fists. From pieces of cardboard held up on sticks. Even, sometimes, from somewhere deep within us- somewhere dark and dirty and slightly foreign.

I've written before about my thoughts on Nathaniel Hawthorne, and I do think he's a great author, but I don't necessarily agree with his ideas. For instance, at the end of his most well-known book, The Scarlet Letter, he suggests that maybe, deep down, love and hate are the same thing.

Way to be literary and mysterious and philosophical, Nathaniel, but nope!

I know because I've experienced both.

There was a time when I fantasized a bit about hurting someone. They still deserve it, actually. They deserve to be publicly disgraced, to go to jail, maybe. To be utterly beaten to a pulp.

And they probably never will.

In writing this, I can almost feel it again. That pressure building up inside me.

But you know what this person doesn't deserve, yet desperately needs? Jesus.

And Jesus is love. Aka, the hardest possible thing to offer an extra-evil person.

So: I think our country has a hate problem. Obviously.

And since I can't change the country for another seventeen years (and even then, how much can a vp change a culture that's been building for decades on centuries?) I'll forgive that mystery person I've been talking about.

I'll forgive every time I feel that tight, hot anger building up again. Thankfully, it hasn't done that for a long time. But, like grief, hatred likes to just pop out every so often. Just to remind you that it's there if you ever want it back.

I don't.

Some might say that if we just stop hating each other, the cycle will stop. I think we also need to stop being so hateful to each other though.

Decent people, loving people, spread love and decency. Jesus people spread Jesus.

Jerks foster hate, and hateful people capitalize on it.

Bottom line: don't be a hateful jerk!

1. Can you handle that? 😉

~Dolly

To Save Someone

I was stressed this morning. So, I climbed into my bed, and while I lay there with a Chihuahua curled up by my head, I realized that I'm tired quite often.

I think it's because I have a strong desire, something probably hardwired into me, to save the world. Well, not the world, exactly, but people. People who don't think they need saving. People who are struggling through life, just like I am.

Maybe my world is small, but I will defend it fiercely. Because my world is made of people, and people are worth it. Worth my time and energy and slowly-falling-apart heart. They're worth all those things to Jesus. Worth His effort and pain, His position, even His life. They're worth it, period.

So, I try. I text someone, message someone, invite them somewhere they probably can't go, just so they know I'm thinking of them. I try to tell my world of people that they're worth it. Worth it to me, worth it to Jesus. Worth it, period.

Obviously I can't save everyone in my world, even if it is small. But I can remind someone that they matter, matter to me, and matter in the world.

That's the extent of my abilities.

I want to save each person I love; from themself, from their fears, their circumstances, their past and their future.

However, I can't save people, not really.

But maybe I can give them the confidence, remind them that they are worth the effort of saving themselves.

Because you are.

From the core of a heart that will never not be breaking for someone,

~Dolly

Grieving Me

I've been ridiculously tired lately.  The kind of tired and that makes me stay in bed all day, and still sleep through the night. The kind of tired that means my apartment is a wreck, and my dishes haven't been washed for at least a week.

It's humiliating.

I've been so ashamed of myself. I have no job, my apartment is a mess, and I still haven't finished my GED test. I feel like a failure.

But honestly, I've felt like a failure for a long time. It mostly started in high school, when due to a combination of hard subjects, bad materials, and clueless teachers, I ended up dropping out of some classes.

 Through all of that, I still held on to my dream. I'd love to be a counselor in Eugene, listening to people's stories, getting to know them, and maybe even being able to help some people.

But if High School was hard, life afterwards has been much more difficult. Every time someone asks me what I'm up to, all I can respond with is, "I live in an apartment on our property, with a chihuahua." And every time I wither a bit inside.

My friends are going to college, making friends, getting jobs... and I sit and pile up dirty dishes.

Humiliating.

Discouraging.

Shameful.

I am, every day, defeated.

A friend and I are working on starting a cupcake business that does events. Perfect for me, since I can usually focus on something for a couple of days, even when I'm low.

And that excites me, I guess. Planning is fun.

But I've been completely drained since we started actually planning and brainstorming. It's ridiculous, I mean, I finally have a reason to maybe not call myself a failure. If we can pull it off, I mean.

But mom and I were talking today, and she brought up a good point.

I'm grieving.

Grieving for my future, for my self that feels destroyed.

For the dreams, and even plans that should be so feasible, but are so completely impossible.

For a life I thought I could have, but probably never will.

It stings.

I'm grieving.

Shame helps nothing.

Right now I'm waiting it out, and getting ready for a new future. A future that's hopefully feasible.

Asking God for a reason, a destiny to follow.

Thanks for taking the time and energy to read. I don't have answers today, but they will come. I hope!

~Dolly

Rebel

I recently hung out with someone, and afterwards was trying to figure out why we didn't connect as we have in the past. We couldn't find things to talk about for the most part, and we didn't particularly agree on what to do. Our time together wasn't necessarily awful, it was just exhausting.

In going over it with one of my confidants later, I realized that before, we connected over our mutual rebellion against some of the same subjects. For instance, we both disagreed with strict Church or parental rules, and we both got that ridiculous teenager joy of knowing we had gotten away with something.

I also realized that though I feel passionately about many things, and stand up against some things very strongly, I'm no longer a rebel.

I haven't given up, I've overcome.

I don't have to fight to try to get out of a box, because I'm not being shoved in one. I'm still in a box, because I'm a finite human, but I made this box and it's comfortable and it has enough space for me to turn around in. I don't have to fight: there's nothing to push against.

It's interesting that such a large part of my previous identity has faded away.

But, it makes sense. I don't go to a Mennonite church anymore- therefore I follow the rules that I create for myself, not the rules that the church makes me follow. (Nothing against Mennonites,  this is just from my personal experiences/feelings.)

I live in an apartment, and while I still respect my parents standards and wishes, they're not here to tell me what to do.

I used to say that I was doing these things because I believed in them. Wearing the head covering, wearing skirts, speaking and acting with decorum, these things were foisted upon me as a child. I defended them, but I still mostly did them because I had to. Now I am doing them because they are mine; it is my choice to speak, act, dress, live a certain way.

I don't need to rebel anymore.

I hope you don't have to, either.

~Dolly