Secrets

Have you ever visited the "PostSecret" blog? There's a link to it in my sidebar if you haven't...

People write their deepest secrets anonymously on a postcard and mail them in, and every Sunday, a stack of new secrets are posted for the world to share. Some are funny, some are crude, some are deeply disturbing... I saw one once, beautifully sketched tear drops, and all it said was "I miss innocence". I understood that sentiment...

I'm thinking about secrets tonight... Here are a few of mine...

I pretend to be a really deep-thinking person, but I actually like nothing quite so much as crashing in front of slightly trashy television in the evening, and refusing to have my brain engage. I spend so much time lost in thought that in the evenings I often want nothing more that to completely disengage from the world, and to laugh at whichever show that vastly separated from reality happens to be on that night... I know it's not really constructive, but I do it anyway...

I pretend to be really brave, and open to new things, but I'm usually faking it... I am afraid, and it affects my physical health... in the hours before heading out to something new, I am often sick to my stomach with anxiety and fear.

I have a strong need for control. I'm working on this, but a schedule and a sense of rhythm are really helpful for me. I also tend to be absentminded, and things that are important get missed.

To control, and to combat the absentmindedness, I use lists. I love lists. I derive great satisfaction and a strong sense of accomplishment from crossing something off of a list I've made. A grocery list, a list of all the errands I need to accomplish. I don't actually use a day planner - I make a list for the week because it has helped me establish a sense of rhythm. I put everything on that list - the people stuff, the home stuff, the church stuff, the personal stuff. Everything from "do the laundry" to "spend 1 hour at least 3 times reading and meditating" to "coffee with so and so" to "Bible study prep" to "stretching exercises". Sometimes, just because I like crossing things off, I'll put the really mundane on there - "shower" or "make a cup of tea".

Life has felt out of control these last few weeks... The Lord is doing new and deep things, but I feel like other important things have been missing in action, and I'm feeling the need to fall back into a rhythm. I've deliberately scheduled my calendar to be quite blank for this coming week. One tea date with a friend, and a trip to the mountains tomorrow. I feel like after a couple of really intense weeks once again, I need to time to breathe, to let my body and head catch up with my soul, to reconnect into a whole person again. I want to cook real food, not pre-prepared dinners because I have to be back out the door ten minutes after I walk in. I want to sit in a darkened room, and smell incense, and pray for an hour or two without feeling like I'm neglecting other things. I want to stretch, and breathe deeply, and not feel that I'm wasting twenty minutes I should be using on something else. So, this week, I'm setting out to rest, and to re-establish rhythm. When I finish writing this post, I'm going to make my list for the week. It's going to have things on it like "take a bubble bath", "journal for an hour", "read two chapters in a book I'm reading right now on art", "have tea with a friend", "mail gifts to various other friends", "send Rae a card so that it's waiting when she gets home from Europe", "breathe", "research graduate schools".

I'm all about my list being full of things that inspire me to pray this week, and that inspire me to step into things that make me feel alive. So yes, I'm excerting control, but I'm hoping it turns out in the best possible way!