just keep swimming

you know that line in "finding nemo" where dory says to nemo, "just keep swimming! just keeping swimming!"?? sometimes i feel like this is what i do to myself. i can't remember a time in the past year and a half where i have just stopped "swimming" to deal with myself. my quick fix for frustration or heartache or restlessness or _________ - the thing that gets me through - is to keep myself busy. that's what i'm doing right now. i am booking myself solid, some days leaving my house at 7 am not to return again until 10 or 11 pm. i go from work to run errands to dinner to small group to watch a movie with friends, or some other varition of that schedule. while it does't leave me a lot of time to think about things i don't want to think about, it also exhausts me. and exhaustion makes me so vulnerable. my emotions run high when i'm tired. i get frustrated easily. my already wavering patience wears extremely thing, and i just can't function. i'm keeping myself so ridiculously busy, because it's easier to be running around like a chicken with my head cut off than it is to take two seconds to focus on dealing.

i'm an avoider. i avoid hurt. i deny that i'm not okay. i rarely let myself breakdown. in fact, this conversation took place between me and liz yesterday:

liz: wow, smash. you've had a really tough week. i'm sorry.
me: yeah. i'm on the verge of a meltdown.
liz: you probably need to just vent and get it all out.
me: nah. i'm good. if i start, i won't be able to stop.

about two hours later i was in my car, and i started sobbing. in the middle of a broken breath i suddenly just clenched my jaw, bit my lip, and cut it off and said to myself out loud, "no. you're okay. get it together." that's what i do. i don't cry at funerals. i don't show my emotions. i don't let on that there's ever anything going on. if i do, then you should know that it's really bad, and i'm really not okay. i don't like to not be okay. i don't like seasons of hurt, heartache, frustration, confusion, disappointment, loss. granted, i don't know anyone who does, but there seem to be some people who have a finesse for handling them. i am not one of those people. my strategy: ignore it, and eventually it'll go away...maybe.

the truth is, they don't go away. they get buried under seasons of joy, moments of contentment, and other hurts. i was talking to a friend yesterday about a recent heartache, and she said, "just keep yourself busy." i agreed with her and explained that i was doing my best to not be at home with nothing to do - ever. then i realized today that i'm completely in the wrong.

nowhere in scripture does it say, "make your life so busy that you never have to face your issues" or "preoccupy yourself so that you don't have to deal with yourself." instead, god tells us in psalm 46:10 to "be still and know that [he] is god." be still. repeatedly he commands us to "rest" and "wait on the lord." none of those three actions encourage me to create a false sense of security or peace or "okay" for myself by staying booked from dawn to dusk.

like i said, i haven't taken time to just deal with me in over a year. i've jumped from relationship to relationship (stupidly), and i move from mindless activity to mindless activity in an attempt to avoid the hard work that comes with facing your life. and not that i have these major issues to deal with. that's not it. but there are some things i need to hash out, get over, and heal from.

so from no on, i'm going to try to let myself do that. i'm going to try to surrender my busyness to god - to submit to him and his command to "be still." i'm going to stop filling my days and nights with a rigorous itenerary just so i don't have to think or be alone. i'm going to use my free time to "rest" and to "wait on the lord." i have to believe that god wants to use that time - that it's valuable - and he wants to teach me in those moments of thinking and being alone.