pinball

as an ambivert (1/2 extravert, 1/2 intravert), i require an odd balance of community and solitude. i feel as though that balance has been attacked.

part of my reconstruct job requires me to sleep at the church with the teams of middle and high schoolers there for the week. sleeping at the church is quite odd. meandering through the halls in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom is even stranger.

for the most part it has been great. i love the work reconstruct does, not to mention how they go about doing it. the people i am working with are great. it has been fun.

i just haven't had the time to sit and do nothing, that downtime i so greatly cherish. my mind has longed for the chance to just rome free, to entertain the myriad of ideas that run through it. i am adjusting to it but it is taking a little time.

i think i am starting to want some stability in my life. i'm wanting to get rooted in something and start living. i've been wanting that for a while, praying for that for a while. it just isn't coming. God, at least i'm hoping, has me in this strange little threshold place.

it feels like pinball. i should note that i really don't care for that game. but that is how my life has been the last 3+ years. i've been knocked into one thing, got caught up in it for a while, spun around and spat out into another little doo-dad. sometimes they have shining lights and make funny noises. sometimes they are incredibly boring. but for the most part they leave me dizzy.

i just can't manage to see straight. i can't manage to get an answer. i can't manage to get going.

perhaps that is why i don't like pinball: there is no real goal. i've never been interested in points. i've been interested in progress, in moving forward. in pinball, you can't really win. you can't really move forward. you just go back and forth from one thing to another, never really settling down all the while trying to just stay afloat, trying to stay in play, trying to stay out of the gutter.

at the very least, i'm still in play. i'm still looking for some escape from the machine. i need out. i have this fear that i'm stuck here. i'm so very grateful for the experiences, for the things i've been able to do, places i've gone and people i've met. i can't say that enough. i am genuinely grateful. but i need something. i just have no idea what that is.

i apologize if this came off as a sort of whiny quarter-life crisis post, something not unlike a zach braff movie. but truth be told, i've talked to a lot of people who seem to be on their last quarter that feel the same way. ahh, the great release of incoherent blogging. i'd almost forgotten how strange it feels.