Random, Rambling Thoughts of an INFJ (#3)

Maybe it's because I'm the youngest. Maybe it's because of my personality. Maybe it's a whole lot of things all mashed together. I don't know because I don't know many people who are the youngest, and I don't know many people who feel the same way, but sometimes I feel like I'm going to be left behind or have been left behind. Like I'll be grown out of or are already grown out of. It's a fear I have and can't seem to shake. Life is all about moving and changing, and sometimes that means leaving some people behind. For most people, it's probably a sad part of life, but they're also moving on. They're also going on to great and exciting new adventures.

But that's not me. I'm still here.

My best friend and brother closest to my age moved away to the other side of the country two years ago. Another close friend got married the December before last and moved off to Michigan. Now she has a baby girl. Suddenly she seems so much older than me and more mature. Another friend went to a three month discipleship program where she was not encouraged to have much contact with the outside world. During that time, she experienced one of the saddest times in her life, but I wasn't there. Other people took the place of comforters. She grew closer to other people as we grew farther apart. Friendships change - I've been told that, but I don't like it much.

Because I am still here.

And the longer I stay, the less likely I'll find new people to replace the old, and how could they really replace them? No one can replace old friendships. There might be new ones. Different ones, but not the same. The longer I stay, the less likely I'll build a support group because how many people stay? Why would they stay? It's not society's way.

And even if they stayed, people change. It's a sad thing when people change, and you watch from a distance. I don't think I've changed much in the past years, not significantly, but maybe I have, and what if I have? Three years ago, I wrote a poem type thing. It was written with a specific friend in mind who I used to talk with almost night over gmail chatting. Part of it was just fear. Part of it was actually already happening. It was full of wondering how the 'unfriending' began. Wondering what if I changed, and what if I became someone the friend didn't like anymore. Sometimes the change isn't a bad thing either. Sometimes it's just because you change and your friend doesn't at the same rate or doesn't ever, but if you're the one not doing the changing then you feel left behind and outgrown.

Maybe this fear started when I was younger. I'm the youngest of five. My mom had me when she was already in her early forties which isn't the norm. Between my eldest brother and me, there are eleven years. I don't know why it was this way, but growing up, all the families we did things with had children much older than me. I was the one stuck on the end. Even amongst cousins, I was the youngest (out of all cousins, I have only one younger one). By the time I was deemed 'old enough' not to be randomly stuck on the end, they were in college, had a job, or were even married. I mean, when my eldest brother moved away from home, I was only 9. My next brother moved out when I was 12. I was probably still viewed the little, annoying sister.

When I tried to work on building up more friendships while I was still high school, I had the opposite problem. The people around my age were all the oldest in their families. In some ways, I think they were more mature than me because their experiences were different than mine, and they weren't able to understand that feeling of being left behind or outgrown.

Even now I sometimes have this feeling, but time has given me more perspective. There's many things I might not have discovered if I hadn't been excluded. For starters, I learned to entertain myself with story creating which eventually lead to writing the stories down. If not for feeling like an island some days, I wouldn't have had the time. I might not have even cared about stories, and I think God has given me stories as one of many lifelines.

Secondly, I think this quote by Dag Hammarskjold sums up the other good thing:

"Didst thou give me this inescapable loneliness so that it would be easier for me to give Thee all?"

There's nothing like those kinds of feelings to force you to turn to someone you know won't ever leave you behind. Won't ever grown out of you. Won't ever stop loving you because you've changed or because, for goodness' sake, you still haven't. To top it off, He also knew what He was doing when He created you with the personality you have and planted you in the place where you are. Most times, that's all I am betting on, because it isn't easy when following God's plan leaves you sometimes feeling like you've been outgrown or left behind since His plan for your life isn't like His plan for everyone else.

-So-

Have you felt this way? Do you think it's a birth order thing? Or do you think everyone feels this way at one point or another in their life?

I'm over here climbing back out of the pit of stomach flu. Can't seem to keep the sicknesses at bay. I might title these words as ramblings, but I kinda slaved over them because my mind isn't on top of things yet. Still, I guess they are rambling in the sense I started them with no knowledge of where I was going to go with them, and some parts I'm still not sure about...Would love your thoughts!

Good Things Do Happen

"When things are good
I don't believe that they're for real
I really wish I could just tell myself I gotta feel
Feel something else instead
Cause lately life is like a dream
It's messing with my head
I must be dead
So, suddenly it's all picture perfect
Life is so good and I don't deserve it."

-Phoebe Ryan

Good things do happen.

It's silly because I knew that. I know that, but sometimes I forget because life isn't easy and not a lot actually goes smoothly. Maybe sometimes it's just me and this time of life. You know how multiple years can give you dump truck load of hard after dump truck load of hard? These past years the dump truck has been at constant work. I brace myself always for the next bad thing to happen. The next loved one to pass away. The next disappointment to happen. The lesson repeatedly being pounded into my brain is that nothing, absolutely nothing, ever works out as easy as you think it will.

What's hard for me is that I have the tendency to fantasize about future events till there is no possible way for me not to be disappointed by the actual happenings. It's something I've done since I was little, but it's gotten a lot better. If you don't have expectations, then you can't be disappointed. If you aren't up on an impossibly high cliff, then you don't have to fall. It's a bit of a skeptical way to look at things, but...then something unexpected happens, and you're reminded:

Good things do happen.

That's why we have hope - to sustain us through these dump truck load years when sometimes good things seem far away, even though they are always around us. When something good happens, you then are sustained by not just hope but also memories. Good memories. Love-filled memories. Memories that sweep over you in your most unsuspecting moment and leave you wondering how you were so blessed to experience those things.

Good things do happen.

This past Summer was hard and exhausting, but before all that, way back on April 6th of 2007, good seeds were planted. I received a letter in the mail from a girl in South Carolina. We wrote, we blogged together for awhile, we e-mailed, and then went back to good ol' snail mail. As the years progressed, my list of penpals grew smaller and smaller till she and one other girl was left, but that meant the letters only grew. Long, rambling letters full of complete randomness and mundane facts that only we could possibly be interested in. Since 2010 we played with the idea of visiting each other. We always knew we would one day, but it just hadn't worked out. Then out of the blue last February, she said she'd come visit me in the beginning of June.

So she bought the tickets. We skyped for the first and only time. And I planned. And planned. This was unlike anything I had ever done before because I tell myself I don't need something or I'm perfectly fine here, and I wasn't even the one going anywhere. On June 1st, we headed over to the Seattle airport to pick her up. We were there early and waited for what seemed an eternity. I knew what she looked like. I was pretty sure on that, but man, my heart was beating fast. I'm seriously the awkwardest person in existence, and I was there trying to frantically think what I was going to say. What I was going to do when I saw her for the first time. Whether I would be just who she imagined I was from the letters or whether I would disappoint - that was my greatest fear. What if I didn't live up to her expectations?

Then there she was, coming out security, and it didn't feel weird, and she graciously overlooked my awkwardness. I don't think I have ever had so much fun in my life. This was the first time she had ever come out west.  We took the ferry to Bainbridge island to see the Seattle skyline. And to see snowy and majestic Mt. Rainier. To Pike's Market where we went into a bookshop and had the coolest story ever to tell - "We've been penpals since we were twelve and met face-to-face for the first time today." I showed her my mountains. She saw banks of snow in June. And elk along the roadside. We drove around in the farmlands trying to find an old fort and wandered along the cow trails. We dashed through the valley museum before it closed and ruined our dinner with a root beer float at the little, old-fashioned fountain attached to the museum because she had never had a root beer float before. We drove through endless evergreen forests, saw Mt. St. Helens, went to the Pacific ocean. We wandered too far down (up?) the Long Beach Peninsula (Folks, they call it Long Beach for a reason) because we wanted to reach the rocks and got stuck on the beach in the dark at 11 trying to find her shoes and the pathway to the little cottage we rented.

Even though our feet felt like we were walking on daggers the next day, we wandered through the historical, little town of Oysterville, and I showed her the little red and white church where I'd get married someday with her as my bridesmaid. On the last day, we followed my family's tradition and went to say goodbye to the beach, and I misplaced my shoes, and we misplaced the pathway back to the cottage. I walked barefoot painfully back along the sidewalks and got some weird glances while she ran ahead and checked out of the cottage before the checkout time. We saw the lighthouses on Cape Disappointment. Climbed up into the Astoria Column past a flood of kids on a field trip, and I remembered why I really don't like heights as I pasted myself against the column. Long hours in the car through more forest, playing music we both liked because we like the same music, and losing our cellphone reception (and afraid that our parents might think we got lost in some cave somewhere). Plunged ourselves into this:

Because why not? And because I totally didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. We would have died if not for the mercy of some desperate looking people we passed on the way to one entrance of Ape Cave because our stupid flashlight would've failed partway through. And you can't possibly survive in Ape Cave without flashlights because you climb over high areas of boulders on boulders, and she hit her head twice because she is taller than me, and we worried about what would have happened if she knocked herself out, and this was the second time I was sure we were going to die and couldn't believe what we were doing, but in spite of all that, we survived only to find the route home still shut from the winter's snow so we had to back track, and she drove all the way, even though there were deer and mice and rabbits on the highway, because she knew I didn't like to drive in the dark. And we got home at 2 o'clock in the morning. And it wasn't just the big things and the traveling and the adventuring. It was the talking and wandering and companionship.

It was the realizing she came across the whole country to meet me face to face, and for the first time in my whole life knowing I had a best friend in the world. It didn't matter if she went back home after nine days, leaving a hole inside, because it just didn't. I realized again that good things do happen - things that you can't possibly expect or imagine. And that's what I've been remembering all Summer, and when I remember, I realize I am blessed beyond measure.

The other morning we had hoar frost on all the trees. I was taking the dog back outside after having her in all night (because of the cold), and I ended up wandering around in 8 degree weather taking pictures. It was so beautiful. More pictures are bound to show up here eventually.

I've always known your song.
I've heard it in the darkness.
Its notes have echoed in my heart
Till I memorized every broken part,
And I have cried with you
When its sad notes faltered,
When your feet lost their footing,
And your soul began to wander.
I tried to call you back to me,
Singing your song from memory,
But though I know it too well,
It is still your song, not mine.
A reflection of beauty is
Only just a reflection,
And my voice could never sing
The song that's full of your soul.
Dear one, sing your heart.
I am listening to the silence
With open ears, if only for a whisper
- A broken whisper of a song
I knew when it first began.
I've always known your song.
I've heard it in the darkness,
And now I need it, love.
If you lose your music,
If you lose your soul,
I'll lose myself alone.
I've been screaming out your song
For I know it better than my own,
And now I've lost my own.
Where are you, my soul, my song?
Where are you, my sweetest note?

Christmas in Virginia

(Apologizes for the length. I probably have put more details here than you possibly wanted to know, but I like details, and I'm detail oriented...so...details, it is.)

It was in a sea of townhouses - my brother's home - that looked as though they had been plopped there side by side by side in the last ten years. The trees were short. The design very specific. They were made quickly and practically identical for rapid population growth. After all, this collection of neighborhoods made up a town outside of D.C, but was it actually a town? It was so hard to tell as one town seemlessly turned into another within a couple miles (a not-so-normal pattern in Washington State).

But it might as well have been more than a couple miles. The street on which my brother's home was located wasn't busy. It gave you the false sense of community. A few other streets nearby werent very busy, but then suddenly you were thrust into traffic one might find in Seattle, except this traffic was this busy every hour of the day. The traffic was exasperated by the somewhat lacking, driving skills of the other drivers. They all acted as if they didnt know where they were or where they were going (or they were following a GPS). Never have we been so close to getting into car accidents than we were during our time there (a total of 8 days).

My brother's townhouse was the one on the very end. We arrived in the dark. My brother had wrapped the railings on either side of the steps up to the house with Christmas lights. There was a Christmas tree all decorated. The table (which he specifically bought for our coming) was set up for dinner. He had been cleaning his house all day to prepare for us. He took the air mattress on the floor and gave us beds (also a new addition specific for our coming). I had to tell you these things because of how impressed I was ('course he stole my heart with the simple fact he had a makeshift dinner awaiting our arrival). The only thing lacking in his nice, large house was cupboard contents. He had nothing in them. One of our few outings consisted of getting lost in a large, unfamiliar store buying EVERYTHING, even measuring cups (we also went over to a thrift store and got him more silverware, plates, and mixing bowls). I wish I could say that part was a blast, but I was, lucky me, in possession of the recipes we brought along on my phone. Everyone was asking me what we needed because other than being in possession of the recipes, I also am one of the most organized in the family. I love my family, but I came so close to a panic attack later on when I briefly misplaced my wallet ('Oh crap, I just lost my I.D, and I won't be able to go home.' - Also exasperated by how tired and done I was with the day [Stores do that to me] and lack of food...).

Another brother came up from Virginia Beach the day after we arrived and stayed until the day before we left. My third brother, and the oldest, came the day before Christmas Eve with his wife and daughter and left the day after Christmas. We have never had the entire family together since my brother married his wife almost six years ago. It's an interesting thing. My eldest brother left home when I was eight-years-old to join the Marines (also interesting how all my three brothers are in the military. Two Marines and one Navy) so I've never had a real close relationship with him. Then he married my sister-in-law who is Thai (she is a wonderful cook. She doesn't like American food so she always ends up cooking whenever I've been around her. I thought maybe Thai food was my favorite after eating hers, but restaurant Thai food is nothing like hers. Kinda disappointing) which is very awesome but leaves a little awkwardness (it's not just the different cultures thing. I'm just real awkward, and I haven't been around her or my brother enough to get over myself, aka be comfortable). As soon as they said they were expecting a baby, however, that awkwardness went away. It was so completely out of the blue and happifying. I just wish we lived closer or that we could visit more often.

On Christmas Eve we went to Pohick Church which was founded in 1774. They didn't have pews. The usher led us to a family box with a door and a latch...so we faced one another. It was a very interesting experience. And awkward. The church was Episcopal which was fine, but we weren't going to stay for the part of the service with the sermon and communion because we didn't think it proper (and the Christmas Carol Service was already starting at 10:30 pm, and my poor niece was going crazy with Christmas and presents and all). The problem was they didn't have a break between the two services. We REALLY need to work on more graceful exits. Thank God we won't ever have to see those people again. Also found out later that George Washington went to the Pohick Church at one point in his life...

On the day it was 60 degrees out, we went to Leeslyvania State Park which is where Robert E. Lee's grandfather lived. It's also the place where a Confederate battery was located. It was nice walking through the forest. Although, it was rather dismal looking since I'm used to Evergreens or no trees at all.

The day after Christmas we went to Mt. Vernon. Interestingly, it isn't owned by the government, and that's why it was opened. I thought that was pretty interesting. The actual house is amazingly small...

This is looking down from Mt. Vernon at the Potomac River. On the property was also the tombs of George Washington and Mary Washington, among a few others. Also a museum my brother and mom went to look at. I hurried around the whole property with my other bro and my dad.

The gardens! I would love to come here in the Spring or Summer when things are actually alive. I wouldn't be me if I didn't dream about the gardens. They said that they did some archaeology digs to figure out what sort of things they planted in them. George Washington considered himself, first and foremost, a farmer -  a man after my own heart. His breakfast also consisted of hot chocolate and a pancake. I could get up every day to a meal like that...I mean, hot chocolate every morning!? I also took a picture of the 'necessary' (aka, outhouse). Then I went around on the other side and realized what it was...Heh.

This is much of what I saw from the plane on the way there. So much snow. Until we were a little way out from Washington D.C. Then no snow. Pretty cool. Still, after Washington's hills and mountains, I couldn't tell where we were over. I've never flown around Christmas...makes the landscape different, but man, packing everything one might need for Christmas is a pain.

We got home at 3:00 AM the day before New Year's Eve since we had to drive over the pass from Seattle. It was a little eery. For the first portion, we were in a convoy of trucks following four snowplows (we had to pass three trucks because they came to a stop going up the pass - the front one's tires were spinning in the snow), but they slowly disappeared until it was just us. Us and a very snowy road (about two or three inches on the ground). I wish it had been bright enough to take pictures out the window because those Evergreens with their branches full of fresh snow were breathtakingly majestic, and to think, there are miles and miles of those gorgeous trees.


Afterthoughts: There's a stew simmering on the stove that I just spent the last two hours putting together. The furnace is working overtime as it tries to keep the home warm. It isn't really working, but what can be helped. The place is full of cracks and terrible drafts. I have the living room to myself as the others are either sick or out clearing up the driveway from the heap of snow we received today. This is a longer Winter than the ones we've been having. Usually by the first week of January the snow is melting, but there is still more in the forecast. As I ploughed through the snow down to take care of my aunt's cats this evening, I found my usual path (even the one I packed down after last snowfall) covered with about 16 inches of snow. Other places only have 4 because of the cold and the wind and the snow's dryness.

Leeslyvania State Park, Virginia. Overlooking the Potomac River.

You signed your name
Under every scar I bore
As if they were a work of art
And not some broken part.
Funny - in a bitter way -
The song you chose to play,
Running your fingers over wounds
That healed only then
To bleed at your slicing touch.
It's my fault, I know.
I was the one who let you in.
I opened wide the door
And didnt shut myself back up
When your kisses became bruises -
It's better to be loved
By bitterness and pain
Then to be lost in loneliness -
At least that's what I said,
But my voice has become an enemy.
It's learned its ways from you.
What is the difference, really,
Between you and me?
Your faults and my faults?
I am meant to save myself,
And you are love that's lost its life.
You are a name signed beneath my scars.
You are a crime committed compassionlessly,
And I am you by a different name.



Afterthought: I'm working on a post about my holidays, but it's slow. I'm trying to catch up on everything after being gone for a week, and I haven't. It's cold (down into the single digits at night. Plus there is a wind that's harder than normal. Weather says possible -13 during the day tomorrow because of the wind chill), and the snow heaped onto us in drifts the day before yesterday. 16 inches was the highest drift I walked into. I hope all of you are having a happy new year.