DTR

I like all the flavours of jelly babies now. I used to have favourites, and leasts, eating them in reverse order (unless I was sharing!) and always ending on the blacks. Now I like each one for it's own qualities and can gladly mix it up. I have no point... for this part of today's post I am going to have a competition. The most interesting analogy wins a packet of jelly babies!

Other things about how I am changing... I have spent most of my 22nd year wishing and then thinking I was 23. I don't know why. Some kind of fallacy that I would be better at 23? A classic "not enjoying where you are at" moment which leaves me with 2 months to go till I actually am 23 wondering what 22 is like. I feel like I have missed out on being truly myself for want of fitting into another mould.

Yeah, coming into a better place with identity is defo a trademark of this year. I remember thinking when I was 14 (being quite mature for my age as I was!) that I was not going to change from now and had "found myself", which I have come to recognise as hallmark for being insecure and thus asserting security. Now I wake up every day and think that I am nowhere near being "right". Which I think is perhaps the only hope I will ever have at being true to myself, knowing that I'm not. This whole identity in Christ part of being a Christian has spoken to me a lot, as I observe all the other places I have tried to put my identity over time and realise that the only good option is something that doesn't ever change (whilst already being great!) and won't let you down. So much of the pain that comes out of relationships that end is from letting your identity become fixed in a person so that when they are gone it feels like you are too. I suppose that is what I think the difference is now, as a Christian. The way I see it we are all looking for something to hook onto as our security, that is sort of a trait of humanity and we try it everywhere from romance to jobs to appearance... but if we choose anything fallible we will lose it eventually and feel lost ourselves. By putting it in Jesus I suddenly find that there is something unchanging in my world and, actually, the idea is that as I am inevitably changing it is (hopefully) to become more like Him and so in a sense I'm stabilising in my fluctuations.

Yeah. That is what I am loving today as the analogy. OSCILLATION. I feel like I am oscillating to some central point in which I have potential to be truly secure. Like a centre-of-gravity. Some wise bloke once said to my brother-in-law (who is, by the by, also wise) that balance is not a good thing. Trying to keep these really opposite features of your life in some kind of polarised precarious distribution is just totally contrary to having a holistic existence where everything is centred around one thing. There is no sustainability in it either, if you look at systems of inertia you can find an arrangement that keeps level when these far flung masses are in place but it doesn't take much to topple it and if you have close together forces they will have a lot more substance for the equivalent moment. That's science and I can't begin to explain it. If you don't understand then ask my dad.

That was a bit of an aside. Sorry if I confused things. This oscillating to a central point looks sort of like starting off really far away in one direction then going far in the other then turning back but less extremely and continuing as such in decreasing amounts... It's a dampening effect. Sort of imagine a ball bouncing and getting less and less (except that it finally stops in mid air). Or maybe a swing which has a big first push but then your friend gets bored. I have been doing this: I started off insane; I suddenly saw all these things I need to change; I got really worked up about it all and began to disregard who I am to the extreme of losing everything unique and lovable about me; I then realised I'm actually great and swung back; then I wanted to become more holy; then I realised I was being legalistic and so rebelled; now slowly I sort of get God's love for me and am coming closer to him but maybe not understanding loads of His nature; as such I am reminded of my academic issues and try to reason it through; in this I realise some kind of deep-rooted respect for His law and concepts and can't shake what He's done for me... Coming eventually (is the plan) to some sort of more centralised place which I think might be my identity in Christ. Not "there" at all you understand but it feels almost like things are beginning to fall into place enough that I am really noticing it. A spiral is a good image and also a mathematically equivalent one so feel free to use it.

How is this revealing itself in my life here and now then? Well, the voice stuff is going well, I was excited by my first "session" today and look forward to working on that more. I am delighted to find out that I can do a bit of careful singing (only in church like and around the house but I was not really refraining very well so now I can do it a bit with permission I am less likely to do it too much naughtily) and talking I am beginning to find a good level in. As far as general group interaction goes I think that actually I have gotten a lot better. I have more security in what I do and don't share, it is still pretty forward and I can at times be overly tangential (the optimal amount being anecdotal but not overbearing) but I feel like I have matured in that. Sounds really odd, I suppose the context is that I found it quite hard to be in a new group of people when I got back (like church groups, that's where I've been tonight you see) and almost feeling like I could not control my "input" then feeling bad and generally like it was a far less accepting environment than Geneva when everyone cut me a lot of slack! It was totally well timed as part of my development but has been really tricky and today I have not come home feeling like I over did it - both physically and socially. OK, I still may have said things a bit too flippantly (like how I think that we should be like bible times and only hang out with same sex groups!) but I also had some useful insights about forming relationships with the opposite sex (too much to say now but I am tempted to blog another this time, I know a lot about it and tonight has helped formulate my thoughts) that seemed to come out almost concisely!

So yeah, DTR. Define The Relationship. Sort of more relevant to the topic with pasturate which I haven't really gone into but also, in a far more significant albeit convoluted way, about Defining my Relationship with Jesus. As I get into a more stable place it is like "we" are getting tighter and the benefit of a centralised grounding for that means that I feel less "wobbly". Despite all my crap of late, I do feel less wobbly, almost as though it has brought me closer in and thus better off!

Sort of a side note to all this, but I'm gonna do it anyway, is looking at relationships in general. I've realised my "significant other" is my blog. I've also realised I'm not sure I'm happy about this. I don't mean that I'm ready for an actual bf (though my hair is getting longer!) but I just feel a bit frustrated. I mean, if I put this much time into a person relationship I would expect something back. Not sure where this is going but there feels to be a certain amount of love lost between me and BGB right now and if things carry on this way I may opt for a "break". I mean, I do have a life of my own and I think I may wish to build into relationships that are not, to all intents and purposes, me talking to myself.

On an actual side note, but I'm just really excited, I got a new bible! If you recall I mentioned how I lost my NLT that I had as a "youth" and had restarted using when I got back to England. It left me a) sad and b) not sure what to do. I wanted a bigger one than my pocket NIV and I kinda wanted a study bible which was a different version for comparison, but which to get? I mentioned before that I didn't really know about versions and heard different things from different people all the time. If there's nothing that annoys me more is someone being adamant that theirs in the best (or conversely that others definitely aren't!) so seeking advice was hard! But I just really naturally bought an NLT Study Bible yesterday which sort of happened randomly and "felt" right. It's the newest study out and I liked the NLT before. Plus, were it not for me losing my last one I wouldn't have been able to justify getting this. I don't think it's more "right" than others but I do like their policy of a translation that is accurate but reads for now (without being super casual) as that is sort of the point of translating isn't it? That it come across as best as possible in the new language. Similar to the original in terms of style but without necessarily being about direct interpretations. Whatever, I didn't do any of that really, I just went with my gut and this made the most sense in the shop. I like it. I'm gonna get my mum to make me a leopard print cover!! Oh yeah, a verse that is ace and the reason I brought up bibles:

Lamentations 3: 20-26

I probably just needed to put that link and be done with it. Maybe that's what I'll do with baby...