Hello my wonderful friends and Happy New Year! I realise it’s not all that long since I last wrote…but woe is me I’m babysitting and I thought I may as well take advantage of using my brother’s WORKING Internet connection unlike that of my parents.
Well, as I’m sure you’ll have pieced together from my various posts throughout 2007, that the year that has just passed has been a very unsettling one for me in many ways. When asked to turn to one another a “thank God for 2007” at a service I went to on Sunday evening, WHAM, depression flooded over me like being run over by a train. I sat there arms folded, eyes welling up resolute that I was certainly NOT going to thank God for a year, the beginning of which saw me with a steady girlfriend and a Grandma, both dearly loved by many people but sadly both no longer in my life for varying reasons.
It is perhaps on that note I wish to speak…more over about Miriam. When contacted by her Vicar in October was it? And asked never to contact her again if I had any sort of respect for her…I felt my life had yet again been destroyed. Selfish to complain of course since no doubt that is how she feels. And has felt throughout the year I no doubt WRECKED for her.
The ironic thing is (and maybe this is the English student in me…recently having read 4 books since the start of the Christmas Holiday – more than I’ve read in the last 5 years!!!) that if she were to ever read this blog…there’s very little in it to convince her that I’m somehow different and could be a better friend to her. It’s too painful for me to hope we could go out again, but it is my fervent prayer that one day we’ll at least be in each others’ lives again.
I think this is something bigger than merely wanting to “fix” things. Men love to fix things don’t we? Gay or straight, camp or butch? God gave us a gene to want to build, repair and fix? And perhaps one of the hardest things I’ve had to come to terms with…are there are some situations, some screw-ups, that I just can’t fix? I don’t think I can fix this. But I do believe in my heart of hearts that God can. I’m sure many of you reading this will say: “DUH, he IS fixing things, just not in the way you want them to be fixed. Mim is getting on just fine and dandy without you, it’s only YOU who can’t let go”. Well my friends, you would be right to say that, and God’s ways are certainly not our ways…but still…I have hope. Despite there being an unwritten rule that I can’t mention the name Miriam around my closest of friends because they fear the loony bin will simply have to be called…hope is the one thing that I cannot be robbed of and even if I have to give her back to God on a DAILY basis with tears in my eyes, tears of resentment that he’s not “making her” love me, tears of regret that I allowed this to happen in the first place and tears that I’m simply to small a being to be able to “make good” this situation.
It’s ironic, because Miriam and I actually have a history and a past that goes way back before we started seeing each other. We’d been friends at Lee Abbey. It may only have been 2 very separate and singular summers, but anyone that’s been on community knows that a lifetime can be had in but an hour at that rather special place. I say it’s ironic because Miriam first took notice of me (as a friend) back in summer 2004 when her Grandma passed away and I sent her and her sister (also a community member) a sympathy card. Of all the people whom I would want in my life, who’s a similar age, who’s lost a Grandma, who’s MET my grandma!!!! Who could walk me through this grief…it’s her! And she’s not here.
She shares my dislike of hating my birthday party and finding it stressful. I wasn’t there for her 21st, but I shared with her angst as some of the stresses caught up with her prior to the event. There’s also no one else I would have trusted to have organised my 25th Birthday this year…no one who I would trust unconditionally to push me to take a leap of faith, but at the same time be 100% confident that they knew my breaking point and knew when enough was enough. Part of this trust was accrued when she was my secret “1st Officer” on a Host Team at Lee Abbey and I was stressing over arrangements that had been made while I was on holiday. When I had to dress up as Elvis on the first night. ME!!!!! Well…she leant over and afterwards said: “don’t worry, I will make sure absolutely everything is taken care of, if you’re busy, I’ll even sort out the costume for you”.
We really were a great team. To quote Mavis: “like a pair of scissors…one useless without the other half”. Obviously that simile is not entirely true for anyone who has the risen Lord dwelling in His or her heart. And I’ve accomplished more academically in the latter half of this year (all by myself – praying to the Lord) than at any other point in my life. But still…I want her back.
*sighs*…well, I probably shouldn’t post this. But I guess a tiny incy wincy bit of me hopes and prays that someday, somewhere, she’ll read this message and know that I am truly sorry. I won’t be bugging her anymore and I hope very much that we will one day be able to be friends.
So there we go, signing off from this melodramatic poor-old-me rant. But painfully honest nonetheless.
Well, as I’m sure you’ll have pieced together from my various posts throughout 2007, that the year that has just passed has been a very unsettling one for me in many ways. When asked to turn to one another a “thank God for 2007” at a service I went to on Sunday evening, WHAM, depression flooded over me like being run over by a train. I sat there arms folded, eyes welling up resolute that I was certainly NOT going to thank God for a year, the beginning of which saw me with a steady girlfriend and a Grandma, both dearly loved by many people but sadly both no longer in my life for varying reasons.
It is perhaps on that note I wish to speak…more over about Miriam. When contacted by her Vicar in October was it? And asked never to contact her again if I had any sort of respect for her…I felt my life had yet again been destroyed. Selfish to complain of course since no doubt that is how she feels. And has felt throughout the year I no doubt WRECKED for her.
The ironic thing is (and maybe this is the English student in me…recently having read 4 books since the start of the Christmas Holiday – more than I’ve read in the last 5 years!!!) that if she were to ever read this blog…there’s very little in it to convince her that I’m somehow different and could be a better friend to her. It’s too painful for me to hope we could go out again, but it is my fervent prayer that one day we’ll at least be in each others’ lives again.
I think this is something bigger than merely wanting to “fix” things. Men love to fix things don’t we? Gay or straight, camp or butch? God gave us a gene to want to build, repair and fix? And perhaps one of the hardest things I’ve had to come to terms with…are there are some situations, some screw-ups, that I just can’t fix? I don’t think I can fix this. But I do believe in my heart of hearts that God can. I’m sure many of you reading this will say: “DUH, he IS fixing things, just not in the way you want them to be fixed. Mim is getting on just fine and dandy without you, it’s only YOU who can’t let go”. Well my friends, you would be right to say that, and God’s ways are certainly not our ways…but still…I have hope. Despite there being an unwritten rule that I can’t mention the name Miriam around my closest of friends because they fear the loony bin will simply have to be called…hope is the one thing that I cannot be robbed of and even if I have to give her back to God on a DAILY basis with tears in my eyes, tears of resentment that he’s not “making her” love me, tears of regret that I allowed this to happen in the first place and tears that I’m simply to small a being to be able to “make good” this situation.
It’s ironic, because Miriam and I actually have a history and a past that goes way back before we started seeing each other. We’d been friends at Lee Abbey. It may only have been 2 very separate and singular summers, but anyone that’s been on community knows that a lifetime can be had in but an hour at that rather special place. I say it’s ironic because Miriam first took notice of me (as a friend) back in summer 2004 when her Grandma passed away and I sent her and her sister (also a community member) a sympathy card. Of all the people whom I would want in my life, who’s a similar age, who’s lost a Grandma, who’s MET my grandma!!!! Who could walk me through this grief…it’s her! And she’s not here.
She shares my dislike of hating my birthday party and finding it stressful. I wasn’t there for her 21st, but I shared with her angst as some of the stresses caught up with her prior to the event. There’s also no one else I would have trusted to have organised my 25th Birthday this year…no one who I would trust unconditionally to push me to take a leap of faith, but at the same time be 100% confident that they knew my breaking point and knew when enough was enough. Part of this trust was accrued when she was my secret “1st Officer” on a Host Team at Lee Abbey and I was stressing over arrangements that had been made while I was on holiday. When I had to dress up as Elvis on the first night. ME!!!!! Well…she leant over and afterwards said: “don’t worry, I will make sure absolutely everything is taken care of, if you’re busy, I’ll even sort out the costume for you”.
We really were a great team. To quote Mavis: “like a pair of scissors…one useless without the other half”. Obviously that simile is not entirely true for anyone who has the risen Lord dwelling in His or her heart. And I’ve accomplished more academically in the latter half of this year (all by myself – praying to the Lord) than at any other point in my life. But still…I want her back.
*sighs*…well, I probably shouldn’t post this. But I guess a tiny incy wincy bit of me hopes and prays that someday, somewhere, she’ll read this message and know that I am truly sorry. I won’t be bugging her anymore and I hope very much that we will one day be able to be friends.
So there we go, signing off from this melodramatic poor-old-me rant. But painfully honest nonetheless.
