stifled

I'm in a strange place as far as blogging goes lately. For the first time in a long time, I feel...stifled...concerning what I can say. Thus the smaller number of posts as of late. However, the difference between the previous occasions I've felt this way and this one, is that it's *me* stifling myself this time and not feeling the pressure from an outside situation or person.

I feel not only like I'm running out of things to say, like most of my challenges are just on loop and I will probably keep dealing with them in the same effective faith/hope/charity way I have in the past  (check the archives); But I also feel like I just don't want to blog about some of the things that are going on right now. Like I don't want to have any type of public record of them to prove that they were...and aren't again...should they not. I'm not ready to give it up. You know?

The above paragraph brought to you by the number 2. And the word VAGUE.

Anyway, having returned from California just late last night, and having had a dreamy, beyond wonderful time there in Surf City (including a trip to the Surfing Museum), I was pretty thrilled to run across a quip from none other than Gidget's mother herself that explains exactly how I'm feeling:

"Gidget, it is no surprise to me that you don’t like dates. They are often awkward, uncomfortable, and forced. Usually one of you will have stronger feelings for the other (sometimes it will be you, sometimes them) and this inequity will drive the dynamic of your relationship. Mis-communication, assumptions, insecurities, and past issues will be freely used to stunt the growth of a relationship and... then there is the understanding that all the time and work you invest in it will likely be fruitless. Because the reality is most relationships DON’T end in marriage, meaning they end–often painfully. Then you have to start all over again, trying not to taint the future with the mistakes and hurts of the past but knowing it is really hard not to.

Gidget, you're too genuine to pretend anything you don’t feel yet. Dating is hard and inconvenient and the only reason we do it is because there is the hope that once in a (long) while something clicks and you find someone special and even magical and get to experience the euphoria that just maybe this one will last. Kind of like you and Moondoggie at the end of this movie."

Substitute Jennifer P. for Gidget and, yeah...

I'm a fighter. I always have been. It's just in my nature. *I run like a crazy woman because a doctor told me I couldn't with my heart condition. And I proved him wrong. *I finished 25 credits in one semester because my advisor told me I couldn't. And I proved him wrong. *I take on the number, complexity, and diversity of projects I do and excel at them frankly because most people say it can't be done, or at least they couldn't do it. And I do it.

If you want to see me do something, just tell me I can't. (As long as it's not immoral or illegal. Or involving jumping out of a perfectly good airplane).

But I reach my fighting limits when it comes to people.  I learned long ago they can't be forced like a thing (or shouldn't be). Can't really even be 'fought' for in the same sense I can fight to overcome certain odds.  I'll try. Try very hard even. But in the end, situations involving two people always require two people's wills/hearts/minds. I don't know if that will ever sit right with me, forever thinking 'what else? what more?' Though I have learned to accept it, and the pain that often accompanies it. As well as to keep embracing the hope that keeps me going, regardless, knowing that one day it will all work out. It will. It will.

As Gidget said, "Love makes room for fault." I guess that means there's even room for me :)