Reflections

I don't know what's up with me lately. Maybe nothing, maybe something. Maybe everything. It hasn't been an easy year. I've made mistakes, and I continue to make them. I'm trying to finish my courses and struggling. I'm worrying, procrastinating, hoping, wallowing... any number of things. There are a lot of things I'd like to say, but feel like I can't--what if so and so saw this, would they hate me, would it be disrespectful, ahhhh screaming.

But as simply I can put it: My dad left us, going off to live in Colorado. My mom has gotten certified to teach and is looking for a job. I've been homeschooling. Which hasn't gone so well. So now I'm behind and -trying- to finish my courses so I can go back to public school.

The thing with this is, people didn't want me to try it. Many thought it was a bad idea, hated the idea, fought the idea... but it was something I wanted to try, so I found a way to do it. Now, being behind, I look really bad to all those people. Among other things, of course. Things I could go on and on about that would end in me getting very worked up about it and probably close to tears.

When I think about it, my life hasn't been so great for a while. Two years ago, I was pretty depressed. I spoke to a school counselor regularly, who charted my 'happiness' and came up with something along the lines of 'you aren't getting any happier. You should be by now.' Don't get me wrong, I liked her as a person, but as a counselor she kept trying to get me to ACT on my problems, which only made me more miserable and upset.

I skipped class whenever I could, but with permission from the counselor. I had a science teacher that was pretty inappropriate and once accused me of doing drugs (oh, the stories I could tell about him). My journalism class disliked me for finding their mistakes, as well as a large portion of the school itself when I started writing an advice column that everyone could tell I wrote. The fact that we lived in Gricignano di Aversa, Italy, didn't help either--besides the fact that the air was so polluted I couldn't go out without getting a headache, it just isn't that fun living in a place where you don't speak the language and your 'civilization' of sorts is a navy base. It just gets old, horrible and isolated.

Then we moved to Key West, Florida- also isolated, if not more so considering it's an island. However, it gets props for the fact that people speak English there. Of course, there was the culture shock. We had lived in Italy for 6 years, and things were very different and, frankly, odd. Even in Italy I had been out of touch with what everyone else thought was cool. I loved my youth group, but there were problems with it that I can't really distinguish clearly and would take a long time to explain. One could write several posts on a certain boy alone.

I suppose one thing that made me uncomfortable was the fact that I felt pressured to raise my hands during worship. This is something I have trouble with, whether by the mere presence of others doing so or people themselves requesting I do so (encouraging or not, it confuses me). If I raise my hands, I want to do it because I feel called to myself- not by others. I guess you could say I have trouble worshipping in a group in general.

That's not such a big thing, though... the people weren't mean--most were very nice, in fact. Maybe you have to have lived in Key West to get it. Maybe you have to be me to get what's going on in my head. It was a positive experience in my life, but a negative one in some ways. Does that make sense? Probably not.

School in Key West wasn't fantastic, either. Besides the two from Youth Group, I didn't really have any friends besides others from Youth Group who weren't in any of my classes. Most students didn't appear to care about their grades, nonchalantly citing Ds like they didn't matter. Taking regular science was a mistake-- insanely chaotic, mostly book work, and no one did any schoolwork but me. I think I kept the teacher sane, but seriously.. it was very, very bad. This also brings to mind a certain girl who sat in my group, the thought of whom makes me kind of angry. I could say a lot of negative things about her. I probably shouldn't. This is another thing I could go on and on about.

Moving on with school--every day without fail, I sat outside to eat my lunch. Key West is continuously sunny (one of the positive things I have to say about it), so I had seating problems only a few times the whole year. Whilst eating said lunch, I would call my mom. I don't have any shame in this, but others seemed to have a problem with it. In fact, I was insulted one time that ended in me bursting into tears (after which the person in question came back, said sorry, and told me to tell my mother that I'd met a new friend. I never sat there again.)

I'm somewhat of a misfit, and I'm constantly battling to be at peace with it. I realize that I'm imperfect and mess up. I realize that I say and do the wrong things. I realize that I've made mistakes, and continue to, and always will. But in the same way, I don't see all of these things. I see them, but I don't. I can't realize everything. I can't fix everything, though I want to. I can't be perfect... I really can't.

When I think about it, though, I believe I'd rather belong to the land of the 'misfit' toys than any other land. At least here I know I'm in good company. Here, other people make mistakes and at least want to admit them. Maybe one of us toys are missing an arm or an eye, but guess what--we still love each other.

If only I knew how to get there in a world beyond my dreams.

I haven't found it yet. Not yet.