time out
Tonight, I'm flying "across the pond" to Holland with my mom for a first ever extended mother/daughter trip and the first ever mother/daughter trip out of the country. While I have to admit that this trip is for my mom (if I had the money to spend on an overseas vacation -ha!- it would be to get back to Thailand), I am really really excited to just get away from everything for more than a three-day weekend.
I have found this year that while some people thrive on the commuter lifestyle, I don't. It's not for me. Yes, I like to be busy either getting things accomplished or investing in people, but to spend 15 hours a week just traveling and doing things en route, with your "life" with you in your bag or in your car, I'm giving that a big no. I already feel like I'm enough of an organized mess as is, but with the added always on the go save Sundays (I'm usually "commuting" to dance rehearsals on Saturdays) some days (mostly mornings) I feel like I'm less organized and more mess. Some important things have been slipping.
I guess that this post is a little bit more of a confession...not really a private one, but more of realization that I came to today. While I like to sit and think and write sometimes about ideas and interactions at work, I more rarely spend time to evaluate where I am, personally in life and in my relationships. (I used to do that a lot more and HAD to for part of my major in college.) Both in my relationships with God and with my family (and friends) I have kinda stopped thinking too hard where I would like those relationships to be and just kind of let them "be". I guess, in other words, I am guilty of sloth in the realm of intentionality in the most significant relationships in my life.
I am not sure if THAT has been intentional or not on my part. Sure I could blame part of that lack of intentionality on my outside circumstances such as draining schedule, difficult subject matter at work (as well as the fact that I label it "The Nebulous"- I have made it a noun), recovering from a particularly stressful period at IINJ when I was the only full time person in my dept. for 2+ months, the personal struggles that I see in my parents and divorce that I still mourn over and the conflicts that it still causes and the big transition ahead this coming year. I guess because of the these outside factors, I use the excuse that I don't usually have a wh0le lot of emotional energy left to be intentional in evaluating how my relationships with those most important to me are developing. I am content to just let them be and enjoy the good that's there. Sometimes that's good. All the time, it's not necessarily bad, but it's not growing and developing either. It lacks the commitment to speaking the truth in love and the "iron sharpens iron" bit.
I think that I can pin the start of this retreat from being intentional though to last summer, when, after HNGR, readjustment and going home, I didn't want to think hard anymore. (Though I did about "big issues".) At one point after I moved home from college, I decided that I was just tired of "rocking the boat" at home. I was tired of feeling like I'm on a tightrope in the middle, of being sad because of things of the past, of getting into arguements over what happened or didn't and implications for the future. It became much easier to just desire to move on, to think about something else that's more mindless, to not "rock the boat" if the boat is just going to capsize anyway. But I think that maybe that not wanting to "rock the boat" has invaded other areas of my life as well and not just with family conflicts anymore. It think recently it's been extending to many aspects of my relationships to my family and as well to my friends, coworkers and to my Father in Heaven.
I don't know. Maybe this commuter lifestyle has also given me more liscense to "zone out" instead of to be intentional with my time. It almost feels like when you spend 2 hours in the car everyday or 2.5 hours changing trains, time almost feels suspended. Though you can get in some reading or call someone on the phone, it's much easier to listen to music and just zone...and that's what I've been more inclined to do over the past couple months.
Maybe I do just need a vacation, but I'm also aware that I don't just want to coast in my relationships any more than I just want to float through life. Perhaps the Holy Spirit has convicted me recently about this lack of intentionality by bringing to mind good memories of very intentional communities and groups of people that I treasured in college. I hope that this vacation, besides just a good time in a different country with my mom will be a good time out for me, where I can think about some of these things, and mainly think to pray about them.
I have found this year that while some people thrive on the commuter lifestyle, I don't. It's not for me. Yes, I like to be busy either getting things accomplished or investing in people, but to spend 15 hours a week just traveling and doing things en route, with your "life" with you in your bag or in your car, I'm giving that a big no. I already feel like I'm enough of an organized mess as is, but with the added always on the go save Sundays (I'm usually "commuting" to dance rehearsals on Saturdays) some days (mostly mornings) I feel like I'm less organized and more mess. Some important things have been slipping.
I guess that this post is a little bit more of a confession...not really a private one, but more of realization that I came to today. While I like to sit and think and write sometimes about ideas and interactions at work, I more rarely spend time to evaluate where I am, personally in life and in my relationships. (I used to do that a lot more and HAD to for part of my major in college.) Both in my relationships with God and with my family (and friends) I have kinda stopped thinking too hard where I would like those relationships to be and just kind of let them "be". I guess, in other words, I am guilty of sloth in the realm of intentionality in the most significant relationships in my life.
I am not sure if THAT has been intentional or not on my part. Sure I could blame part of that lack of intentionality on my outside circumstances such as draining schedule, difficult subject matter at work (as well as the fact that I label it "The Nebulous"- I have made it a noun), recovering from a particularly stressful period at IINJ when I was the only full time person in my dept. for 2+ months, the personal struggles that I see in my parents and divorce that I still mourn over and the conflicts that it still causes and the big transition ahead this coming year. I guess because of the these outside factors, I use the excuse that I don't usually have a wh0le lot of emotional energy left to be intentional in evaluating how my relationships with those most important to me are developing. I am content to just let them be and enjoy the good that's there. Sometimes that's good. All the time, it's not necessarily bad, but it's not growing and developing either. It lacks the commitment to speaking the truth in love and the "iron sharpens iron" bit.
I think that I can pin the start of this retreat from being intentional though to last summer, when, after HNGR, readjustment and going home, I didn't want to think hard anymore. (Though I did about "big issues".) At one point after I moved home from college, I decided that I was just tired of "rocking the boat" at home. I was tired of feeling like I'm on a tightrope in the middle, of being sad because of things of the past, of getting into arguements over what happened or didn't and implications for the future. It became much easier to just desire to move on, to think about something else that's more mindless, to not "rock the boat" if the boat is just going to capsize anyway. But I think that maybe that not wanting to "rock the boat" has invaded other areas of my life as well and not just with family conflicts anymore. It think recently it's been extending to many aspects of my relationships to my family and as well to my friends, coworkers and to my Father in Heaven.
I don't know. Maybe this commuter lifestyle has also given me more liscense to "zone out" instead of to be intentional with my time. It almost feels like when you spend 2 hours in the car everyday or 2.5 hours changing trains, time almost feels suspended. Though you can get in some reading or call someone on the phone, it's much easier to listen to music and just zone...and that's what I've been more inclined to do over the past couple months.
Maybe I do just need a vacation, but I'm also aware that I don't just want to coast in my relationships any more than I just want to float through life. Perhaps the Holy Spirit has convicted me recently about this lack of intentionality by bringing to mind good memories of very intentional communities and groups of people that I treasured in college. I hope that this vacation, besides just a good time in a different country with my mom will be a good time out for me, where I can think about some of these things, and mainly think to pray about them.
posted by jdances | 22.6.07
1 Comments:
oh, Janelle...i miss you! i hope that you have a really special trip. :-) it was good to read all your reflections on relationships. i am so lonely right now, but i just blogged about it today - that a very slow-paced and limited life, both in terms of activities and relationships, as i'm having to live right now, does offer lots of time for contemplation and intentionality. i should cherish this time, because soon i'll probably be so busy again, and wishing that life would stop so i could contemplate. balance is so hard to achieve!!
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