Sunday, February 27, 2005 | by nathan

i am grateful and impatient

when i was twelve years old, my mom sold our house in weatherford, oklahoma, because it was a sad place for all of us to be living. she’d just divorced my father, i was miserable in school because i was getting beat up physically and emotionally all the time, and we were all just generally completely miserable.

on my first day at school at brink junior high in moore, oklahoma, a “white flight” suburb that has become the white trash capital of the greater oklahoma city metropolitan area, i met a kid named eric ankenman. for some reason i know that the date was august 24, 1992. we were friends from that day forward, and we survived the general malaise and rollercoaster that was secondary school by banding together, being smart, kicking under our breaths at the stupid people we had to see every day. he is a big part of the way that God made me a believer. he introduced me to rich mullins. he’s getting married in january.

it’s eleven months away - great - but i just found out. and i’m excited for him, because he’s had quite a rocky road when it comes to his relationships with women. but as far as i am concerned, i am not okay. i’ve listened to that caedmon’s call song “can’t lose you” about a million times now, because it describes so perfectly how i’m feeling. i’m scared that everyone’s going to get married and make babies - of whom i am intensely afraid - and i’m going to still be here, trying to write, living at home, until the end of time.

joel new told me last night that this is a stupid way to feel, and he is correct. but that does not make the feelings go away. it doesn’t make it all right, and it doesn’t make me not afraid. as great as it has been to marry off everybody in the past few years, because it has, i am also feeling more alone than usual.

two nights ago i decided to buy “I Heart Huckabees” on DVD and invite Laurie and Jaye and Erica and Alex over to watch it. I said I’d make curry chicken, which I’ve learned how to make recently, and we’d have wine and dinner and watch the movie. It was great. I was with two couples.

Erica told me last night she’s been feeling left out of our group lately. I wanted to be like, “Honey, you don’t know from left out.”

In general I’m just sad, not because I don’t want my friends to get married, but because I have some truly fucked-up ideas about what it means when people get married - that they are automatically more grown-up, spiritual, connected to Jesus, plugged-in, and happier. This is, of course, patently untrue - “A lie from the pit of Hell” as Greg Farrand would say - but in a dark part of me I buy into it. I wish I wasn’t so sick.

You know, three months ago I was fine with being single. Then I met Jonathan and had that whole thing happen, and I got hurt. Then I started missing the shit out of Joel and am really hurting about how I treated him. And now, I’m not okay. And every time I get to where I’m okay to be single, I meet someone, and the whole process starts over again.

last night laurie’s little sister, carrie, had a birthday party for her boyfriend. i went because i love carrie branscum, and because there were free margaritas, tequila shots, and hpnotiq. all of which are things i love. laurie told me that i should come because there was going to be a “cute and sophisticated” gay boy there named Chris (although, I’ve really sworn off of dating people with that first name). I admit, i was intrigued but just couldn’t get it up emotionally to meet this guy. i was quite relieved when he never showed up.

then, i spent the entire night with laurie and jaye, carrie and taha, and another couple. i was a seventh wheel. so, i got funny, danced like a spastic white person, smoked a tiny little pack of cigarettes, and tried not to think about my own shitty little feelings. i missed church because i was hung over.

what does all this mean? I dunno. it means I am a sinner, because, well, everything seems to mean that. which isn’t to play down that fact, but I think it means more than just that. it means that i am bad at taking care of myself, and being alone, but also, that i really do believe i won’t be worthy of a real, healthy, lasting relationship until i’ve published my book, caught myself up financially, gotten out of oklahoma, gotten into perfect shape physically, and figured out exactly how much jesus loves me and found humility and grace to love all people.

so, quarter after five next tuesday.

i know this thinking is stupid. i do. but it’s there, and i hate it, and it seems to be staring me in the face a lot these days. i’m starting to hate oklahoma. i am praying to God that this degree i’m getting proves to be much more useful than the one i already have, and that i can find just the smallest measure of success, just enough to get me somewhere else in life.

ever since i left yale i’ve been spinning my wheels. getting back into school may be the first step out of that mud pit i was in, and i am grateful - so so so grateful - for the chance to do this degree. but i’m worried that it won’t work out, because very little has been working out in my life the past several years. i’m scared that i’m going to get plowed under again. mom told me the other day that this degree is my “last chance,” because after this she and dad can’t pay for me to go to school anymore. thanks. takes the pressure right off.

so pretty much, things have to work out. and i know that they will, although not in any way I can imagine because God has these crazy plans to prosper me and not to harm me. i’m just confused and frightened and not trusting like I’d like to be, and, well, you can pray for me.

today, i don’t like the person that i am. but i know that Jesus does. i am praying to see pleasure on my Father’s face, because I need a cheerleader right about now. I’m going to turn that caedmon’s song off and listen to something a little more hopeful.

current song: “Got To Be Real” by Cheryl Lynn. and yes, I am dancing around the kitchen like a spastic white person.

This I Believe