Randomness

2011 October 16

We are on vacation at the beach in North Carolina, as guests of my brother Vinny. Two weeks of relaxation, time spent with family and trying to completely remove all thoughts of the remaining chaos to be sorted through before we get on the road full time.

I am grateful to Jennifer who has been keeping an eye on the home front, thereby allowing our time away to be less stressful.

Thinking about all that remains to be done at this point in our vaca would be counter productive, so I'm not going to follow that particular flotsam any further.

I apparently got rid of my bathing suit in my purging. I have spent a week here without one. Maybe today I'll take a trip to Walmart and see if they have any fat girl clearance suits available. Or I'll at least get a tank top, so I can get a bit of sun without looking like a farmer.

Raymond plans to spend the day watching football. My brothers, Vinny and Dave may come along with me on a short shopping excursion. It amazes me how willing they are at times to go along on such trips. Excursions that Raymond would never join. Remains to be seen if Greyla will tag along or not.

The beginning of this two week vaca was a little rough for me and for Greyla. The day before we were leaving, I fell on my brother's concrete porch and jarred myself pretty good. I think I also managed to pick up a few germs from Nicky & Anamaria right before we left which managed to ferment and manifest the day we traveled and for a few days after we arrived. Poor Greyla is getting a little too old to make the jump from the back compartment, especially since she's used to having the entire area behind the front seats as her domain. When we have a couple extra passengers, requiring the back seats to be up in a sitting position, she gets a bit cramped. She seems back to her old self, though. She's settled into a vaca routine and is appearing quite content.

I have been walking more than I do at home. That bodes well for the future, I think. While I am not comfortable walking in our home neighborhood, the fact that the last several days I've walked between a mile and two miles encourages me that I will be more inclined to walk when I am in a place where I feel more comfortable.

While I am looking forward to getting on the road, I find myself consistently wondering if I could live somewhere in NC. While I love the mountains, I wouldn't ever want to be that far from the ocean. We've talked about living somewhere like Greenville, where East Carolina University is located. But, who knows where we will end up...

I'm more than a little concerned about our choice of motor home. The Class C with a slide seemed like the perfect fit for us and I guess time will tell. My worry is that it's too big at 30 feet. My other concern is the shape. The fact that the body of the vehicle is wider than the cab is worrisome to me. It hasn't really been a factor on the road, except for going through toll booths. Perhaps, it is just something I will become accustomed to as time goes by.

I need to let go of all the things I tend to worry about, until such time as there is need to worry, I guess. I also have to stop what my therapist referred to as "black & white thinking". I have a tendency to want to make things be this way, or that way, when in fact, most things are somewhere in the middle. Good thing I know I'm a work in progress.

Dreams

2011 October 15

Over the last few nights I sensed more than remembered working out some lingering "stuff" in my dreams. Perhaps because I am away from the day to day preparation for getting on the road, my mind is finding it easier to sort through some of the complex relationships that have been neglected in the chaos. I found myself dreaming about people from New Hope Church. I haven't retained many details, but the overall sense is that I have disappointed some whom I call my friends. Is that truth, or just a reflection of my perpetual guilt? I suppose one way to get to the root would be to talk to the people I can remember dreaming about. I am not sure either they or I can really do that, though.

There is a veil of sadness that seems to envelope my relationships with many at New Hope Church. Whether that comes from me, from them or from a combination of us, I don't really know. Perhaps both they and I felt abandoned. After all, I simply disappeared from the community and the very few folks who did reach out to me, I avoided because I couldn't find an honest way to tell the story without edging it in anger toward Rodger Woodworth. Even now, it's hard to say that the reason I left New Hope Church was because my then Pastor suggested that "perhaps it's time for you to find another church". Granted, I could've mentioned that if we were truly a church based on reconciliation, telling me to find another church because of personality differences between myself and the lead pastor was hypocritical. But, at that point I could no longer sit under a man for whom I had little respect, so I welcomed the escape. It didn't occur to me that to simply leave the fellowship without explanation would hurt me so much. Neither did it occur to me that many in the body would simply continue on without any thought as to my departure.

There were some folks who knew the whole story. They were ones whom I thought were close enough to me to be confided in without worry about gossip. Perhaps I was wrong. It seems that there may have been some sharing, but how much I don't know for sure.

All of this is moot at this point in time, I guess. I have since returned to New Hope after encouragement from one of the Elders. Rodger is no longer lead Pastor. Yet there still seems to be some unfinished business. Yet I have no clue how to address what I feel is unfinished.

So while I am away from my daily routine, my sleeping self is addressing some of this unfinished business. Each night I dream about different people and different relationships. Sometimes I remember only the people in the dreams. Other times I awake with only a general sense of what I dreamed about and an even more general feeling that my sleeping self is working out whatever needs to be addressed.

I am slowly coming to grips with the idea that life in all its aspects is fluid. Perhaps nothing lasts forever. When I initially came to New Hope, I was certain that I had come "home". And, indeed, for a while I had. Yet, the dynamic of the church changed and the change had a negative affect on me. And that's OK.

What hasn't changed is the fact that Jesus is Lord. That is the most important lesson to have taken away from this whole episode. And there are lesser examples of insights and morals uncovered as well. And as my brain works through the layers of my subconscious, I am learning to trust that all will be fine, eventually.