Raw

Technically, I was trying to sleep. Technically, I should have given it more than ten minutes. But technically, my brain is racing, which makes things difficult.

Spring break (that was very nearly typed as "sproing") is coming, and as such, I am going home again. Home ... well, to my parents' house. I usually claim Rapid City now, as strange as that feels some days (like when I'm at church with my parents and fill in the hospitality folder with my address here). In any case, I will be headed back to Sioux Falls and all the people there, if only for a few days.

Hold on, I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Or where to get where I want to be ...

Okay. So I'll be in Sioux Falls shortly. This past weekend, I was there as well; I even drove past my old high school town. It's been awhile, a very long while, since I really paid much attention to Lennox. High school wasn't really an experience I enjoy reliving. You might even say I hated it, as strong a word as that is. Sure, things weren't all bad -- my friends were pretty cool, and the classes were easy -- but there were enough things to make it miserable on a regular basis.

I was an awkward (yeah, there's a stretch of the imagination!) kid with bad skin and almost no self-esteem. I was the smart kid, the reliable kid, the mostly likeable one who was almost always willing to help you out with your homework. I was easily made fun of and easily embarrassed. I was shy and, unfortunately, rather easily manipulated. And deathly afraid of boys.

Some of you are questioning my honesty. Yes, I was shy, okay? I was a people-phobe.

Things have changed, as is expected when one goes to college. The fear of guys was the first to go (Tech does that, for some odd reason). The shyness took a forced departure; dorm survival required it, at least that year. The gullibility was replaced with a certain cautious optimism, a hope that things could be great but with lower expectations for reality.

People who knew me then might not recognize me as well now. More surprising, however, might be that, some days, I wish to have that former self back.

There are a lot of things I don't miss, and most of those I've already mentioned. But there's one other thing, something that's been missing for years, and that's a tendency towards real, raw emotion.

Somebody (likely my sister) just cringed. The truth of the matter is, I miss being able to be openly happy or sad or angry, without the logical, practical side automatically overriding the system. When one emotion is quenched, the others are quenched just as equally. When anger or sadness is shoved out of the way or compacted, happiness is quenched as well. It's not that I stop being any one of these things, but that the magnitude changes, leaving a more shallow feeling.

Perhaps this is what life does -- hardens us a little more, makes us more resilient. Resiliency isn't bad; resiliency is what keeps us on the right path. Resiliency keeps us from becoming "of the world." However, hardening is what keeps us from experiencing things in full, and when we stop experiencing life, we are wasting a precious gift.

And that's just insulting, really.

I had the privilege of hearing a speaker talk about loving abundantly, even when that meant that someone might take advantage of you. He said that, in order to love as we are told to, we must be vulnerable and willing to take a chance.

Maybe it's time to start opening up again. Maybe vulnerability isn't so bad. Maybe, just maybe, this is the first step towards doing life "right."