I'm done lamenting, here is the good

Three posts this week.  When I think I really think, and when I feel I really feel everything, every possible emotion, and probably some that no one knows exist, or at least can’t be expressed in the English language.

            I said I wanted to see a better world, but neglected to say how we can make it be, and how some people are making the world better, even if in small ways for one small person.  I need to be positive, and really I am.  I also said earlier that life seems to counterbalance the good with the bad, but that doesn’t mean we can’t counterbalance the bad with good ourselves.  We just need to make the choice to.
            I’ve come to the realization that I don’t have any real friends.  This does not make me sad or lonely.  It in fact makes me incredibly comforted that I don’t have friends, because I have family.  Those that were once friends mean far more to me than I ever imagined they would.
            I’m terrible at making friends, absolutely terrible.  I was never the kid on the playground that said “Will you be my friend?” or excitedly said “Let’s be friends!”  I was the kid who heard those questions and awkwardly said okay and waited for them to lead so I could follow.
            I’ve always been the person to accept friendship but never ask for it, even when I was in college.  If I was ever a leader before then I didn’t know it.  I cannot express enough how gracious I am that people accept me and love me even when I don’t love myself.  I am so enormously gracious to have so many people in my life that found me, people that want me in their lives and have loved me and reached out to me when I hardly had a word to say.  I’m often introverted and quiet, sometimes timid.  I care way more about things than I ever express in person.  I want to say thank you ten times more than I ever do to everyone I know.
            My friends are my family.  Treat everyone you know as your family, and know that even if a person doesn’t say thank you, even if they never have anything more than a hug to offer, be their family.  Be their family when they can’t muster a hug or even a glance.   Just be family.  Just love and try to love more than you think you can.  English only has one word for love, but many languages have ten or scores more.  Learn that there are so many different kinds of love, and please, please, please try to understand the people who don’t show love.  Sometimes I feel like I’m not understood, but as I said, there are amazing people who have fallen into my life and they don’t make me feel that way, I make myself feel that way.  I feel like I’m not good enough sometimes, but I have so many positive influences that I’ve been made to know that I am regardless of what I think.  Everyone, every person in the world is enough and every person is worth loving, they just don’t all know.  Let them know it.
            I happened across this article just minutes after writing this post.  It perfectly echoes how I feel.  If you think you’ve read too much today or don’t have the time save the article for later.  Or read it later simply so it doesn’t overshadow my own meager words.  Maybe my words aren’t meager; I’m still trying to figure that out.  At least I know some people don't think so.

Article: "The Moral Bucket List"

I want to see a better world

            Two movies based on real events have nearly made me cry in two days (Spotlight and October Sky).  Perhaps there are too many things to be emotional about lately.  I almost never cry, and I mean never.
            There are just too many negative things going on.  It’s overwhelming to think about.  Politics right now are a disgrace and embarrassment to our country.  A few people I know are expecting to move soon.  They mean everything to me and have become family to me in just a few years.  Lastly, someone I didn’t know died recently in my apartment, a friend of my roommates.
            I think what really bothers me overall is the way people treat each other.  They harm others, take advantage of, they hit, they hurt; they intimidate and demean other people.  They drive some people to hurt themselves.  It’s not okay.  The world we live in is not okay.  What’s worse is sometimes we watch and accept the harm people can do to each other.  Some of us even encourage and vote for it, though I’m not writing to discuss politics.  Unfortunately I have deeper things to talk about; though it’s hard to measure what one ill is worse than another.
            All I can do is try to write eloquently, and hope and pray that the pain everyone faces is not too much to bear.  It was the second time someone has died in a house while I was in the next room over.  This time I didn’t know the person.  This time there was no rain, nothing to signify the depth and sorrow of this loss, just a person on the floor and tears in the eyes of those that did know him.  I don’t want to live in a world where young people die this way, by overdosing, by circumstances that is seems could have been prevented.  My mother died of cancer.  Cancer makes life difficult,  but it is not the mark of a difficult life in the way drug use often is.
            That’s as eloquent as I can be right now.  I just have to say this all really sucks.  I don’t want to know and see that there is sadness in the world.  It sucks for my roommates, their family and his far more than it does for me.  I can’t fathom the things I know to be true.  That’s a lie, unfortunately I can fathom the pain death brings, and other situations that make life seem so hard.  I just wish I couldn’t.  Here I sit, hoping my words will be enough, yet knowing they aren’t.  But they are all I have in the fight against the ills of this world.  All we can do is live the lives others didn’t get the chance to as best we can and hope it’s enough, hope that the best parts of them are carried on through us.

Disclaimer:  I don’t know if this post will bother any people that know me.  I took some time considering if I should say anything at all.  It relates to recent church conflicts, though not in detail.  However upsetting what I have to say may be, I do not write to make people happy.  I write to make them think, and I’m sure some of what I have to say is also true of other churches.

                It’s a wonderful feeling to be wanted, to know that you very truly are.  While subbing today in one of my favorite rooms, the classroom aid, knowing the teacher would be out said she thought to herself before coming in “I hope Miss Plumridge is in today, it would make my day easier.”  Thank you, thank you for showing your appreciation, and thank you to the students.  It’s a wonderful and overwhelming feeling to be around such positivity.  I suppose that’s because my own mind is so negative.  It’s nice to see high school students who know my name and actually use it, students who greet me happily every time I see them.
                Despite that making me feel so great, life seems to counterbalance the good with the bad.  I can’t always be funny.  Actually my humor only really surfaces when I’m angry or facing extreme anxiety, or if I happen to come across a picture of a Disney character I like.  They represent emotions I can’t always convey well.  For a person who likes to write, I often think I can’t find the words to describe my feelings.  I said anxiety causes my humor, but I guess not always.  What I’m going to write below pertaining to the church brings out some anxiety, but also a sadness I didn’t feel the depth of until I finished writing it all out.  I wrote more than I’m posting, but this is the essence of it all.
                The conflict within the church has nothing to do with me.  I’m just a bystander.  Give me a reason to stay, seriously please.  This is not a confrontation, but a plea.  I want a reason to stay beyond my pretty young face and ability to have children.  Looking back on my time in this church it seems that I’ve been appreciated for my youth more than anything else (from some people, of course not everyone)
                The church should grow from the outside as much as from within.  I once came from outside of the church.  I was only there a few years.  Recently it’s seems as if the church is only welcoming to some and not all.  Some members have been pushing to do more outreach, while others have sat in silence, perhaps hoping to tire the efforts of people whom they disagree with.  You squashed the hopes and dreams of some of the most amazing people I know.
                By not wanting to do outreach, I feel as if the church might as well have denied me too.  I used to think the church was welcoming, but I’m beginning to see that although they may greet those who walk in the door with genuine regard, they are not inviting.  If I was valued, then why aren't people from the neighborhood?  The only difference between me and them is that I was invited by someone from inside and they were not.
                At least I know there is value beyond my pretty young face elsewhere.  But what if I didn’t?  What if I didn’t have other strong supports in my life?  I certainly would not be the at least somewhat happy and stable person I am.  Churches are supposed to be pillars of support.  I am fortunate to have found a few people in this church whom I can fellowship with and look up to, though unfortunately that is far from the majority.