Thinking back

I am not thrilled that a lot of what I type here is not upbeat and as happy as I sometimes feel.  Being in Virginia has been quite difficult for my husband and I.  We don't understand the social settings around here and after getting "beaten up" in N. Virginia we made a retreat of sorts to the Virginia Beach area in hopes of happier times.  By comparison, the hampton roads area is a better place than Washington DC or N Virginia.  That I say with no sarcasm.  It is better and calmer and less upsetting.  Being big city people, my husband and I thought nothing of moving to the DC area.  It's just a new big city.  What's the problem? 

HA!

Anyways, we got down here and found it to be more agreeable . . . for a time.  Since approximately 2006, our time here has been a time of waiting.  Waiting to see if we would get pregnant, waiting for a new job for me, waiting for a new career for Tom, waiting for Tom to finish his schooling, more waiting to see if we got pregnant, more waiting for new jobs and careers.  Lots of waiting.  Not my favorite past time but God uses this time to train us.  I understand that.  I'm not so great at waiting with joy but He's working on that with me, too.  During the pregnancy waiting He honed my skills at accepting His will in our lives.  I'm very grateful for that. 

I think what makes it so hard to be overly happy here for me is that I am an eternal opptomist.  I want to see the brighter side of things.  I want to laugh and enjoy my time and what I find is that there is little room to be who I am around here.  Loads of stereotypes and loads and assumptions and loads of being reminded of your place (my place around here is as a "yankee" and "outsider" and "weirdo from CA" depending on the situation).  I enjoy being from MN.  I enjoy having cut my adult teeth in So CA.  I am who I am and I am who God is creating me to be.  Not good enough for a lot of people around these parts.  Which is too bad on so many levels.  I keep getting told how much people enjoy spending time with me but then they don't spend time with me.  By the time I get into a social setting I'm ready to bust and I have realized that I now just bust out in some sort of attempt to connect with someone, anyone and probably overwhelm some people.  I just figured out that last part and will work on it.  I want to encourage friends and not scare them away. 

I digress . . . .

I am a happy person and it makes me sad that so many people I interact with on very shallow level seem to take it on as their personal mission to insure that their happiness is somehow my responsibility.  That if I don't take that on as my personal mission then I am somehow depriving them of their happiness.  Being here only encourages my struggles as a type A people pleaser.  That is not healthy for me.  It's been 10 long years of walking around on egg shells and it's time to move on.  I find, tho, that when I start to encourage myself to BE myself that it alienates more people.  So, either me and my happiness don't fit in around here or a ton of people in So CA have low standards in their friends.  While the last part amuses me to put that in writing?  I'm pretty sure it's the former.  Which makes me sad.

However, if I'm supposed to be who God made me to be, maybe it's time I start being that person and stop trying to be who they want me to be around here.  Now, who is that person?  I have grown lots since I left CA but I suspect that I need to think back to CA to remember the person I was as a foundation of where to start.  It was nice to have friends who wanted to spend time with me.  I miss that.  Even if being who God wants me to be means having no friends out here, well, so be it.   God didn't promise an easy life, he actually promised troubles and strife.  I am not of this world and so there will be troubles and strife.  Having such a non-existant social life for almost 10yrs has been an incredible hardship.  If I lose the social interaction of people who don't really want to be socially interactive with me, what have I truly lost?  I've lost falseness.  That will initially feel like a loss but it will actually be a gain in the long run. 

So, wow, 10yrs back . . . . can I remember back that far?  Oh yes, yes I can and here comes my smile.  *happy sigh*