The tangle of indifference

My plane ticket is purchased, and I'm leaving for Hungary in just a little over a month.
I also have not blogged in a little over a month.

The two are interconnected.

I have had so many thoughts, but each time I pull up the "draft blog" window, I stare at the screen, the blinking cursor, and I have no idea how to express in words the current tangle of emotions (or sometimes lack thereof) that I find inside.

Since my last post, I have finished a school year with twenty-two fourth graders, torn down my classroom, said good-bye to the Eisenhower family, said good-bye to my roommate of two years, moved most of my stuff to Michigan, celebrated a wedding in Texas, went to TeachBeyond Orientation, went back to Indiana to officially move out and say official good-byes to some very dear friends, taught Vacation Bible School to a group of middle school students, and have tried to make Michigan home despite the tremendous assortment of bins, boxes, tubs, and laundry baskets full of classroom supplies and an entire apartment's worth of things.

However, my lack of blogging is not due to busyness. There have been plenty of moments where I could have hammered something out.

Rather, it has been the numb indifference I have felt through it all.

I am not someone who hides emotions well, and there were certainly some as I said good-bye to Eisenhower. But since then, there has been an overwhelming indifference.

And it has been scary.

I have tried to make myself grieve, because I figure the more grieving that happens here and now, the less I have to deal with later. I also have this strange need to show emotion, so people know how much I truly care. Indifference seems to say "I don't care about this relationship, I don't care about this chapter, I can't wait to leave."

I also know that I can't continue like this forever. And so at some point, the grief will come... and I want to be in control of when that happens... instead of having it burst out of me like it did at the teacher luncheon on the last day of school...

All this to say, these transitions have been hard. Especially when people want to limit the tangle to purely one emotion:

"Are you so excited?"

Yes, excitement is certainly a thread in the knot of emotions strangling my heart, but so is grief, disappointment, fear, loneliness, dread, thrill, curiosity, sadness, terror, determination, (I could keep going...)

I also realize people aren't going to ask, "Are you so sad? Are you so scared? Are you so lonely?"

Since moving home, I've been living amid boxes, bins, baskets, and heaps. My room (and the whole upstairs) just screams TRANSITION!

The one steady thing in all the transitions seemed to be my own emotional steadiness. My indifference. And I clung to it. Because I needed it.

But then the indifference burst. I climbed up the stairs, embraced by a wave of stifling humidity. I had been cleaning stuff, and moving stuff, and wrestling with stuff all afternoon. I was trying to untangle a knot of my favorite necklaces when I finally felt something. Anger. I was furious. Enraged. Livid. at the necklaces that dared to be tangled. the STUFF. transition, indifference, change.

I grabbed my journal and just started writing. It was the kind of writing that you can't read because your handwriting is so sloppy and enormous and you just don't care. Hot angry tears were chasing each other down my face, and plopping and smearing the ink. Finally, the tears stopped, my heartrate slowed, and I felt peace.

Ready to begin again, I calmly picked up the knot of necklaces.

It was a useless mass of something that could be beautiful. And I began thinking about all the mixed emotions tangled in my heart. They were useless. Because they were hidden in a tangle of indifference.

After fifteen minutes of seeing the untangling process as a puzzle rather than as an infuriating task, I had them laid out.

As I sat, gazing at them triumphantly, I knew this wasn't just about the necklaces. This was about picking apart the knot of emotions, feeling something, and laying each emotion before the Lord. Giving them over to Him, and allowing Him to redeem each God-given emotion for His glory.

As I thanked Him for giving me complex emotions, and for creating me in His image, I looked down and couldn't help but notice: in the middle was the little bronze-ish gold necklace with delicate letters that spelled "brave."

And I smiled through quiet tears as the Lord reminded me that it takes bravery and courage to untangle indifference.