"I know you have felt much more love than you've shown."

I'm going to pull a Katie here. I was studying for my math exam tomorrow morning, so this seemed like the perfect time to blog. I mean, really.

This is perhaps why it's more difficult for me to formulate complete thoughts since high school ended. I haven't been procrastinating as much. I hope.

So.

It's people who make me melancholy. Which is odd, because they also make me happy. I get irrationally excited over each human interaction. I walk away from conversations beaming. It's not until later that I sink into a cushy state of misery. It's not just the high-highs and the low-lows of a melancholy disposition. Every time I try to love there's the hurt of each little failure. In this love is a double-edged sword.

When I think about what separates me from loving people like I ought to, I tend to think (feel?) in messy circles. It's a combination of communications jargon (social communities, scripts and schemata, identity constructions, attributions, self-disclosure, social norms) and personal mottos that sound like they were ripped off the Disney Channel (be yourself, engage everyone, initiate without fear of rejection, pursue sincerity) and all of this so tangled, I think about it analytically and I just become inconsolably puzzled.

People and interaction and relationships are so interesting it's almost painful, you know?

But my problem isn't something in a textbook: it's not poor social skills or an anxiety disorder or maladjustment or societal conditioning. It's sin: fear and selfishness. Instead of loving others without restraint, as Christ loves me, I am reserved and reticent and stand-offish and two-faced. I wonder sometimes why I have any friends at all. Don't you guys know who I am? I'm a terrible person! Weirdos.

I want to see people truly. I want to understand them. I want to love them unconditionally. [Does it matter that someone is annoying or needy or wrong?] I want personal relationships, not social ones. I want to be friends with you, to make you see your worth and to encourage you and bear your burdens and learn from you and grow with you. Not because I want you to like me. Not because I want to feel good about myself. [Heaven forbid.] But because Jesus loves me, and I can't help loving you as a person He loves.

I'm just not sure I want it enough. Pray that I want it enough. ["Spirit, come flush the lies out."]

You know what? Now it's time to finish my math homework.