Addict

This morning I was looking out the window while waiting for my coffee and thinking of next weekend when one of my good friends will be coming to visit. The weekend will be a whirlwind of eating, walking, talking, and shopping. And then she will leave on Sunday and I'll return to the Ava show which has been suffering low ratings for quite some time now. There was a girl sitting across the street wearing a 'Save Darfur' t-shirt and a poster in Starbucks about a water pump installed in an African village both of which started the marbles rolling about getting absorbed into some cause to inject purpose, meaning, and new characters into my life.

What I'm looking for is an addiction. I'm looking for something to consume me, to be the thrust behind everything else. Something that holds my interest long enough for it to become a habit. In my 20's, my habit was church but there was something lonely in the way I practiced my faith. I never really felt as free as I think a relationship with Christ should have felt. I don't blame Jesus, nor have I abandoned my belief in God. Things are quite different between us now and if God was ever the center of my life to begin with and not just a shield I used so life couldn't touch me, He isn't now. So I'm looking for something or someone to give my life to. My friend's mom thinks all single people are doing the same. Maybe. It would be nice in many ways to be some other kind of person but as my friend Wendy would say, "When you are called to be a servant, don't stoop to be a King."

I think deep, deep, down, I'm an impulsive free spirit. That spirit flashes up everyday in some way. Sometimes I'll see a person and want to tell them that they are beautiful or I'll want to take a picture of them so they can see their loveliness. Sometimes I want to do a little happy dance with a good song on the ipod and sing the lyrics at passersby. Sometimes I want to burp loudly in the office or fart and make a big to do about how good it felt. Basically, all the stuff I do when I'm with my family. I want to be loved by someone who wasn't instrumental in the development of that crazy. I want to be with someone who feels like home. One can argue that I have to embrace myself before I can expect anyone else to but I really do not believe that is true. A different and longer discussion for another post perhaps.

It goes without saying that I routinely struggle with depression and I'm functional at those times only in the sense that I can manage to do those things that must be done but I have very little left over to do the things I would like to do. I have no sense of how anything really is, just that very little feels good and I want desperately to retreat. Which brings me to our videos; songs which don't glamorize drug use as much as they describe how well drugs meet the need to have an obsession, to have something to give your life over to that makes you feel good long enough for you to keep coming back. It's a shortcut, and an unhealthy, cruel one at that. Even though drugs can never love you back, I think I understand why it's so easy to love them and so hard to let go. Not my kind of thing but just another way some people try to find the home I think we're all looking for.