All my questions are leading places I don't want to go.

I actually thought about trying to live my life like G-d didn't exist for me. I'm not sure what that would look like -- and I'm not sure I even want to try that. He is so pervasive in everything I do and say and the on-going conversations I have.

But my mind is foggy, and my heart is cynical, and I'm trying to figure out which way is up, and I'm sick of talking about it. I feel the pull back toward just "pretending," dressing my faith up in the pretty accessories of Christendom, or simply buying a one-way ticket to Africa and wandering around the continent for a while. Suddenly, what I don't know seems almost more comforting than what I do know. You know?

What this "state" is doing for me is driving me back into the Word. And also to other text that give me some historical context for what I'm reading -- across the culture, though. Not just church sanctioned stuff. I had to put the anarchist stuff down for a bit, because I'm not strong enough to sort it all out in my head and heart right now -- I'm so "afraid" of doing something stupid to hurt my family or friends.

So, I go on doing "the right thing" in definition of those cultural contexts I have put myself under. But my mind wanders frequently .... to warm summer days with little responsibility and lots of sunshine and dirt under my fingernails as I dig in the garden, or swim with my kids, or just lay in the sun reading.

I told a good friend today that what I probably need is to focus on doing something for someone else. But when you feel overwhelmed in simply functioning during your day to day, it's tough to look for something like that. I'm going to keep my mind open, though, and see what an "other" perspective brings to my table.

That's all for now. Oh, except I wrote a "kind of" poem today:

There are times

I can barely talk to you.

I'm so afraid

What I hide inside

Will spill over onto you

And wash you away.

There are other times

When I can't bear the thought

Of being without you.

If I told you what I feel

What I think,

You would never look me in the eye again.

How can I continue

To house two people

Inside of me?

Most days, they tear me apart,

Each arguing for

Their own piece of me.

My friends tell me it's normal.

But they don't know

Both of me.

No one does -- no one can.

And I live most days afraid

That one of me will

Kill the other.

And my life will somehow

Go on --

But it will only be half a life.

That might be worse

Than the battle within.

That's all I got right now. I gotta go do stuff I gotta do. Responsibility is the nagging voice I thought I left behind. Silly, stupid girl.