Sedimentary thoughts.

I surprised myself today.  Packing my bags and living out of suitcases for three straight weeks is not usually my ideal kind of lifestyle.  The first few days aren't so bad, but after a while I normally get tired of bustling from one place to another and am mentally ready to come home.  

Strangely enough, I didn't feel like a nomad at all.  Even with the hours of traveling by bus, by plane, by car and by foot, I didn't feel aloof or disconnected.  I was neither dreading nor longing to be back in Binghamton or NYC or anywhere else for that matter, and was as present and flexible as I wanted and needed to be.

It was also weird to find that although my external life was constantly "shaken up" (surrounded by different groups people with things happening all the time), I didn't feel agitated or bottled up from not having alone time to reflect or process information and feelings I had been accumulating.

So I caught myself off-guard when my friends dropped me off at my empty apartment today and I suddenly didn't want to be there all by myself.  The silence felt like someone had slammed on the breaks while I had been peacefully sleeping in the passenger seat of a car.  My "fight or flight" mental and emotional alarms were screaming, "Flight! Flight! Flight!" for some reason, and instead of soaking in the quiet I started oozing feelings of loneliness and sadness.

It was extremely tempting to turn on some music, go on Facebook, give Carrie a call, or watch a tv show to distract myself from the fact that I was now all by myself and did not want to sit in stillness around me.  But my "fight" alarms started kicking in and resisted the temptations to give in.  It looks like my brain decided that if I was going to get past this I needed to face the fears and insecurities head-on and linger in the tension between what I know and what I feel.

And it has helped.  Reflecting and thinking about my actions and feelings from these past few weeks is helping me do a lot of things:  recognize areas I need to ask God for forgiveness; identify the ways God has been gracious and merciful to me - which provokes my heart to be filled with gratitude; give praise to the Lord who is with me and shows me how much I am loved; and shed light on new hope for the future.  Processing is making it easier for me to lift these confessions and delights up in prayer.

So as the residue continues to settle, I am confident that my Lord hears me, sees me, and reminds me to focus on the truth of His presence over the lies of my loneliness.