Coming Back to Me

Hello?  Anybody there?

Whether or not I meant to be, I've been more or less unplugged for the past couple of weeks, ever since we came home for the holidays.     Not only have I taken a vacation from my kitchen, my usually-messy house, the sights and sounds and wind of home, my habits and daily routine - I have inadvertently taken a vacation from myself.  I find that, at my parents' house, a strange and rather undesirable thing happens to me.  I tend to regress into the person I was when I lived here.  If, in any posts in the near future, I seem to be channeling an up-tight teenager, you'll know why.  By the way, I'm also apologizing now for any spelling errors or incoherent wording in this post.  I'm not completely in my right mind at the moment. :)

Every time I make the trip to my parents' home, full of anticipation and idealistic expectations, I am convinced that I've finally left my past self behind.  That teenage girl won't haunt me this time.  Yet, every time, it takes only a matter of time, and then the adolescent angst, irritation, and the all-around sensation of being lost inside my own head set in.

It's given me something to think about, in those mature moments right around going to bed and waking up.  I believe very strongly in a person's ability to change - and not just externally, but really an sincerely, through and through; yet after years of approaching and re-approaching this rut, after cumulative hours of meditation and prolonged, determined efforts to leave it behind, I find myself here once again.

The answer, or the best one I can come up with at the moment is that change is simply difficult - and that is a profound understatement.  I wonder if that's why so many people doubt that character can actually change?  Willpower is a difficult power to harness because it's so closely linked to desire.  And finally, there's the fact that no amount of willpower can bring about all the changes that are necessary, even for one person, to be really and ultimately happy.  To be truly Christian is to believe resolutely in the possibility of change, to hope for it unfailingly, but also to acknowledge that we need help.  It is to give one hundred percent, or as near as we can muster, but in the end to trust in a Savior who can do what none of us can.  It is to believe in a God of second chances.

I haven't set my New Year's resolutions yet, partially because I'm notoriously bad at keeping them, and partially because I'm waiting until I know that I'm in my right mind.  While I wait, though, I'm learning, probably for the millionth time, how to get back up, dust myself off, and move forward to a goal no less glorious for my having fallen in its pursuit.