Through Being Cool (Pt.2)

Lately I’ve been getting caught up in moments where I’m taken back to my high school days and early college years, taken back to things I said, things I did, people I hung around with, the way I dressed.

It totally blows my mind how all of those memories were actually my memories, my stories.

And to be honest, I was a different girl. And what blows my mind even more is when I look a myself now…

I’m like, totally whoa.

Who is this girl?

Or rather, who was that other girl, that other me?

Was that who I really am, or is this who I really am?

I recently overheard a conversation between a couple of people I know about their ongoing activities together. I think I just happened to look over and make eye contact, so one of them asked, “Why don’t you ever come out with us?”

And I said:

“Why don’t you ever invite me?”

To which one responded: “We’ll invite you next time.”
To which I responded, rather playfully: “Is it because I don’t drink?”

“Nooo, we don’t drink when we *name activity here*.”

Mhmmm, I though to myself. Sure you don’t. And suuuure that wasn’t your reason for not inviting me.

I know how it is sometimes.

Oh that girl? She doesn’t drink anymore. Don’t invite her, she’s no fun.

They may not say it, but I know some people think it.

I’m not that “cool,” rebellious chick that everyone admires.

And really, I probably wouldn’t have gone out with these people. Not because I don’t want to hang out with them, but because I think I would have felt kind of awkward.

Why, you may wonder?

Well over the last two years or so, probably around the time I really stopped drinking, I noticed I started to shy away from making acquaintances at school, at work, anywhere I normally would, really, and I think it’s because I felt and still feel like I can never really bond with people, like I can’t really relate to them all that much anymore because a lot of my tastes have changed in many ways.

So I just stay away. This may or may not be the best thing to do, but it’s just what I’ve started doing after awhile.

I’ll be real, here: My social life resulted in a few relationships being messed up, and many relationships were formed that should have never been formed. It’s because of those situations that I think I’m way better off not being as social as I was, at least not in those kind of environments Boy, I feel like just this paragraph can be a blog post on it’s own…

And naturally after two years of “social abstinence,” I’m pretty awkward.

*Refer to previous TBC post to read my definition of “social abstinence”.

“Come out with us this weekend!”

“Sweet, I’m in. What’re we doing??”

“Bar hopping!”

Well shoot…I’m out.

Womp womp womp.

But that is how it has to be, my friends. What am I going to do bar hopping? Spend money on expensive soda while trying to yell over loud bar music? No thanks. I need to be different from the world, I need to be set apart, trying my best to avoid the things that can bring me down.

That is what He calls us to do, not to blend in with the crowd.

Look, I know what you may be thinking…

“You’re being way too judgmental and legalistic, Em. We’re all sinners. Nobody’s perfect. We are in the world, after all.”

Yes, some of that may be true, but I strongly believe and have reason to believe there are things in this world people as followers of Christ really should not be doing…at all…not even a little bit.

Think about who it is we are supposed to be representing…

I read the other day that

“We(I) have spent enough time involved with worldly people, when we (I) took part in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties…”

And it’s so true. I spent a lot of my time doing those things Peter says they (we) wasted time doing and need to stop doing.

So I woke up from the daze and confusion of the life I was living. I’m fighting against my fleshly desires to do what is right in His eyes, to be set apart, to be a special people…

To suffer for what is good.

( “Wait, fighting? suffering? Why would a God of love want us to fight and suffer?” I’ll try to address this in another post… Part 3 maybe?)

And really, why would I go around saying I’m “Christian” when I act like everyone else? How can I be God’s special possession when I’m still flirting around in darkness?

Until Part 3,

Again I Go Unnoticed

Hey everybody. So you know how I said I was going to do a “Through Being Cool” Pt Deux?

Well, this isn’t it yet. But you can consider this a prelude of sorts because something did happen that lead me to hatch this egg of a post.

And that thing was…

Sitting alone on a blue bench by a tree while everyone else around me talked about their fun, drunken night together.

EVEN THE NEW GIRL WAS INVITED!!!

Yeah, it felt like day camp all over again.Sitting alone… on a blue bench… by a tree.

While all the kids around me played tag and swung on the swing set.

And then I said to myself:

Thanks to whoever made this. — (Thanks to whoever made this)

Just kidding. I did what anyone in my shoes would do after getting shunned. I bought new shoes.

But I did sort of recite those lyrics to myself on the inside, because more importantly, I felt uber, super, ultra lame and left out. And what did I say in my previous T.B.C. post?

I hate being left out.

Yes, even at nearly 25 years old, I hate it.

Why do I hate it? Because I am a young, social being. I love camaraderie.

But I thought to myself,

Why can’t I just take part in their little stories and join in the conversation anyway?

Yeah, I just couldn’t. I felt as if my trying to squeeze myself into their fun times would only make things more awkward than how I already felt.

And besides, I didn’t want to fuel their fire and comment on stuff I didn’t do anymore. Taking part in the conversation would just lead me to talk about my own past drunken stories and remind me of that part of me that I put aside forever.

So I just sat there and stared off in an other direction while they laughed and reminisced, totally wanting to remove myself from this situation as soon as possible.

“Someday you’ll find those people you can relate to,” someone told me later after I threw myself a little pity party.

Yes, I had to remember what a wise man once wrote about what being friends with the world means…

So I got over it for the moment. But sooner or later the monster will come out again. Unless I find its lair and slay it while it’s sleeping…

Until next time,

Marissa (emdigistar)

(Pssst…If you have any advice on how to curb this awful feeling, please share your golden nuggets of wisdom with me 😉 )

Through Being Cool

I feel as though this entry may be written too prematurely since I really wanted to make another post before this one, but circumstances have led me to post this first.

So that being said, here it goes. So this blog title is from an album title of a band I used to listen to quite often in my middle school days and is just SO appropriate: The album cover is of the band members sitting squished together on a couch with bored-looking faces as the others are enjoying a house party behind them.

That is exactly how I feel at this time in my life.

Not “bored” necessarily, but just through with it all, trying to live for something bigger and better than myself.

I made the decision to be “socially abstinent” ( a phrase I’ll use for abstaining from the usual young-adult social activities like drinking and partying) around the time when I just turned 21, which of course was odd timing.

You decided to stop drinking at 21?! MADNESS!!

Yeah I did make that decision, except there was one problem: it didn’t last.

I mean really, no wonder it didn’t last. I was caught in between telling(or rather, sort of telling) my social group that I was “trying to stay away from alcohol” while still going out with them to bars every week. No wonder I struggled.

Needless to say, I downward spiraled. My glass of water turned into mixed drinks and beer before I knew it.

And I just accepted that. I didn’t want to be that loser who wasn’t socializing with the masses. Heck, who wants to be left out? I know I certainly did not and still don’t.

I HATE the feeling of being left out. I always have. I always longed for that group of friends that I can turn to no matter what, but that group died out the summer before I entered high school (go figure) and the group I formed in high school died out just before college (go figure).

So naturally in my young adult life I want that again. But here is the twist…

I don’t drink anymore. At all. Ever.

I also don’t:

-Party

-Go to clubs

-Do drugs

-Have sex (wait, WHAT. But you’re 24!! Yeah, yeah, I’ll address this one later).

-Go to bars (generally) UNLESS there is some type of event like a birthday or a concert, and even then I have to really question if going there will benefit me.

“But you can have fun and still go to those places, just don’t drink!”

Look, that may be all fine and dandy to some people, but the reality is that I know I struggled being in certain environments. The fact is:

If you’re trying to change your life, you need to say goodbye to that old man.

So goodbye I said, and I haven’t looked back ever since. I have been nearly two years sober ( it will officially be two years on my 25th birthday) and nearly 10 months sexually abstinent.

That does not mean I don’t struggle.

I do. But I have had so much change happen in my heart that I just can’t accept going back to that lifestyle.

I will elaborate on those struggles and the reasons why I made changes in a later post.

Until then,

Marissa