Grace for You, Perfectionism for Me

    Surprise! I'm a perfectionist. To the point that when my professor so kindly announced he typically gives one A on essays, I immediately fumed because it was too late to drop the darn class (I'm still mad now, actually. Whatever happened to getting the grades you deserved? No, that's not a thing anymore? ... Okay, time to settle down and get back on topic).
    I'm actually not that hard on other people, though. If you screw up, chances are ninety-nine times out of one hundred, I won't care very much. There's grace for you, friend. I really don't care how messed up you are, other than how it hurts you and others. I know you're wounded by life, you're made in the image of God, you're intricate and unique, and so I seek to understand you. I like you, my fellow screw-up.
    But when it comes to myself, forget it. 
    I'm so stupid. 
    F--- meeeee.
    I need to die.
    Though I'm not proud of this, that's what shoots through my mind when I screw up, or whenever that memory pops back in my mind. In the height of my depression, I actually muttered these things aloud as I walked along the streets of Boston because hearing the words somehow stopped the physical pain I felt upon failing and experiencing these memories.
    True, I apologized over and over when I failed, but no matter how the person responded, I had to beat myself up. I had to, you see, because if I didn't, I wouldn't take the mistake seriously and clearly I'd forget about it and become a callous, irresponsible narcissist.
    And hey, I mean, it partially worked. If you trust online personality quizzes, I score about 4% in narcissism when the average number is at least over 30%. Success.
    Not really. 
    If success is berating yourself until you believe in your stupidity and worthlessness, if success is shutting God out of your life because you have an eating disorder and you can't stop giving in to over-exercising and so obviously God can't handle your mess, if success is hating yourself, then I'll dance in my failures and beg you to fail with me.
    I'm not saying celebrate failures themselves. But why not celebrate each other as we struggle and soar through life, failures and all? Why try to act like we have it all together? Because we don't. Whether we have God or not, whether we are rich or poor, whether we're male or female, insert whatever other dichotomies you can thin of in here, we will never have it together in this life. Some things help and others don't, but that's besides my point at the moment.
    I have a secret dream of coming to a random stranger and saying: "Hi there, I'm broken and anxious and on medication, and I'm insecure about my weight and intelligence and hey! Let's be friends. I love you because you're a person and I'm not going to stop for anything, 'kay? Now shake on it!"
    Or something along those lines.
    ...
    Maybe I can start with you? Wanna shake on it? :-)

Love,
Kelley

   

For My Twin

    I used to hate being a twin. I'd rage at God for making two people so similar they were destined to be compared every day of their lives. I even blamed being a twin for my eating disorder, since it was comparative comments like "your sister is thinner than you" or "you're fuller than your sister" that helped spur me onto the starvation route.
    I was so relieved when we made a pact not to attend the same college.

She's on the right and my cousin is in the center. Isn't my twin pretty?

    But then college actually came. And I started recovering from the disorder and restarting my relationship with God, and I started realizing how much I missed her. How wrong I had been to put the blame on her.
    It's funny how distance actually made us closer. How, as we grew as people and inhabited our own separate abilities, we realized how close we really were.
    See, I'm a scientist and I write fantastical, surrealist stories that inspire. She's also a writer, but she's  passionate about creating realistic stories that will wrench your heart and guts out. Actually. She's incredibly talented and I used to be jealous of the attention she got, because generally people make the assumption that scientist =/= writer, and so I told her I hated her at one point.
    Ha. Hate? Blasphemy. She's the one person I told my depression to last fall, who knew just how bad I'd fallen. She's the person whose love for teaching and helping children in India has awakened my soul to other cultures and different ways of relating to God.
    And so when I found out she was graduating early, I felt a lump in my throat because we weren't doing the same thing anymore.
    And now she's done gone and moved to India, nearly halfway around the globe, and she's designing literature for children there. Incredible. I'll be honest, I couldn't stand the heat and crowds for very long. But she can, because she's smart and compassionate and God made her very special, even if she doesn't entirely know that.

Silly is how we do.

    Her name is Kate, Kate Evelyn Danahy. She's going to write stories and probably be famous some day: another great American author, and I don't say this lightly (although I do hope to have my own writing accomplishments too, ha). She's brilliant and warm and loving and she wants to give herself to working for
nonprofits.
    Incredible, right? Uh-huh.

    I love you, twinner.

Love,
Kelley (or Kelleth, since that's what you call me).

Anger is a Weird, Weird Thing

    So I've kinda been in a towering rage this past week. Yes, I, professed lover of humanity, have been ranting at online commentators and yelling at egregious Olympic judges on my roommate's TV and cursing my reaction that gave new peaks in the NMR, but only turned out to have replaced my iodine with a hydroxyl group (if you don't speak organic chemistry, translation: a chemical reaction gave me reason to hope it worked, but actually failed. Cool beans).
     I'm still at that point where it's nice not to feel depressive apathy, but overall, there's a boulder in my belly that comes with this rage and I don't like it.
    "I'm losing hope in humanityyyyyy," I complained to my roommate. (An exaggeration, to say the least, but at the time I was basically seeing red. Crimson, to be exact. And I could almost taste pomegranates).
    She promptly reminded me that, apparently, I have one of the most optimistic views on humanity she's seen. 
    Hee.

This also captures how I felt. And, people, it's a CAT!

    Suffice to say, my insides felt like the weather Friday evening. If you weren't in Boston, there was a thunderstorm, complete with lightning, torrential rain, wind, whilst piles of snow still coated the ground. Messy, wild, a little crazy. That's how I felt.
   (And then Saturday there was nary a cloud to be seen: brilliant sunshine, and that damp, thick smell of spring's approach. The ground was wet with sinking snow piles and warm air embraced me as I walked back and forth from lab. I felt ecstatic, if just from the weather and the rush I get every time I set up a new reaction in label. That's how I want to feel. All the time).
   I don't like anger.
   Except, I don't think fighting for what's right and arguing (respectfully) with differing opinions is wrong. I applaud it, actually. Anger can be a good thing, I've heard, and I agree. I just - I don't know what righteous anger feels or looks like.
    I've always experienced anger as dangerous, even disastrous. It leads to explosions and lashings, exaggerations and cruelty and hatred and fear. In me. In others. I fear it. Oh God, I want it away from me!!!

How I feel now, after the rage.

    But without anger, what would be done about justice? What would happen to people in slavery or discriminated groups? Even God gets angry, right? So I know, somehow, there has to be a way for anger and love to intertwine.
    There is a way - look at blogs like Samantha Fields' or Libby Anne's that take on harmful theologies (like patriarchy and fundamentalism), yet their tones aren't destructive or cruel or fear-inducing.
    Anger is good. I know this. It's just what's done with anger that can be detrimental.
    I know, but do I believe?
    Probably not. Yet. But maybe, through practice and holding my temper and focusing more on love, I can learn. Learning, yes, that's a good thing. Even when it comes to anger.
    Does anyone else have issues figuring out this tricky thing called anger?

Love,
Kelley
   
   

I Still Can't Wear Tight Pants

    It's true. I can't.
    Besides public speaking and spiders (shivers!), tight pants send me into panic attacks like nothing else. Tights, leggings, stiff jeans; I can't deal with them. I ball my fists and tremble and want to scream and run and cry every time I pull them up.
     Sometimes, I succeed and make it through the day. Most times, I rip the leggings off and change back into loose yoga pants before a minute has passed. One time I made it through half the day and wound up having a panic attack in my Calculus II class.
     This isn't some weird, lingering modesty attempt, oh no, with my small shape I barely had to worry about that nonsense. Nor is this some silly first world problem. No, this is the remnant of my eating disorder.
     This is the deep parasite within that wants to be too thin, that rejoiced when my antidepressants curbed my appetite for a week. This is the fiery demon that screams 'look how everyone will make fun of you' when I feel bloated, the freakish clown that mocks me with reminders of unpleasant, needless gossip I've overheard on other people's weight.
    I hate it. The process of recovery has been long and arduous, but it's been years since I restricted my food and exercised myself to the point of nothing left. Yet this - this stupid, stupid! panic - lingers.
    I thought I was making progress. At the beginning of the semester, I wore leggings twice in one week. Seriously! Then the hesitation came. Then the I-feel-fat days came and went, and so I stayed away from the leggings on precaution. Saturday I tried again, and I knew what would happen even as I pull them on.
    It sounds so foolish, to say I can't wear tight pants without panicking, but, hey, this is what's happening in my life.
    Yet at the same time, my therapist has told me to look in the mirror each day and say, with conviction, "God did good when He made me." At first I was just doing it because I didn't think much of my looks in general, but you know what I found? I've started to appreciate this indefinable hair color I've always loathed, and I'm starting to pick out features of my face I actually like. Fancy that, I'm actually daring to like the way I was created. So maybe I should apply this saying to my body, too.
    I usually practice keeping my head up when I walk by picking out a beautiful or special characteristic to everyone who passes me by. Maybe - I so fear being selfish - but maybe I can do this to myself, too, every day, at least until I'm comfortable enough in my own skin to don those black leggings and wear the cute skirt I bought over winter break.
    Now, it's your turn. Because you're awesome. What's something special and/or beautiful about you today? (It can be looks, personality, a thought that comes to mind, etc. But compliment yourself today, okay, friend?).

Love,
Kelley

What if Law =/= Morality?

    So this post is partially inspired by an essay I just turned in on Shakespeare's Richard III. (Sidenote: while I'm aware of the play's historical inaccuracies and I'm actually inclined to take a sympathetic view of the historical Richard III, I'm dealing completely within the realm of Shakespeare's world here).
     Technically, towards the end of the play, Henry Tudor commits treason by revolting against King Richard. At the same time, Richard has unrepentantly murdered children and his friends and brother, and so Henry's revolt is seen in a redeeming light, and rightfully so. Yes, he broke the law. But there was something more important at stake, was there not? People were at stake.
    In Nazi Germany, people broke the law and lied to hide their Jewish friends. And we cheer them as heroes, again, rightfully so. Time and time again, throughout history, many of our heroes went against the because there were people at stake under the law.
    Even in the Bible, Rahab lies to hide the Israelite spies, who probably would have been executed if caught. I remember being taken aback the first time I heard a pastor say that she was wrong to lie, but that it was understandable since she barely knew God then. I'd always figured that, given the circumstances, she'd been right to lie because she was saving the lives of two people who happened to serve God (another sidenote: the Israelite's massacre of the people of Jericho is a matter I'm not addressing here, because I have no idea what to make of that).
    But, anyways, he was a pastor, so I figured he was right: Rahab just should have trusted God, told the truth, and it all would have worked out. And, I mean, I've heard stories in which people did exactly that, and God apparently did protect them. For instance, a woman in Nazi Germany tells the Nazis' she's hiding Jews under her table, and in fact there was a trapdoor there, but the officer just thought she was insane. Or a man told a patrol he was carrying Bibles, and the officer simply laughed at him.
    Still, I'm not sure I believe this is the best way anymore. It seems akin to handling snakes in your worship service - and I'm sure most of us heard about that tragedy last week.
    After all, didn't Jesus himself say the first commandment was to love God with all we have, and the next was to love people as ourselves? And, in a way, Rahab imitated Jesus then, by taking a sin on herself to keep others from death. Granted, Jesus didn't actually commit a sin, however.
    Yes, lies are false. But in these case, a lie was said to preserve the lives of people. Is the value of people, beloved and made in the image of God, not a truth in itself? Perhaps a truth more important than knowing where people are?
    I have no answers here. All I'm saying is, maybe strict adherence to the laws, so valued in many faith communities, isn't exactly how it's supposed to go.
    If you have thoughts or questions, please let me know. I'd really value other perspectives on this.
  
Love,
Kelley