This blog lasted on For-Susie's-Eyes-Only status for approximately nine hours. That's how long I survived before I began to miss it :)

Ahhh, the land of ambivalence. Its shores expand out for years, it seems. It is very exhausting holding two sometimes-opposing thoughts in your head at the one time. It's frowned upon in society. We are meant to always know where we are going. It seems to scare people, being ambivalent. Look at Thomas and the bad rap he got, and yet I don't think God is anywhere near as upset by our ambivalences as we are ourselves.

'Cause swinging backwards and forwards is especially bad for your ego. And it's painful feeling like a teetering twit, especially when you have been the sort of person who has been able to put on an outward show of strength much of the time. That seems to be the last thing I am these days. I went into the ladies toilets at work today and cried, in the way you do at work when you have makeup on, with toilet paper wadded up and stuck directly under your eyes so that nobody can see the streaks making their way back down your face. Later on, on a different visit to the loo, Jenny walked in and asked was I okay, that I looked upset, as if I might cry. If I hadn't learnt to hide my emotions so well, I probably would have let them fall again. But I didn't. Held on. Stoically. I have not learnt the art of crying in public. Neither have I learnt the art of being weak and broken in public, much as it might seem differently on here :)

Sometimes I wonder if God's plan is to just reduce me down to a pile of rubble. I don't like God much today.

Of course, on the plus side, ambivalence is indicative of growth and change. Much as we would like it, you can't really go from one state of being and thinking to another without bumbling somewhere in the middle of the two lands. I am trying to be kinder to myself in these instances. It's very difficult in these times when the self-talk voices are especially nasty. I don't like myself much today, either.

Anyway, I have deleted a few posts from here. Things about my family, mainly. Things that are really too out-there to be sharing here, even for me. Some things that are just too raw. I love being open, you know? I think it is one of my strengths. I understand what shame feels like, and I have closet skeletons I will never share with anybody. Nevertheless, I think openness comes from feeling forgiven, I have decided. And as much as I am disliking myself and God, I certainly don't have a trouble with the whole forgiveness bag. It is just not an issue for me anymore. I am more certain of God's love and provision for me than I am of any human's.

It is a strength to be openhearted. But oh, it's a vulnerability too, and once again I find myself feeling like I am going to collapse in a strong breeze. And so I go back, deleting posts that are detrimental to my health. Maybe I'll delete more as I go. I guess it's just one more boundary that needs to be built, huh. The privacy zone. Even I need one of those :)