Is it caring or guilt?
Caring is a funny thing. I feel like I care a lot right now. Sometimes too much.
At first when I think of "caring," I have the connotation of love and kindness. As a mom cares for her children or a doctor cares for the sick. But then I look it up in the
dictionary, and the first definition is:
To care: "to feel trouble or anxiety"
Now that's a whole different denotation than what comes to mind when I think of the word. This reminds me of guilt. Another one of my bad (or good, depending on who's asking) traits. So let's look at guilt:
"feelings of culpability especially for imagined offenses or from a sense of inadequacy"
This is pretty close to what I perceive as guilt - I feel guilty when I let people down, when I am not performing up to the standards I'm used to, etc.
While the actual definitions aren't exactly the same, MY perception of guilt and the definition of care are very similar! But in real life, these are presenting themselves in vastly different ways.
Case 1: Care. I care about V, and I can't stop it. There's no guilt whatsoever, but I'm happy when I'm with him and sad that we don't get much time together.
Case 2: Care and guilt. I care about my friends, and I feel guilty that I don't spend as much time with them as everyone else does. I don't like that I feel like I don't have time for lunch with everyone, and I sometimes treat my friends like V treats me, and neither of those are good. I only hope I can find the balance. Friends aren't supposed to be related to guilt, so something may be messed up in my head here.
Case 3: Guilt. It's true that I care about the people on my research project, but mostly guilt just weighs me down. Of course I want to put out a good product (for the team's and my sake), but I feel, right now, that this is more spurred on by guilt and not as much caring. This is a huge deviation from the norm for me, and I don't like it. But I feel so tired of the project being understaffed, that I just am ready to be done.
So I
want to care for people and I want to
lose this constant feeling of guilt.
As I've told Dan and Erika, my guilt button is super sensitive, so just be gentle.
Childhood memories and the Language of God
I went home last weekend for a conference, and Saturday I spent almost the whole day cleaning out my room, which hasn't changed much since high school. It was a monumental task considering I'm a pack rat, but it went surprisingly well. Luckily, I had Lindsay there to help me through it, and nag me about silly things I was saving. It's amazing that we had about 10 trash bags full of things to give to Goodwill, and probably still too many boxes to take with me once I move to California. It was a good trip down memory lane, but I tried to keep things moving from my hands to either the Goodwill pile, the trash, or my boxes to take with me. Every once in a while my mom also broke from her throw-everything-away tendency to one of reminiscing and wanting to save some of my items from childhood. So I guess we're more alike in that area than we admit.On a completely different note, there were some interesting talks at MIT about faith and science. These particularly appeal to me because I first became agnostic because I didn't think that I could believe in science and religion. However, many people (including me now) believe you can. Francis Collins gave a talk about the Human Genome and truly believing in the Bible, God, and fundamental science principles. He didn't grow up a Christian and was a strong atheist, only to realize that there is something more out there. He also mentions that understanding more about the complex human body has actually made him a stronger believer, and I agree. There really are a lot of parallels between Dr. Collins and myself, so it was a really good talk. He presented the kind of evidence that helps me build my faith.
Here are some quotes that I liked from the talks:Saint Augustine:"In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different Interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. "Francis Bacon"To conclude therefore, let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain, that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or in the book of God's works."
Both of these quotes point to the fact that you CAN question religion, God, science, and everything that surrounds them. God wants us to understand and believe in religion from all aspects.
And now I really should get back to my thesis...
Labels: family, religion
Can the internet be my girl talk?
Life is crazy busy, and there's no slowing down until graduation. But I still manage some time for other things like the gym, dancing, friends, family, and my man. But it's no secret that the last doesn't really make time for me (he has too much work to do). Here and there we'll have dinner. But a night out? Yeah right! Him coming to something I invite him to? Oh yeah, that happened maybe last fall a couple times. So what am I doing in a relationship that is so one-sided? And why can't I throw in the towel and just move on? Something is holding me back, and for the life of me I can't figure it out. Sometimes I wish it would let go, but then more often I wish he would come in. There's a glimmer of hope when he calls or when we see each other at the gym. But then a week goes by and? nothing. Man this sounds desperate.
This sort of thing happened to Lindsay last year, and I told her to move on and realize she's worth more than that. Something inside of me thinks this is different. Or at least hopes it is. That he will get over this pile of work that's keeping him away and go back to how it was last fall. It's is so stupid to do this to myself, but will cutting it off make it any better? Would it be worse to not have "us" any more at all, or to have to hope that we'll be able to spend more time together, with the chance that the hope may not pan out at all?
I know this is horribly personal, but it's going to get posted anyways. I've been keeping this inside long enough, and it's time to escape. I think I need more girl time.
