Conflicting Emotions

I just got an email from my boss at AUM. Technically, my term with VISTA there is over next week, and I haven't been there (again) in several weeks. I was doing fine, and was even going in to work for a couple of days and then I had a bad day, slipped up on some things, and haven't been able to face it all ever since. I put on a brave face a lot of the time, because it sounds so stupid, but I finally came clean and completely honest with how ludicrous it all sounds with Amy (my boss). That was when I first crashed a few weeks ago, and I haven't even been brave enough to check my work email to see what her response was to that. She emailed my home address today, so I think she knows I've been hiding again. I've got such mixed emotions about all of this.

For one thing, Amy told me a few months ago that if I was able to readjust to being in the world and was able to get back to the better version of me, she was going to talk to me about a job she'll be hiring for in a few months. She hasn't mentioned it since then, so I think it's pretty obvious that she and I both know that I have NOT readjusted well and am not ready for something like that.

Now, the job she was going to hire for was going to be part time and would have been perfect for me considering that I am going to be going back to school in the very near future. I don't know what it would have paid and I don't know the details of what I would have been doing, but I was actually thinking that if she offered me the job, I was going to take it. Karla (counselor) and Scott both have told me they don't think it would have been a good idea for me to do that. While I have maintained that I like the work environment there, they both say that obviously I don't or else I wouldn't have experienced such turmoil for the past year. After considering what they said and that they were both concerned about what it would have meant for me if I worked there permanently, I had decided that I wouldn't accept it if it had been offered.

Now, though, as I see that it's clearly not going to happen, I feel defeated. I feel like I've let myself and everyone else down - again - and I'm actually afraid that this could be a setback. I've been feeling good about me, generally, and have been working really hard on not being so hard on myself. I've been teaching myself that I am a lot harder on myself than others are, and that I insist on carrying a lot more burden than other people want or need me to. My failures and inadequacies are not as calamitous to other people as they are to me, and I know that, and I know that something like this - with a medical and psychologocal background - is no indication of what kind of a person I am. I know that, and yet I'm feeling very let down tonight. I'm feeling like I've failed and have allowed myself to be crushed by all of this. Even though I know I didn't want the job, now that I know it isn't going to be offered, I'm sad and disappointed. I was just watching Friends, and the whole Rachel/Ross saga kinda applies here. Rachel didn't want Ross for herself, but when someone else wanted him, she was sad and acted like she had wanted him all along.

It sounds so weird, I know.

I don't know what it's going to take for me to finally leave this behind. There are some days that I feel so victorious and so strong, and then something stupid and little happens and I feel like I haven't made any progress at all.

Karla asked me once what I felt like God was calling me to right now - today. I asked her if she meant specifically, and she said for me not to think about my answer, but to just say what I was thinking. My first thought was, "God is calling me to live victoriously." I really felt that, and I feel that now. I know God wants me to be victorious, and doesn't want to see me living in something He has done so much to set me free from. That's true, yes, but Karla made me realize that's a pretty high calling. Living victoriously is pretty intimidating. It sounds impossible, to think of living victoriously - really victoriously - all day every day. It's a process, and I need to take each victorious moment, each victorious hour or day, for what it is and be glad that I had that. I know that, and I know that I'm not going to wake up to an agoraphobia-free life one morning. It's going to take time and work. I know that, but I can't accept it. I still expect so much. My wish is that I could give myself an iota of the grace that God gives me.