Here's what I've been thinking since my last post this morning...but it's really hard to explain...

It's about being engaged in life. It's about being joyful, happy to be doing what I'm doing or being what I'm being or whatever.

When I'm teaching, or talking with a donor on the phone, or accomplishing something, I'm engaged...but it's exhausting. It's exhausting partly because I have to get myself into that mode...and it's exhausting because I drag my heavy, awkward body around while I do it.

When I'm *not* doing something like that, or hanging around with people, or whatever, I seem to check out completely. It's like I don't exist at all. I put my brain and my body completely into neutral. I'm not happy about anything. I'm not hopeful about anything. I'm not...anything.

I don't know how or when or why this started, but it's true. The "me" I've been remembering was excited about stuff...looking forward to stuff...but I mostly remember that "me" in situations that didn't end well. A lot of the memories come from the time Tony and I were together, way back when I was 19 years old. I got SEVERELY disappointed in that relationship, and maybe I never really recovered.

I do see my past history as a series of severe disappointments. Maybe at some point it just became easier to not really care -- to do the right thing, to try and make a difference, but to not really throw myself into it completely.

I see that in my time with Terri, in my school, in my work at Joshua Station. I see it in all my relationships. Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, I'm not completely there. I am always "safe" in my own shell -- the space I create with the space I take up, the chair I have to sit in (never shared with anyone else), the things I can't take part in (it's never me on the zipline with everyone cheering below), the modifications I have to make ("you guys go on dancing, I'll just watch).

It won't work to begin by being engaged with people and things outside of myself. That's sort of the approach I've already taken, and it doesn't work. I show up, but I'm food-hung-over, or dehydrated, or sweaty or unprepared because I wasn't engaged until I forced myself to get engaged five minutes before the activity started.

I'm going to have to find a way to be engaged in life when I'm all alone -- to be excited about what I'm going to do that day when I'm not going to see anyone and no one's going to see what I do. It's going to have to start with me and God and no one else.

I hope I can do that. I need a little time to think about what that would look like.