The Danger of Space

One of the things I love most about my life right now is how much space I have. I don’t mean, like, square footage… but, you know… space. The kind that married people and parents and roommates all crave because they can’t find any, no matter how hard they look. That kind of space.

I completely get that *sometimes* desperate need for space to just be and breathe in. I spent years in YWAM (read: six women in one room with three sets of bunk beds and one bathroom with a tub – no shower – that drained verrry slowly) and NYC (read: crazy expensive apartments made affordable only by cramming too many people into tiny spaces so we could divide the astronomical rent several ways). I craved alone time and coveted privacy. I learned the value of it, learned to fight for it – to find it and build it into my life despite the impossible-ish circumstances. But it always required an intentional effort.

Now I’m swimming in space. Life has done a 180 and my intentional efforts are now focused on getting out with other people so that I don’t become “creepy, never-wash-my-socks, recluse” girl. I come home to an empty apartment, no one (except *maybe* my boss) expects me to be anywhere regularly, I have hours to myself in the evenings and weekends at my disposal… oh the luxury! When I first moved into my apartment, I spent the first couple of months on cloud nine relishing in my newfound space. It was automatic and available and I soaked it all in. In a sense, it truly does feed my introverted soul. It breathes life into me. It is freedom and peace and sanity.

And then, sometimes, it isn't.

Sometimes it feels like... well... it feels like isolation. There's something about the forced intimacy of "family" - whatever that looks like in different stages of life - that is super safe. When you live together, have expectations of one another, cook together, check in with each other when you’re going to be late - it can feel oppressive, sure. But it can also feel like relief, like belonging, like security. I've come home many times to roommates (even on nights I would've preferred to come home to no one) who powerfully met me in that very natural way that only the people you see every day can meet you. With food and drinks and smokes and laughter and the ease that comes with soaking in the presence of the people who sleep in the bedroom next to yours, who drink from the same carton of milk and shop at the same bodega across the street. I don't care if it sounds trivial and insignificant... there is something to that.

And the thing is, I’m missing that. I think my “swimming in space” has turned into “drowning in space” and I'm seeing the value of forced community like I couldn't before. The in-your-face-and-space reality of people, the safety of knowing that at the end of the day you have a legitimate spot waiting for you... it’s actually a privilege. I'm bumping around in my oh-so-glorious, much-coveted-by-many-of-my-friends space, thinking maybe I made too much out of it after all. Maybe I was wrong.

(At this point, I realize that all my friends with spouses and kids and all my friends sharing bedrooms in mini-apartments in the city are shaking their heads and muttering to themselves, "She has no idea what she's talking about. That girl's got it made". Don't misunderstand me. I do appreciate what I have at this point in my life. And yet...)

Our obsession with having our own space, our personal bubbles, our independence – it’s so North American! I’m not saying the option to tap into all of that isn’t necessary. It is. I need access to alone time (read: dance-party-in-my-underwear time) in order to recharge. But I’ve realized that the option of not-space is just as necessary.

Because not-space is where life happens - in the small moments, the unplanned gatherings, the spontaneous meals. It happens when you've had a shit day and you're hiding out in your room and someone shows up at the door with a beer and a brownie. It happens when a few of you go out on the deck for a smoke and don't come back in for three hours. It happens when you pool your edible resources and have a picnic feast on the living room floor. These are the moments I miss as I meet friends for drinks in bars, for dinners in restaurants, at previously determined times and locations. I miss the sweatpants moments, the real moments that suddenly appear - unscheduled - as you're moseying along through day-to-day life.

I need not-space. I need the presence of people in my life who remember how grand and glorious my shine is, who remind me of what all I can be. That's the danger inherent in too much space: I start to feel like I have nothing to give when really… I've just forgotten how valuable I am because it’s been far too long since I’ve been met.

I am WISB

I'm a list-maker. I make lists in Word documents on my computer, on post-it notes at work, in tiny notebooks I carry in my purse, in the memo pad application on my Blackberry... you get the point. I make lists because for some reason, creating them relieves my warped brain of having to contain everything that swirls around inside of it. As a result, I have small scraps of paper scattered around my apartment and mini digital agendas cluttering my desktop. Sometimes the lists actually help me accomplish things. Most of the time they just bring me a taste of the aforementioned relief.

I come by it honestly – my mom has been making lists for as long as I can remember – but I'm starting to realize that it's not a healthy habit. See, this *slightly* compulsive list-making tendency of mine has made its way into my emotional and spiritual worlds and that's actually not okay.

I remember as a kid dealing with this pattern of feeling convicted about something-or-other, being completely broken up about it, and responding with a grit-teethed (huh?) determination to change. Self-discipline. Get better.

So I made lists.

HAVE QUIET TIME

APOLOGIZE TO BROTHER

JOURNAL

HELP MOM WITH DISHES

READ BIBLE

BUY BEST FRIEND A PACK OF SHOCK TARTS*

Cute? Um no. Actually not. Actually, it makes me cringe to see how I responded – even as a kid – to the deep-down knowledge that I was operating from a place of weakness instead of a place of strength. Formulas. Plans. Decisions. Now I see that for what it is... LAW.

I'm stepping out from under the law and dipping my toe in the vast ocean of Grace that the whole Jesus-on-the-cross thing paved the way to. And it's fantastically freeing. But. I still want to make lists.

Last weekend, my friend Amy spoke some powerful words (you know, the kind that come from The God of the Universe) to me. They were about my true identity, about the version of me that is real because it is how God designed me. She encouraged me to rediscover this part of me, to abandon all the damage in that area and turn my back on all the ish it caused and instead, embrace those aspects of myself which I've shut down and pushed out.

Wow, right? Right! Except for that the crazy list-maker that lives inside my head immediately saw an opportunity to take over and before I knew it, I was responding to those Life Words with a bunch of "to dos".

DO THIS

TONE THIS DOWN

FIX THIS

STOP THAT ALTOGETHER for flip's sake, you stupid...

DO A BIT MORE OF THAT

And that.just.sucks. Because looking at that list puts a bunch of pressure on me, it makes me feel like I have a long hard road ahead of me, a lot of work to do to get myself where I should be. And there is no freedom in that.

Here's the thing. I already am Who I Should Be. That was confirmed as a part of the redemptive work of the cross. It was done, once and for all, by a God who doesn't leave any piece of his work unfinished for me to deal with. I may not be operating out of WISB (I love acronyms) and I may not have been for a long time… or ever. And there may be a lot of junk clouding WISB, and I may have to reclaim WISB (so glad I’m not typing this out each time). But I am WISB. I always have been. And that cannot be reversed, no matter how much damage I've experienced.

So I'm forging ahead with a new approach: Burn the lists (figuratively, of course) and adopt a new "plan" of action... JUST BE. From here on out I'm going to intentionally be WISB. Walk in it, speak from it, believe that my agreement with the truth of WISB will close the gap between who I've been being (huh?) and WISB.

(Okay I’m tired of saying “WISB” now. I think I’ve made my point. The End.)

*My childhood best friend, Emily, and I did in fact consume an alarming amount of these candies.

Staying put

I arrived home late Sunday night to an envelope hanging from the binder-clip-hanging-from-a-nail-hammered-into-my-door-frame contraption my apartment complex calls a mailbox. It had my apartment number scrawled across the front, and the logo of the apartment management company in the top left corner. My initial thoughts went something like, "I paid my rent, didn't I? I did! Do they evict people via envelopes? Dear God, I can't move back to Texas". Yeah, paranoid much, Lauren?! The envelope did not, in fact, contain an eviction notice, but rather an invitation to re-up my lease. Whew! I was relieved for two whole minutes. And then the panic set in.

As is standard in these situations, the cheapest (read: only affordable) option for re-upping requires that I sign yet another 12-month lease. And this realization is what brings me to my current panicked state. In this state, a year-long commitment might as well be a decade-long commitment, and my mind goes crazy with all the possibilities of all the things that might come up in such a vast period of time that might make me wish I wasn't tied down to this 700 square foot apartment in Lakewood, Colorado. I start to think thoughts about how I'm living in the suburbs of North America - Is this seriously where I want to be?! Am I okay being that person?! - thoughts about how I could be saving boatloads of money if I didn't insist on living alone in a place that offers luxuries like 24-hour maintenance and a fitness center and two (two!) hot tubs. And, inevitably, I started fantasizing about returning to South Africa or working on a cattle ranch or inhabiting one of the other countless worlds I'm convinced I'd rather be in. Thus, I spun... out... of... control...

And yet. I have school loans, and a car payment, and *ahem* other debt I'd rather not discuss. And a coffee habit and a thrift-store t-shirt fetish to fund. And 11.7 miles from aforementioned suburban apartment is a job that (almost) pays me enough to keep my head above water in the "finances" area. So there's that.

Also, there's something small and still in me suggesting that maybe I need to stay put for a while. I moved from Texas when I was 17, went to South Africa-back-to-Texas-for-a-few-months-then-back-to-South-Africa-again, then after a few more very enlightening months in Texas (read: I decided once-and-for-all I would never ever live in Texas again), moved to New York City. Two apartments in midtown Manhattan, a summer in a basement in Queens, an apartment in Brooklyn, one in Jersey City, a summer back in Texas (oops), and then a year in the Bronx rounded out my college years. Then came the "crap-I-have-no-other-options" nine months in Texas (double oops) before I managed to get myself to Denver. Where I wanted to be. Where life got rich and sweet and yet! - 11 months later I'm balking at the idea of another year in this place. The first time since I graduated high school that I don't have to move after a year and I'm hesitating?!

The still small thing is forceful, suggesting that maybe I have a *slightly* unhealthy restlessness thing going on. Maybe I don't know what it looks like to find rhythm, pattern, ease, and contentment in staying put... in not moving. Maybe that scares the ish out of me. Maybe I'm afraid more than one year in the same place will cause me to forget what I ultimately want... that the images of the ideal will fade behind the fog of comfort and familiarity. And if they do, that I’ll doubt they were ever real in the first place.

Basically I'm a big ole' scaredy cat who needs to take a deep breath, grab a pen, and sign the damn lease...

*gulp* Okay, yes, but maybe not right now...