David B. Calhoun’s Blog

I’m sort of on a mission to undo a lot of damage that’s happened over the past couple of months, and some even over the past year.

For the past couple of months, going back to December or so, I’ve been increasingly convinced that I just don’t fit in with my group of friends, and even that some of them are ignoring me or avoiding me. But now this has been proved not to be the case. As it turns out, whether I like it or not, it’s just been in my head. This is the danger of overanalyzing. What has happened was what Mark has told me was a self-fulfilling prophecy: I assume I’m being avoided, so my response is to isolate myself. But in isolating myself, for whatever reason, I am in turn avoided because it’s assumed I want to be left alone. Then I interpret this as more of me being avoided.

In philosophy, it’s a virtue to overanalyze something. In real life, overanalyzing can make you lose friends.

I’m trying to work on not feeling like I fit in. As for the person I thought was avoiding me - I first sent them an email, and just now I called them and chatted with them for the first time in many months. I could feel what was at first awkward - trying to have casual conversation for the first time in a long time - but by the end of the call it almost felt normal.

I feel really bad about what my over-analyzing has done. By the end of the call I was close to crying, then after the call I was crying. I don’t remember the last time I cried. I used to cry so often in high school that I simply stopped, and as a consequence I sort of bottle up those emotions and cry rarely.

If it had been anyone else, I would probably have lost them as a friend by now. But I am really grateful that they are patient enough to bear with my stupidity.

I’ve alienated myself, and only I can undo it.

Something else I’ve been doing - and this somewhat ties into the above - is taking my family and friends for granted. I go out to dinner with my family often, but sometimes I bring along a book or whatever, with the intention of eating and really just not contributing to the conversation. But I don’t realize that this really is the time when we’re the closest. This is the time when everyone talks about what’s going on, etc. Apart from that, sometimes when I’m locked away in my room, my mom comes in and wants to chat about something, or she gives me a book she thought I’d like. She’s trying to interact with me, to bond with me. Yet at the time, I just think of these things as annoyances. I need to learn not to take these things for granted.

Another thing that ties into all of this is my anger. Usually I seem to be a pretty nice person, but when I get angry, which is rarely, I REALLY get pissed off. This has put me in danger recently. I haven’t written the story here, but in summary, a couple of weeks ago I followed another driver to his home and argued with him. The details are petty and can be left out, but the basic thing was that I had though the guy was in the wrong, and yet HE is the one who yelled at me and shook his fist as he passed me by. I didn’t want him to get away with that without me putting up a defense. Mind you, I didn’t yell and make obsene gestures back. I wanted to have a chat with the guy. It wasn’t smart of him to do this within blocks of his home. I followed him until he pulled into his driveway, and with his three or four year old daughter staring on, we argued back and forth over who was in the wrong. For up to several days after the incident, I hadn’t regretted it. But now I know I should’ve just ignored him. Not to mention that what I did was completely unchristian-like. I feel like a fool for driving around with an “Alumni, Biola University” license frame and yet I go around doing ridiculous stuff like this.

Also, what I did completely put my life in danger. If the guy had a gun he could’ve just shot me. I claim that I wouldn’t care much.. that it would be my family and friends that would mourn my death. But that’s completely selfish of me not to care about my life, and to put myself needlessly in danger like that, and over really really petty things. My mom said that she couldn’t sleep all through that night because she was thinking about me. She wrote me a note the next morning and put it on my computer monitor: “David, Next time, take a deep breath and think twice! Don’t let your anger put you in danger. The moment will pass - no eye contact and turn up the radio so you can’t hear the jerk. Mom”

When my actions start having this kind of affect on people, especially my mom, I have to re-evaluate myself and know that I’m certainly doing something wrong.

One last thing - perhaps at the heart of all of this - is my relationship with God. It was easy when attending Biola to say that I am a Christian. I attended chapels, prayed a lot, etc. When I graduated and started working, I guess you can say I really slacked off. I have never been one to attend church, and I unfairly place the blame on my family, who has never attended church. But before I consider attending church again, I need to be right with God. I haven’t prayed for a long time. I have often felt that God is there and has interacted in history before, but that he seems strangely silent in present times, and I don’t even know if my prayers are being listened to. Some people lose faith over unanswered prayers. I think I understand why not all prayers can be answered. But if I were to lose my faith, it would be because I don’t think my prayers are being listened to. Self-deception is very easy for praying Christians. Am I praying to myself or to my God? How can I tell the difference? This has always been a touchy subject for me.

Anyhow, I suppose all of this is coming up all at once right before Easter, and this is no coincidence. The celebration of Easter occurs in what used to be pagan celebrations. But this doesn’t change the fact of why we celebrate Easter. That Christ died and was resurrected is no trivial matter. His death was him putting himself on the offering plate. We, like other ancient cultures, used to have to give sacrifices in place of our sins. The sacrifices used to identify with us, and our giving of them in sacrifice used to be symbolic of the payment we gave God in admission of our sins. Christ, realizing this method was outdated and ready to be changed, gave himself as a sacrifice for our sins. This is the profound meaning it has for us, and the meaning has been lost to so many, especially because they themselves have never had to give actual sacrifices.

So in many ways this is a time to realize my many sins. I’ve described some of them above. I had no idea until recently that it was getting closer to Easter. I hadn’t planned on things coming to a breaking point like this. That they did and that I realized these sins before Easter is no coincidence, I think. Saying this, I realize just now that God must still work in the world. This wasn’t an answered prayer - this wasn’t even God listening to a prayer, because I haven’t been praying. This is God showing me that I have to realize my sins and CHANGE.. and improve. He is showing me that though I still sin, Christ sacrificed himself for these very sins. This is God interacting in the world today.

So after last post I pretty much decided not to go to the next “outing” my friends and I will go on.

But after today I feel the complete opposite. I miss my friends, I haven’t seen a lot of them for a couple of months. I want to see them even if it means some heartbreak.

My heart tears me one way, and my brain tears me the other direction.

My heart is a complete fool and my brain is utterly heartless.

How can you forget someone you haven’t seen for two months, and yet still dream about regularly? I know this is especially painful for me, because I hardly ever remember my dreams. I know there’s something going on when I actually remember what - or in this case, who - I was dreaming about.

I guess it’s also always painful when you know this other person hasn’t thought about you except for maybe once by chance during that whole time, and all this time you yourself are preoccupied with them.

Surely I’m not the only one with this problem? Maybe I’m slightly too neurotic, and I realize that, but there must be others like me out there.

And then I will eventually become normal again, and able to concentrate and think of other things. But here’s the perfect time for the process to repeat itself. Blaise Pascal said it well:

How tiresome it is to give up pursuits to which we have become attached. A man enjoying a happy home-life has only to see a woman who attracts him, or spend five or six pleasant says gambling, and he will be very sorry to go back to what he was doing before. It happens every day. (Pensees, #79)

How painful it is to be away and think of this person daily… but how much more painful it is to actually be with her! To see her and laugh with her, and to occasionally share a silent glance between us, and wonder what the meaning of it is, and to wonder if there is still some possibility. And she stands so close as to touch you, and yet still you wonder. Then in the next moment she is obviously standing as far away from you as possible. And then you try to sit with her, and she makes an excuse and moves away to another seat. Is it just a game? How far can we string on this poor misguided soul? I have never had the pleasure of manipulating people this way before, oh it is fun!

Soon our mutual friends will get together again for a movie or a show of some sort, and until then I’m in constant struggle of wanting to go and not wanting to go. I am tempted to go, but the logical half of me knows I’ll just be teased and disappointed. She may well flirt and lead me on, but by the end of the night she will simultaneously have moved her seat and strategically avoided me. I’m not a friend, I’m not a human being, I’m just a puppet being strung along and manipulated.

NO, I do not want to go. And yet I’m still being tugged. My heart wants to go, to enjoy myself and hang out with my friends. But my brain knows that my heart is gullible and easily broken, and will certainly be broken again. The only way to prevent that is to avoid seeing her ever again.

I want to move on. I know I will eventually move on. The same thing happened to me with a girl in high school. Why is it that this is my only experience with girls? Why do I repeatedly subject myself to this torment and pain? This has a dramatic effect on my well-being and I really shouldn’t let it bother me. But it does. It bothers me a great deal.

One of my friends says I should use my passion and divert it into something creative, such as writing or something. Other than these blog entries, which are just written as a way to cool myself off, I really don’t have the discipline to sit down and write a story. I never have had that discipline. And I’ve always felt I write lousy stories. I have great ideas for plot and characters, but I don’t have the skill to write it into something worth reading. I just don’t.

God, I know you exist, but I don’t know how much you interact in the world anymore, if at all. Please help me deal with this torment. I pray for this every night, and eventually it will pass, but I pray that it will pass sooner. I am not sad anymore, I’m just tired.. tired of life in general. I seem to always have been ready to give up completely, but I know that’s not an option. Please carry me forward, please take care of me, please protect me, please be my purpose here, please let me come to terms with myself, please give me strength, please give me peace, please give me love. I know I deserve none of these things, but I desire all of them.