Are ya missing me? I miss you! i'm in california right now. Reading your letter got me all buzzing again. Now i don't know if i should talk about my trip or what! I really want to...talk about everything! I'm totally itching to talk to holly about the boys (which are few and far) but there were some funny moments...although nothing terribly exciting. And about the tidbits of my trip so far.
um. Well we flew into Phoenix. Did a time share vacation tour for two hours and in return we got a free night at this fab. condo. Next we got to Williams, and did the grand canyon thing for two days. Did a helicopter ride (got to sit in the front as "co-captain"-->neat!) also watched the sun set there, which was cool. Then we went to Las Vegas. I can't gamble. I'm too old for the kid stuff. But the hotel is great. I am entertained just staring at the people who walk by. I'm terrible with judgement. Like in truth i don't really care, but i think so many things about everyone. Sort of like i give a make over to everyone in my mind. The pool was very nice though.
now i'm in cali. 80 degrees seems kind of "cool" temp. wise after Las Vegas' 116 degrees and hot hot wind. Not too cool. i don't know the relatives i'm staying with. ah geez i think we may be staying here a week and hitting different places in L.A.--hopefully this will be fun. I'm totally missing my friends, i wish they were here, would make things better. I just need to hang out and chat with them, you know? I mean 'teens don't really too much but that. My...god, cousin? I don't know, but i remember them, but they're old. In their early thirties, and well i say them, because she has a lover. They're lesbians. Everytime i see them, i'm like "no way!" I mean if i'm standing by them, or see them by each other, i instantly start thinking of them...well doing their lesbian love thing, and whoah, you don't want to think of your family doing that. Actually i guess you don't want to think of anyone doing that! but anyway, it's sort of funny. I sort of want to laugh every time cuz i'll try to push the image out of my mind, but it'hard.
(James finds my online journal....) "Who would have known that "danielle and cwg" would
have worked?"
sweet mother, (btw my new fave phrase) i feel so violated. Jaaaaammes, i can't believe you did that. That's sort of my area. I mean that's not cool.
I just figured you wouldn't persue it. Actually, i didn't think about it at all, i just..well, i didn't think. i'm sort of offended. More like i don't visit enough to even know what i have there, so it feels like i got caught. but i'm not sure what i got caught with. i feel totally violated!
(Concerning Tim and his virginity and experience...)
" Is it a safe assumption that whatever he does with
you he has never done
with anyone else? If that's the case...then he does
need to explore and stuff."
he better not have done it with somebody else! HA! I was thinking about this when we first started dating. Then later on i almost felt like it was "unfair" he (i don't know, getting experience?) at 17. and i was 18. Hmm, i might have written that in my online journal. WELL i guess you can tell me if i'm right or not that on that one, you snoop! I'm pretty sure he's never done anything like this before.
He (Tim) said we had sort of an "unhealthy" relationship. And i wanted to burst out laughing when he said that. Actually i almost laughed right now just thinking about it. Yeah, HeL-Lo it's unhealthy...but not because we're doing more with our bodies but we don't have a good relationship just between us, i don't think. I mean maybe because that's All we seem to do, really.
(James is saying that I'm not a block to Tim's persuit of Christianity...)" Well, assuming that he had devoted himself to god
all his life, now he has
a new entity in his life, and he really likes this
entity, and wants to get
closer to it. So as opposed to a block, consider
yourself more of a
distraction. In time, he will either become a better
"christian" or he will
reevaluate his relationship with god and leave the
christian norm for
something different."
Or he'll leave the distraction. Your relationship with God is important (or i feel it is..or it's something i want others to have.) If so far he's been living as a Christian, because that's what he was brought up with...and now, only now really trying to find himself and a relationship, i want him to have that. I want him to find something he can live with. If he really is going to live his life for Christianity, then i am a block. I am acting as a block...especially if he's too immature to control himself..and he shouldn't be dating now. Or maybe if he was dating a Christian she wouldn't let him go so far. Sometimes, i wonder if i should stop him. By stopping him, am i making the right choice...for him? or should i keep going because i don't mind it...and he appears to want it? In theory it shouldn't be a problem if we were both Christians.
Our relationship is so much physical based. Not to say we're all that physical..i mean really, but. I think he's very attracted to me. We like each other as friends...the common interst thing is our barrier, obviously not a good match, unless we can over come that and find something to work with. Our relationship is going to continue to fall back to where it was, because we aren't working on developing anything else. Or maybe we both want to...but there's nothing else to develop. We could both give up and get out of the relationship, but there's still the "well i'm attracted to her, and she seems to be sticking around.." and well, i'm just wrong all around, cuz i basically just like having a boyfriend. I think we like being with each other (because even non-sexual, we do seem to like each other as people) and because we like....well, we like making out. ;) Unfortunately it's a source of conflict. So i don't know what we're going to do.
He was so adorable while he was trying to tell me how he was feeling. Like it broke my heart and i loved it at the same time. I can't explain it.
I've been writing it (poetry) since elementary school. I have a huge stack of everything i've written. Well, really it's everywhere. I kind of stuff it and hide it wherever i can in my room. I love, love to write it. Poetry is a huge part of me. Poetry and music are these things that if you looked at my life you wouldn't really see them, but infact i think they mean so much more to me then i really let on. i'm super big on writing poetry....ahh, not so big on reading others. It just depends. Real famous, popular poetry, i'm not huge into. I like reading stuff that people my age have written. I guess you can read through all the jargon and sort of relate to it. I guess more to listening to words. Like the way i love to hear some, poetry is like that. Sometimes i'll find some writing and i'll just love the poetry in it. There's an author...Kelly cherry. Here stories are kind of dull and bad, (and actually kind of racy too ;) but her writing, her actual style, some of her similies are so cool. I love it!
(What i said in a past email....)"I would love to talk about
God with him.But i'm scared.
you should see how tense and silent i am. It's
awful. I can't tell
him anything, because i close myself up. We do
talk, we do share, even
personal things. But maybe i'm finding a hole in
the relationship
because what i want is...a conversation about God?"
I don't want him...i don't want..i don't want to lose him? James, i've seen the way Christians think. I've already been hurt in another relationship for Not being a Christian. I've some real angst against the whole "non" issue. And i'm scared. I'm scared to tell him, cuz i don't want him to break up with me for being a non christian. I don't want him to think i'm crazy for not believing the faith. I don't want to look like a fool who just makes up stuff on whim just for fun. They have the bible they have Jesus, i'm riding on a feeling. The fact is, i will never be a christian in their sense. Call it "hardening of the heart" as the Bible may say, or even "devil's work" but i know it. I'm not being stubborn, i'm simply telling it as it is. no way is it going to happen. Something terribly insane would have to happen. I don't know, maybe God would jump out of the sky and clouds and let me know Christianity is the only way, and maybe that would turn me around, but that's about all. I have faith that what i believe is my personal truth, and i cannot accept another, because it will only seem false to me.
Why won't i talk to Tim? I know he'll never understand me. A christian..a person who has grown up and breathed and lived the stories? I doubt very much there is anything anyone can do to change a Christian who has been brought up in it. It is something they believe hard core into them. Being saved....i've seen it change people. it's incredible. Perhaps i come to see the Christian faith in action because it is powerful. CWG is living off some ideas that are complete opposites to the Christian faith. They won't believe it. I don't want people to hurt because they think i'm going to hell. And i don't want people telling me i'm going to hell, cuz that makes me sick too. I've seen Kathryn's face. Knowing that she thinks i'm going to hell....that hurts just knowing that SHE thinks that. I've come to a place in my faith, that i don't feel i have to justify what i believe...because they can think what they think...and it's alright too. BUT if only they could be happy letting me live what i want to believe. But they can't. That goes against what they believe. And that's where it gets all twisted. How involved with Christians can i get before it gets messy?
I think sitting down and reading CWG straight up IS crazy if you believe it. I can't help it, i've experience it. I don't know how many people read this book and feel the same way as i do. It took a personal experience. an "a ha!" moment and it became a truth. I mean not an absolute..i don't live only off of CWG concepts, but.. i mean, i would understand why the ideas would seem off the wall for a Christian.
(I'm worried about losing friends from church and James says....)"I also don't think you
will lose everyone,
especially considering the fact that you, so you
say, are not as close to
them as you could be anyway."
What do you mean? That i'm not close enough to lose anyone in the first place? I think...i'm concerned with my friends and the elders as a collective whole. I don't want my name to show up in Bible study when i'm not there as "please save Danielle..show her the way" I don't want this pity thing. I don't want to lose them...in the sense as this seperation as Christian/vs./non. It's not so much "i'm higher and better than you" just...they really don't believe you can understand God or the soul without Jesus. That ruins my whole point of attending Christian things. I'm there to talk about God! I'm there to share God with others. If i'm a "non" and i "have no idea what i'm talking about" i won't feel free to say anything. (Not to say i say all that much anyway ;) I just don't want people worrying about me, when i'm not worrying about me. I like it when i provide insights and others find something good in it. If i'm a "non" i can't possibly provide...i like people turning to me, no one is going to turn to a "non" who doesn't even have the "holy ghost". I don't want to lose the respect i feel i've given myself the illusion of having. I supose it's all false anyway, since i'm not really a Christian.
James, the worst feeling, is when i've experience something really cool with God, and i want to tell someone about it and...i can't. Because Kathryn knows. Everytime i say anything about God, i feel i have to watch myself. I feel like anything i say is just a....like it's a joke to kat. Like "whatever girl" I mean she never says anything like that, maybe she doesn't really think about it. I just feel like a fake. Like people don't know how into God i am. I don't want to be this "non" girl who comes to they youth things to pick up boys, and lead them into sin. When i say i'm losing people by telling them, because they don't understand. I'm losing a connection, and when i come to church, i come to find that connection. How can they possibly understand why i come if they know i'm not a Christian?
(And James says....)"
I don't think that you will suffer relationship
complications as a result
of telling them, but you may suffer from them
indirectly, because it would
have a tendency toward putting you the defensive.
You are sorta on the
defensive as it is...you just are not willing to
speak out about it."
What else am i suppose to do but defend?
The background....Tim told me before i left on my three week trip out west that he didn't really comfortable with how our relationship was and with we were doing. As i mentioned he felt it was "unhealthy" and wanted stop and start living his life for God. I was...and still am mixed up on how I felt and feel about our situation and our relationship. When does religion and values begin to affect your relationship? As soon as it starts! It's serioiusly not a good idea, but I want to be with someone who loves God. What do you do when the person youwant to be with, can only experience God, when you're not around? Time to leave and move on! But i've been unable to do so, so far.
James found my online journal by sneakily searching for it. I suppose in some version, by writing out emails of things he has written, it is a violation of his privacy too. I'm not sure how I feel about it. And i'll never know if he's still reading. Or if he respects my wishes and doesn't. And I guess in the long run it really doesn't matter if he does or doesn't, because I still trust him in the sense that he would never share things to others (mostly because we don't know the same "others") but even if we did, i think he would keep it between us. He is a super friend and what i write to him, is almost an open diary. Why stop at anything, really...right?
