The Honest to God Truth

I want to be honest. Painfully honest. I am Rebecca Baldwin Manner and I’ve never been anyone else. I don’t know what it is to be anyone else. I’ve always been in my own world (which is often wrapped up in other worlds, but it’s my world nonetheless). I’ve never lived in any body but this one, never seen out of any other eyes but these. I’m just a 5’1, 140 lb person and what is that in the midst of the world? So I may as well be honest about what I am. Or rather, what I know about myself.

I lied to a friend and that lie got bigger and bigger after I hung up the phone because I kept going deeper and deeper into something I said was a shallow love. I said, “It’s not like that anymore because I know the ending and I can let go. Now it’s just a good book.” I suppose there is some truth in that. But really, when I read the 7th book the last time, I didn’t totally surrender to it. Now I have. I don’t regret it. I’m not saying that. And I guess I don’t regret my lie either because there really is no explaining. I best keep it to myself and inject my overflowing passion into outlets where it will not be recognized for what it is. I need to make my passion relevant to my own life because if I don’t then I may as well kill myself; because then I would only be able to focus on that world and never another. I would die of longing and being completely unproductive. Stupid, really. So I have to build my own life around the passion and let the passion seep through the woodwork, manifesting itself in my endeavors.

I suppose that’s kind of what it’s like to be a Christian. But as a Christian most things are clear cut. And does God give you this constant flow of passion, of fire? No, He doesn’t. And things are so clear cut that you can say, “well, there it is, that’s what is going to happen and here’s the map.” And then what is there? Waiting. Being boring. Looking at old, pixilated pictures of fake flowers strewn over an old Bible and thinking, “here’s my world. This must be happiness.” No, sorry. I don’t want it. I want God, sure. I really want God. But there has to be another way.
I want to live with passion, even though it drives me up the wall. Because this Harry Potter mental disease I get…well, I know I’ve been trying to sort out what to do with it, how to make sense of it for eight years. But there has to be some way. It’s on the tip of my mind. But it’s been in the tip of my mind for years. It threatens to drive one crazy if there isn’t redemption of some sort. Usually, instead of redemption I use a band-aid. A band-aid would be a distraction from a less demanding world. I put in a different movie, read a different book. But I feel so completely lonely. Because once I close one of those Harry Potter books, I’ve lost my friends and the fake-reality hits. I don’t have any friends. But that’s not true. I have wonderful friends. But I’m always chasing. I always want something better. And I usually end up embarrassing myself because, let’s face it, my social skills aren’t the best in the world. I have absolutely no figgin idea how to act around people my own age.

And don’t even get me started on boys. I want guy friends. Any male influence would be more than welcome. The male race is as foreign to me as Catholicism to a Seventh - day Adventist. I know about guys, but to the record I currently have only one real, male friend. Seriously. It makes me want to cry. Human beings were meant to be surrounded my both sexes. We’re supposed to have a mom and dad. Than, maybe, we’re supposed to have a brother. Then guy friends. Then a husband. All I know is the world of women and frankly, I’m a bit sick of it.
Okay, so obviously I’m alive which means I must have a father. And I do, of course, but I think I’m better acquainted with my uncles I see once a year than my father. The dad thing is a touchy subject and not one I’m going to talk about right now. I have no brothers (I don’t count my step-brother). I have one guy friend. And, obviously, I’m not married.

I shouldn’t sell anyone short here, though. I do have other guy friends of all ages. But I hardly ever talk to them. They’re not the kind of people I call up on a Saturday night and ask if they want to do something, or text while I’m in the check-out line at Wal-Mart. And I should really stop talking about this because it’s pissing me off more than it should. I give up. I’ve tried, I really have, but I don’t think that the guys like me. Maybe my problem is that I’m just not involved in anything where there are guys. It’s just Unionaires. But let’s not go into my lack of involvement with the human race because then I’ll just feel sorry for myself.

The point is I’m wondering if the passion, the longing I feel from Harry Potter is in any way related to my loneliness (or maybe I’m not really lonely and it just makes me feel lonely). Because really, there are times when I just don’t want to talk to people or hang out or anything. Not because I’m grumpy, but just because). I don’t know. I can’t figure myself out. Maybe I just like having fits of emotion, regardless of whether or not those emotions have any rational ground in my real life.

And I tell my friend on the phone that I would rather have this life, where there is nothing clear-cut, but it is a constant longing with seas of emotions with the world looking different every minute than the bland, dusty Christian experience (wrought with adventure as it is). I think it’s all emotional and I’m a failure as a Christian because I rely too much on emotion and she says, “I don’t think this is about emotion at all because you are trusting God to bring you through. That trust is not based on emotion.” I admit it’s not. She adds that emotion does play a role in our lives as Christians, as one of the factors included in decision making. It’s just not a deciding factor; and I shouldn’t be afraid of it.

So here I am, confused out of my mind and I don’t care. I’m just going to live and I’m going to try my best not to freak out because no new friendships are blossoming and I’m going to try and remember that this is my life and I need to live it as I see fit and not wallow in a world with no future.

And now that I’ve mapped that out in a grand total of ten paragraphs, I’m going to talk about something else. Let’s see…Today I saw the doctor and the UNL student who was helping him said I was “text-book”. This was referring to my symptoms. Apparently what I’ve had since Wednesday is a sinus infection, so now I’m on antibiotics. The UNL guy kept asking me questions and I would misinterpret them (no doubt due to the “text book” sinus pressure in my ears). Like he says, “So you’ve had kidney transplants?”
“Liver,” I say
“Liver…What for?”
“No, I had two.”
“You had two…what caused you to need the transplants?”
“Primary sclerosing cholangitis .”

After that I walked around Walgreens for about half and hour waiting for my prescription. I filled up my cart with Kleenex and other essentials needed at home and then added some Christmas cookies, strawberry jam, a bag of chips (hey people, I was starving), and a clearanced hair serum. I had to put most of it back because I called my mom and she said I could only use the credit card she gave me for the prescription and I’d have to buy the rest with my own credit card, which I know she’s having trouble keeping money on. I got the essentials…and the hair serum. I forgot to get toothpaste. On my way to get the drugs (“Prescription ready for Rebecca Manner!”) I got a horrible cough and added a bottled water to my bill. I told mom sorry, but I don’t think it mattered. Dad isn’t going to care about one extra dollar on my medical expenses credit card. Wow, my life is just so darn exciting.

After sitting like a lazy bum in front of my computer and playing guitar for a few hours I went to see my sister in the one-act play at her school. She has a German accent in it which she does really well. My mom says that when my sister is at home you just want to kill her because she’s mean and messy and totally selfish and then she sort of redeems herself every time a report card comes or she performs one of her many talents. I think my mom is right. I want to hate Ginny, but can’t. She let me drive her car home from the play so I didn’t have to wait around for my ride (I found myself car-less thirty minutes before the play) and I drove it home without my glasses on (I left them at home by accident). It was pretty dangerous I guess. I was driving a car I’d never driven before…blind. I mean, it took me 5 minutes to turn the lights on because I didn’t realize they came on automatically when you took off the brake. Everyone walking past probably thought I looked like an idiot sitting there with the windshield wipers going all different speeds.