Cat on a Waxed Floor

What is faith? Really, what is it? I'm not sure I know anymore. Feel free to tell me if you know.

On that soaring epicky abstract note, I'm having to do all sorts of grownup things today, like talk to my boss, go get car insurance (which I'm procrastinating about, bleh), and drive through horrid Atlanta traffic at rush hour to honor my commitments and go to play practice in friggin' Acworth, which is at the other end of the universe. All with a persistent loud nagging in the back of my head... it's unpleasant. Loud, painful, and unpleasant.

I've been reading the Introduction to the Devout Life the past day or so, which strikes me as rather ironic as I've lived anything but a devout life of late, but I suppose that's where the "introduction" part comes in. Francis de Sales could be a total wack job by times (sorry to my shocked and appalled Christendom readers, but the man condemns the theatre, dancing, and playing cards as jeopardizing one's eternal salvation -- fuggedaboudit), but he's really on the money in other spots. His reflections about friendship, relationships, and the necessity of severing bad ones to maintain one's relationship with Christ made me break down and cry the other day (not that that's a terribly momentous statement, since everything makes me break down and cry these days).

I'm beginning to realize that while in some sense, deep down, I crave stability and security, it also terrifies me beyond all rational justification. I've noticed myself not wanting to get too emotionally attached to Atlanta for fear something will change and I'll have to pack up and go, and I've realized that this fear is acutely representative of my fear of relationships which has arisen since last summer. I'm always projecting commitmentophobia on the guys around me, but let's face it - I'm just as bad, if not worse, than any guy I know. Flirting is fun, but as soon as genuine interest is conveyed or any attempt at seriousness proffered, I find myself skittering away like a cat on a newly waxed floor. (Tell me that wasn't an impressively Southern analogy - I'm acclimating quite well to my new idiom. :) )

How long can one spend hiding under the bed from the thunderstorm, though, before you have to emerge and face your fears? I can't keep this up forever. Yet I hate people leaving, and I hate them hurting me, and I fear it more than anything else in the world. My solution, thus, for the last year, is to make every effort to drive them away in the first place, so I don't have to worry about any more loss, any more change. And the moment I do lower my defenses and let someone in, they too leave, and set me off once again in the old familiar tailspin. So I keep hiding.

Obviously, this isn't right. My old chum Lewis would have some choice words about it -- indeed, did:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless -- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

Ouch. Touché.