The intensity of identity

Well I finally got to talk to Sr. Della Marie yesterday after playing a few rounds of phone tag. As always, it is so good to talk to her. She is just so incredibly wise and comforting! Basically, I learned that what I am feeling is relatively normal. Having feelings for men is just part of our natural instinct as women, and it doesn't every necessarily go away. There are always going to be guys that we are attracted to. That is just how it works. We just have to know ourselves, and know how to have boundaries etc. It is a matter of putting those emotions aside and looking at the reality of each vocation.

While it made me feel better to know that what I am feeling is pretty normal, it still doesn't really help me to know where my heart is without having an actual person to discern with. It is hard for me to really think about how I would like being married without there being a man that I would be committed to for the rest of my life, if that makes sense. I can fantasize all I want about how awesome married life seems, about how adorable babies are, but I can't really know if I can live with someone's weird quirks, annoying habits, or find satisfaction in that vocation unless I know him. I think that is the biggest problem I am having with discerning this. I just feel like I can't really know what is on the "other side". And sometimes the grass isn't greener!

Either way though, saying 'yes' to a vocation is saying 'no' to something. If I say 'yes' to religious life, that means no to having an earthly spouse and physical children. If I say yes to marriage, I am still saying 'no' to every other man out there.

I've learned though that I am a very emotional person. Not in the sense that I am weepy all the time (although I do cry at probably any movie/song that has a hint of emotion...hallmark kills me...), but in the sense that I feel things very deeply, and they tend to cloud my thoughts. I am very passionate, and I think I find my identity in being a deep person. It is what drives me to be a writer, a dancer, an artist, a musician, a photographer. But I think sometimes, it is too much emotion that feeds those outlets. I get better results when I am emotionally charged, and who doesn't like the release of creating something that speaks from your heart?

I have heard two things recently that have really made me think, and helped me to realize how much I find my identity in being 'deep'.
1)  One of my sisters said recently that she wanted to be a writer, but writers never make any money. My other sister responded with "Well you have to be depressed to be a writer!" I initially got really offended by this statement and asked her what the heck she meant by that. That's simply not true!
And while that is definitely not true in many cases (people write beautiful things when happy/ in love/ full of joy), depression and drama and that kind of intensity have been my springboard too much in the past, so that is what I still lean toward as "fuel for my fire".
2) Sally Sparrow: "I love old things. They make me feel sad."
 Kathy Nightingale:" What's good about sad? "
Sally Sparrow: "It's happy for deep people"

My brother quoted that the other day from "Doctor Who", and I noticed that it really hit a chord with me. I could identify with that. The more I thought about it, the more the lies from my past began to be pulled to the surface, and I realized that they were still there, just in a more subtle way. They weren't manifesting themselves as extreme as they have before, so I stopped paying attention to them. I thought they were through. Now they are manifesting themselves in confusion, in lack of trust, in my inability to find the desires of my heart. Lies that "drama and intensity make me feel alive", that I am not allowed to feel joy, that I have to be miserable, that I can't allow myself to listen to my heart because it could be broken... all those old lies still burying my heart and creating noise so I can't hear what it's beats say to me... so I can't hear what God says to me. Lies can be so loud that we can't hear the truth.

One thing is clear though: the Lord is bringing me through this process of deeper healing and deeper purification to prepare me for my vocation, whatever that may be. For that I am thankful. I know that (even though I feel bipolar sometimes!!) He is walking with me and has my best interests at heart, and is allowing me to go back and forth between these so that I can really dig down into the depths of my soul and find what makes it sing. All of this comes back to identity, which is something I could never seem to grasp.

Lord, help me to look beyond my emotion, beyond my false securities, beyond my sense of 'identity', and find my true desires and my true self in Your merciful heart.