What's up with me and why does it matter?

A friend of mine, whom I've known since the second grade (and no... I won't tell you exactly how that's been) is getting married this summer. I've been invited to her bachelorette party and I've yet to RSVP. I want to go and hang out with her because she's really been a good friend to me, even when we lived halfway across country from each other and saw each other rarely with months between each visit. This friend sent me a birthday card every year from the time we were in school until after I got married, regardless of where I was or what she was doing. She's a good friend and I love her dearly. She's one of those people you hang out with after months and feel right at home like no time passed at all, you know?

So why do I hesitate to RSVP for the bachelorette party? I'm not sure. I've been thinking about it, and its more than just feeling old and wondering if I can stay awake long enough for drinks and dancing on a Friday night (seriously, I wonder.) Because I've known this friend for so long and she's been so faithful, she's been with me through some times I'd rather forget, though not because of her. This week I realized I've been re-examining my faith, why I chose to believe when I did and why God didn't punish me more for the stupid decisions I made before that point. It would be more comfortable to just let it all fade into history and pretend I've always been a well-behaved smart surburban Christian when the reality is that I've spent a good deal of my life being a confused, easily influenced, bad decision maker who only heard the "sin talk" parts in chapel when in reality I missed the big picture and wasted a lot of time being stupid.

I remember the night I decided I was done with it. I was sitting on the floor in my apartment in Columbus writing in my journal. My horrible boyfriend was hanging out and had fallen asleep on the floor next to me watching TV. I couldn't stand him. He was really mean to me and had promised to stop smoking pot for months. Yet he didn't (though he lost a lot of paraphenalia when I found it and threw it out various windows or hit it in the closet crawl space... and he couldn't ask about it or he'd be admitting he'd had it in the first place. This is the same guy who claimed he couldn't be a "stoner" because his family was too rich. How does that work?) I was sitting there writing, about something not God-related and suddenly felt so alone. Really alone. I felt far away from my family and from people who'd cared about me regardless of how selfish I'd been (the friend I mentioned included.) I ended up writing in my journal that if God was real and actually cared about what happened to me that he would find me. That was it. Not super glorious or altar-call-y. The next day I called my mom and left Columbus for good (to this day I have a hard time being there for any reason because my time there was just that sad for me overall.) I went home. I left all of the "friends" I'd made, I left the boyfriend though he followed me to Cincinnati and bugged me for a while before I got rid of him for good.

At any rate, I literally walked away from Columbus and everything I had or did there, regardless of what followed me back initially. Eventually I was living with my parents again, working for Proctor & Gamble and enjoying the safety of not having friends. Then I ran into this friend from elementary/high school and we started hanging out and having a lot of fun. Really, just having a good time and enjoying having a good friend who was actually a friend again. But it took me a while to learn how to not be stupid and she lived through some of that with me too. When I met Rusty and ended up transferring to Maryland to finish school and becoming close to the amazing people I met while doing YoungLife and through Rusty and school is also when my faith started to mature and I started feeling like I was able to make good decisions without the safety net of home. But moving to Maryland also meant leaving everything here again, including this friend. And I'm not sure how to bridge that gap between first starting out as a new Christian for real at home and coming into my own in Maryland when I think about myself and my life and my experience. So hanging out with this friend seems unfamiliar because that seems like a "different part of my life" though she's still someone I care about. And am I even making sense at this point?!

I think it boils down to being able to figure out how to not see myself and associate all places and people as "bad" and "good" depending on who I was at the time. I just happened to be here versus Maryland though neither place is inherently "bad" or "good". It's just the way the timing played out and the places I happened to be. Rusty could have just as easily lived in Columbus. I need to be able to look back at some of the things and places and events before I wised up and not see them as "bad" just because they happened to be a part of that time period (like at some point being able to spend time in Columbus without associating it with my time there before.) Because we're back here in Ohio now and I'm sure there are going to be things and people that are going to cause me to remember things I'd rather not but realize I'm not that same person regardless of where I live.

*Please understand, my family throughout all of this? A constant. Not a factor in my feelings about myself before or any of this thinking now. I'm strictly talking about my own experience outside of my family after I graduated high school and went off to college at Bowling Green the first two years and started making friends and doing things based solely on me and having nothing to do with where I went to high school or who my parents were or what church I grew up in. Without those familiar factors and on my own? I really sucked at making decisions for myself.