A change of plans, but not of heart.

I’ve been thinking lately…

Now, before you run screaming for the hills, let me just clarify that my plans for world domination are nowhere near ready for implementation. Feel better? Maybe a little? Okay, good.

Besides the usual scheming and dreaming, my little grey cells have been occupied lately with contemplation of this self-imposed singleness situation. Trying to protect myself from being hurt – or from hurting others – I put up barriers, I made loud protestations, I imposed arbitrary schedules…and in the meantime, I forgot to take into account some very important things.

One big reason is that in trying not to think about relationships or dating or romance, I’ve…well, been thinking about relationships and dating and romance more than I would otherwise. Effectively, I’ve made the idea into a bigger distraction by attempting to ignore it. It’s like a nightmare about, say, a giant carrot chasing you around your old elementary school (oh come on, don’t tell me all your dreams make sense). You wake up terrified, your heart pounding, and you cannot get the image of that menacing carrot out of your head. The more you try not to think about it, the clearer the picture becomes, until you’re curled into the fetal position under your blankets, swearing that as God is your witness, you’ll never eat carrots again.

That’s how I’ve been feeling. Well, something like that. Less with the terror and the vegetables, but you get the idea.

Matters came to a head on Sunday night, when I was rather forcefully reminded that in this equation of me + life – relationships = personal gain, I kept subtracting God as well.

If I believe that God has a plan for me, then how can I think I could schedule my future down to the minute? If I accept that God’s intentions towards me are honorable, then who am I to sit here in my self-righteousness and say, “No thanks, Almighty Creator of Everything Ever. I think I’ll set my own deadlines, Omnipotent and Omniscient God, for obviously, of the two of us, I am the one most qualified to know these things.”

You guys, I can’t even blow my own nose right now (thanks to a sparkly new piercing). I barely know what I’m doing next weekend, or what to do with the degree I’ll get in a year or two, and I have no bloody clue what my life will look like at that time, much less in five years, or (heavens!) fifteen.

So the upshot of all this is that this whole year of no dating thing is actually doing me more harm than good. It’s a distraction from important things, like friendship and classes and family. It’s also a distraction from non-essential but still amazing things: hysterical giggling fits with Christine, long talks about everything with Amber, coffee with Lily, saying the exact same thing as J.T. five times a day…

I need to focus on these good things. Putting up walls around my heart is all well and good, but ignoring the giant carrot isn’t going to make it go away, and I just can’t be having with those sorts of shenanigans. I still don’t want to date anyone, and I’m certainly not looking to fall in love. I want to be young and have fun and love my God and hug my friends and call my family, and I want to do all this and still be open to God’s plan for me.

As the oft-quoted song says, I don’t want to miss a thing.