Alone

Ever since the Global Leadership Summit ended, I've had this strange feeling that something was encompassing my person. I didn't know what it was at the moment since I was riding the "spiritual high" that comes with these sorts of events. Soon after though, about 3 hours later, really, I found myself at Youth Fellowship doing what I usually did, and that same feeling filled my entire being. I didn't know what it was, but it felt cold. It wasn't that I felt empty on the inside, but that I felt emptiness on the outside.

I'm not entirely sure if this was a feeling that simply manifested immediately after the Summit. I keep thinking that this plaguing sensation had more than once clouded my presence many times during the week. Even today during Bible study, I still felt this strange coldness wrapping around me. Every person I met felt far off in the distance and was unusually inaudible. Suddenly, everything that was happening with other people was something that would occur when I was far off somewhere else: today's little craft session was during my volunteer shift and the Youth sleepover will be happening when I'm all the way in Hong Kong and Brenda's starting college when I'm overseas as well.

For the longest time, I didn't know what this was, this strange feeling that depressed me to the point where I lay in bed crying for no apparent reason. Up until about five minutes ago, I realized that what I am feeling is loneliness. I haven't been able to talk to anybody and all I really wanted was to just be around people and when I was, things were ok for a while. Usually, when I figure out what my problem is, I can deal with it almost immediately, but I haven't been able to shake this feeling of solitude. It hurts so much and I have absolutely no idea why it does or why I feel so alienated.

I've never felt more alone.

The way You Look Tonight [and every Day Thereafter]

One concept I often had trouble grasping is the idea of pretty women.

And by that, I mean "pretty" in terms of physical appearance.

This past Sunday, I went out with a few friends and near the end of our day together, we got into an interesting discussion over the attractive qualities of the finer sex: namely, their appearances. To be honest, I never really thought about a woman as "hot" or "cute." When I see a girl, the first thought that comes to mind is "oh, girl," and occasionally, "why is that purse the size of a luggage bag?" The thought of staring at a girl's body and not just at her is something unusually foreign to me and is probably why I will never understand the obsession men hold for Megan Fox.

Another instance of this concept of paying attention to a person's physical appearance happened yesterday, actually. Oddly enough, this happened while I was with my girlfriend and one of her friends, who, interestingly enough, was a girl as well. We were visiting a friend's house and as we walked from the parking lot in the trailer complex, Brenda's friend commented on how Brenda has lost weight since the trip to Taiwan. She asked me if I noticed this too and I honestly did not know what to say, which made me realize that I had never once paid attention to Brenda's physical appearance [aside from the occasional remark about her hair and her new piercings]. I didn't want to "lie" and say "yes," since I didn't know, so I responded by saying that I didn't know because I didn't pay attention to things like that.

Like how the idea of classifying the appearance of another person as "hot" or "cute" is foreign to me, the idea that this kind of stuff is foreign to me is quite often foreign to other people. It's hard for me to communicate my position because, quite frankly, I have never met another person who thinks like I do in this situation. I keep wondering if it is a blessing or utter ignorance that causes me to view people in such a manner where I only see them as people and not as a person who is "really really ridiculously hawt" or something to that effect. I'm not saying I can't tell when a person looks good, but I can't see it in such a way that inspires the "lust" portion of my brain to fire off like fireworks on the 4th of July.