realization:

I had forgotten. As I always do.

Isn't it funny how memory is never good enough. That we cannot trust ourselves enough to remember the important things.

Regardless. Here is an interlude in my train of thoughts, a bit of background to remind myself of context before I drop myself in medias res. Visited Houston for the first time since graduation and met up with dear ones. (i think a piece of my heart will stay in houston, no matter where i go) It was a mad whirlwind of conversation and food and rain and nostalgic memories. It was so very good. Haha, good doesn't even describe it. It was... so easy, so natural, what I think I needed after the past months of struggling by myself.

Maybe because I was only gone for, what, six months? It's really not actually that long. It is, but it isn't, y'know? It was like falling into old patterns. Like knowing the steps to this dance, the way the melody will shift, the way the stairs will creak at that step. Walking around Rice, going through buildings, meeting with cell group, talking to the people that have a hold on my heart, going to HCC and serving lunch again ah haha, seeing the familiar. Noticing the slight differences.

Ah, but enough nostalgic reminiscing. I really must be growing old, because I had not known myself to be sentimental.

But in a very real conversation that I have missed so much, we got on to talking about secrets. And as we drove around and bounced thoughts off each other, half exclaiming with a new thought or idea whenever it struck us, interrupting each other, trailing on with half-formed thoughts, tentatively exploring new concepts or connections, opening a million cans of worms, as is the norm.... as the night neared its ending, I found myself sitting the passenger seat with my eyes closed, breathing as shallowly as possible as if even the sheer act of breathing might make me forget. Because I remembered all over again why I share myself.

Med school is so freaking selfish. Med school has made me so freaking selfish. I am falling into the old and familiar patterns of high school again. Where it is safer to keep your cards close to your chest, to think that there is no gain in being vulnerable, that secrets are best unsaid. Or even better, locked and buried ten feet under.

What is true transformation? Who we are, are they just a reflection of the people and the culture around you? Can it survive the transplantation to another city? Who are you without your friends, without the community around you. When I said I grew, that I definitely changed through college, was that just me adapting to the environment around me? That I was merely holding up a mirror in front of myself to reflect the place in front of me?

Can I survive here in San Antonio?
I don't know.
But I so freaking hope so. 
Because I am doing the slow fall. The slow forgetfulness. The creeping one that is never apparent until I turn my head to see my trail wavering and astray.

By God's grace.

A realization:
How can you expect anyone to keep your secret if you can't even keep it yourself?
I clung to this in high school.
People came and crashed through my walls and into my personal space in college - and I couldn't do anything but laugh at the shattered pieces because, before I knew it, I believed it was worth it to have someone within my walls rather than everyone outside.
But that quote still always struck me as good sense. And I guess it still does, even today.

I thought it was enough if I knew the truth. Why does anyone else need to know?
But have I confronted the truth if I just bury it deep away? Noted, acknowledged, and willfully put away.
Sharing is almost a way of confronting the truth in its entirety.

Even though people can't freaking keep secrets, and communication sucks, and nobody knows what anyone is saying, and even though sometimes I think it is useless to share what is in my soul because they will never understand or be able to add to my own understanding or they will just see it as trash instead of precious... even despite all of that, there is still worth in sharing.
Not just as a gift, not just as a way to bond, but to confront the truth of yourself outwardly.

What need do we have for facades if God has already seen through it all?

Another realization:
It is better to give than receive. Who doesn't know that already, what a trite phrase, what an overused phrase. But when I heard it said so gravely, so solemnly, it hit me so suddenly I felt unsettled by the implications of this truth. And couldn't help but think of how selfish I am these days. There is no time to care for others, to give precious time. I just expect to be fed, to receive, to take. Church shopping, fellowship looking, it was never about what I could give. Never about what I could add. But what I could take.

A consideration:

Would you want to know the secret that could break or shatter another person?
I replied yes, immediately.
I said so for the truth of the person, to know entirely the truth rather than the facade. Even for my friends, I have always seen intimate truths as just the core of the self rather than knowledge that could potentially be abused. I had not even considered....
But perhaps I do not consider the emotional burden behind the knowledge.
Whether it is enough to just know truth, or whether there is responsibility behind the knowledge. Or is it enough to just know it as it is.
And I thought about what could shatter me as a person. And wondered if anyone knows too...

A front:
Questions. Answers.
I said those determined whether I was on the offensive or the defensive. And then I laughed because of how I thought about conversations. And then thought a little longer and frowned. But I do. I do think about questions as being on the offensive and answering as on the defensive. I hold myself too tightly. I guard myself too closely.
I give out the analytical thoughts of myself easily and then bury the emotional a thousand feet under.
Because it is too vulnerable. Because I cannot help but think that people do not care unless they ask. And keep asking. Ask at least three times, because who would face two bluffs and return for the true answer but someone who wants to know? But they must ask. And keep asking. Because I cannot trust anyone to keep my secret, since y'know, I couldn't even keep it myself.

What a lonely way to live, a friend once observed.
I know, I said. And then asked her a question because I already gave too much away for her to say that statement.

---

this was so incoherent. a mix of flashbacks and a recounting of memories and a rambling of moments of realization. and maybe it will not make sense because they are scattered. a handful of precious thoughts yanked out at random from my brain and then spilled into words. the thoughts are unfinished, unpolished, and maybe a little too raw.
but they are true and they are a little vulnerable. more than i would like, which i know because my heart flutters uncomfortably at the thought of pressing the "publish" button.
but maybe this is a first step to confronting myself again.