SHE LIVES (or so I think)

And she is now a third year med student!

Helloooooo! I am reviving this blog out of my need to vent my feelings of loneliness somewhere---loneliness not in terms of one's love life, but in terms of friendships (or lack thereof), self-doubt, and general emptiness of being.

1) Faith Life
For the past month or so I have been inactive in our youth ministry, which was a new phenomenon for me. In the past I have always been spearheading activities and campaigning for the counseling and evangelization of youths falling away from the Church... but as a new youth ministry administration took form, I fell out of sync. My chemistry with the coordinator just didn't seem to work. My plans and projects for a stronger small-group initiative were set aside, and they wanted to focus on big events and big crowds... whereas I believed small groups were what sparked the pursuit of a deeper sense of faith in the young Catholic.

In the tradition of my non-confrontational self, I... stopped going to meetings. I stopped attending to young people with toxic attitudes, I went off the grid at events, I was.. a ghost of my formal youth min self. In the process, I failed to practice my faith disciplines (going to Mass, reading the daily Gospel, etc) as I avoided youth min ppl. (Wrong, I know, but it's so hard to stay on track when you have such ill feelings :( )

2) Academics
In exchange, however, I found myself coping better with academic pressures. With my newfound time (as I had no youths to meet), I actually ended up managing my academics better. For the past third of a term I only cried twice out of frustration! That is a triumph in itself, to be honest. I was proud of myself.

But once the exam results came around, I started to feel beat up and defeated again. I felt like I never truly recovered from my old self, and that the things I told myself (I am recovering, I am getting better, etc) were nothing but foolish thoughts.

Maybe I still am the depressed, defeated kid I was a year ago. Maybe I never really got better, but only learned to lie to myself in a more convincing manner. And now that reality came back to smack me in the face, my illusions are shattered and I am, still, the Patty who wanted to flee, to disappear.