To Be Understood
I don’t know about you but there is such a comforting feeling to taking a personality test in which you already know the results. I know I’m a Myer’s Briggs INFJ. I take this test every three months just to know that there are people in the universe that truly get me. I am within the smallest percentage of the population that thinks and feels how I do. So to find anyone that is similar to me is challenging. While I like being unique, sometimes knowing I’m understood is the most comforting feeling in the entire world.
I’ve felt so misunderstood lately. Mainly misunderstood by a church community I used to call mine. It’s so painful to think that at one point while I was genuinely trying to become and care for a community I somehow ended up being an outcast. I try to be understood by my new husband who fits well into the community but he doesn’t quite get it. I know that I have grown apart from it, which isn’t a bad thing, but it is a hurtful one. It means I need to find a new community. But the pain associated with not fitting in is heartbreaking. I want so badly to be gladly greeted by this community again but I feel myself shutting down, trying to hide myself in a corner when I walk into the room. I automatically feel uncomfortable, judged, misunderstood.
This summer I will move to California for a year. I am more than excited. I have let a lot of things die this past year that I could tell weren’t serving me and I was no longer willing to serve them. I cut my schedule down, quit a lot of part time jobs, stopped volunteering, and focused on the things I needed to really focus on at the time. I’ve got a small, simple list of things I want to do when I get to Cali. I felt like this time after college and before my marriage was a time to sample, play, find the things I like and things I’m glad I don’t have to pursue. I’ve worked multiple places, volunteered for different things and know what I want to pursue further now. I’m going to take a hip hop class, find a mentor in the community building through arts sector and work on some hand painted fashion design projects. I want to get to know the community, see where I fit and opt out of the ones that I don’t. I’m going to go the beach, listen to the waves, write my heart out, be a new wife, decorate a new apartment that will be Nathan and I. Love my cat. Love my husband. Breathe, not worry too much about a job. Work part time to pay my bills. Not worry about planning a wedding. It won’t be perfect. I will miss my family and friends. But God has called me to the West Coast. To a new community. To quite possibly be understood again if I choose my communities like I chose my friendships & my personality test answers. Slowly, carefully & with the intention of being understood.