Jess Boctor

Category: Fighting the Darkness

  • We’re All Kaleidoscopes

    I have the privileged of hanging out with Middle and High School students each week. It is a great experience because they keep me honest about how cool I really am (what exactly is Vine?) and somehow always confuse me for a student in their ranks (yay for adult acne!)

    Last week, I was talking with a Junior student who was sharing about how she wasn’t sure how to prepare for next year. The beautiful and terrifying last year of High School. Upon completing this sacred American rite of passage, students are deemed adults. Our culture, and very often the students themselves, expect a stroll across a stage to suddenly cement their identity and the path for the rest of their lives.

    I found myself asking questions about what she wanted to after High School and what career she wanted to pursue. When I started to ask why, she started throwing out words like “prove myself” and “start a career”. As we talked, I asked if the career choices she was intending to make would be things she would really enjoy. If she had taken time to consider what she really wants to do. She wavered momentarily, “No, I would really like to do…”.

    Inside, I smiled the painful smile of recognition. Of burying deep down what you want to do for what you should do, for making plans on having to carve out a space which claims “This is me and I have value!” I recognize the desperate need to have a plan, to have it all together and sorted out. Life, however, laughs at our plans. No matter how much space I tried to carve out; a volunteer position, an art studio, a foreign city, it was never enough to prove my worth to the world. How many times did my plans change because I thought, “If I accomplish this-or I go over there-THEN they will love me.”  How many times has realty taken a swing through my carefully notated and graphed plans? How different is my life from what I thought it would be when I graduated? The answer to these questions is a million, more than I like to count, and drastically, respectively.

    I am so thankful for it, too.

    As I have fought the good fight of learning to love myself, to like the quirky, flawed, and loud mouthed introvert that I am, I have learned that there are some deep and essential things which will always stay the same. I will always devour a good story in as little time as possible. I will always want to sing, dance, tell stories, and look for the connections in unexpected places. I will never be a very good judge of character. And at every party, you will always find me with food in my mouth so I don’t have to talk to strangers. Unless there is dancing, ’cause then I will be shaking my booty.

    So how do we meld together the constantly changing circumstances and roles we find ourselves in with the core pieces of who we are? This is the thought that dawned on me last week: we are all kaleidoscopes. We all have bits of color, glass shapes, beads or bobbles which are our core. However, as we go through life, these core pieces are constantly moving. The light is always filtering through them in new ways. The pieces make up new designs, they adapt to change and movement. In this way, we are continuous and continuously changing at the same time.

    As I finished my conversation, I was glad to know that, most likely, this students life is not going to end at all how she thinks it will. If she can discover her core pieces and appreciate the changes of pace, it will be better. So here’s to the next design.

    Continuing the adventure,

    Jess

     

  • When I Look Away

    This came rambling through my brain this morning.

    I feel like Peter drowning

    When I look away

    When I let my eyes fall upon the waves

    And Your face is swallowed by the haze

    I feel like Peter drowning

    When I try to walk alone

    When my journey crosses liquid

    And my identity becomes twisted

    So, shine bright in the midst of the storm

    Call me home with a shout resounding

    Reach out and pluck me from the gray

    Because I feel like Peter drowning

    When I look away.

     

  • Who Is Massaging Your Soul?

    Saturday morning I woke up with a kink in my neck. The kink became progressively worse on Sunday. After two days of wincing every time I looked at him, Abe (and his wife Rowe) made me an appointment for a massage.

    Now, this was not a girls weekend out and relax type of massage. This was what Jacob, my massage therapist with Muppet hair, called a ‘fixer upper’. Jacob worked my back, neck, and shoulders in a way I didn’t know was possible. He found muscle tissue I didn’t even know I had. However, the pain was worth the end result when I regained a range of motion lost to me for the last four days.

    As I laid on the table, I began to wonder when was the last time I had given my soul a massage. When was the last time I let someone else probe through the skin of heart to find the tightly wound places which hindered me? I couldn’t really remember. This used to be a common practice for me, but has given way to the business of life, and I think I am beginning to feel a kink.

    During the massage, Jacob–who has fingers I believe to be made of steel–would find a place of tension and push, holding the pressure there for an uncomfortable few minutes. Then a magical thing would happen, the tensions would start to melt away, leaving freedom to move in place of the knot. Now, I can’t undo weeks of damage and neglect to muscles in one hour, just like I can’t undo the tension in my soul in an hour. I can, however, begin the process of asking for help and letting others start the work of unknotting my soul.

    Who massages your soul?

    Continuing the adventure,

    Jess

  • God’s Will for Loudness

    On Sunday, someone accidentally touched a raw emotional nerve for me.

    That evening, I spent some time asking why this particular nerve was so raw. I recognize my reaction was out of proportion to the other person’s actions. At first, I blamed the situation on my tendencies to spin out when my feelings get hurt. In the moment, I cursed my brain chemistry, took a few minutes by myself to recover, and tried to move on with my day.

    As I reflected on the earlier conversation, and how hurt I was, I wanted to know why. The issue surrounded one of my flaws, namely, that I tend to jump in volume when I become passionate about the topic of discussion. A few years ago, I would have taken the criticism and brought it before God, asking him to either change me into a more meek person (though I’m not really sure how it would be accomplished, since I’m pretty shy as it is), or to give me the strength to resist being a loud mouth.

    Sunday evening, I asked something different. I asked God what His will for my loudness is. Over the past few years, I have learned that sometimes the things we see in ourselves, and in others, as flaws are actually traits which God has instilled in us to use for His purpose. They may be traits which have not yet been refined, but it doesn’t mean they are any less intentional.

    I don’t know if the answers will come soon. I don’t have much of an inclination of what the answer will be. My goal is to be ready to move when the answer does come.

    Continuing the adventure,

    Jess