It's the beginning of another week; more overnights at work, more mornings and early afternoons buried beneath my bedsheets. But as the week begins I am already regarding its end with a mixture of feelings I have yet to fully sort through. I am currently acting as one of the two junior youth leaders for my church's youth group, and on Friday we have planned a session to discuss love, sex, and relationships. For the most part, I have become something of a role model to many of the church's youth, a duty that I fully embrace. However, when it comes to the topics to be covered in the imminent session, being a role model is a duty I am not sure I can comfortably fulfill.
Love, sex, and romantic relationships are things I have seriously struggled with throughout my life. I have dated, but each time the relationships have been embarrassingly brief and depressingly empty, to say the least; the dates I have partaked in I did so only for the sake of dating, and all in all my heart had not been in it. I have experienced love, but only in its most unfilling of articulations: unrequited. I am not sure how, but somehow I have been conditioned to have an acute, immense fear of rejection, and thus have been kept from pursuing attractions; I have continued to love from afar for 23 years.
I have a certain naïveté pertaining to women, as well; it has kept me from fully understanding individuals' motives and intentions, and thus many an opportunity has callously passed me by. Don't get me wrong, I am no victim; my naïveté has also caused a lot of harm, too (if you have seen some of my previous blogs you'll know what I'm talking about).
Overall I am far from being a role model when it comes to this loaded subject. I can give a lot of theoretical advice, but when it comes to practical applications, I am effectively clueless. Should I start making notes for Friday or something? It only makes things more complicated that the object of my affection, for better or for worse, just happens to be the other junior youth leader. It's going to hard to talk about crushes, attraction, and relationships in front of the very woman you want to experience it all with. It isn't quite irony, but it still really sucks.
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In other news, I haven't been able to check my e-mail for a couple of days, so I don't know if I've recieved a response from the Toronto Film School. The apprehension is building; it is palpable!Labels: church, film school, love, relationships, sex, youth group |
