for my fellow krill

I've been easily frustrated lately, in particular about work-related situations.  I have been known to have a temper, but it's surprising how incredibly non-irritable I've been at home lately in comparison.  Maybe it's karmic balance.  Maybe I'm sleep-deprived.  Maybe simple situations just get easily out of hand due to high tensions in the vicinity.

Maybe I'm getting my general empathy back!  This is maybe not the most productive possibility, but it is the most exciting to me considering all the time I've spent wondering if I still have emotional reactions -- the suppression of which was a defense mechanism that did less to "defend" me than to make me pine for my lost innocence.

Speaking of lost innocence, it came to me in the wake of Saturday night Den drama that I am, once again, a small fish in a big ocean.  It's not the first time this has happened: there was the transition from elementary school to middle school, then middle to high school, then high school to college -- not to mention the other times I changed schools in between there.  I hate change.  And so far, this is the biggest ocean this krill has ever been swept into.

And my krill-status is painfully obvious to all the angelfish, barracuda, and baleen whales in this gigantic ocean, who tout my n00b-hood and just assume I know virtually nothing about the world since I am so newly born to it.  In many ways they are right; but I hope that among all the things I learn from living in this "real world," a sense of idiocy is not one of them.  I hope I never lose touch with the things I have to teach the world.

Let me rephrase: I hope we never lose touch with all the things we have to teach the world.  Because this is how things change.

"But Clara," you might be thinking right about now, "you hate change!  You said it yourself!"  I know, but it really just needs to happen.

So, on another note, remember how my birthday is coming up?  Well, it is.  And remember the wild plan I didn't want to tell you about, in case it went wrong?  Well...  For those of you who don't know, the annual AUL Turkey Bowl ultimate frisbee game is held every year (predictably) on Black Friday at the Four Diamonds.  This is the fourth year running, and I have never played a game in my life.  Shame on me.  (This is hometown-speak, so I apologize to those of you not originally from the Dirty -- more widely known as Amsterdam, NY.)

And this year, the Turkey Bowl is on my birthday.  So how could I not go?

You're right.  I couldn't... not... go...

So I asked to get the weekend off from hostessing, shot the cursory text-blast to important down-home parties, planned to leave the house before Best Buy opens on Black Friday (to make it to the Four Diamonds by noon), and apologized to my mother for being so eager to hightail it out of the house on a holiday weekend.

She gave me a funny look.  "You know it's funny," she said slowly, "I had planned to have all your friends come down here for your birthday.  I even Facebooked Mike about it awhile back and he was doing all this planning in the middle of studying for his finals.  We were going to surprise you."

Floored.

I called Mike and he yelled at me for ruining my own birthday surprise, and I swore that he is my favorite person ever and forced him to make a huge dinner reservation at a nice restaurant.

So much love in this room.

Speaking of love in this room, last night I went to a Wine, Dine & Discern event at the bishop's house in Baltimore.  Guess what it was?  A bunch of young adults in the Delaware/Maryland Lutheran church who have graduated college and are trying to figure out our lives, eating meatball subs, drinking beer, and watching football in a cozy living room while talking about vocation.  Story of my life.

I RSVP'd to this event months ago, when I was feeling slightly more desperate for human contact and slightly more amused by church.  Over the last few weeks, though, I've been feeling my patience waning and my frustration growing.  It starts on Saturday night when I fall asleep wrestling with my personal demons.  It weighs on me as soon as I wake up on Sunday, boils in my stomach during the youth class when I censor my highs and lows for the "plankton," and pushes at my throat and my eyelids during the service when I flip through the prayers section of the hymnal looking for something that addresses what I'm struggling with...  And as mundane as my Demon of the Day undoubtedly is, nothing comes close.  Because, hip as they may have been, neither Martin Luther nor any of the other authors of the Lutheran Book of Worship were 20-somethings struggling with the demands and desires of the twenty-first century, smartphones and the hormone-fed Petri dish better known as college.  And In This Economy?

You may be surprised to note, then, that I may be the only person between the ages of 20 and 40 that goes to my dad's church on Sunday (emphasis added).  No offense, because I have really sincerely enjoyed meeting and talking with the people of Hope.  (I am also tickled by this name: the People of Hope.)  But I rarely get the feeling that anybody there gets me.

My family members, concerned about my spiritual well-being, have said repeatedly that finding a faith community is the most important element of maintaining a healthy relationship with God.  I have historically found this to be not true -- at least not in the way they mean it.  My most fulfilling "faith communities" have sprouted from one-on-one conversations with good friends who are working through their own faith-related fears and frustrations.

I could go on and on in this vein, but the important point for now is that far from feeling uncomfortable at this peer-group gathering, I felt invigorated and encouraged by the camaraderie.  I might venture that a good way to get rid of your personal demons is to send them off on playdates with other people's personal demons, while their hosts meanwhile strategize together about ways to run them out for good.  And personal demons aside, I remembered last night how crucial peer groups are for general well-being.  Peer groups tend to share common issues, a sense of humor, taste, TV channels, and a language with which to talk about all of these things.  My peers already know what social media is, and I can relate when they explain why they didn't apply for the Peace Corps.  We can commiserate over being tired of writing cover letters and tweaking resumes, getting a drudge job or another degree just for something to do.

So this post is dedicated to My Fellow Krill.  I won't put any parameters on the title, so feel free, even if you are not a young adult, to claim this dedication.  And no matter who you are, keep clear of baleen whales.