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Edited on Fri Jul-14-06 11:09 PM by hiro
Alright...so last I heard my family was still okay, and they know that the USS Iwo Jima and her battle group may be up from the Red Sea in a few days, so if push comes to shove (and if the US manages to get Israeli permission), they'll probably leave Lebanon courtesy of the US Navy. Which will probably drop them and everyone else in Cyprus, which for my parents would be fortunate because we have relatives there.
I'm feeling more and more alone in how I feel. My relatives here are also concerned, but they don't feel the way I do-- I feel fine on the outside, but on the inside I feel choked by fear. I'm graduating college in a year, and I want my father and mother to be there. Heck, I want to go into college in August without worrying.
Between now and then, I'll have to keep a fundie uncle off my back, as well as the general persuasion amongst many that "World War 3! Holy cow!"
I don't give a damn about World War 3, I don't care if it's the End....all I want is for people to leave me alone and let me live my own life. Much as I can not afford to, I almost feel like I want to stop checking the news, because all it does is bring more pain.
Beirut-- the city I knew and loved for years-- and Lebanon, the country of my childhood (but not of my birth)-- are being dismembered bridge by bridge, powerplant by powerplant, area by area. There's a blockade, and no fuel for the powerplants, no food, no transport, no airlines, no anything, has any way of getting into the country, except from the unpredictable Syria.
I really don't feel like going to church for awhile, but I don't know how I'm going to explain that to my relatives, who may feel that my desire to be left alone needs to be "treated" somehow. Seriously, I've already felt very little comfort from going to church for awhile now, and though I remain a Christian, I feel betrayed by people who seem for all intents and purposes to be worshipping another God. Yesterday I finally worked out one of the biggest reasons why I don't like going to church: I feel like the people there (without actually "saying" it directly) want me to believe that God is an American-- and a Republican at that! I felt closer to God in the temples and shrines of Japan last year, where I was free to pray, think, and just breathe, without people trying to convince me that God is an American. Yes, as hard as that may be to understand for some-- time in Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples actually improved my faith as a Christian!
Last I checked, to paraphrase the words of the famous bumper sticker, my "boss" was a radical, liberal Jewish carpenter. Not a bearded gun-toting leader of zealots. (and we all know very well what a bearded gun-toting leader of zealots DOES look like, don't we? *wink*)
I've had trouble getting to sleep for the past few days, though I'm forcing myself to get at least 7 hours of rest a day, even if I have to force my eyes shut for another hour in the morning. I'm nervous, and I really need to focus full-force on my schoolwork in order to occupy myself (and keep myself out of the house more).
Before this week I was telling myself "Just last until the fall". Now I don't even know if I'll make it that long. Heck...what am I saying? I'll make it. I just don't know how.
-H.
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