Reentry

So...there's all these rumors about how hard "reentry" from internship is.  I don't know if I believed them, but I kind of do now.  On the one hand, things have been pretty good.  I live in a great room, everything is unpacked and organized, I've gotten to see most of my friends, I've made some new ones, classes are going pretty well, etc...

But on the other hand, something just seems...off.  Different - better - last week, than this week?  I think part of it is my classes - I hardly see any friends in my classes.  Theologically, I feel very isolated - not so much in terms of who I eat lunch with, but in terms of who I deal with in class.

I've got one foot in the ELCA, and one foot out.  One foot in ministry, and one in the academy.  One foot in Lutheranism, and one foot...not.  One foot in the college dorms on campus, and one foot desperately wanting a house and home and husband to share life and love and ministry with. 

I feel like I don't really belong anywhere.  I feel like I'm the only person who came back from internship not 100% in love with it.  I'm more - and less - committed to certain things theologically, ecclesiologically, and practically, than ever, and I feel like I don't have a safe space to work that out and ask questions about the things that I'm thinking.

I feel like the questions we are asking in class are not the questions I am asking at all.  At all. 

I also feel a certain depression and disconnection that tends to come about whenever I've come through a major discernment and revelatory process.  Not sure whether that's Satan trying to destroy my joy and conviction, or the sadness of saying goodbye as certain doors close, or just coming down off the high of feeling really super good about God, or what.  Probably a combination. 

I feel like in the last year I had a ton of people to love, and now I don't really have anyone.  I'm one of the few unmarried seniors still hanging around - which is depressing, and I'm really struggling with hope, trusting God to change that. 

I feel really busy, and not busy at all.  Internship was actually fairly relaxed for the most part.  My first two years at seminary, though, were packed.  Packed.  Packed with work and with school and more work and friends and classes travel and just on-the-go all the time.  Now, I'm not working.  I'm taking a ton of classes, but the work is all backloaded to the end of the semester in all of them (ugh), so I'm kind of spending lots of time just laying around reading for class. 

So many of my friends are gone - or at least, not living with me anymore - which is strange.  All the parts of my life seem really disconnected. 

And I need an attitude adjustment.  I will admit that I came back to school convinced that everyone I met was going to be a raging heretic, and it was going to be my job to preserve orthodoxy for all to hear.  Which turns out to not be totally accurate.  Some days it's true, but not always.  I've kind of been reveling in the "crabby senior" mentality I seem to have acquired.  Elijah complex, anyone? 

So, you know, pray for me.