Where I'm at Doesn't Define Who I Am and Where I'm Headed Doesn't Dictate Who I'm Going to Be

 “What is it like to be empty?

Full of only echoes
And my body caving in
A cathedral of arching ribs
Heaving out their broken hymns”

- Julien Baker “Everything to Help You Sleep” from the album “Turn Out the Lights”

    I am an empty shell of a man. To quote Bilbo Baggins of all people, “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” And to be honest, that has been the last couple years for me. This isn’t going to be an update about all the missions work I am doing or how great God is. (We will be sending a more formal newsletter out this week as well) This is going to be a brutal, honest, update into where I am at and what the past couple years have been for me.  It might be long and I really don’t know where it’s gonna go.

    Most of you know the Colin that is as follows – The one that was a big dreamer, that loved to brainstorm ideas or things, the hopeless romantic that would believe the best in every situation regardless of the chances, the one that was passionate about the things he did. Sure stubborn and often irresponsible, but at the heart always trying to be a better person and help others be better.

    When I look in the mirror, I can no longer see that man staring back at me. The one that is staring back at me is a shell of my former self if I can say that since I don’t even feel like myself. These last two years have been extremely difficult for me. Most of you know this, but if you don’t here is a quick recap of February 2020. Keep in mind that this is from February 2^nd to mid March.

• The tone for the year seemed to be set with my grandma passing away on February 2^nd, and I had already gone back to Mexico and was unable to go to the funeral.

• Leticia’s (my wife) mother and brother were denied entry to Mexico twice the week before our wedding even though legally they should have been allowed

• The Airbnb we were staying at with my parents was robbed and we lost Leticia’s passport which had an American visa, my laptop, Leticia’s ID, glasses, and a significant amount of cash

• It rained the entire week of our wedding

• The morning of the wedding there was an accident on the highway so our wedding coordinator was late and her phone had died so we did not know if she was showing up

• Leticia’s makeup lady was a no call no show

• We had talked with my work about what dates were not busy so that my friends and mentors could go to the wedding. We chose a different date initially so that they would be free and my work had said they would communicate with us any changes and without communicating scheduled a large event the day of my wedding which caused many of them to be unable to attend.

• We had to say goodbye to my family, uncertain when we would see them again.

• Leticia called the Brazilian Consulate in Mexico and they sent her an emergency document to travel back to Brazil. This document arrived with the expiration date wrong so it was not valid. When we called and explained this the consulate worker berated Leticia and was extremely rude. Eventually they sent another but it was a week delay

• We missed Leticia’s mom’s birthday due to said document issue

• We did not get a honeymoon due to this issues and still have not had one

• We get to the airport and have to pay $800 in baggage fees that was unexpected due to miscommunication from the airline.

• We finally arrived in Brazil and the pandemic started a week later

• The YWAM base in England that we had planned to go to shut down and we have been stuck in Brazil since.

• Leticia had all her documents stolen in Mexico and had to get new ones but could not due to not having her marriage registered but we could not without an apostille (certifies document so other countries can accept its validity). We applied and got the wedding registered in SEPTEMBER. So from February until September she had no official form of identification which prevented her from opening bank accounts, getting official government documents, etc.

    I still haven’t processed everything that happened. And my time in Ensenada unfortunately did not end as amicably as I had hoped and there is still a lot of pain and frustration from my 5 years there. And slowly during this last year and a half, all of who I was and my personality seems to have slowly faded away. I feel as though I have become a shell of the Colin that once was. I don’t even know when or where this started. I have ideas and guesses but it’s almost like when you after months look in the mirror and realize that you don’t recognize yourself.

    Some days when I wake up the thing I look forward to the most is going back to sleep at night. I have been “surviving” for so long that all passion, excitement, emotions seem to have evaporated. I have probably read my Bible a handful of times this year. I know many people will judge me for that since I am a missionary, but that is the reality of what has happened to me. I have become so broken and so hollow, that I am on auto-pilot basically. And the longer I go without doing the things I know I should be doing, the more judgment and guilt creeps in and prevents me from starting today. And it is a vicious self-fulfilling cycle. The majority of relationships in my life are stagnant. I am not actively sabotaging them or pushing people away. But I am barely trying to maintain them. I have friends and families that care about me and message me and I just don’t respond. I see the message and a part of me wants to respond, but just the mere thought of it is exhausting. My wife constantly asks me how I am, and for the past 2 years almost every single time the answer “I’m tired.” And that’s the truth. I am just tired. Weary. Exhausted.

    My daily routine is a shallow one of survival and tiredness. Add in a splattering of sports as my escape from my escape and fighting with Leticia due to our cultural, language, generational differences and the how tired and lonely we are. I may talk about this in another blog, but when I left Mexico, a large part of me felt rejected and that everything I had done was worthless. That nothing I had done mattered. And while at the start of the pandemic I relished the idea of a month or so free from responsibility to rest, which I very much needed, it quickly morphed into surviving and after that not even surviving just passing time. Even though I have done many things such as helping staff an online English Cultural school with YWAM and doing some ministry here in Brazil, I still feel as if I have done basically nothing of merit for over a year. While part of that is the pandemic and the lack of options to do something, part of that is something deeper and stems from the ending of my time in Mexico. The song “Turn out the Lights” by Julien Baker is a great example of my feelings. Honestly like all of her music is what is getting me through these months.

    All of these are compounded by the issue that I recently realized I have trouble opening up. When I was 17 I had depression and was struggling greatly and tried to open up to people around me, but unfortunately felt rejected and ignored. Due to that reaction I then decided that I would build a wall around my heart and no longer be vulnerable to people. While I was always an open person, I was only an open person when I wanted to be or felt safe. I also decided that I just didn’t care what people thought anymore so if I shared something and was rejected, I could just say it doesn’t matter since their opinions aren’t as important to me. Then I got married. And had someone that those things DID matter for and their opinions and thoughts and feelings couldn’t just be discarded. I had to face my feelings and share them. And up until about a month ago I never really did. I would continue to share whatever with whoever, but never with my wife because I didn’t want to be hurt like I was when I was 17. And combine language and cultural differences and it makes it extremely trying on a relationship. Even before adding everything else going on the past few years in our lives.

    Part of the opening up and sharing includes shared dreams, visions, and plans. We had dozens of plans the last couple years of where to go next for missions or get a green card or anything and they constantly fell apart. After all this time I just stopped dreaming and being passionate about these things. Combined with my issues of opening up I would go from plan to plan or dream to dream instead of processing my disappointment and frustration over the plans that didn’t come to be. I used to be the guy that would start going on a rant about something he is passionate about and so much of that has been lost. Now it seems the things I rant about or are passionate about are more trivial things or less personal things. It seems like I have lost the depth of my character and personality.

    All of these issues. All of these problems come to a point. The climax. The peak of the mountain that I struggle to climb and get over. And that is sometimes that I feel as if my life has been wasted. I have a lot of gifts that God has given me. I don’t say that to be arrogant or brag, but to say that I know what I am capable of and I know my potential. And it seems that I constantly am falling short of that. Most of my mentors and family will say that I am too harsh on myself and that is probably true, but it is hard to watch yourself constantly fall short of what you are capable of achieving. A good example is what happened to me in Mexico. God gave me a vision and dream and great expectations of what would happen to me in my time in Mexico, and it feels like I didn’t even achieve half of them. While this doesn’t negate or devalue my time there, it makes me question why God continues to give me these big expectations if I am consistently falling short of them.

    I look back at the “prime time” of my life and it is easy for me to judge myself and think “Is that all I was capable of achieving?” And those questions all too easy mutate into ones such as “Am I good enough?” “Is there someone wrong with me?” “Am I a failure?” Most of you know that I went to one year of college and failed the majority of my classes. While a lot of this was due to depression, it doesn’t change the fact that it happened. And I always say that it doesn’t bother me, but I wonder if it really does. Growing up in the USA as a millennial, college was THE expectation and answer post-high school. So if I was incapable of it, what does my cultural and societal expectations cause me to think about myself? I want to be a better person. I want to fulfill my calling that God has given me. I want to be the loving and caring husband that puts his wife first. The friend that constantly helps and reaches out to those around him. A missionary constantly searching after God’s will and fulfilling it. One day a father that would make my parents proud.  I want to live to these expectations that I feel are absolutely achievable.

    And I am going to be honest. I just don’t know what to do anymore. Because the reality is that I am intelligent and KNOW what I SHOULD be doing. I just straight up don’t do it. Most of the time I just don’t see the point since the last year and a half has been so hard on Leticia and me. We feel isolated here. I don’t have any friends here and am constantly seeing things and reminded of the friendships that I left in Mexico. While we still talk and occasionally play things, it is not the same as living in community with people. And being such an extrovert and caring person that wants to befriend everyone (just ask my parents about all the friends I made at hotel pools growing up), it has been excruciating to not feel capable of doing that in Brazil. Due to the pandemic, language, and other factors I have not been able to do it here.

    I think the hardest part is the frustration. The anger with no outlet. Man I am just so freaking over it. I am tired of our plans falling through. The loneliness. The fact that my wife had her passport stolen and she HAD an American visa but cannot get a new one since everything is shut due to the pandemic. So now my family has not seen my wife since our wedding and will most likely not see her for another year or two. I am so over making plans to lose weight and get in shape and make the same stupid dietary decisions. I hate how we are struggling financially due to pandemic instability and having to move houses recently. Or the fact that I am 31 years old and some days I look at the last 5 years of my life and just think, what was it all for? Was it worth it? A month or so I can deal with this, but 18 months and it starts to feel insurmountable. It seems like every time we take a step forward we take 2 back. Or 5. Or there’s a wall (honestly literal as well due to immigration issues).

    This isn’t meant to be a, “Oh woe is Colin, feel sorry for him blog.” This is a “hey everyone that constantly asks me and my parents how we are doing. Here is the brutal truth.”

    There are good things as well. I have gotten to know more of the country I adore and spend much needed time with Leticia’s family. The beginning of the pandemic gave me a time to rest and relax after years of nonstop missions. Leticia and I are learning and growing, slower and more painful than we would like, as a couple. I recently just applied, got accepted, and am starting this week an online New Testament Greek school with YWAM.  But if I am being honest, we are inundated with social media and culture about all the good times and positive things. I am reminded of Psalm 40, my favorite Psalm. Basically David starts it by saying “God you’re great you did all these neat things!” and then just goes “Yo shit’s wack. My life is miserable. Everyone wants to kill me or watch me fail to laugh at me. My sins outnumber the hairs on my head. I cannot see an end to this. Help me” And it is such an honest and brutal glimpse into where David was at. While I do think David had a tendency to be hyperbolic and exaggerate for dramatic effect, the essence of what he said was the truth. And I am nothing if not over dramatic to make a point. And so I will leave you with these two songs that are honest and in my opinion hopeful. Because there is an end. God does love me and will come through. I just wish it was sooner rather than later.

“Father Time steals our days like a thief
There's no price that I wouldn't pay to get some relief
I've become the empty shell

Of a man I don't like so well
I am a living, breathing hell
Come on and resurrect me”

- Jon Foreman “Resurrect Me” from the album “Summer”

    P.S. The most cathartic songs I have heard recently is Phoebe Bridgers “I Know the End” (specifically the last half and culminating in the final minute) as well as Julien Baker “Appointments”