Wow, I finally feel like I'm not homeless. I decided after two months of living in Zion that I'd get a PO Box so I can use it this last month I'll be here. My address if anyone wants to send a little greeting is:
Juli Neff
PO Box 973
Springdale, UT 84767
Think that's right. If it's not, the mail will get to me anyway. I like being in a small town. The post office lady knows me and always asks about my job. The job's going pretty well. I have my moments (and they're increasing) when I really want to go home. I don't miss Ohio especially. I just miss the familiar people. Even after being out here for 3 months, I still find it hard to feel known. People know me and I know them but they only know me 3 months old. They don't know my past. They don't know the dork I was in middle school. They don't even know the whatever I was in college. They don't know my family or my friends. They only know the Juli I have been since coming out to Utah and what if it's the wrong Juli? What if I sort of forgot who I was and have been faking my identity since? They wouldn't know the difference. I want to be with people who know the difference. People who can remind me of who I am when I forget. I forget a lot. I do appreciate the friends I've made out here though. I just feel ready to see the old ones again. I'm sure I'll miss this place so much once I'm gone but I'm ready to go home. I miss my dog.
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5 comments:
"They only know the Juli I have been since coming out to Utah and what if it's the wrong Juli? What if I sort of forgot who I was and have been faking my identity since?"
Forgot who you are ... or forgot who you are "supposed to be"? ...who everyone expects you to be...
What if for the first 22 years of your life you were faking your identity, and only in the last 3 months the real Juli has emerged? What if in the last 3 months you haven't heard the world telling you who you are supposed to be? ..and so have found (or have begun to find) the real Juli?
Just a thought.
Or perhaps it's all the real Juli. What if it's all just a big process, with neither step being worse or better than the other.
Perhaps who we are is the composite picture we get when we look back on our life experiences at the end of our long journeys. (Keeping in mind, of course, that your are a "son" of God).
juli!
i miss you. i was thinking of you the other day. i hope we can keep in touch. you are using the same email, right? i leave for romania in less than 2 weeks, but i will definetly be able to email a lot while i'm there. i'll be back in march and i'm not sure where i'll be then. love ya!
"Everybody has to change, or they expire. Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.
I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keeping getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die. I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrenlty.
Only the good stories have the characters different at the end than they were at the beginning" (Donald Miller).
Two more months in UT? Where then?
--coach d
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