Escapism

As I was working on my last post, and reflecting on my old LiveJournal, I decided to go back and read some of my old posts.  I went back to the very beginning and started reading.  My first entry was May 24th, 2005, just weeks after graduating from college.  I am up to July 20th, 2007 now.  It was very enlightening to say the least.  There were so many things that I had forgotten about.  When I first started that blog the final season of Queer as Folk was playing and I was almost entirely focused on each episode as they came out.  I had forgotten about that.  Queer as Folk has sort of fallen off my radar for the most part.  Strangely enough I have had a hankering lately to re-watch the show.  I have turned my "obsessive" focus completely to Harry Potter now.

I have never really tried to understand why I become so completely focused on a TV show or a book series until recently.  I simply saw it as my form of entertainment.  However, I know very few people my age who are so engrossed made-up, fantasy stories.  I started to see my obsessions as a form of escapism.  It is my way to get away from the stressors of everyday life and envelope myself in someone else's world and worry about their problems for a change.  I thought this was a good thing.  Without it, I told myself, I would collapse from anxiety and stress.  The more I think about it, however, the more I think I use this form of escapism to avoid my problems entirely.  Rather than just taking a little time away then coming back refreshed and ready to deal with the problems in my life, I disassociate myself entirely and fill my head with meaningless knowledge about Harry Potter or Queer as Folk.

As an introvert, I live in my head.  I also suffer from crippling indecision.  So when I am faced with a problem, my head becomes so full of negative and anxiety producing thoughts that I feel like I might suffocate.  I need to get away, except how does one get away from their own head?  By filling it with other, happier thoughts, such as Harry Potter or Queer as Folk.  This as worked quite well for me over the years.  The problem now is that I have gotten so good at escaping from troubling thoughts using distractions that I have separated myself from them altogether.

So how do I find the right balance?  I feel like Goldilocks.  This level of distraction is going too far and this level of distraction is not enough, except that unlike Goldilocks I can't find the level of distraction that is just right.  Enough that I don't lose my mind, but not so much that I avoid dealing with any of my problems.  I have no idea how to find that balance.

I think finding balance in my life needs to be one of my priorities.  I can't move forward until I have this taken care of.  I have written before, in other private journals, that I feel stuck in my life right now and I don't know how to get moving again.  This might be why, because I have lost my focus.  But it still doesn't explain how to un-stick myself.

I think I need to pray more and ask God for guidance and discernment.  I have been trying to reconnect with God over the last few months, ever since the Harvest Crusade.  I started out well, but have since tapered off again.  I signed up to get Greg Laurie’s daily devotion emails and so far I have been reading them every day.  I am not sure if they have been a huge help, but at least it is something.

I pray that God would show me my next step or at least help me find my next step.