For the first time I started crying while working in the lab today, and for the first time, I didn't care if anyone else saw me.  I was completely alone at the time because everyone else was either gone for the summer or doing other stuff not in the lab proper.  I was listening to Together We Will Live Forever on repeat.

Tonight I pack up my apartment and leave for a town called Crystal Lake.  I have no pictures of this apartment.  No one in my family has seen it.  For all they know, it may have never existed.  It is mostly all my own experience that I now bury here in memorial.  It was a decent summer.  I got a lot of work done.  I got a lot of reading done.  I excelled in Kuk Sool, be it increased flexibility, memorizing techniques better and performing them effectively, learning how to teach it to others, heck, learning how to teach at all.  I helped those of my friends that wanted to learn to run by getting them up and going running.  I did what I love to do best and got people to try things for the first time (climbing a tree, going through a graveyard, eating new and interesting foods that I would make).  I learned how to cook better.  I learned how to manage my money more.  I learned how to take care of myself, as much as I can at this stage which is still not much.  I learned how to survive.  I gained skills needed for living the rest of my life.  But the one thing that I did not get this summer was a proper period of rest and relaxation and time to forget about my troubles.  I don't know if I will get one unless I take it for myself, even if that means going alone, which I would really like at this point, but it is more dangerous, less likely for my parents to allow me to do it and take a car for, etc.  I just want some time to empty myself, to be alone with God and myself so that somehow I can find myself, and hopefully find that there is more to me than just this hollowness that has been exposed now that I have lost my shell of false protection and pseudo-security.  I have done a lot this summer and accomplished most of my goals, but I have not had any time to just be.  To merely exist.  I no longer want my accomplishments to rule and define my life, as there must be something beneath them to retain meaning even if I do not accomplish or succeed, something intrinsic... but I don't know what that is yet.  Heck, I don't really even know what I'm looking for because for so long, I have looked only through the lens of results, outcomes, products, and goals achieved.  This is often why I am uncomfortable with silence in many contexts, because I feel like nothing is getting done.  I am through with thinking like this, but I'm not sure what to replace it with exactly.

What else is there to value?  What is intrinsic?  Other people are children of God who deserve respect as such.  We are commanded to love people, and with the new nature that God has given us, we don't even have to question why we do it.  It is instinct to us now. What more is there?  Everyone has qualities about them that will always be there... quirks, mannerisms, principles, dreams, beliefs, passions...  these are what I need to find in myself and others.  Without understanding my own intrinsic value, I will never be able to be a part of a community, friendship, or intimate relationship without reverting to conditional love, because the love for myself upon which the rest of my love is based would be conditional.  It's when someone loves the intrinsic qualities about another person that their love becomes unconditional, and this is what I must learn to do.