Not worth reading ... just some moping

When I ever start to feel the least bit unhappy or when I realize I'm discontent with a certain area of my life, I feel incredibly guilty. God has blessed me. He's been so incredibly good to me. How can I find something to complain about? Or ... how dare I complain when so many things are going so right? There are so many people less fortunate than I am.

Today I find myself in a melancholy mood, in spite of the great success I've gotten to enjoy in the past week. And I feel guilty.

I was fine until I got an email today about the Bible Study retreat this weekend. When they announced that it was going to be this weekend, I made plans back in January to go. And then I never heard anything about it again. I figured they might have canceled it without telling me since I haven't been able to go to Bible Study that often this semester.

I'd wanted to go to the current opera production desperately, but didn't feel like I had any friends to go with. And then I learned that some of my friends went without inviting me this past weekend. (I thought I had written an earlier entry about the issues I've had with my former clique in here and I looked for it to link it, but I couldn't find it.) Short version: I was inseparable from 3 other girls all through college until this year. All in my major. All very like-minded. Things began changing as BestFriend, who's not in the clique, and I became closer friends. At the end of last Spring, the other 3 girls didn't always include me, but I had a boyfriend so I wasn't lonely. Then last semester when I was student-teaching, my grandmother passed away and I broke up with my boyfriend of nearly a year. These girls made no effort to be there for me during that particularly rough semester. I wasn't invited to spend time with them anymore- not even at meals.

At the beginning of this semester, they were a little better, but they regressed back. While all of this has been happening, BestFriend has been amazing ... but she's engaged and she now spends much of her free time with her fiance. I've felt quite lonely this semester because I am friendly with many people, and I have a good number of acquaintance-friends (nice chats, coffee here and there, but none at the level where we actually do stuff together). I feel like I have very few remaining close friends to whom I can bare my heart.

So when I learned another acquaintance-friend was going this Friday to the opera, I asked if I could join the group. (I was immediately invited and he apologized for forgetting to invite me in the first place!) So ... I planned to go because there are so many things I want to see and do here in this city before I graduate (and possibly leave the city for who knows how long if not forever).

And then I got the email about the Bible Study Retreat. Still on but shortened by a day. I wrote back to say I couldn't make it on Friday; could I still come on Saturday? I got the response today which said something along the lines of, People who only come on part of the trip don't get as much out, and it's hard for them to fit into the experience ... and it changes the group dynamics. Are you sure you can't come Friday?

Even though I'm sure it wasn't the intent, this message really seemed to say to me, "If you can't come for the whole time, you probably shouldn't come because you won't have a really fulfilling experience and you might take away from others' experience because things will change when you get here."

Because of the other feelings I described above (growing apart from friends, feeling lonely, etc.), this disappointment hurt even more. Yes, I could opt not to go to the opera on Friday, but .... and then I feel guilty for choosing that over something God- and faith-related. So it's like I'm putting God on a back burner. Again ~ the guilt. :-( So I don't know what I'm going to do yet.

Ugh, I have a meeting in 4 minutes. Ending this rather abruptly .... now.