tug-of-war

people need to stop telling me what to do. if you're a good friend of mine, then why are you advising me to do something that is just so not me? do you not know who i am?! after all these years, do you really not know me at all?? grr...

... or maybe who i'm really angry at is myself. why do i care so much about what people think of me? when can i stand up for myself and my own beliefs? when will i learn to stand firmly in my identity? will i one day let peer pressure get the better of me? dang, i hope not.

it's not easy to live in this secular world as a christian. it's much harder than i had imagined. and it's only getting harder. i've now come to a point where i finally see why it's hard to be friends with non-christians. i know that i seem very odd to them. i know that i'm thought of as very uptight and too conservative for them. and naive and "innocent." i know that they're frustrated with me; i know that they think i'm not "living the life." what does that even mean, "living the life?" getting trashed, making out, hooking up with whoever... is that what it is?

i feel like there are two of me and they're playing tug-of-war. each of them are trying to please different groups of people: the non-christians and the christians. the non-christians are pressuring me to join their lifestyle and the christians... well, they're not saying anything but they don't need really to say anything, anyway. yep, there's a tug-of-war inside of me. what a headache and a heartache.

sigh. i really do feel like an oddball. never would i have thought that the once quiet, calm, sweet girl and the nerdy, always-wearing-plaid shirts guy would tell me to go have fun and experience life. never would i have thought that i would be the "weird" one in the group. surprise, surprise.