Updates at Summer’s End

It’s been a couple weeks, and even though nothing exciting has happened to me, I thought it was time for an update because I don’t like this blog to be dormant for a while.

I am planning a road trip to New England for October. I’ve never been to the region in autumn, and it’s something I have always wanted to see. I’m looking forward to all the colors, and to seeing friends in Boston.

I’ve made no decision yet about where to move. I spent some time trying to do research and freaking out about it. Then, when I decided to do an October road trip, I got the sense that God wants me to plan this trip, and nothing further. That has been immensely challenging, because even though I wouldn’t know where to begin anyway, I still want to do something. I hate living in this limbo state, and I really hate living at my stepdad’s house, and in this town. I feel like I’m growing fat and complacent here, because there isn’t much to do or many people to see. I’ve been trying to exercise and practice piano, and I’ve been working, of course, but I haven’t felt much motivation to plan my trip. I’ve been marathoning a lot of Parks and Recreation lately. Also, I have had almost zero interest in either writing or cooking, which are two of the biggest joys in my life.

I had been pretty interested in moving to Bozeman, Montana, but I’m cooling on the idea because I cannot accept the idea of living hundreds, even thousands, of miles from everyone I know. And I mean everyone. Maybe someday I can take that step, but I’m just not ready. So I am just going to plan my next road trip, and then see how things stand when I return. By November, I might have fallen in love with someplace in New England, I might decide I could do Montana after all, I might think of something else, or I might even move back to Columbus (I really don’t want to, but I am not ruling it out completely). Or I might be just as clueless as I am now, and that is the most terrifying possibility of all.

However, I have at least narrowed down my search to a few requirements for wherever I end up living. Besides “within a day’s drive of someone I know”

1. I want to live where I can afford to live alone. I thought that doing AirBNB and staying with friends and family would kind of prep me, warm me to the idea of having a roommate again, because it would be so much cheaper. However, I have only become convinced that living alone is the best option for my mental health. (Unless God sends the most obviously perfect person to live with and plops them down right in front of me.) I may have to get a second, part-time job to cover the added expense, since my current job won’t pay me a higher rate, and also because
2. I want to live where I can have pets. Small, caged pets, because I am allergic to cats and dogs (and rabbits, I have found). What I want right now are a pair of guinea pigs, a bearded dragon, and a snake (probably a milk snake, they’re pretty and supposed to be good for beginners, but eventually I’d love to get a ball python because they are the cutest). OK, not all at once, but eventually, yes.
3. I also need a place with a decent church community. Basically a church with good teaching, where there are actually people at my stage of life (dare I hope for single professionals in their 30s?), and hopefully some kind of ministry I can be involved in.
4. I need a place that gets cold. Preferably also a place that doesn’t get unbearably hot in the summer, but at the very least someplace that gets cold for part of the year.

I have at least two blog posts in the works, both of which have been half-finished for ages now. One of them is another Screwtape Letters-style post. The other is a part two to my “How Not to Be Hated by an INTJ” post. That’s another problem I’ve been having: that post ended up on Reddit, and several INTJ Facebook groups, and became my most popular blog post. Unfortunately, with fame comes criticism, and I’ve gotten a few negative, borderline-nasty comments that have accused the post, or my style, or personality types in general, of being “pointless,” or “stupid,” or “juvenile,” or inaccurate, or not concise enough. (It’s not even constructive criticism, jeeeeze.)

Even though I know that INTJs are naturally critical, so such comments are expected, and that people on the Internet are often rude, it’s discouraged me from writing any more on the subject. And it pisses me off that I feel that way, because I enjoy writing about being an INTJ, and I shouldn’t allow a few random strangers to make me feel like I shouldn’t. Besides, even though it is impossible to please everyone, and I should just make sure that I am the one happy and satisfied with what I post on my own blog, it remains that for every negative comment I get, I get at least five from people who are either INTJs happy to find a sympathetic perspective, or non-INTJs who have found my posts helpful for relating to the INTJs in their lives. I wish that were enough to encourage me right now.

So that’s what’s up lately. Perhaps soon I will post photos of my return trip from Seattle back east. However, I took fewer photos then, and I don’t think I got any of the Montana landscape. I’m wishing now that I had, but by then I was tired of taking pictures only to find that they did not do their subjects justice, like the trees in Oregon. So forgive me. But I will have zoo and museum photos up eventually, that I promise.