Middle Ground

The strangest feeling is returning home after being gone for a long time and finding that nothing has changed, but you are so different. I'm calling my return to Messiah my "old/new life." I'm going back to the way things were a year ago, but I am not the same person. But nothing is different here in Grantham; everything is safe, a routine. I never noticed until I left it.
Overall, I am learning to slowly accept my old/new life. I LOVE living in the Restoration house: I love practically having a room to myself, I love having a kitchen to cook in, I love being independent from my friends and making my own schedule. I like that guys can pop in whenever and there's no RA's treating me like a child.

It feels more like... real life. And less like the college bubble.

I'm not quite sure where I fit in, though. I am trying to balance my old Messiah friends and my new Messiah friends I made in England.  I'm trying to stay in contact with friends from high school and friends living in Cheltenham. I'm trying to build relationships with the Resto house people on top of all of that, and what I've noticed is this: each group of people expects something different from me.

I find myself acting differently around each person, or group of people.
My conservative high school and Messiah friends are SO different from my Chelt friends, or even the Messiah girls I became close with in England. Sometimes I feel like I am constantly having to pull myself in; to make sure I don't say something outrageous that no one in England would bat an eye at.

Trying to please everyone is...

Exhausting.

To be the girl that reads her Bible and goes to church, and then also be the girl who loves to go out and club and yell FUCKING HELL at bad drivers is quite a conundrum.

But does it have to be? What if I stopped thinking of what people think of me, and I just.. am?

It's called middle ground.
Frankly, I've never been the most conservative and uber-religious person out there.
I've also never been a crazy, outgoing, up-all-night party girl either.
And I never will be: I'm in the middle.
Why can't I be in the middle? Does God ever say: "thou shalt not party with thine friends."
No.
I love God, I love people. I'm learning that it's enough. I'm still whole.

Coming back here, I've felt guilty about my time in England.
But I'm not going to anymore. I hate the pressure I feel, like I must make a choice between the people I have been.

I just want to be one person. One Erin who is part Lancaster and part Messiah and part England, and not feel shame for any of these parts, and have them all work together.

I am who I am.