thoughts on fungii

I have a problem. I'm ready to admit it. I am LONELY. And not just lonely in the "aww, I wish I had a few more friends" sense. I mean lonely in the "I would give anything for human contact right now, even my kidney" sense. I thought I'd have people to hang out with by now, but my list has remained frustratingly short and I've started resorting to desperate measures for the smallest inkling of person-to-person interaction. For example, I've:

- started getting coffee multiple times in the day so that I can talk to the barista;

- gotten FOUR manicures in the past two and a half weeks, thinking that the people at the salon would start to recognize me (they haven't);

- taken up eating out incessantly, hoping to strike up a conversation with a fellow dine-out-aloner and make a new friend;

-resorted to borderline stalking my friends' myspace pages and blogs in the hopes that SOMEONE will leave me a comment or a message and I'll know that, yes, someone out there remembers I'm up here in Sacramento all alone;

- gotten to school two hours early on the days I teach in hopes of finding someone to talk to.

I know this sounds pathetic, but it's not even the worst of it. On several occasions I've found myself randomly driving around Sacramento with my radio blaring. The Dixie Chicks make good companions, but even their songs get tired after being on repeat for two hours. I know it sounds like I'm whining, but I really am lonely *sniff*. And this whole thing is uber-frustrating because yesterday was Easter and I went to this HUGE church bbq we put on for the neighborhood and even amongst all the people I STILL felt terribly, horribly, pathetically alone.

I keep telling myself that I just need to get out more, but I've been out several times and haven't met anyone that I could hang out with on a regular basis. I've also been telling myself that I just need to spend more time in the Word because Jesus is my friend and He'll make it all o.k. if I just persevere and become more disciplined. But I don't think that I'm supposed to feel this alone, NO MATTER WHAT.

I've been reading the book Blue Like Jazz , and there's this part where the author talks about being alone. It's interesting, because he addressed the EXACT things I've been feeling about being lonely and not really part of a community. Here's what Donald Miller has to say about the issue:

"Jesus does not want us floating through space or sitting in front of our televisions. Jesus wants us interacting, eating together, laughing together, praying together. Loneliness is something that came with the fall."

"...without people I could not grow--I could not grow in God, and I could not grow as a human. We are born into families, he said, and we are needy at first as children because God wants us together, living among one another, not hiding ourselves under logs like a fungus. You are not a fungus, he told me, you are a human, and you need other people in your life in order to be happy."

Right now I feel kind of like a fungus. I've been buried under this log that has lots of different names: fear, grad school, work, living alone, desire for acceptance. It sucks being a fungus. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE mushrooms. But somehow, mushrooms don't seem to have the most exciting life until they get picked, cleaned up and added as an ingredient to a tasty salad or stir-fry. Mushrooms aren't really good alone. Even my favorite way to enjoy mushrooms (mmm...marinated mushrooms) involves other ingredients: pepper, garlic, olive oil, etc. I'm tired of being a lonely mushroom under a log. I want to be part of something else, something that involves LOTS of other ingredients.

My only question is this: how do I get myself out from under this lonely log and in to the community salad?