I am in a season of my life in which I am trying to figure out what to do next. When this happens (every few years or so), I can’t help but flash back to my parent/teacher conferences of old, when all anyone ever told my mother was that I wasn’t “living up to my potential”. It eventually got to the point where she just got sick of it and just stopped going. And while I felt bad about disappointing my teachers and parents and literally everyone, I still could never manage to get a teacher to not say that.

The educational system I was taught in largely bored me. It was fraught with busywork and rewarding people who gave themselves ulcers at ages far too young worrying toiling of said busywork for hours on end at home. I had better things to do.

As an adult it seems I’m still in the exact same spot. What feels like almost limitless potential is being held back by all the “me” in me. I’m too bored with conventional expectations of what it means to “look productive”, and much more interested in actually BEING productive. I crank out my work, and I get everything done on time (an improvement from my youth), but I still manage to do it without losing my cool. Or at least I did… until recently.

Being put in a position where you have to actually live up to someones expectations of HOW you should do something has started to get to me. Once again I feel like I’m being told I don’t “live up to [my] potential” without any actual clarification of what that potential is. I’m ruled by anxiety and fear and every time I think I have a foothold everything seems to fall apart. I choose something. I’m good at it. I find ways to do it efficiently and effectively. I become obsolete. This is, of course, just how it feels: the product of a series of mishaps, coincidences and shitty ends of the stick. Nothing has really fallen apart and what I really should be seeing these things as is opportunity.

But the question still remains. Opportunity to do what? What do I do now? How do I find the magic key to unlocking this “potential” puzzle?

A few weeks ago I attended my fourth Gay Christian Network Conference. I’ve gone three other times, so I thought I knew by now exactly what to expect. Every year I go and am astounded by the number of LGBTQA Christians and the stories that are told with such vulnerability. The sense of community and acceptance always blows me away and I come away optimstic about the world in ways I never have been.

Here are some takeaway thoughts that inspired me to start this blog in the first place (most of which will probably be future blog posts on their own):

● In so many spaces, LGBT is really just for the L and the G. Trans voices are only just starting to be heard and bisexuality is still treated like a joke. Bi-erasure is real. Bi-phobia is real. Bi people are real.

● It’s hard to be single. Being single at GCN is like being single in the church anywhere. But there’s the added bonus of feeling like GCN is the ONLY place that you’re ever going to meet enough queer Christians to find one to keep for your very own. There’s no way around this feeling. There just isn’t. I’ve been there.

● For the longest time I believed that there was no place for me in church leadership or seminary or even in conversations about spirituality because I say swear words a lot and I have no tolerance for what I call the “patriarchal bullshit” side of the church (read: purity culture). For the first time I really believe that’s not true. It turns out I can be a theologian anyway. I can be me and do things my own way and there’s a place for that. I don’t have to be paralyzed by my woundedness or “toe the line” out of fear rejection.

I have this thing with people that are funny at parties. I don’t trust them.

When you’re funny you can hide a lot. Being funny gives people the illusion that they know and like you. What they really like is how you make them feel. Laughing feels good.

I learned to be funny at parties at a very young age. There is a part of it that’s just natural talent. This is why “comedian” is a real job title that people have and get paid for (if they’re lucky). The rest, for me, is necessity. I needed to be funny. I needed to hide. I needed to be liked. I needed to make people feel good. Laughing feels good.

I have always felt like I have a lot to hide. I spent a good chunk of my life as a cripplingly-depressed, emotionally abused, sexually confused, secret genius with terrible ADD who hates her body. In addition to that I grew up thinking that it was my job to make everyone else happy and never show any real emotions. My job was to make everyone comfortable and feel good. Laughing feels good.

If you think about it, everyone knows someone who is funny at parties. You may not know them well, but you like having them around in social situations, if only to take the heat off of you. Often these people get the most attention in a crowd, but sometimes they get the least attention outside of one.

This is what happens when you get inside the head of someone who is funny at parties. Sometimes they’re a secret introvert.