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| its been a while, so here goes. i feel the need to communicate in short-n-sweet points.
:: life has been busy. good, but busy...
:: i have found my footing on solid ground again after a long time in the fog of disillusion & lies...
:: i have amazing & real friends who walked with me through the valley of the shadow of death...
:: love has become a tangible instead of a hopeful notion...
:: fear & doubting are pathways to truth & understanding...
:: tears are a language of the spirit
:: "we don't hug enough around here" - to quote my dear friend sarah...
after a long time, i can
honestly say "i'm good". it feels like the burn of a cold morning
air, the first few breaths of freedom. its lets me know i'm still
alive.
i stand in the face of the world & say, " i am not afraid anymore"...
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| "love is just varying degrees
of infatuation". words written by a 15 year old friend of mine.
to say she's been through hell in her short life would be a
understatement. abuse, drugs, death, abandonment. those things could
make a young girls' heart write those words. love is all but a foreign
concept to her. in this new season of her life, where she is surrounded
daily by people who love her unconditionally, she has attached the idea
of love to feelings of "really, really liking her". there is,
of course, some truth to what she feels. these people who shower
her with love also really, really like her. it's hard for her to
breathe deep & accept that it runs much deeper than that, deeper
than she may ever know. she sees her world through eyes of the pain
she's experienced. i guess we all do. who am i to say that she's
wrong? to question why she can't trust men, or people at all for that
matter? her life has been her own personal episode of "cops" for 15
years. who am i to knock on her for dressing provocatively &
running from one juvenile delinquent boyfriend to another? she's looking
for the one thing that she refuses to believe in.
love.
daddy love, momma love, brother
love, sister love. growing up in a home where my parents are still
married & happy for the most part, where even though my family puts
the "fun" in dys"fun"ctional, its still a family, i can't
imagine what my life would look like without that. i know how messed up
i am with those things as a part of me. my life would look a lot more
like hers. her struggles would seem more real, & i would feel the
weight of them more. i am doing my best to embrace her for who she is,
knowing that the more she opens heart to be healed, the more that she
will see what love looks like. its looks like the great
sacrifice, it looks like the "no greater love" idea, when it
comes off of a page in a book & is alive.
i have learned much from
her, but mostly what i'm learning is how the world sees what is
not love. only then can i know how they see what is love...
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| so, as of monday, i'm now 27 years
old. i don't know what that's supposed to make me feel. i don't feel
old. i don't feel young. i guess it really is just another year,
another marker on the road of life. this birthday went without any
fanfare or celebration, minus a few phone calls & text messages.
i'm okay with that. the beauty of this day last year, surrounded by
friends & loved ones who shared their hearts, prayers & desires
for me, will never be forgotten . it goes down on the top 10
experiences of all-time. i didn't think then, nor do i now, that i'm
worthy of such love & kind words & heartfelt hopes &
prayers. but my friends seem to think otherwise.
does 27 hold a
particular significance? should it? i don't know. we tend to judge our
lives on this western standard of what the path should look like. the
places on the timeline where jobs, marriages, kids, houses, & all
the other events should fall. i don't buy into it. the journey in
itself is beautiful. i can't say that i'm completely content &
comfortable where i am, but if i ever get to that place, i'll be a
little worried. we can't foresee the next step in our lives. we can
only make tentative plans, pray for direction, & roll with
whatever comes. sometimes it'd be nice for my life to be a "choose your
own adventure" book. i'd just peek around the corner after i picked a
route & see if it looked good. but then again, that'd take
the fun out of it. the unexpected adventures are what make life worth
living.
so
what of this last year, the next? what do i want to do? live. just
live. just be. just love. just forgive. just give. i don't want to try
to keep up with the worlds' set pattern & standards for living. i
just wanna be...
"If
a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he
hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears,
however measured or far away."
- Thoreau
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| ok, off of my serious posts for a second. let me have a rant: i dig
myspace. its a great way to connect to people, obviously in a
superficial way (more on that in a moment), but my pet peeve as of late
has been: girls posting stupid things on their sites, or sending you
messages full of stupid things: what do i mean by stupid? "31
things all guys should know about girls", "tribute to the nice girl",
& the list goes on. first of all, some sort of
IQ/maturity test should be required to have a myspace account. secondly
ladies, no guy is gonna have a epiphany after reading your diatribe
about the sorry state of men in the world. thirdly, any guy who could
learn from your littlle "schpeel" is not going to. if he doesn't know
to open doors for a girl before he stumbled into your cyber-palace, you
telling him that he should is a moot point. i understand that
some of this is just girl-power given an outlet. that's fine. but the
silly, but by no means less sad part is that some of these girls are
really sinking their hopes in this changing some guy. maybe a
particular guy who is their "friend". if you're hoping for that,
what you asking for is a boy who can pretend to be a man long enough to
make you & your friends giggle & give you the warm-fuzzies of a
serious relationship. a man knows how to treat a woman, to show her
& tell her how special she is. a man knows to treat a woman in
public so that anyone who sees them knows that she has captured his
heart. the beauty in a relationship is learning the small things
that make that person tick, not trying to live up to some girls myspace
expectations. and girls, if you're looking for these things so
hard & you want them so much, i would imagine that what you need is
a good guy friend first, not a boyfriend. its the greatest place to
learn what you need & want & deserve.
ok, i'm done ranting now. myspace is still a good
thing. is it a bit odd to rant about one blog site on another? maybe.
but being a bit odd is how we roll. holla!...
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| i was driving back from lexington, sc on saturday night. i had just
finished a show & was making the two-hour trip back in the rain. it
wasn't rain so much as a deluge. i do believe brother noah came
scooting by a brother! anywho, two hours in the rain got me to
thinking. thinking about the songs i was listening to. i noticed how
many of them came from a place of people letting their guard down &
giving their heart away to people or things, then writing about it to
music. i wonder, how much of "giving yourself away" is
self-inflicted wounds that are not good for us, & how much is just
the human condition that is necessary for us to function in the world?
it seems that the two greatest desires of a human are to know, & to
be known. sure, some level of obvious there. but i struggle sometimes
between giving my heart to someone & handing them the knife with
which to cut it. you'd think "enlightened" people would guard our
hearts more. why don't we? maybe we do. maybe our definition of
guarding is different than what we think & pretend to operate
under. i think its different because of this reason. when the scripture
speaks of guarding your heart, the term evokes a picture of militant
protection. my problem lies here. if i do think like this, it's
always in the mindset of keeping things out. what about what's inside
already? what about the beautiful people that have a place in my heart.
friends & family? i'm starting to see that, as much as i keep out
the people & situations that can inflict unnecessary pain, i need
to nurture & protect what's already there. that's the only thing
that can make me truly understand why i need to guard my heart in the
first place. it's a journey, & a puzzling one at that sometimes, but
what's life without the journey....
i lift my glass of wine to the journey & the heart, both beautiful...
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