A Fine Frenzy

My new favorite band:  A Fine Frenzy; and my new favorite song: Almost Lover. 

Simple

I loved you; I still love you; and I will love you.   It’s not much to offer, and I can’t promise you any more.  It wasn’t enough then. It’s probably not enough now, but it’s still all I have to offer.  and so…I love you.

Sometimes I don’t Read it All

Sometimes I don’t read it all.  There are times that I just start at the beginning, and never make it to the end.  Other times I never even make it to the second sentence.  I see the depth of your exposure, and I am scared of that clear honesty that only you can present.  It’s in those moments that you present me with thoughts that cut to my very core.  Your writing is pertinent, and compelling so sometimes I don’t read it all.  Sometimes I just fall asleep unable to process your thoughts which inevitably are strangely linked with mine.  Sometime I just close the computer, and walk away ignoring the thoughts you’ve provoked within my soul.  Sometimes I don’t read it all because I can’t handle truth. I can’t handle honesty.  I can’t handle learning more about my brokenness.  So sometimes, most of the time, I don’t read it all.

The Life I Could’ve Had…But I’m so Glad I Don’t

Some days there are just those moments that make you stop and think about the crazy winding turns that your life has taken over the years.  Not only did I think about the changes which have occurred and the roads I’ve taken but I’ve thought about the roads that I could’ve taken.  The woman that I could have become in comparison to the budding woman that I am becoming.  Today I was presented with the well known thought that “you can never step in the same river twice.”  It caused me to think about how moving away from home and the familiar you can never go back, because the river has continued to flow and change and you have changed too.  I haven’t changed with the flow of the river from whence I come, but instead I’ve created a new wonderful enchanting experience that fills me with utter jubilation at the prospects of my future.    When I look back at the past and I see where the people I once loved are headed all I can think is how happy I am that I didn’t take the easy road and stay with the familiar.  Breaking loose of those chains continues to be the best thing that I’ve ever done.  Thank God for the road less taken and thank God for the courage to take it.

Writing and Performing Again

For the past few months life and suffocated my feelings to a bleak place where I stopped writing and stopped playing music.  At first I thought that the manifestation of not writing and performing had to do with some queer perception that I was no longer interested in two great loves of my life.  Slowly I resumed writing, but the text was dark and sad yet therapuetic.  This past week for the first time in ages not only did I write but I also played around with some chords until I had written a tab for a poem that had been floating around in my head.  Feeling the strings beneath my fingers and the calouses forming I was extremely pleased by the art which was consuming me that night.  Though I have been writing on and off for many years I have been doing music much longer and I took a much longer break from music so it thrilled me to finally play again. 

A list of Questions

I’ve been thinking about boundaries a lot lately and healthy boundaries in relationships and I was presented with these questions to ponder.  The questions were awesome.  I copied the whole list so if you’re easily offended you may not want to read through all of them, but I thought that they were all important questions for relationships.

Do you talk openly about your feelings and tell the truth without fear?
Do you listen to each other’s ideas?
Do you solve problems and disagreements together?
Do you each have friends, interests and activities of your own, and ones that you share?
Do you respect each other’s privacy?
Are you proud of each other’s talents and accomplishments?
Do you talk openly about your sexual needs and desires?
Do you protect each other from unintended pregnancy?
Do you always have each other’s consent for sex?
Do you help take care of each other?
Do you have disagreements without becoming violent?
Do you respect each other’s belongings?
Do you feel closer to your partner as times goes on?
Do you feel happy when you think about staying together?
Do you solve problems together more and more?

Loved You Enough

I’m not really sure why but this morning when I heard Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Already Gone’ the lyrics really struck me.  Maybe it was for the fact that last night was the first time that I’ve had a conversation with someone who understands completely what I mean when I say that “Holland was the best and worst time of my life.”  I experienced so many new things that were absolutely wonderful.  My experiences there opened my eyes and my heart to new desires that I didn’t even know were there.  However, Holland also brought about one of the most devastating heartbreaks I have ever experienced.  I wanted to share a few of the lyrics…

Remember all the things we wanted
Now all our memories, they're haunted
We were always meant to say goodbye
Even with our fists held high
It never would have worked out right, yeah
We were never meant for do or die...

It Makes Sense to Me…

“The entire world is falling apart because nobody will admit they are wrong.  But by asking God to forgive you, you are willing to own you own crap.

Laura sat silent for a while.  She sort of mumbled under her breath.  “I can’t, Don.  It isn’t a decision.  It isn’t something you decide.”

“What do you mean?” [Don]

“I can’t get there.  I can’t just say it without meaning it.” She was getting very frustrated.  “I can’t do it.  It would be like, say, trying to fall in love with somebody, or trying to convince yourself that your favorite food is pancakes.  You don’t decide those things, they just happen to you.  If God is real, He needs to happen to me.”

…

“In his book Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton says chess players go crazy, not poets.  I think he is right.  You’d go crazy trying to explain penguins.  It just best to watch them and be entertained.  I don’t think you can explain how Christian faith works either.  It is a mystery.  And I love this about Christian spirituality.  It cannot be explained and yet it is beautiful and try.  It is something you feel.  It comes from the soul.”

…

My favorite ~ “The problem with Christian community was that we had ethics, we had rules and laws and principles to judge each other against.  There was love in Christian community but it was conditional love.  Sure, we called it unconditional, but it wasn’t.  There were bad people in this world and good people in the world.  We were raised to believe this.  If people were bad, we treated them as though they were either evil or charity.  If they were bad and rich, they were evil.  If they were bad and poor, they were charity.  Christianity was always right; we were always looking down on everybody else.  And I hated this.  I hated it with a passion.  Everything in my soul told me it was wrong.  It felt, to me, as wrong as sin.  I wanted to love everybody.  I wanted to be cool.  I realize this sounds like tolerance, and to many in the church the word tolerance is profanity, but that is precisely what I wanted.  I wanted tolerance.  I wanted everybody to leave everybody else alone, regardless of their religious beliefs, regardless of their political affiliation.  I wanted people to like each other.  Hatred seemed to me, the product of ignorance.  I was tired of biblical ethic being used as a tool with which to judge people rather than to heal them.  I was tired of Christian leaders using biblical principles to protect their power, to draw a line in the sand separating the good army from the bad one.  The truth is I had met the enemy…and discovered that they were not the enemy.  I wondered whether any human being could ever be an enemy of God.”

~Blue Like Jazz – Donald Miller

Freshman Year Remembered

Today I am speaking to a group of student from the class of 2013 about my college experience.   Which has really got me remembering some of the highlights from college.   College has been the most extreme thing I have ever experienced.  It has presented me with so many amazing opportunities and I haven’t left a single door open unexplored.  I have taken advantage of so many things in college, and yet college has also presented me with some of the most difficult experiences and trials I have ever experienced.  This strange amalgamation of highs and lows has been the best two years of discovery and self-revelation.  For as weak as I know am I can only explain that the strength which has brought me through the past two years and that has given me the courage to sieze the day was not of my own accord.  Time to reflect and talk to the Freshman!    To be continued…

Continued:  So today I learned just how much I really learned my Freshman year.  Until you live on your own you don’t know these things; you don’t expect certain situations; and when you find yourself in them you’re not always sure what to do.  Those are the answers you find out your Freshman year.  Though the year was marred by one traumatic event my first semester, one Fall Break and Christmas from hell, one heartbreaking seperation, and two crazy relationships, I have learned that I have the most amazing friends that made me laugh, brought my spirits up, and helped me through the darkest year of my life and left me with great memories despite everything else.  So what I learned my Freshman year concern the importance of my community.  My Freshman year, for the first time in my life I became part of a community of friends that without judgment love me, just for being me.  Two years later, they are still making me laugh, picking me up, and making the best college memories anyone could wish for.

Protected: Let’s Call it Even

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