Close your Eyes and Listen

Moving Out

I moved out of 926 today, no explosions, but no trumpets, the book on college has officially been written.  Life moves on.  It's strange I ended going to classes 4 months ago, I wasn't sad, I started working kissing childhood goodbye, not so sad, I went through the graduation ceremony, not really sad (maybe even a touch relieved), but moving out of 926.  It was my college experience, that place, that home.  The atmosphere I will always remember in my heart.  The joy and laughter, the sadness and tears, the wisdom raining from it's walls.  How I can remember all the deep talks I had with so many people there.  926 was a safe place for secrets, where everyone I know could share there heart.  It was my safe haven, from all the stress, the worries, the hurts, and the pains.  It was my refuge, where I saw Jesus more clearly than in any church.  The place were I learned who I was and why I was it.

To me 926 wasn't just a place to live, it was life, and life is love.  Love permeated the very walls of that place.  I could feel it, like a emanating aura of awesome, it would hit me as I opened the door each and every time.  The people inside ready to greet me with warm cheer.  Love to me was, is, and will forever be it's driving force. Keeping the door unlocked, providing a fun and inviting place, being generous with drinks and food, and anything else,  spoke to the values of what that place was meant to symbolize.  Love is 926.

It's tragic that I must depart that place, but life goes on, it always goes on. But I will never forget, how much that home meant to me.  How much the people within meant to me and will forever mean to me.  How my life has forever been changed by the relationships forged there.  And how God portrayed to me that love will endure forever.

Always Last Place

I think the title speaks for it's self, as much as I get ahead on all the life issues, it always feels like I'm in last place.  Now after going to SummerCon that isn't necessarily a bad thing, actually it's probably the best thing for my soul, "The last shall be first", but man does it hurt.  I just feel even if I do something right, help out here, sacrifice there, I get totally smacked down for doing it.  Like helping others was some capital offense.  I think I could take all the grief a lot better, from the few that give it, if it didn't always feel like people only talked to me because they ran out of other options for "fun" friends and/or they need to use me for something or some problem.

I understand what Jesus was saying about being the slave of all, it's denying your own needs in place of another's, and submitting to their needs.  But it's not just another person, it's ten other people, twenty other people, with no respite.  I never feel like I'm included or I belong.  I just feel like I'm always sitting on the edge of a group waiting to serve the next person.  I don't know...when I look at Jesus for an example he seems to me to be the most integral part of the group, the hub of the spoke and wheel analogy.  But I've never felt integral to anything or anyone.  I guess that's good in a way, keeps me humble, nothing humbles a person like being able to be replaced.

I don't know where this blog post is going, it just frustrates me that when the shit hit's the fan, I'm the first one to clean up the shit and the fan, but when anything remotely enjoyable might be happening, I have to stumble over that person doing it, or literally LITERALLY have to be told "no one else is around and I'm bored lets hang out!"  implying that their is only one option worse than you and that's being alone.  How the f*** do you think I feel?  I guess I need to work on being more like-able...

Nothing To Say

I should have a lot to say after summercon and graduation and trips and work, but I don't.  It's like the little bunny that could finally ran out of energy.

Under-appreciated and devalued

I can't shake these feelings of being under-appreciated, so much shit, that isn't my responsibility getting foisted on my shoulders. Though I get a thanks, its so tright and forced it just makes me think they don't respect me at all and are entitled to everything I do.  So demeaning. I just feel so unvalued right now.  I know it's not suppose to be about me, but it hurts to get used so abusively.

Virtue & Wisdom

When did virtue die? When did striving for a virtuous life become the last choice for a lifestyle?  Why is it so hard to explain to people self-sacrifice? Why do outsiders to a situation always feel virtue is a blight on your identity?

I want to live a virtuous life. I want to do the right thing. I want to be honest, fair, and just.  I want to give more than I receive.  I want to give everything for others. I want it. Why is it absurd to offer a close friend free rent, while I pay, because their down on life and need a leg up.  Why is it absurd to take the time for another and listen to their problems.  Why is it absurd to be considerate and get food for someone even though they didn't ask.  When did kindness go out of fashion? When did being nice only happen in the moment and not behind the scenes as well?  Why is being intentional creepy now? How did that happen?  When did leveling judgement become the only topic of conversation? When did appreciation fall out of the world and depreciation take it's place? Why is affirmation for the weak? Why has the value for wisdom disappeared?

I'm tired of trying to explain to people virtue, that the world isn't perfect, that there still is a battle between good and evil and not just between better and best like everything's good.  That doing the right thing isn't the right thing for you.  Virtue is the integrity of identity.  And that comes at a cost. A cost of self.

Wisdom is not born it's made. Wisdom is made or moreover gained through virtuous actions, by remaining patient beyond what's reasonable, by trying to be kind in the face of adversity, by being fair even though the odds are stacked against you.  Wisdom is the realization of what's important universally, not of self, but of the greater universal good.

I want wisdom, I want what's best for humanity, for my friends, my family.  I want to live as virtuously as possible.  I want people to respect that. To accept that.

Life Love

I think you love someone when their pain is your pain.

Their darted glance, the brief terror in their eyes; it strikes you right in the chest. It punctures your air supply until it stings and the sting becomes a dull ache and the dull ache grows into a burn and the thud of your heart’s response resounds in your mouth. Your eyes scan their face – their face, their beautiful face – darting over a landscape you thought you knew. You see them as if for the first time, in a long time. My darling, how you have changed! And you are hurting, did I not see the hurt before? Their terrific suffering so magnified. Immature problems that have consumed you for weeks discolor and recede. Bleached. They are insignificant to the hurt that is radiating from someone you love. The rings around their eyes are now your rings. Their bloodshot eyes your bloodshot eyes. Their furrowed brow, their consternation, mirrored in your face. Their tears, hidden or otherwise, you taste on your lips. Their distress, their utter fragility, exposing itself so clearly now, just in that inner eyebrow area. And… in how their smile fails to reach themselves. How have I smiled today? Knowing you were here like this. Blank eyes. Looking through you, past you, because they don’t have time for you now, they can’t have time for you. … You should have had time for them before. You should have had time for them before. Angry repetitions in your head. You should have had some time, just some time. You’ve been busy. You’ve been busy?! “I’ve been… busy.”

What were you doing, what were we doing that we got here? Where was I, when this happened? I remember seeing you, I remember having a good enough time. I don’t remember piecing together the obvious parts. Until now. Now, when every realization is exploding right next to my face, one after another, right around my temples. My eyes flicker with each burst semblance of a better life. Each more shocking, perplexing. And yet, no, what am I saying, not at all.

Numbing.

Muffling.

As if I am being layered with thick blankets of cotton wool. Carefully laid upon me, one after another. And I am drawing my knees to my chest and I am laying my head on my hands and I’m collapsing softly, ever so softly, into a cotton wool lasagna cocoon.

How did we get here?! My naiveté somehow remains steadfast into my adult years. I thought we were doing relatively well. Relatively I say, meaning the top of the pile of shit we had created for ourselves. Was I really so self-absorbed that I saw none of yours? I was too busy waiting for someone to save me that I didn’t see you.

I didn’t see you.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry I disappeared inside myself. For so long, it seems. I considered you to be on top of things. What a ridiculous expectation, it seems now. I had such high standards of you. Once, for myself too. … Tell me something, before I go, am I overreacting? Is this, perhaps, how it is? How every one is? Do we all end up like this, more or less? Maybe this is the daily round. Maybe the time has come to smother my childhood ideals; they were misleading. Maybe – maybe – we are not doing too badly on the spectrum of human chaos. The explosions come thick and fast and too often to not convince me that we have all hit a rather bleak trajectory.

But. No. I am too proud to let this be your story. Because you, because we, cannot not get better. We have to get better. You have to get better.

Just a phase, just a phase, just a phase. It will sort itself out. It will get better. I will get better. We will get better.

Why are we always so tired? Change is good.

-Amy Van Burren

Graduation it's for real

Graduation is friday, and college is for real over. For the last three months my life's been sort of a fantasy, the proverbial getting your cake and eating it to.  I "graduated" meaning I didn't have anymore school work, I got a job and started making money, and all my friends were still in school meaning they still had plenty of time to hang out and even work around my now constricted schedule.  I'm living the good life, but alas it cannot last forever.  And graduation for real looms at large.

This summer is going to be busy, house hunting, helping 926 get renovated for the guys, meeting a bunch of new employee's at work, company retreats, more traveling, and more.  It's going to busy, it's going to be real, real adult life. When I think about it like that, I get a twinge of fear, but it's coupled with deep sense of longing, even excitement! I want to see what the next steps God has for me.

Hell I'm 22 I still have so much time to try stuff, fail, learn, try again, and make my way through adult life.  But it's crazy to me to say, I'm looking for a house, a HOUSE, it's like slap to my adolescent senses, this is the big leagues.  How did this happen so fast! A year ago, I was a complete emotional wreck, distrustful of God, of family, of people, now my mind and heart are back to the best they've been since I can remember, and I can feel the effect of Matty at full capacity, it's exhilarating!

God has blessed these last few months, but Graduation is soon and thus ends my college life, on to the future that looks oh so bright.