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| Note to anyone who may still read this: this will most likely have no coherence, much less relevance to...anything.
I want to go back to the way things were some number of months ago. Or even better, can I go back to certain parts and skip over others? Now, I'm a firm believer that we are who we are because of what we've experienced, and I know that I'm a better man for some people and events, but others I'm not so sure.
Regardless, I find myself trying to build a network of people here in Houston that I can hang out with, have conversations with - you know, be human beings with. Instead, I have the guy I'm working with 11+ hours a day, radio personalities another 1-2 hours a day, and...my parents. I'm dying to have social interaction with someone even roughly my age. I don't think I'm bad at making friends, I just think that I have no time to do it right now, which sucks, because it's these boring, monotonous days that would be made better if I could just chill with at the end of a day or week.
It just sucks that after literally putting everything I had into my life and friends and organizations for four years, it feels like there's nothing to show for it - no lasting impact, no carryover, nada, zip, zilch.
I sat and watched the Texas vs. Missouri game tonight, and for every Texas Fight, for every drum cadence, for every ringing cowbell, I remembered how much I enjoyed LHB at the end of the day. To have the opportunity to fly out to games like that to play and cheer for the team, to lose yourself in something so much bigger and crazier than you were used to knowing.
And even weekend trips up to Austin now seem to disappoint. The driving to and from takes so much from you, both in time and in energy. I go up there with the intention/hope of reconnecting with "old" friends, to quench my thirst for social interaction and human relationships, but rarely do I feel that it does much good. I mean, it's always fun, but the weekends rarely meet my expectations. Trying to continue to renew or cultivate relationships with people that you really don't have much interaction with is kind of like a sugar rush: great while it's happening, but soon after there's a crash, and you end up just yearning for more of something that you can't have.
It's hard to be intentional with the friendships and interactions you have with people when either a) you don't have time to make them or b) you don't have time to sustain them. If there's some big thing I'm missing, then I'd love to hear what it is.
I suppose the upside of all of this is that I've found myself if not connecting with, then at least thinking of God more in my day-to-day life, and that's great because I felt like I've really been lacking that lately. And I'd love to be at a place where I can talk about God with people my age, who can relate different experiences and steps in their walk with God to what it is that young adults go through.
Maybe that's what I yearn for most - conversation. It seemed that there was always someone in Austin that I could have a conversation with. Here in Houston, not so much. Even with all the technology and social networking tools that transcend physical locations, it just doesn't happen. It's hard to keep something going, much less cultivate something new, when it all relies on complete intangibles. And if it all depends on you to keep those relationships up, if it feels like the other party is indifferent to whether the general course of all things fading into the infinite abyss of time, then is that thing that used to make you happy, really worth all the effort now if it's a parasitic relationship rather than a mutually beneficial one?
I don't feel like like God has left me, in fact I know he hasn't. I just feel like He a status quo kind of a guy, which is just so not what He really is. I wish God would be more obvious with me and His plan for me, because I know His plan for me is wayy better than anything I can orchestrate. However, that having been said, God's plan is pretty complex (I mean, it has to be, right? 6+ billion people on the planet, not to mention the rest of the universe), and when you're walking in the darkness, you need a light to show you and a hand to lead you to your next step, not just a whisper of a voice to follow. God, I need you to be that light that shines brightly and that hand that grabs hold of mine and leads me. I need You to be more intentional with me.
Anyways, I'm sick of typing and have church in the morning, so that'll be a wrap for me. For the record, I warned you none of this was going to make sense.
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| We say goodbye to people all the time - after hanging out with them, after online chats and phone conversations, but perhaps most significantly as we transition from one phase of our lives to another. We leave people behind, knowing that we very well may never see them again.
Having just graduated from college, I had to go through this yet again, and only now is the reality hitting me. I said goodbye to my once best friend, aware that it could be my last time to see them for a very long time, but secretly trusting that over the course of two months, our paths would cross if not for a day, at least for a few hours. As we solidify our summer plans, however, the possibility is very real that we won't see each other again for the better part of a year. And it's just hitting me now. Goodbye didn't really feel like goodbye because I didn't think it would be, but now that it is, it just makes me feel so...sad. Sad that I didn't appreciate it more. Sad that I didn't really get to say goodbye. Sad that while we'll talk from time to time, as tends to happen to most friendships, it'll slowly die off.
I know it sounds pretty cynical, but while I can see the world as it could be, I also see the world as it is, and so promises that people will be "friends forever" and the all-too-common remark to "keep in touch" just make me laugh a little - because most often it doesn't happen. We say these things, but they rarely ever happen. We say these things because we're scared of what lies ahead, hoping that by promising to sustain these ties that bind us in a common past, we can have comfort in whatever happens in our future. We say these things because we find comfort in constancy and one of the few constants in our lives are the memories we have.
I'm terrible at goodbyes, and unfortunately most especially the ones that mean the most to me. I convince myself that the friendships that mattered most to me will be magically sustained by the mutual desire to do so, and in doing so don't bear the true reality and monument of the goodbye.
I'm going to miss you, you know who you are if you ever read this, I'm really going to miss you. I really wish that I knew you felt the same, that this most extreme sentiment will be reciprocated. But instead I fear that it isn't, that you cling even more tightly to the grandeur of being "friends forever" than I do, that in the end you mattered much more to me than I did to you, and I hate that the most.
I loved you, as much as you could love a friend, and I wonder if it was recognized, appreciated. Plenty of people throw these four-letter words around, "love" and "miss," and to them these words hold no great power. But I love words, I respect and honor and revere the power of words, most especially ones such as these - so simple, but far and away the most accurate descriptors of some of the greatest human emotions.
I find myself reflecting on the story of Bruce Wayne, a man unaware of his limits and his actions, and his best friend, Alfred, who hopes for the best and fears for the worst. Who although may love saying "I told you so," knows that when the things he predict come true, won't want to say it - would rather have been wrong.
I hope I'm in a position where I don't have to think "I told you so" and can instead be proved laughably wrong. Unfortunately, however, I've already been right more times than I would have liked. The problem with respecting and even seeking after clever and cynical and dare I say intelligent people, is that while you may have the pleasure of being right many times, the world around you turns into one you don't enjoy.
Please, let me be wrong. I hope and pray that we have the opportunity to say a proper goodbye before you leave for a year. I hope that this great thing that we built up over just a couple years together doesn't die off and become just a tick on the timeline of our lives, a set of footprints in the sands of time that we can only look back on rather than follow beside. What I hope the most, though, is that whichever goodbye this summer stands as the last, doesn't serve as a period to mark our friendship -- a comma, ellipsis, semicolon, just anything but a period. Because once upon there was a boy, who loved a girl...
After a while, you learn the subtle difference
between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
and company doesn't mean security.
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes ahead,
with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child
And you learn to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans,
and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
After a while, you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,
instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure...
that you really are strong
and you really do have worth
And you learn and learn...
with every goodbye, you learn.
--Veronica Shoffstall
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| I try not to be a burden on people.
It may turn out to be a fatal flaw of mine, but it's part of who I am. And maybe I'm just overanalyzing things once again, but it seems to me that this summer I have driven some of my best friends away such that they only interact with me when it is absolutely necessary, and it has led to a pretty dull social life this summer.
Now don't get me wrong, I've had a pretty amazing summer. This fourth year of my internship proved to be the most exciting and enjoyable of them all by far, in part due to the technical skills I acquired, and in part to some advice on life by people far more experienced than I. What did I learn? That a job is only temporary, and family and friends are forever. However, if you're fortunate enough, you find a profession that allows you blend the two, allowing each to be a part of the other. I've learned that success is nothing if you have no one to share it with, whether it be through a relationship or a friendship - we aren't meant to live on our own.
Which brings me to this: I'm sorry. If I've said something that has upset you or acted in a way that has hurt you or annoyed you, or in any way had a detrimental effect on our friendship, I apologize. Life is a balance, and with my technical ability has come an unusually lacking ability to perceive and react to the feelings of others. I realize this is something of a blanket apology and strangely impersonal, so if you feel that I'm talking to you, please take the time to talk to me about it and let me know what I have done, so that I can address things on an individual and personal basis. Because the truth is, I really value my friends, and I'd hate for a friendship to be negatively impacted by something I don't even know about.
So here's the other thing, and not in the least bit unrelated: I don't feel as close to God as I did earlier this year. A few weeks ago I realized that I hadn't really prayed with God for awhile - how unsettling. I want God to be involved in every last aspect of my life, even the ones that I may not understand or even agree with, because God's plan is perfect. I know of so many Godly people, and I wonder how they do it. I feel like I have to work so hard to involve God in my day-to-day actions and decisions. I don't want just to fall back on God when I'm having problems, I want Him to guide me every day of my life - I just haven't figured out how yet. I guess it all just comes down to growing my faith and trust in God, genuinely seeking that His will, not mine, be done. I don't think we ever really get there completely, but I sure could use some help on the way from someone who is further along than myself.
Notes to self:
Praise you in the storm
Remember when you walk, sometimes we fall
If your sky is dark and pours the rain, then cry to Jesus
God Bless
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| so, I'm thinking that I may start writing in this again. I don't know, we'll see... no that it matters, but I don't think anyone still reads these.
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