“Yet the real miracle comes when you can look back at even the most painful experiences in your life and find the good that God has brought out of it.”
Some things will never be separated from the memories in my mind. But that’s ok; they become the wall paper of my past that eventually fades, peels off and is replaced with something new - something more fitting. And within the deepened layers are stories of me; the people I knew and the places I’ve been. It all makes up who I am. And it’s beautiful.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Word Experiment
I did this random word experiment where I just started to write down words or phrases that came to mind. This is the result:
Safety, passion, courage, dreams, seeing myself honestly, alone, fear, coward; all I really want to do is sleep away the pain.
I wasn’t sure what to make of this list, but then I began to look at each thought individually:
Safety is something I’ve searched for my entire life; that word may be more accurately defined as security. I’ve looked for it in all the wrong places and am finally realizing that it’s within myself that I become secure and experience a lasting safety. Passion is something that I’ve begun to unleash in my life as of late. In doing so I’ve found a courage within myself that I never knew I had. It’s exposing dreams I’ve simply forgotten about and helped me to define who I am. Through that process I’ve had to see myself honestly for who I am; that in turn has exposed the less attractive sides me. The parts of me that have been trapped in loneliness and fear, the coward inside of me who simply longs to sleep away the pain.
Safety, passion, courage, dreams, seeing myself honestly, alone, fear, coward; all I really want to do is sleep away the pain.
I wasn’t sure what to make of this list, but then I began to look at each thought individually:
Safety is something I’ve searched for my entire life; that word may be more accurately defined as security. I’ve looked for it in all the wrong places and am finally realizing that it’s within myself that I become secure and experience a lasting safety. Passion is something that I’ve begun to unleash in my life as of late. In doing so I’ve found a courage within myself that I never knew I had. It’s exposing dreams I’ve simply forgotten about and helped me to define who I am. Through that process I’ve had to see myself honestly for who I am; that in turn has exposed the less attractive sides me. The parts of me that have been trapped in loneliness and fear, the coward inside of me who simply longs to sleep away the pain.
Humiliating Foolishness
I’ve lived my life as if playing a game in which I attempt to see how many people’s expectations I can reach without exposing my true self. Through the years I’ve become less myself and more the sum total of everyone else’s opinion. It’s been said that “losing isn’t humbling unless you’re humble already; it’s humiliating.” I find this to be true as my many facades come crumbling down and I lose the game I’ve expended my life in playing. It is my own humiliating foolishness laid bare for all to see. And so I see myself for who I am and begin to embrace it honestly. It is now that I choose who I want to become. I will not lie about this journey; I am humbly honest about where I’ve been, where I am and where I want to go. This is the beginning of my life; this humiliating point at which I turn and look myself dead in the eyes and accept myself for who I truly am. Today I am alive for the very first time.
Secret Moments of Self-Reflection
“Though you grind a fool in a mortar, grinding him like a grain with a pestle, you will not remove his folly from him.” (Proverbs 27:22)
The truth is, I cannot change another person. They may act different to get my approval, but it’s a shallow adjustment that will undo itself over time. Unless someone has a genuine desire within themselves to change, they will remain as they are. I can’t blame myself for their foolishness and immaturity. As much as I try help them, to change them, to enable them to better themselves, it is not me who can ultimately move them.
As foolish as they may be, I am just as foolish to think I can make them otherwise. It is my own narcissistic way of controlling life. It’s also foolish of me to think that I can change someone, as if I myself do not need to change. It is in the secret moments of self-reflection that I find myself looking more like the foolishness I so despise in the other person. Maybe it is myself I am grinding like a grain with a pestle.
The truth is, I cannot change another person. They may act different to get my approval, but it’s a shallow adjustment that will undo itself over time. Unless someone has a genuine desire within themselves to change, they will remain as they are. I can’t blame myself for their foolishness and immaturity. As much as I try help them, to change them, to enable them to better themselves, it is not me who can ultimately move them.
As foolish as they may be, I am just as foolish to think I can make them otherwise. It is my own narcissistic way of controlling life. It’s also foolish of me to think that I can change someone, as if I myself do not need to change. It is in the secret moments of self-reflection that I find myself looking more like the foolishness I so despise in the other person. Maybe it is myself I am grinding like a grain with a pestle.
October Remembrance
Written: October 30, 2006
Eight years ago, to the day, we sat at the edge of the Palos Verdes cliffs. I was 16; he had just turned 17 the month prior. We had met in July of that year and although we had only known each other for three months, it felt like I had known him my whole life. And with a kiss we entered into a relationship that would, unknowingly, take us to places we’d never intended.
I can still feel the cool breeze sweeping through my hair like it did that night. I can hear the rhythmic crashing of waves at the shoreline. I can almost taste his lips on mine and feel his hand gently holding my face. And the words he said still roll around in my mind, “I don’t intend for this to be just another relationship. I don’t want it to be like a toy that you get as a little kid at Christmas time; you’re all excited about it when you first get it but then a month later it’s lost in the back of your closet and you forget it’s even there.”
It seemed from day one we both knew something was different about us and what we would become. Laying back on the blanket, staring at the clear, starry sky with my head resting gently on his chest, I felt more at home than I ever had. And I knew I never wanted to leave that place.
I came home that night wearing his sweater. My mom asked if it meant the same thing it would have when she came home as a teenager wearing my father’s sweater. She called it “going steady”. I laughed and after a while of defining terms like “dating”, “courting” and “going steady”, we finally agreed that, yes, it did mean the same thing. I don’t remember my mom ever being so excited for me.
Isn’t it strange how the end is so vastly separated from it’s beginning?
Eight years ago, to the day, we sat at the edge of the Palos Verdes cliffs. I was 16; he had just turned 17 the month prior. We had met in July of that year and although we had only known each other for three months, it felt like I had known him my whole life. And with a kiss we entered into a relationship that would, unknowingly, take us to places we’d never intended.
I can still feel the cool breeze sweeping through my hair like it did that night. I can hear the rhythmic crashing of waves at the shoreline. I can almost taste his lips on mine and feel his hand gently holding my face. And the words he said still roll around in my mind, “I don’t intend for this to be just another relationship. I don’t want it to be like a toy that you get as a little kid at Christmas time; you’re all excited about it when you first get it but then a month later it’s lost in the back of your closet and you forget it’s even there.”
It seemed from day one we both knew something was different about us and what we would become. Laying back on the blanket, staring at the clear, starry sky with my head resting gently on his chest, I felt more at home than I ever had. And I knew I never wanted to leave that place.
I came home that night wearing his sweater. My mom asked if it meant the same thing it would have when she came home as a teenager wearing my father’s sweater. She called it “going steady”. I laughed and after a while of defining terms like “dating”, “courting” and “going steady”, we finally agreed that, yes, it did mean the same thing. I don’t remember my mom ever being so excited for me.
Isn’t it strange how the end is so vastly separated from it’s beginning?
Poetic Rhythms
Written: October 23, 2006
I can see you flying away
But I can still hear your heart
Beating deep within my skull
Try to drown it out
And repair myself
I want to run away
But I’m just standing still
Watching you fly
As the sun reflects
I wonder
Are you happy?
Smile for me
Smile for anything
I can see you flying away
And it breaks my heart
But oh how I love to watch you fly
I can see you flying away
But I can still hear your heart
Beating deep within my skull
Try to drown it out
And repair myself
I want to run away
But I’m just standing still
Watching you fly
As the sun reflects
I wonder
Are you happy?
Smile for me
Smile for anything
I can see you flying away
And it breaks my heart
But oh how I love to watch you fly
A Revelation
Written: October 18, 2006
When I long for him and find myself desperately crying out for him, having to fight against chasing after him; it’s in those moments I must realize how misguided my heart is. He is my selfish and earthly-minded means of fulfilling, however temporarily, a very deep, possibly spiritual need. A need for genuine intimacy that manifests itself as loneliness. An intimacy that can only come from God. An intimacy that I’ve always found in physical, human-emotional relationships. I’ve never let God meet my need for intimacy because in reality, and practically speaking, I have no idea what that means, what that looks like, or how to do that.
When I long for him and find myself desperately crying out for him, having to fight against chasing after him; it’s in those moments I must realize how misguided my heart is. He is my selfish and earthly-minded means of fulfilling, however temporarily, a very deep, possibly spiritual need. A need for genuine intimacy that manifests itself as loneliness. An intimacy that can only come from God. An intimacy that I’ve always found in physical, human-emotional relationships. I’ve never let God meet my need for intimacy because in reality, and practically speaking, I have no idea what that means, what that looks like, or how to do that.
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