Blindness.

"People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence."

As perceptive as I liken myself to be, I am amazed by my own nearsightedness and blindness. Always it seems I am late to discover something about my life, which then becomes a major source of regret. Like - who is really important. Who is not. Who someone really is. I feel like an idiot when I miss out on something important.

I have developed a defense against this, though. I never hold anything back. Today, I gave someone a present I worked on for months. I don't know this person very well, but I knew that what I did would make them smile because they once told me how much it would mean to them if someone gave them the kind of present I gave. She loved it. Let me repeat - we are definitely friends and think well of one another, but we are not "good friends." I did it for no other reason than I knew it was a good idea. I knew that if I held back, I might end up regretting it. I know very well that I can't prevent every regret that might come my way, but I'll be damned if I am not going to do anything I know I can do to stop it. I will hold nothing back.

What good can come of the things we do and say to one another? How can you know if you don't do it? So long as the action is intrinsically good, good can come of it. Don't hold any of it back. That was the principle of the gift I gave today.

Today, I had to call two people. For different reasons. To the first, I said some things that I shouldn't have said. I meant what I said, but I knew saying it would send the wrong message. So I apologized and we understood one another again. However, I am glad I made that mistake. I held nothing back. Nothing at all - I said whatever I wanted to say in just the slightest hope that something significant would be learned from it. And I did learn. I learned I need to keep my mouth shut when I'm too tired to think straight.

The other person I called because I knew I had something I needed to say. I could have held it back - let the fact that I would miss them terribly next year an unsaid given. But I knew I had made a mistake. I have taken this person for granted for almost the entire time I've known them. I have been under a paradigm, a rigid stubborn view of them that never allowed me to see them as they are. I passed up opportunities to get to know this person in new ways, beautiful ways, and now I see that my time with them is running much shorter, much quicker than I would have ever imagined. I blew it. I had to tell them. Had to say sorry - even if I knew they wouldn't take an apology, or even understand why I was sorry. I found out too late in my blindness what I had missed all along. But at least...at least I had the benefit of finally telling the truth. The truth I'd discovered now that the scales dropped from my eyes.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for true sight.

Control.

If you ever find yourself upset about something only to reply in your mind "Such is life" I think you've reached where I am in this acceptance thing.

I think too much about the way life should be, only to realize not long after that even as long as I've thought otherwise, I've never really had much control over my own circumstances. Things will just be as they will be no matter how hard I try to change them.

A friend of mine is moving away. It just came out of nowhere, like a summer rain. A friend that I wanted to make a part of my life in a significant way. But I know...I know that even though I've done everything I could to make that happen, it would not. It just wouldn't. Fate, destiny, God's will, call it what you want. That can only be the answer.

I puzzle over why my life is the way it is. Don't misunderstand, I am happy about some of the details. Others, less. This is mere genuine curiosity. As I don't really see too many things as mere coincidences, I know there must be a purpose behind it all...why the best friends I have are not the best friends I tried to have - I am grateful for the best friends I have never expected, but in other ways I must wonder why it never worked out between myself and someone whom I felt connected to in a special way.

Someone told me I like having control the other day, and I agreed with them immediately. But after I thought about it for a while, I could actually care less about most things. I don't mind the weather, I don't care who's in charge of my school program, I don't care who cleans the kitchen or how. I don't care about most random things that can change throughout my day, really. What I want to control is actually just people. And that's the one thing I've never had control over, though from time to time I fancied I actually could.

So many things just come out of the blue. Conversations, strange circumstances, accidents, insults. Try as I might to have some kind of master plan for marriage and life long friendships, it has never, ever really seemed to matter what I had planned. Even when I was discerning the priesthood, it didn't seem to matter because I ended up in a relationship not long after.

I suppose I could be mad about it. I'm certainly disappointed. But mostly, I'm just waiting. Trying to be patient. Watching the waters settle, and then flow in a certain direction...and then switch. I feel like the captain of a ship who has believed for a long time that he was an expert navigator, only to discover that his ship, in fact, has just been slowly sinking as he heads in a completely unknown direction.

Such is life.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for patient acceptance.

Doesn't anyone understand?

There is no one like you in this world. There will never be anyone else, nor has there ever been, anyone like you in this world.

But no one acts like it. Everyone seems willing to believe that they will meet other people who can replace the ones they already know...

I feel like an alien. Because I know. And I act like it. But no one else seems to.

At any moment, I could depart from this world. I am the only one of my kind, and no one else who comes after me will be just like me. But no one seems to know. No one gets it.

When I have to say goodbye to someone, I know I am saying goodbye to a soul tied with 7 billion others for the rarest thing in existence. Knowing I can only ever meet so few of those in my life, it's like saying goodbye to a fortune.

Why doesn't anyone get this? Doesn't anybody know?

If I hear anyone else say that "you will make new friends" I think I might explode. Maybe. No one can ever replace the people you have known. Ever. Sure, you will meet other people. But you are just replacing one fortune with another. They are all irreplaceable.

Am I the only one who knows this?

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for another alien like me.