Some simple rules.

I'm coming up on one year as a mental health counselor (it will be this August 19, precisely) and I have made up my mind to write down a few simple rules that I've discovered make almost every aspect of life much easier.

Part of this is, of course, because I've discovered a lot of people end up in my office precisely because they don’t know the rules and don’t follow them. Furthermore, I’ve found that many of my friends don’t follow my rules, much to my exasperation. It’s not like I feel that I can demand that they do; my exasperation is much the one of someone who sees a simpler way to do things and sees a good friend struggling to do it the hard way.

Here are the rules.

1. Say what you mean, mean what you say.
2. Other people should inform you, but not form you.
3. Emotions are messages, not commands.
4. You are responsible for your own feelings; no one can make you feel anything.
5. You are not responsible for other people’s actions; you are responsible for your response to them.
6. Your obligations to other people are what you decide they are or have made yourself committed to by your words or actions.
7. You can’t give what you don’t have.
8. You can’t give if you don’t get (any rest, peace, support, etc.).
9. Don’t try to fix what you can’t change.
10. Forgive, but don't forget; or forgive, and then forget 'em!
11. Only plan ahead as far as you must.
12. Worrying is a useless emotion – just do what you can and what will be, will be.
13. No one can demand better than your best.
14. If you fail, you either do better next time or you find another solution.
15. Arguing with an idiot makes you a bigger idiot.
16. If you act like a fool, you give others permission to treat you like one.
17. You can either warn people , give them chances, or save them over and over, or let them suffer the consequences of their own actions once.
18. There is no written rule book for how you must feel about something.
19. Relaxing and enjoying yourself is really just recharging your ability to work.
20. The words of family and friends can become our inner voice.
21. No matter how many times a falsehood is spoken, it will not make it true.
22. A good attitude and cheerful spirit can be all you need to succeed.
23. Ask more questions.
24. Listen more than you talk.
25. We belong with other people – no one can make it through life alone.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream that guides me through.

This side.

"It's foreign on this side,

And I'll not leave my home again.

There's no place to hide

And I'm nothing but scared."

So, I'm all unpacked and settled in my new home. It's a nice neighborhood and I have a decent job that I'm starting tomorrow.

But I don't feel good.

Last week I left what I considered my home behind, something I always knew was going to happen. You can't just go to school forever - the point is to learn how to become a productive member of society with a job...and that's what I am now.

The hour when I need to be courageous and put behind my college days for good has finally come, and I'm scared. I feel so alone in this new role and I don't want to screw anything up. I wish I had a friend - any friend here to live with me and comfort me. But what choice do I ever have except to pull myself together and do what needs to be done? It's the only choice I've had for a long time now and I don't see a day coming soon where it will be any different.

I don't understand these feelings and I'm ashamed of them. But at least the path ahead is clear, even if it's dark.

I'll get used to this side.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for this side to become home again.

Over the bridge.

I wish I felt like I had a little more control over my own life.

Nevertheless, I am resigned to this path that seems chosen for me. It makes me feel a little awkward when people congratulate me on "my" success. My career and education are like a a body slide. If I try to slide off to the left or the right, I'm going to slip back into the middle and keep sliding down. So when people congratulate me on my new job and upcoming graduation, I feel like they're congratulating me for staying in the middle of the slide. It's not like they're doing anything wrong - quite the opposite, I appreciate the sentiment - it's just awkward for me, because I don't feel like I really worked for it at all. I've fought this path and lost. I put most of my effort into things that didn't work out. You won't hear anyone congratulating me on that!

Now I am coming to a bridge, much like the one I crossed six years ago. Back then I was a naive 18-year-old, scared to leave home but more scared not to, lonely and ignorant. Now I'm 24, confident and capable, anxious but unafraid. It feels a lot different than the last bridge. The last bridge's crossing felt like an escape, and though I didn't know what was coming, I knew it had to be better than what I came from. This bridge feels like the end of a long movie...a movie that I really, really enjoyed. Although I don't want the movie to end, I know it's over. There's no more plot, nowhere else for the movie to progress...it's over. The sequel looks promising, but I really don't know much about it at all...there's no promises that it will be better than this movie, or even that it will be as good. Life in this town was the movie. Life where I'm going is the sequel. This is the bridge I'm crossing.

I don't have any choice, so I'm going for it.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to put all bridges behind.

Railroaded.

"Maybe it's time to change...And leave it all behind! I've never been one to walk alone, I've always been scared to try. So why does it feel so wrong, to reach for something more...to wanna live a better life? What am I waiting for? 'Cause nothing stays the same. Maybe it's time to change."

I feel like many of the changes and choices I've made in the past year and a half were not my own. My career has never been my primary concern in life (perhaps a fault) but yet, in the past year and a half I've completely changed my career path, and made it a reality...almost effortlessly. I applied to a competitive program late and got in...two years later, I'm going to graduate. I passed both my major exams to become a counselor, with barely any effort. I've been getting congratulated on passing them, but honestly...I barely studied. How did I succeed?

Yet, the things I've put the most effort into the last six years have been mostly unsuccessful. The things I chose for myself, the things I wanted most were always out of reach. My career was always something off in the corner...a necessary burden. But yet, I've succeeded in that effortlessly.

It feels like a path has been chosen for me. Sometimes I wonder how I ended up where I am. It seems like just yesterday, I planned to ask my girlfriend to marry me within months, find a job in English, and keep in touch with all my friends...two and a half years later, I don't have any plans at all, but it looks like somehow I'm going to go off alone to a distant city to be a counselor with no plans to date anyone ever again. I could have never planned this. In fact, I didn't. This wasn't the plan at all, and I have done barely anything at all to push it this way. Quite the opposite. I've fought it every step of the way, laying down my own plans...good plans. I was very methodical, very intentional in everything I did. Yet here I am.

I accept this, now. I don't like it, but I accept it. My good friends tell me I should like it. I agree, I wish I could. I wish I could want what God apparently wants to give to me. But I don't. I don't yet understand or know how to want something that I don't really want. I'm just not there.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to unrail.

"Ka is a wheel."

“Ka is a wheel; its one purpose is to turn. The spin of ka always brings us back to the same place, to face and reface our mistakes and defeats until we can learn from them. When we learn from the past, the wheel continues to move forward, towards growth and evolution. When we don’t, the wheel spins backward, and we are given another chance. If once more we squander the opportunity, the wheel continues its rotation towards devolution, or destruction.”

I continue to be amazed by life's circular nature.

Ka, in the quote above, is a word meaning destiny or fate from Stephen King's The Dark Tower, a seven eight book series chronicling the adventures of Roland Deschain, the last and greatest gunslinger, and his quest to find the Dark Tower, save it, siege it, and climb to the top. Roland's world is dying...as the Dark Tower is threatened, the fabric of existence is wearing away. Even time itself ceases to work correctly. The demons that have chased Roland his entire life and killed all of his friends are slowly revealed to be the very demons behind the slow demolition of the Dark Tower...which they wish to destroy so that they may rule over the darkness left behind.  Roland - the cold but romantic prodigy and representative of all that is good - frequently must travel beyond the realm of his post-apocalyptic world to others, where his foes follow his fast hands and blazing eyes to their deaths, in order to save his world and all the worlds.

But in the end of the story, Roland's ka...his destiny...is revealed to be circular. It is his curse. As it is mine.

Well, I'm being dramatic because that's what re-reading The Dark Tower does to me, but really. It seems as though every other year I am undergoing the same trial - but in a different time and with different characters. I get what I always say I want - a chance to do it over again. It's amazing and aggravating all at the same time.

Two years ago I made a mistake that proved to be both wonderful and terrible - and wonderously reversible. For the most part. However, again I am pressed into the same situation at exactly the same season and mode of life. And this time, in the words of Inigo Montoya...I will not fail.

But sometimes, I wonder if how I plan to do things the second (third, fourth, really) time is really the best way after all. What if, indeed, I am only making things worse? How long will the cycle end? But then again, this is the sort of thing that, as a friend pointed out, "you only have to get right once." And that is a comforting thought.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream of linear ka.

Elysian fields await.

"Might have to go...where they don't...know my name. Float all over the world...just to see her again. And I won't...show I feel...any pain. Even though all my armor might rust...in the rain. A simple plot. But I know one thing: good things are coming my way."

I've said it before and I'll say it again: you teach people how they are allowed to treat you. Every time you tolerate people who do things you don't like to you, you teach them they are allowed to do it. No more.

I haven't been mistreated lately, but I feel like I have and that's enough for me. I have to break the pattern that causes me so much pain, brought on by my own ambitions concerning other people. Sometimes, you just have to know when to quit. And so I have. The game is over. I have not won, but I certainly haven't lost.

I have a long memory for hurt and I don't feel like I've deserved much of what has come my way. But from what little talent God has given me I've made much. I've got a good head on my shoulders...well, at least the people who have seen me at my best think so. I have a talent for making people feel good with only my voice. I've grown more and more into the kind of person I've always wanted to be, despite childhood assurance I would become nothing, or at least nothing good.

In less than a year, I will be leaving this place. This place that has given me so many good and bad memories. I will have no problem making new friends wherever I go, and I know that someday I will meet a woman who can relate to me on my own level. I will ride into Elysium, and no one can stop me.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for the Elysian fields.

The world has moved on.

"The world has moved on. Bad times are on horseback."

I am re-reading the Dark Tower, Stephen King's magnum opus of an adventure about Roland Deschain, gunslinger, last of his kind in a world that is dying, and about his last ditch attempt to save it and all of existence itself from eternal darkness.

Epic.

There is a saying that reappears in every book (there are seven) and multiple times in every book. It's "The world has moved on." The first time I read the book, years ago, I never really understood the phrase. I thought I did...I took it to mean "times have changed." But that's not it at all. I get it now. I get it now because I'm a little older and I've lived it.

"We say the world has moved on; maybe we really mean that it has begun to dry up."

When I think back to the time when college was new, and I had all the time in the world?

The world has moved on, gunslinger.

When I think about the times I always had someone else to consider if things didn't work out?

The world has moved on, gunslinger.

When I think back to when I didn't need to worry about whether I was doing things right?

The world has moved on, gunslinger.

When I think back to the times I could choose among almost any club, school, community, etc. activity as a place to have fun and meet new people?

The world has moved on since then.

I get it. What an interesting phrase - it doesn't mean a change in time, because time is really only a figment of our imagination...it means an entire change in the world. My world has utterly changed, and I'm still adjusting. I keep wanting things to be how they once were, but everything around me reminds me it's different now.

In the interest of not sounding so depressed to the point of self-absorption, I know I have other things to look forward to. But true to my fashion, I'm not as interested in them as I am to the things that I've "passed by." I need not repeat them. After all, I understand as well as anyone else reading this blog how I must sound. Still, allow me this guilty pleasure.

I guess I am just frustrated that at my sixth year of leaving home, other than a degree under my belt and another on the way, and a little maturity, I'm really no better off than I was before. I think at one point I actually thought I would be married by now. What a riot that is to think. The world has moved on.

Something positive (because I really am trying, I promise): I think I would be very happy, even if I was moving on from this community alone, if I got a job where I intern at. And moved to this nice little town with a Catholic church the size of a cathedral. I'd cry...that would be lovely. We'll see...we'll see exactly how much the world has moved on.

There was a dream that I dream, a dream for a world that has not yet moved on.

The Aftermath.

Much has changed emotionally since my last post.

The pleasantness of slowness and my patience in general has dwindled. I'm not sure what happened, but loneliness, it seems, has finallyeasily caught up to me. I'm disappointed in myself, to be sure, as I thought that I had finally escaped many of my old tendencies. I thought I'd finally gotten emotional independence.

In one respect, at least, I am better in that I still have avoided indulging my old desires to draw attention to myself for the sake of simply feeling better. I know better now.

Still, it seems like writing this blog is really the only outlet for attention-seeking I allow anymore. That's what it must be, isn't it? I don't see any other reason to write it other than to put my thoughts were others can see it, otherwise, I would just write it in a journal and show no one. I'm not often sure who reads these blog posts, only the ones who reveal themselves, I suppose...but sometimes I post knowing I wish certain people would read it. That worries me. You see, I don't wish to allow any credence to desires that lead to me acting out again.

I've been looking over Facebook's timeline feature. It's nice in many ways, but that's not the reason I'm talking about it now. I had to go through my timeline and remember all of the times I was most lonely and depressed...and start hiding the worst of my old statuses before people could read them! It's embarrassing how obviously desperate for someone's - anyone's - attention I was...how I would target specific people sometimes...how I would "hint" at things related to love, loss...anger. Nothing I want to relive. But I did.

It's funny how you can get a sort of "link" to your past self in ways. Sometimes you can look at a certain photo and remember how you felt and what you were thinking when it was taken...or read an old journal entry, or something. That was what happened to me looking over these old writings of mine...so sad, so pathetic. I kinda lost grip on myself while I was reading/hiding those old statuses. It was too easy to remember and over-empathize. I had been wondering what it felt like to be my old 2009 self or something...well, suddenly my 2009 self possessed me for a short time! Ahhhh!

Well, once I snapped back to reality, it was so much easier to realize how imperative it is that I avoid using others to relieve my negative emotions. Especially women. It's easier when I'm tempted to, oh, text somebody something to try and initiate emotional contact to just look inside and shout "FOOL!" That's my only lifeline at this point.

Another thing I noticed about my old self is that a lot of the things I've noticed about the young folks (freshman) around here also applied to myself. I think I would totally become friends with my 2007 self - if the Facebook posts help me get an idea of what I was like, I'm pretty sure my old self was just in his own little world all of the time. I was so innocent and possessed by the geeky side of myself that I'm sure I would really enjoy meeting that person that was me - because he was so untouched by the world it's amusing. That's why I became so immature only two years later - once that mask was torn off, I looked around at my real world - and realized who I really was - and hated it. The momentary glimpses that I hid from in 2007 became ever present in 2009/2010, so since I couldn't hide from it anymore, I tried to rebuild myself...which manifested itself much of the time in depressing Facebook posts. Yikes.

Lest I say too much in this post and start getting tempted to disclose too much about what or who is on my mind, I will just say that I hope people will pray that I build more patience. Someone told me the other day that wisdom and patience go hand in hand - and I believe them! I wish to build up my relationship with God and ignore the rest of me that is demanding human companionship...it's a lot harder than I thought, even though rationally I have provided myself with many excellent reasons why I should be wholly desiring the single life for the moment.  For some reason the conflict doesn't want to go away that easily.

That's all for now.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for emotional peace.

On changing my mind.

Reflect on this: if you were perfect, you would never change your mind.

Past posts have been getting a lot of views these past few weeks, and because of the subject matter, I believe I know why.

I've expressed strong opinions about the stages of my life, but yet as I go on I find that although many of my ideas remain the same, some of them I change. I do this because I grow. I'm imperfect.

A year ago, I would have told you that I am often ruled by my emotions. These days, though, I find I've relaxed in that matter. I am in touch with my emotions...I feel them, I experience them, I know them intimately. But instead of acting on them, or letting them affect me, I can choose to let them flow through me. I've mellowed out.

In the same way, I look back on the things I've said about "where I am" and "what I'm doing" and think less seriously of my opinions at those times than I once did. I've learned since then. I am not quite so sure of myself.

Knowledge is how much you know. Wisdom, I believe, is knowing what you don't know. And I've gotten a little more wise.

I find now that I recognize more and more how little I really know and can know. Case in point: my last post about crushes. A year ago I would have never written such a post. I took crushes far too seriously to write such a thing. Now I know them for what they really are: the body's way of pointing out to you interesting women (and also, for those like me who are interested in being single for a while, at least, a damned nuisance).

People who never make assumptions and ask lots of questions are, in my opinion, the wisest people you will ever meet. If you ever make friends with such a person, don't ever take them for granted. I find they are rarer and rarer in our world these days. I hope to be one someday, and I think I'm headed in that direction.

Now, to take my own advice...

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for a wiser world.

The levels of self-awareness.

I have a theory about people. Well, I have lots of those, but here is one of them.

One thing I've noticed about college-aged folks is that there is a wide variety of maturity among them. I do not wish to speak of vices and poor habits, but particularly the part of maturity I call "self-awareness."

To be "self-aware" in the particular sense that I refer to it is not the same as sentience, the difference between humans and other animals, but the amount someone is aware of their true self.

I believe this manifests itself in a few levels: the amount someone is in touch with their own feelings. Feelings, in this sense, goes beyond just emotions, but also opinions and thoughts about the nature of who they are and what they do. If you're confused, just keep reading.

The first level of self-awareness is "I feel." At this level, the person is just self-aware enough to express something. You begin at this level as a baby.

The second level of self-awareness is "I am feeling." At this level, the person expresses feelings and is aware of them. Usually some time after a person starts talking they are able to reach this level.

The third level of self-awareness is "I am feeling because." At this level, the person is aware of their feelings and is aware of their source. Much like the second level, some time after a person starts talking they are able to work at this level, perhaps less frequently.

The fourth level of self-awareness is "I have felt." At this level, the person is able to reflect on past feelings and see how they have felt certain ways over time and see some level of a pattern.

 The fifth level of self-awareness is "I have felt because." At this level, the person is able to reflect on past feelings, see how they have felt over time, see a clear pattern and understand their feelings in a larger context.

The sixth level of self-awareness is "I feel because." This is the highest level of self-awareness in which the person is able to achieve all of the aspects of the fifth level but also integrate this awareness in every day life and relate it easily and clearly to him or herself and others.

If this idea is confusing, let's make an example. Let's say a person were asked about being bullied at a young age. Someone in "I feel" would simply cry. Someone in "I am feeling" would tell you they feel sad. Someone in "I am feeling because" would tell you they feel sad because you brought up that memory. Someone in "I have felt" would tell you that being bullied made them sad but they eventually got out of it and it only upsets them when people bring it up. Someone in "I have felt because" would tell you that being bullied made them sad, that they eventually got over it, that it upsets them when people bring it up, that they are sometimes insecure because of it, and this causes them to sometimes react very strongly to gossip. Someone in "I feel because" would tell you everything in the previous sentence without having to think about it for very long.

People with higher levels of self-awareness don't wear masks very much. They are more genuine, more real, more in touch with themselves. People on lower levels of self-awareness wear masks a lot...even lower, they may not even realize they're wearing one. People of higher levels of self-awareness are better able to understand others with lower levels. Ever watch a little kid do or say something and think "I know what he's thinking, and furthermore, I know he doesn't realize I know what he's thinking." That's what I mean.

Most people I meet that are a little younger than me are functioning somewhere between the third and fourth level of self-awareness. Sometimes I wonder if they realize how obvious it is to others functioning on a higher level of self-awareness how much about themselves they're hiding, and how unaware they are of how they are acting. They're pretty easy to manipulate, too.

I can always tell when I meet someone who's on the fifth or sixth level. They're very interesting people and fun to talk to about living life and talking about "deeper things." I feel like when I'm talking to someone on the sixth level, we just sort of "connect" in such a knowing way.

All of this is really hard to describe. I'm pretty sure this blog post doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Oh well.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for greater self-awareness.

Sermon of myself.

"Then a great beauty was revealed in him, so that all who after came there looked on him in wonder; for they saw that the grace of his youth, and the valour of his manhood, and the wisdom and majesty of his age were blended together. And long there he lay, an image of the Kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world."

I think that may be the most fantastic image of a dead man there ever was: Tolkien's description of the deceased Aragorn, one of the main heroes in the Lord of the Rings.

When I was younger I had many grandiose images of my future self. My imagination would get the best of me, and I would have impossible dreams of a fantastic mix of all my favorite heroes, a sort of Super Jedi who wielded an ancient sword and had magical powers. The sort of man who was powerful, yet noble; just, yet merciful; stoic, yet charming. A man who could only ever be fictional.

I've become a different kind of magical superhero. The kind who lives a pretty humble life, unnoticed by most of the world. I never would have thought that a walking rosary would be something I would want to do with friends...two nights in a row. I'm pretty OK with who I am.

My friendships have never been better. Just when I thought I couldn't feel more loved, I was surprised with two more cakes and a surprise birthday party after my last post. I got the nicest birthday card ever, filled with a message from the heart that made my eyes mist a little bit.

I feel like the shell that contained my former self who wanted to be a hero but was in reality no one was scraped out by strong hands and filled with something better, something that wasn't me but was what I really was striving for all along. A better kind of hero, a lover of God.

The good things that people like about me aren't from inside me, they are from God. The only thing I did that's worth any praise is that I slowed down and started listening to God and putting my faith in Him. The rest is Him.

These are all things I've touched on before, but I feel like it takes on a more profound meaning when cast in the light of feelings I've had lately. A great friend of mine sang a song that spoke of a father who misses his daughter, recognizing that his memories of her in the wake of her death are only a small image of the happiness of heaven, a place far beyond his wildest dreams where he will see her again. The part of the song that makes me cry hardest is when he begins to talk about his finite view of heaven:

"But in my mind’s eye
I can see a place
Where Your glory fills every empty space
All the cancer is gone
Every mouth is fed
And there’s no one left in the orphans’ bed
Every lonely heart finds their one true love
And there’s no more goodbye
And no more “not enough”
And there’s no more enemy...no more..."

As happy as I am I never really feel like I belong here anymore. The song touches me because it speaks to my experience on earth. I'm tired of feeling far from God. I'm tired of family dying of cancer. I'm tired of people being heartbroken. I don't want to keep saying goodbye to friends only to never see them again, especially one dear friend who will be gone from my life forever in less than two months. It's killing me to think about it.

There is consolation in the knowledge that no two lovers of God see each other for the last time. My friend and I love God, I know, and we will continue to grow apart even in our separate lives. But heaven feels so far away.

I think because of this understanding I feel I know the reason I'm so attracted to people. Not in a sexual way, but in a way that I feel like I want all of my friends to be a large part of my life for the rest of my life. Why I feel sad if I can't see someone, or I'm not growing in friendship with someone. There are few people I don't like. It's all because I want to achieve heaven, the final frontier, where I will be one with all of them, if they love God. I don't want to say goodbye anymore.

That said, this seems to be who I am. I have a friend who is gifted with a great deal of wisdom. I ended up talking to him for almost three hours one cold night, walking all around campus. It was an honor when he said, after I told him that I learn a lot from him, that he learns things from me, too. I really don't know what they are, but he thinks I'm special. That really feels good coming from him.

If someone like him can say that to me, then perhaps I am closer to being the person that inspired my imagination, so long ago...

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was to see you again as I am in heaven.

Someone believed in me.

I'm currently being interviewed in a reporting class about the time I was awarded the Bishop's Cross.

It's been an interesting revisit of something I don't always think about. The Bishop's Cross is an award given in the Toledo Diocese to two Catholic students (one boy, one girl) from each high school in the diocese upon graduation every year. It's based upon (perceived) moral character, involvement in the parish and community, and high religion GPA.

All I know beyond that is that there is a committee that nominates and votes on the winners. There is no application to fill out, and no way to find out who nominated me. Someone thought I would be a good candidate and the committee that gives out the award voted in agreement. I, who only did the things he did to feel that he wasn't completely wasting his life. I, who fought for every little bit of motivation to go to church every week. I, who never had a regular prayer life. I, who was secretly precarious in belief at best and an unconscious atheist at worst many times in high school. I, who was not of the moral fiber that anyone believed I was.

I was elated to receive the Bishop's Cross, but at the same time I felt they had made a mistake. People at graduation thought they saw a smile on my face when they called my name, but it was actually a look of surprise. It was surprise, because I knew what I looked like on the inside. I felt they awarded it based on my public face, which was a lie. I didn't deserve it.

Yet, someone believed in me. Someone saw in me something I could not. My potential...who I was born to be. I am reminded constantly of how far I have to go, but it remains true that I have come far already. In the some of the most worthless times of my life, someone thought I deserved an award that I think I have only come to deserve nearly four years later.

Over the past four years of college, I've been haunted by that award. I was only getting worse at times, and it was only when I hit rock bottom that I got better. I never felt at ease when I remembered getting that award, until now. Now, the emotion is not guilt but a sense of overwhelming gratitude.

Gratitude to that one person who believed in me when I did not believe in myself.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was that everyone could believe in their own goodness.

Beyond thought and time.

My favorite season is spring...and I'm really starting to miss it.

Winter is nice during Christmas, but now it's starting to really be gray and dreary. My car keeps getting stuck, and although I'm decent enough at getting it out (sometimes with help) it doesn't help that Winter is just plain depressing in January and February. Stark contrast to jolly December.

I find I am much more relaxed talking to girls now. I like being friends with members of both sexes, but whenever I would develop a friendship with a woman, I was always worried that I would send a wrong message, or that people would see me as "prospecting" them. Now that I have a girlfriend I don't have to worry about that as much because women will know I'm not interested in them in that way.

It was in talking with one of these good girl friends that I realized how much I missed the spring time. My friend had not gone on Alternative Spring Break before, a service program held over Spring Break, and I emphatically stated that she had no idea what she was missing.

I remember it now. Campfires, mud fights, liturgy of the hours and mass as a community, making dinner and having conversation with everyone, meeting new people, writing poetry on a mountain top, hiking, the world around you just being so big and beautiful...watching the stars revolve around the globe of the sky! What a beautiful world you can see if you can just reach beyond thought and time. Eastern Kentucky is just one of those places. It also happens to be one of the poorest...

...Poorest in the monetary sense, at least. I found that it was rich in love and beauty. Perhaps that's just me.

Last spring was one of the biggest periods of spiritual growth I had, and due in no small part to my new outlook on the world. I really attribute a lot of my spiritual growth to ASB and spring. The structure of ASB and the beauty of God's creation unfolding before me really helped me to feel God's love and to yearn to grow closer to him. Right now, Winter is just really being a drag. Don't get me wrong, my love for God doesn't change with the seasons, it just makes it much harder. And the stark visibility of God that I could see in my friends and in His creation made it very easy.

I can't wait to go back.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was for eternal springtime of the mind.

Conversations with infinity.

Conversations with God are certainly nothing like a conversation with a human being.

At first this sounds like an absurdly obvious statement, but sometimes I think that God should make himself more easily available. It takes me a great deal of concentration and determination that I don't often have, especially with my huge attention deficit, to have good prayer.

I have long held the belief now that the reason God speaks to me when he does is because I'm ready to hear what he has to say, and not because he doesn't want to talk sometimes. My prayer only became good after I truly wanted to talk to God and would actually understand what he wanted to say. But as I have said to some extent in my last post, prayer lately has been difficult.

Though, now I believe I know why. Whereas for a while, I have had many incredible experiences of prayer with God that have led me not only to enjoy prayer, love God more, and make some important decisions regarding my love life, suddenly this all vanished. Every time I pray, though my approach to prayer is unchanged, I feel and hear nothing.

Saint Ignatius says that it is a normal part of anyone's spiritual lives to have periods of spiritual consolation and desolation. Consolation is the time where one feels God's presence, feels joy in their faith and grows easily spiritually, which is how I would describe my spiritual life in November and early December. I learned a lot very quickly in this time and entered a new stage of my life. Then after all those wonderful things, suddenly God felt a little farther away. I had no idea why.

At first I was worried I'd done something horribly wrong. Then I was worried I was starting to regress spiritually, that I was screwing up my prayer. Then I was worried about both. Now, I have a different opinion.

I have entered the opposite side of the coin of the spiritual life, that of desolation. Spiritual desolation happens often when someone slacks off in their spiritual life, but St. Ignatius, the expert on the topic, writes of two other reasons why it happens.

Sometimes it happens because God is testing how we will respond when the result is desolation and not an expected reward. "God may try us to test our worth, and the progress that we have made in His service and praise when we are without such generous rewards," says Ignatius. This makes perfect sense. Prayer felt so good, it was so wonderful and helpful and miraculous. I had come to expect it, and now God knows I need to see how my faith works without it.

I needed to see how I would handle the changes in my life if suddenly God withdrew and left me alone for a while. If I would suddenly make my girlfriend my god instead...if I would suddenly decide I no longer believed in God because he was silent. God knew what I would do, but I would not if it never happened.

I'm still trying to figure out the full implications of the result of my time in this period of desolation, but it's still not even over yet.

I'll wait.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was for full communion with the Lord eternally.

From where I came.

For whatever reason, I'm feeling very sentimental about the past lately.

Actually, I know why. I've been reading old notes and poems to my girlfriend lately, notes and poems I wrote long ago. I've been copying them from Facebook into my (very private) notebook of writing entitled "The Dream That I Dreamed" ...Sound familiar?

Anyway, it's interesting to relive, through my old writing, the thoughts and views I held at earlier points during the past year or so of my "Great Growing Up" as I will call it for the sake of convenience. To tell you the truth, reader, if my girlfriend wasn't such an amazing person I would be awfully worried about what she would think of me in relation to some of the writing I did from late 2009 to early 2010.

It's really apparent from the beginning that all along I knew, in a hazy manner, what I was looking for. I had some ideas right about love, about God, how the universe worked...but I was too immature and had too big of a monkey on my back (in the form of a heavily addictive video game) to take full advantage of it. When I finally got the slap in the face I needed in November, things changed. But first, I was bitter for a while. You don't have to be very clever to see it in the things I wrote. But yet, the words on the page had some ring of truth to them. Reading them again, I see now that many times I was only one step away from something really wise...but I was too hurt and too out of touch with God to know what it was.

As 2009 turned to 2010, I seemed to begin to heal. I wrote a lot of poetry about peace and nature...about who I am...occasionally a poem to vent frustration. As winter waned, my poetry started to take on a new tone. I was searching for God...truly searching, not just in a fake, half-hearted manner. I began to learn who I was and who God made me to be. The hazy, vague realizations in my writing from 2009 turned to full, honest truths about my relationship with God, my relationships with other people, the nature of love, and who I really am.

And from even this point, I know I had so much growing up to do. It makes me realize that as far as I've come now, I must still have so far to go. I'll never be perfect until I die and my maker makes me so.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was that we could all grow into who we were born to be.

A whirlwind in my head.

"It's like a whirlwind in my head...but if I concentrate, I know what people are thinking all over the world. Presidents; diplomats; scientists. I can help them understand each other."

Thus says the immortal Connor Macleod at the end of Highlander. It's a good movie, and for whatever reason, I've always really liked that line from it. Maybe it's because sometimes I, too, feel like there is a whirlwind in my head.

I am not used to my life changing so quickly.  There have been long spaces in my life where my world was relatively the same. I think the longest period may have been elementary school...I can think of only a handful of moments where anything really changed much.

Yet in the past year or so my life has taken a series of rapid changes of direction. From month to month I have been a completely different person. I've really grown up in some ways. Many ways, if I can say so without sounding too arrogant or naive.

With these changes, the people I've spent my time with and how I've spent it has changed as well. Early on, I was only desperate to spend time with anyone doing anything...later, I was looking for people to help me and listen to me. After a few months of advice and self-searching, that was flipped on its head and I desired only to share what I had learned with others as much as I could. And now, something completely different.

It makes me nervous to say something so bold and assuming, but I truly believe I've finally found the sort of friendships that last for a lifetime. This is something I've been looking for all my life, and never really knew it until God brought it to my doorstep. Last night, I spent the evening with some wonderful people sharing a meal, praying, playing a game, and talking. Not to mention sharing thoughts, feelings, and experiences with a beautiful woman. :) This is the sort of thing I want to carry with me for the rest of my life. This is what I know will help bring me to God, this community, these friendships, this relationship.

When I was younger I was bullied a lot. I never had too many friends, and in high school there were a lot of people who liked me, but very few I was close with, and none whom I prayed with on any regular basis. Any connections I built with people were usually skin-deep, the kind of friendships that center around utility - who's fun, who's not. There were moments of real friendship, I'll admit, but they were rare. With a very select few, I believe I built true friendships with, but with many of these friends I find it difficult to stay in touch with and spend time with, and none of them are God-centered friendships. For a while this continued in college, and for some time I even neglected most of my real-world friendships for friendships with people around the world I met online. Sad. But now, everything is different. I'm with people who understand me, who build me up, and who I seek to understand and build up. We shine like Christ for one another, and we love it.

I've had this experience before where I live...the experience that happens when you have God-centered friends who love one another - TRULY love. But for whatever reason it's not always lasted or been quite so strong. I have a feeling that this is different somehow. I can't really explain it, but this is different. It feels favored. I don't know how else to describe it.

It must be a God thing.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was that all friendships nurtured love like a whirlwind.

Burnt bridges, bright beyond.

I am fresh as morning dew, you are pure as falling snow.

I had the most wonderful conversation two nights ago. I finally told someone who really understands me the last little secrets I have...and she did the same. Except in reverse order.

Looking back on life, I have found that a lot of the things I never understood why I had to go through have prepared me for now. I am so happy now because of those things - if they never happened, I would not be the person I am now. I would not be prepared to face the wonderful challenge of being a mirror of Christ's love to someone I truly care for. For instance, if I had never been bullied, I never would have escaped into books and writing...and in a small part, that passion has brought love into my life.

A good friend of mine told me yesterday that Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church, wrote that the prayer of agony prepares you for the prayer of ecstasy. Long ago, I prayed for God to take away my pain...but instead, through the pain I was given a chance at something better. I would still be a little boy in a man's body right now, and much less happy of a person, had I not had some pretty blistering slaps to the face.

I have burnt a lot of bridges in my life. People say "Oh, don't burn any bridges, you might want to go back!" But I never want to go back. I've ended a lot of friendships, left a lot of places, and I have absolutely no regrets. Not anymore, not now that I understand. Now that I've met someone who really understands what it's like...someone who like me, wishes to leave the past behind and become reborn to new life in Christ...I am interested in her past, in my own past, but I don't want to reflect on it as a place that has anything to do with who we are now - the past is how we got to be who we are now, only. It is a prologue; a stepping stone; a way station. It is a past life somehow connected to this one. We're like children again - fresh as morning dew, pure as falling snow.

Perhaps I'm being far too naive, but I can only see a bright beyond now. There may be hard times too, but I think they'll be like a couple of thorns in a bush of roses...I'm much stronger now too, and I pray better as well. No matter what happens now, I always have hope. If 21 years of bad memories can lead to something so wonderful, even if this "something wonderful" is gone, I know God will lead me on.

There are only a few last loose ends to clear up, now, before I ask my question...

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was for hope beyond all burnt bridges.