Emotional Destiny.

Emotional modesty is something I never really understood until recently.

To be honest, I think it is underestimated in Catholic circles how much guys need to learn this lesson. I had to call up a guy who graduated years ago to explain it to me because I was having so many problems with it.

I am an emotional being, and I'm male...and I'm constantly looking for people to share my emotions with. But it's caused problems.

One problem is the one from my last post - that I keep getting emotionally involved with people whom I did not intend to...and then I need to let them go for a while. Not a very healthy process.

Another is that this blog has become a sappy outlet for my feelings. It's not what I originally intended it to be: a place to chronicle my dreams and life lessons. Furthermore, at least one person has felt like they were singled out by one or more of my posts. I sometimes forget that there are actually people reading this blog regularly. I must admit, on more than one occasion I've questioned my own judgement about writing this blog. Although I disagree that it contains the same things that I would write in a diary, I talk about things in my life vaguely enough that it can be interpreted to be passive-aggressive communication. It's unfortunate, because the intention was to actually make it indecipherable so that I could communicate the feeling and the lesson/moral without anyone being able to feel like they were being targeted.

I think writing posts when I'm feeling good is something I need to get in the habit of. I wanted to chronicle my triumphs, not my sadness. My latest triumph is that I am finally bringing my friendships back to where they need to be - and viewing them as they are. I am happy with this...it's been a hard-won lesson.

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

The circles of this world.

"Let us not be overthrown at the final test, who of old renounced the Shadow and the Ring. In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! We are not bound forever in the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory." - Aragorn, the Lord of the Rings

The final test. I have often attributed that phrase to anything I have to do that is very difficult. It is such wishful thinking. That one final act can, if I succeed, lead to happiness. I never truly expected eternal happiness. Not in this life. Just wishful thinking is all it is.

I notice that consistently the things that I love most about my life are taken away from me. Every time I think I've gotten something I might not have to give up, I must give it up, for some greater good. Or for what seems to be no reason at all.

I have had such good friends...such good and wonderful friends...and it seems as though none of those friendships will ever remain what I want them to be. Perhaps it's selfish of me, but I know how I feel. Hopefully someday I will look back and realize how silly I was, and how much happier I am having much fewer and much shallower friendships (as seems to be the direction all this is headed), but that is not how I see the world now. I was starting to get used to this idea. I was starting to accept that my friendships may not ever be what I want them to be, and that I could just love people however I was able.

And now, I don't even have that anymore.

My love, it seems, has been imperfect. Not just "normal human sinfulness imperfect" but imperfect in how open I have been emotionally, especially with women. It is something I have suspected but ignored for a long time, and finally, I asked the truth. I asked for the truth where I knew I could get it - from two different people - and I received it. The worst part of giving up something you value so much is knowing that you have to - that you are not mistaken.

Yet another treasure I am giving up for the Lord, and I only barely understand why. I only know that I am loving certain people so much more by holding myself back than by doing what I would like to do. I only wish I had some other way to get my feelings out. I wish I didn't have to keep doing this sort of thing. It just never ends.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to move beyond the circles of this world.

"Nobody said it was easy..."

"Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry, you don't know how lovely you are..."

I think God made all people equally beautiful, but some people he made it more easy to see...There is nothing that makes me want to love myself more than when I see someone else needs my love, especially when I know how beautiful and special that person is.

Last weekend it was easy to love myself because I was loving a friend of mine. I've only met this person twice now, but we've kept up a nice phone/internet/mail correspondence for a long time now. My friend is a beautiful and amazing person, and I'm so lucky to know her, but sometimes she doesn't see what I see. Hope seems hard for her to hold onto because of how others have treated her. Between having fun doing things like shopping (cool shopping, like books and petting dogs and cats at Petsmart, not lame shopping like going to try on clothes) and watching movies, I told her how I saw her and her place in the world. It made me cry at one point because I don't think she believed me when I told her how she was destined for happiness.

During my drive back home today, I was touched by the song "The Scientist" by Coldplay. It put into words a lot of the feelings I was re-experiencing because of last weekend. I find so many people, especially women, who don't seem to understand how beautiful they are. Their beauty isn't a physical thing, it shines out from the inside, from their goodness, what makes them unique in the tapestry of life. But it's usually not prudent for me to share my feelings with the women I know. They would take it as a come on...so I'm forced to just paste the song here and hope they find it:

Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are

I had to find you
Tell you I need you
Tell you I've set you apart

Tell me your secrets
And ask me your questions
Oh, let's go back to the start

Running in circles
Coming up tails
Heads on the science apart

Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard

Oh take me back to the start

I was just guessing
At numbers and figures
Pulling the puzzles apart

Questions of science
Science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart

Oh tell me you love me
Come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start

Running in circles
Chasing our tails
Coming back as we are

Nobody said it was easy
Oh, it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard

I’m going back to the start...

 There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was that you knew how lovely you are.

On love and honesty.

Have you told someone you love them today?

I love to tell people that I love them. Especially because it's true. I love a lot of people, and I'm not afraid to say it to their face. Often times though, the response I get is a look of confusion and words that basically mean "This is awkward, where did this come from?" And then I feel pressured to agree and pretend it was said in humor.

This, I believe, is a tragedy. Why? Allow me to answer with a story. I believe my mother died without truly knowing how much I love her. I allowed this to happen because saying "I love you" regularly and in such ways as to truly express how much I meant it never crossed my mind. This is a frequent source of guilt for me. Don't let it happen to you! People you know today may very well be gone tomorrow. I knew my Mom was dying for months and I didn't do anything. Don't make my mistake.

How many people do you know and love who have no idea or might need reminding from time to time how much you care that they are in your life? Don't be afraid to say so. It might mean more to them hearing it, than it means for you to say it.

Being a college student living with college students, I'm prone to hearing a lot of excuses. I am not innocent of this, but I feel as though I'm more aware of it than others. People say that they don't have time to do or say something that might take them less than a minute and have a great impact beyond themselves. Such as telling someone they love them, even if they have been too busy to spend time with them. Don't just pass by a friend's door if you have been very busy...maybe they'd like to know the reason you don't talk to them anymore is because you're busy, and not because you don't care about them anymore. To some this might seem like a silly assumption but it's a reality...people can feel that way.

That being said, make sure that you mean the things you say to people. If you tell someone you trust them and feel like you both could talk about anything, don't stop talking to them for no reason. You will have made yourself a liar. If you tell someone you like spending time with them, don't stop spending time with them for no reason. You will have hyped up your relationship with them, only to disappoint them.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was that we were all open and honest about our feelings.

How this began, and the meaning of "There Was a Dream"

A long time ago, there was a blog that no one read. That blog belonged to a younger me with an entirely different but related life. Long story short, lack of readership meant lack of motivation, and that blog is lost even to me now.

Regardless, I still love to write, but most of my writing is poetry that has been shared to some extent, but a lot of the best pieces I've shown to only a few, or no one at all. Blogs, however, have been something I always wanted to return to, but couldn't bring myself to try it. Why? Quite simply, I felt I already had one. Every once in a while, I'd write a note on Facebook. That was my blog, and it was yet another blog that went relatively unread.

However, I wasn't entirely honest with myself. Most of my thoughts that I could write a page or two on (and possibly make into a Facebook note) stay in my head and then are forgotten before I write them down. Not only that, but I wasn't giving myself much of a chance. It's true that my writings might not become the choice of read for millions, but it might become the choice of read for a few. And that's worth writing for.

After all, the only 100% chance that my blog is a failure is if I never write one.

That being said, I suppose I should mention that a friend of mine did tell me I should write a blog. I haven't a clue why. She's read some of my poetry, so I'm not sure why she thinks that my prose will be any better (just kidding, my poetry rules). But she did mention that she has one and people comment on it. She thinks her writings are boring too, and even though I disagree, it IS something we have in common about blogging. So that's an encouraging thought.

One last thing - I'm sure people are wondering about this blog title. Sounds a bit dramatic, like I'm some kind of pretentious emotional mess. Well that's true that I'm an emotional mess, but I'm not pretentious and I can explain the title better than that. There Was a Dream ultimately comes from the line "There was a dream that was Rome...it shall be realized" from the movie, Gladiator. The line is said as Maximus (spoiler alert), the general turned gladiator, after successfully killing the tyrant emperor who ruined his life, reinstates the republic, the DREAM that was Rome, and then dies.

The line has served as some inspiration to me. Maximus is a man who was "the greatest general Rome ever had" but yet, only desired to return to his family and his farm. Yet, the Emperor wished for Maximus to succeed him, because Maximus' humble intentions were the means by which the republic could be restored to Rome. Before Maximus could be named his successor, however, the Emperor's son kills the Emperor and becomes the new emperor by default. Maximus is ordered to be killed, but escapes, finds his wife and son dead, and is sold into slavery as a gladiator.

Yet, even while death seems such an easy escape, Maximus perseveres to not only become an incredible gladiator and leader to the men around him, but using the influence of the crowd manages to become more powerful than the emperor himself, goading him into a fight and killing him even while he himself is mortally wounded because of the tyrant emperor's tricks. With his dying breath he fulfills his promise to the deceased emperor: "There was a dream that was Rome...it shall be realized."

Everything he loved was taken from him, but yet he continued to live to fulfill a promise, and a dream. I sympathize.