Continuity of life.

I've been contemplating something lately.

I've been very happy here in my new home. There are easily multiple reasons for this: financial security, routine, the dignity of work, new friends, the excitement of relearning how to live and have fun. And I do have lots of fun.

But I think there has been a hidden reason, one that came to me after conversations with two friends. Both of them are old friends, both of them I enjoy talking to, but the difference between them is that after talking to one, I feel happy, and after the other, I feel sad. I think neither of them read this blog, which is why I feel safe saying this. But I talk to a lot of people...maybe they'll not know for sure who I mean.

Regardless, because of my history with one of them I always reminisce about what passed between us...and with the other, I reminisce because that is our relationship and what we talk about. The combination made me think about how life had gotten where it is now. I realized not only that I was not yet over what happened between my friend and I, but that I had forgotten about it for a time while I've been here. In fact, I've started to think of my life here as a new life, and not a continuation of the old. I broke the continuity in my mind, and so the painful, hurtful past felt like it never happened.

But I can't forget the mistakes and the silly things I've chosen to do in pursuing what I saw as my future. The future was never mine to choose even with all my effort - God had already picked one out for me that I clearly love. So be it. How do I keep this future bright?

I had already chosen to fast from dating for a time, likely several months, before I moved here. Recently I've added the decision that my new attitude towards dating is that I would avoid it altogether even after the fast is over. Since this future I'm living happened to me through God forcing it on me, and all of my failures were due to my efforts to prevent a future God planned for me, why not apply this to dating, and avoid women altogether? Whomever I am meant to be with will be thrust upon me whether I like it or not, and I can save myself the pain I put myself through over and over again.

Still, it's not a comfortable way to do things. I wonder if I've gone too far. I wonder a great many things. And this wonder has reduced me to silence the past few days. Thinking about this, thinking about my old life and my new life, and how it is really one life and I'm the same fool I've always been. I made my new friends uncomfortable a few days by saying almost nothing. It's eye-opening to discover by their discomfort how much I actually talk in a group of people when I am struck silent by my thoughts.

I wonder if I'll ever really figure out the grand scheme of this life, and how to get where I'm going.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to contemplate the stream of this life.

The new journey.

I find my lack of faith disturbing.

Of course, I always knew I would find I was wrong about the whole transition away from college but I never really felt it in my heart. All I knew was that I was moving away from everyone and everything I ever loved and that I was broken over it.

However, I think I'm finally sane again.

I think being in my beloved college home made me crazy in some ways. I really do. To no wonder! Think of all I put up with during college: saying goodbye to dear, dear friends every year; watching people fall in love, get engaged, get married, move on; trying and failing to gain that for myself; watching friends come and go out of my life constantly. Of course I went insane!

These days, I have already made significant strides in becoming a capable adult. Only occasionally now do I feel an overwhelming urge to call someone on the phone crying, whereas while I was up north it was daily, even if I rarely followed through. I am not nearly as lazy as I used to be, and I feel like I think clearly and with much more confidence. Overwhelming confidence! Not the norm for me.

The best part is I am much less interested in dating than I used to be. Not a day went by that I didn't think about how nice it would be to share my life with someone. Nowadays, I still have that a lot, but I also think about how good and right it is to be single right now. It just makes sense and feels like a good fit. Being single for most of college was hard! I had to watch so many lovely relationships blossom while I spent my nights alone. That was a bitter pill to swallow, especially when it was someone who I wanted for myself!

God's plan pulled through and makes sense, as it always does. I am with good people now - the people I work with, I mean. It's a good fit, plain and simple. They are my kind of people. I also have new opportunities to make lasting friendships, even though it is a much slower process...yuck! I'm building a future full of financial security, much more than I could have hoped for. If I ever have a family, that's going to be a necessity, and why not start now? My whole "I'll live in a box if it means I don't have to leave all my friends" idea...maybe wasn't so smart.

Speaking of friends, the church group seems like a dream come true. It has the seriousness and solemnity I grew to love at the beginning of college, and all the unity of purpose and emphasis on social events that I found later on. I can finally grow in my faith again, something I've felt has been lacking during the past couple years.

This is a good new journey.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to have faith in something new.

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.

Trying again.

"Despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt." -J.R.R. Tolkien

It's amazing how thoroughly clouded my view of the world around me can be when I am upset. The world can seem like such a dark place when you've gone a long time without hope of good things to come. You start to forget about the love and kindness that you are being shown by others right now. I can only say how sorry I am that I do not recognize it like I should.

Furthermore, the rather dark nature of this blog over the past year has more than once got me into trouble. Hard words can be interpreted in even harder ways. I no longer know how to reconcile my desire to share my feelings while being obscure enough to conceal my identity and the true circumstances of my life from the internet, and also being understood perfectly. It has gotten me scolded once, and now I've lost a friend for it - or rather, accelerated a disintegration of one.

I do not know how to reverse this process I am going through. It is true that I have a poor attitude. A very poor attitude, indeed. I am attempting to improve this. Already I have made progress. I have enjoyed a wedding without being focused on self-pity very much for the first time in a few years. Furthermore, I feel I have gained some measure of resolved toward rectifying my spiritual life. This is progress.

I think what is most needed in my life right now is to maintain an attitude of gratitude for whatever it is I have right now. It is useless to continue to count my losses, whatever they may be. I have a small group of people in my life that really seem to care about me. I really don't know why. I think most people I interact with I make uncomfortable or am just rather grumpy and rude. But that shouldn't matter. They are there, so they are there. In addition, I also need to be more generous and less self-focused. Of course if I focus on myself, I will  get lost in all the sad things that have happened to me. I will get lost in my worry about the future and my anger over having to let go of my passion for my vocation and focus only on my career. If I give myself to others in whatever way I can, maybe I will forget about myself altogether. Nothing that happens to me has to bother me. That is my burden, my responsibility. I can feel good about life, even if I don't know how yet.

It's just time to try again.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to start over.

A whirlwind in my head part two.

Title is in reference to this post.

"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." - Highlander

"Do you remember when 21 years was old?" - Phoenix, Countdown

The last time I titled a post like this, a lot of things were changing at once in my life. It was like a whirlwind in my head...and it's happening again. In a very similar way.

I'm amazed at how I can finally plant both feet firmly on the ground only to have God knock me off of them. In a good way, of course. Lots of really good things are happening. Jobs are still an uncertainty, but I'm not worried. I think I know what to do.

I am feeling a little old. Yesterday, I happened to walk in on an engagement party. I had no idea these two were getting engaged...scratch that, I knew they would get engaged but I had no idea it would happen this soon. I wasn't really ready. I remember when they were just arriving to college...little more than children to my eyes. They are still really only children to my eyes. And now, they are going to get married. It's stunning. And here I was, off at a bar having a couple drinks with a friend. Life is leaving me behind.

But the good news is that the life that has left me behind is no longer relevant. No offense to those that this comment applies to, but I think the generation of people I poured my soul into the past five and a half years have turned out not to be the people who would remain in my life. It's the younger people who I never planned to meet (hey, until I applied to grad school I was planning graduating and planning to move away) that have turned out to be the ones that have really been reliable. "So much of life has left me and gone on ahead, but what was behind me this whole time has been better than I could have imagined." There are some really special people I would have missed if I had continued to spend all my energy on the people who continue to move on and away from me. I'm not trying anymore - it's just not worth it. God put new people in my life and the old have been swept away. That's OK.

I am continuing to take my own advice and just doing the good that comes to me and trusting in God to take care of everything else. I am really not at all sure where I am going anymore. I am not sure where I stand with my friends, especially one special friend in particular, and quite frankly I don't think it matters that I know. Good things will come to me in time and I will know, I will know what to do when it arrives.

This whirlwind is a good one, I can feel it.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for the wind at my back.

Inside my madness; and other tales.

I am a firm believer in common insanity.

Everyone has their own little weirdness, their own quirks and little insanities. If you follow my blog, you know something of my insanity...I'm quite sure the last three posts or so have been the product of my own special insanity. If you're not sure what I mean, allow me to explain.

If I'm not careful, I can get into some pretty sick thinking.

Observe:



This is a "normal" view of time. The past is permanent, immutable, fixed. Existing only in memory. The future is full of two or more possible directions at any one time.

This is my view of time when I devolve into sick thinking. I count every time I've gone "off the mark" of what I perceived to be the "good path" of my life (marked with blue) into the "bad path" of my life (marked with red). Imagine thinking about every instance of your life where things were inevitably and irrevocably turned in a direction that impacted the rest of your life - and disliking the result. It's not a nice burden to place on oneself.

This is the kind of thinking that has influenced the past few months of blog posts. I'm sorry if it's been repetitive or depressing. I don't apologize for writing it. It was good for me.

Things are better now, because I have relearned (with some help, no doubt) a few gems of wisdom that I feel are important for me to try to keep in mind next time I start this thinking again (and believe me, it will happen). It's sad to think that I've learned all these things before and simply forgotten, only to learn again by making myself miserable. Do you hear me sigh? Here goes.

Knowing the result of everything I try to do is unimportant compared to knowing whether or not what I am doing is good. If I believe in the power of the good, I should trust in the good to take care of the rest. If I truly believe that God exists (which I do) and that he is a good God, the power of good is virtually unlimited. It "echoes in eternity." If my soul is to last for eternity, it must be tied up to the good. If I am striving for that, everything else is nothing.

Knowing who I am means knowing what I can and cannot do. I can invite someone to coffee after only barely knowing them, because I'm kinda curious about who they are, and I'm bold enough to violate any social norm to do what I want, dammit. I can't change the past because it's over and I'm not a time traveller. It means knowing my boundaries. Being assertive. No means no, no matter how many times I'm asked. It means saying what I mean and what I feel, regardless of how others may negatively perceive me.

Finally, I must accept whatever comes my way. There are two different ways to take on life: fighting to make things happen, and surrendering to whatever fate God brings me. What one needs to be happy is to do both...my problem is that I was only doing the former. A fruitless battle guaranteed to make me miserable...because if something is not meant to happen, it will not happen. There is no shame in saying "Very well then. What will be will be." I did not understand this - it felt like cowardice. No more.

This is what I've learned - take what you will.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for sanity.

Seeing the Future.

I think every man gets at a point in his life (at least once) where he realizes that the choices he is making may lead him to either exhilarating happiness or anguish. I think I am at one of these points. However, I think either result is fine by me. Allow me to explain.

Should I continue along in my prayer and discernment of my vocation, there is a high likelihood that I will end up at a point where my future is contingent on someone else's decision rather than my own. It may be a few weeks, or even a few months from now. But no matter what, it is certain that either result would leave me in tears: of joy or grief.

If in joy, well, then that's obviously great. In grief, though, there is good in that, too. I don't think people understand how wonderful sadness can be. There is a different kind of joy in knowing that you've given something your all and it didn't turn out quite the way you expected - because as long as you've done the right thing, you know you will be happy again. And when the moment comes when you've shed all your tears...those are the best days. The days when you have hope again. That is a wonderful feeling.

I will look forward to this future...I can't predict anything but I can see that whatever happens, as long as I remain in Christ there will be joy again.

There was a dream I dreamed, a dream for great hope for the future.

"You go on."

"Death, but not for you, gunslinger. Never for you. You darkle. You tinct. May I be brutally frank? You go on."

The frank, bitter, but thankfully (and finally) truthful comments of a friend(?) have led me to question my writing of this blog. What real purpose does it serve? I am quite sure I don't know, and don't really want to know. Yes, I do write of my feelings and share them on the Internet, of all places. The real question is, is it the right thing to do to write these posts? I am not positive I have any way of knowing that right now, and quite frankly I suspect it doesn't really matter whether I do or do not. The content matters.

So the content of this post is about going on. Really, I have settled into a sort of complacency with my place in life right now. Ultimately, it is a healthy, spiritual complacency. Deep down, though, I feel I miss some of the romanticism I used to espouse, however unhealthily I managed it. Life was more exciting when I let myself have expectations. Now that I have none, it seems that I just go on.

I'm not saying this is such a bad thing, considering that how things turned out when I let myself get excited about things that were ultimately not guaranteed and even improbable. There's nothing wrong with getting a little romantic about the future, so long as it doesn't get in the way of you doing the right thing in the present moment. I think that was my problem, all along. I've solved the problem by destroying the romanticism, not by just centering myself on the present.

As I write this, I suspect maybe I'm going too far. I feel as though I do have a reasonable amount of hope for happy endings in my future, but it's not quite the same flavor as the experiences I used to have in less sane times of my life. For now though, I'll leave my musing at that.

What is really pressing on my mind at the moment is friendship. I have spent so great a deal of time on this topic in the past four years or so that I am not sure what else I can say about it, but this: that I am now quite sure that friendships are not chosen, but born. They live and die, they can become sick or strong. I really wish I had come to this conclusion in another way, but recent experiences prove this fact to me, and I suppose I should be grateful.

Some friendships...well, they just go on too. So many of my own are going on in a way that makes me wonder whether I really have any at all. Why would I say such a thing, you might ask. Well, I feel as though there is really only one person in this world who knows who I really am. And I recently found out someone I trusted has secretly harbored an animosity of sorts to knowing who I really am. A repulsion, perhaps, is a more accurate term. No matter how I describe it, of course, this person would deny it. But I hear through double-speak, and it doesn't fool me.

I must say I know he was right on one account: I was a hypocrite...on one occasion. I complained that it sometimes bothers me that no one seems to really want to ask me about myself, and most of the time now when I spend time with people they dominate the conversation. I clarified that most of the time I don't mind - because I truly want to know people better. Well, I screwed up by doing that exact thing to him. However, that doesn't erase the fact I really would have liked to gotten to know him better...and really, that one time...that one time...I really needed someone to listen to me.

I don't want my friendships to stagnate. Now I have made both mistakes - I have been all the way the dominant person, and now I have been the submissive listener too. I want friendships where both people get to know each other better...not a friendship that stagnates. I want friendships that are honest - not like the friend mentioned who would have made me guess to the uttermost end that all along he was unhappy with me, instead of telling me.

I am certainly more grateful now for the friendships I have that I have clearly not chosen...because those are becoming my best friendships...to those friends reading, you know who you are.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for full, exciting friendships.

Last of the old, first of the new.

Have you ever seen the movie Groundhog Day?

The basic premise of the movie is that the worst day of the main character's life occurs on Groundhog Day. Somehow, though, every time he goes to sleep, he wakes up the next morning and it's the same Groundhog Day. He is stuck in an infinite loop. Eventually he turns that worst day into the best day, and finally is free of the loop and has a new outlook on life.

For a long time now I've been really down. My spiritual life has been the pits, I wasn't happy about the future, I was not content with pretty much everything in my life. I couldn't tell what was wrong with me. It was like I wasn't directing my own life anymore. The thoughts going through my head all the time, some of the things I said or did...it's been a hard time.

I really think I've just been depressed. The Groundhog Day idea is really appealing as it relates to the past four years. Do it all over again, and do it RIGHT this time. I don't want to move, to change, to go away. I would rather just fade away...like dust in the wind.

I'm not really sure if it's over but I feel better. I've been accepted to grad school where I've been going to college for the past four years and things are looking up. My future might be in counseling after all...so long as I really get this graduate degree.

I feel as though I am the last bastion of the old STM crowd and the first of the new. I've actually thought that for a long time. See, I was here when Creed was in its final years...and then I was here to see the new group arise. I disappeared here and there, it's true, but something's changed. Something's different. Ask anyone who has been here as long as I have...it's an entirely different flavor. Not good or bad, just different.

The last of the old. It feels like forever ago...a faded memory, that I came here to college, friendless, hopeless, and with little virtue. I remember what it was like coming here. I cried after a week because I felt so alone. That first year was a fluke. A total fluke that I ended up hanging around Creed...simply because someone invited me that I randomly met over the summer and I felt too guilty not to go...

The first of the new. I had disappeared and intended not to return...and then, I had no choice because there was nothing left for me. But it was too late to get back the time I had lost. I made the last year and a half the best of what it could be. But there will be no second chance, no Groundhog Day of repeating circumstance. It is what it is.

But now, I do have another chance. I have come back, at the turn of the tide. There is a bright tomorrow, new faces, lit for Christ. And I will be there to gain back the time I lost.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream that is the first and the last.

Glasses of water.

"Oh they say you could see your future,
Inside a glass of water
With riddles and the rhymes
Will I see heaven in mine?
Oh Oh Oh..."

I could sure use a glass of water like that.

So, I worry about the future quite a bit. What am I going to do with the rest of my life? What is God calling me to? What are my options? Sometimes I don't like to think about it.

I must admit that sometimes I have a fantasy future. This future is full of fun things like children, a home in the country, adventures in the hills, laying out under the stars with my future wife. I even wrote a story as my future self months ago which I read to my girlfriend sometimes. It would be pretty embarrassing to relate in more explicit details, but it's good writing, at the very least.

But how am I going to bring this future about? Sometimes I read it just to remind myself what I want in life. Besides the most grand adventure of reaching heaven, I have grand adventures planned in this world as well, God willing.

What will I see in my glass of water? Is it half full or empty? Am I just waiting around to fail once again, or will the stars in heaven align to give me the chance I need again to make my life what I want it - need it - to be?

"STARS IN HEAVEN ALIGN! OOH OH OH AH!"

I can't bear the thought of ending up as nobody again. When I woke up and realized I was wasting my life a year ago, I said I had failed for the last time. But if I can't get a decent job and fulfill my dreams I will have done just that. It frustrates me that I don't even know where to start. Often when I pray nowadays I pray that God will show me the way, but then I start thinking about it more and more and I can't even pray right. I'm getting attacked spiritually, that's for sure, but I just don't know what to do about it. I can't pray.

It helps to pump myself up with music. My roommate and I laugh at a video of Piccolo, a character from Dragon Ball Z, yelling after being infused with power. "I can do it! I can win! I FEEL INCREDIBLE!" It's funny, but I find myself having to do the same thing sometimes. I have a lot of help around, and my girlfriend is of course a wonderful boost to my spirits, but sometimes I just need to blare motivational music as loud as I can and get excited to do what I need to do to succeed.

I have a big problem with laziness. I hate to admit it, I really do, but I hope maybe this confession will somehow help. I hate admitting it mostly because I talk so much about dreams and hopes. It makes me feel like a hypocrite...and maybe I am.

C.S. Lewis writes that some of the most delicious souls to the devils are those of hypocrites. If I am unable to overcome this vice of sloth someday I might make a tasty meal.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was that we would never cease to look to heaven for hope and motivation.

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.

Bipolar? And other questions...

So, I think I'm bipolar.

I have proof. How many people do you know go from in tears all day one day and the next, feel completely fine? Every time I go through these phases of depression and happiness I notice something: I can't understand why I was in the other state.

When I'm depressed, I am completely convince that I have no reason to be happy. My mind is completely focused on misery, and I can't feel happy. When people are nice to me, I don't know how to respond. I can't motivate myself to do anything. I am convinced I'm worthless.

When I'm happy, like I am now, I can't understand why I was ever down. The problems I was upset about seem distant...like a dream, or like it was long ago, or happening to someone else. I love everyone. I find joy in the tiniest of things...I have a good self-esteem, I feel invincible.

It's like I'm two separate people. I don't get it.

I also think I might be done discerning the priesthood. I'm not 100% sure yet, but for a while I've been rolling the question around in my head...since last summer, actually. What is God calling me to? Marriage or Priesthood? Or something else? Well, the original reason for discerning wasn't a really good one, in my opinion. The sheer multitude of rejections by women I liked made me feel like it could be a clear message that I'm not supposed to be married - since there are really no coincidences.

Now I feel different. I have felt for a long time a great desire to give of myself to a woman, for life. That's not really a priest thing...and it's not going away, even in the face of prayers about being a priest and the continued "bad luck" with women. I think the whole women issue might be a nice post for another time, though.

The other question I'm faced with (throughout the day, in prayer, etc.) is what I'm doing after I graduate from college. I'm an English major with a Journalism minor. There is a possibility I can get a job, but I feel called to stay where I am. Work for my church as a minister. Since I wasted so much of my college life on stupid things, I feel like it would be poetic justice for me to stay here for the same amount of time I wasted: doing it right this time. But that's also a long story for another entry.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was that there could be balance and certainty.