I see me through you.

I don't often say nice things about myself.

I had an unusually cheerful day yesterday. I saw a friend in the morning who really put me in good spirits. I've had a lot of problems with this friend in the past, which is a true tragedy because of how alike we are and what we've both done on behalf of the other out of friendship love. But in our conversation I think we reached many moments of catharsis which made sense out of many of the hurts and misunderstandings of the past year. It made my whole day bright.

A highlight of the afternoon was giving blood. I felt so good; I went in with a big smile on my face. The nurse who examined me was complimenting the quality of my health/blood and it made me giggle. The whole time I was there, talking to people, I felt like I spread happiness like a contagion. I had too much - it overflowed. The nurses were even compelled to take a picture of me: because I was giving double red (which makes you very cold) I put my gloves and hat on, and a coat and blanket to stay warm. Apparently that's not common. One of the nurses commented on my smile when she took the picture. It was the best experience I ever had giving blood.

Later that day my girlfriend took me out to dinner. No real special occasion, other than being another day with her. She gave me a present and a card, and made me open the present first. It was a book I let her borrow - I found that hilarious! The card was very sweet. It made me tear up a little bit. All in all, she was very good to me. She always is.

It's hard now to imagine a time in my life where people did not think well of me, and I tended to agree that I wasn't worth much. I read a blog by a friend where she describes being bullied when she was younger. It reminded me of long ago when I was in much the same situation. I was not well-liked when I was younger. I only ever had one or two friends and my family and I were never really close. My friend writes about how she dealt with these problems, and I find that we dealt with it all in much the same way - by taking our minds somewhere far away. It's a really good thing we're friends. I don't have a lot of people who know what being bullied is like.

I don't need to repeat how I've made bad decisions in life. It's written all over elsewhere in my blog. But because of those things I find it easy to see myself not as I am but as a person who is just a rehabilitated version of the old self. I believe something changed when I finally surpassed my limitations caused by my emotional dependencies and my spiritual ineptitude. It took a while but I think I am beginning to see the good that others see in me. That's what happened yesterday. I saw my own smile through other's eyes. I listened to myself speak with other's ears. I enjoyed being who I really was, the joyful and friendly person that I am. It's hard to even type this paragraph. It feels arrogant and forced. But it's true and it would only be false humility if I were to hide it.

I will try to see myself through your eyes, Lord. My friends help.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was for the eyes of love for all to see.

Full sail ahead.

I'm not in a relationship, I'm in a relation ship.

Dating is like a sailboat. Your ultimate destination is marriage, and if you decide you're not meant to be together, you simply jump ship. Otherwise, you sail ahead - sometimes your sails are full of wind, and sometimes you have little, or you're stuck in the doldrums. Sometimes you hit rough waters, or even stormy weather. Sometimes your ship gets sunk...and when (if?) you finally reach the harbors of marriage, there are still more adventures, happy times, and hardships beyond.

I'd like to say right now my relationship has full sails ahead. We're in what some people call a "honeymoon phase"...for whatever reason I dislike the term but can't think of a better. We get along so well, and we're happy together. But I refuse to be naive - there will be hard times. But that's good. If we can get through them together, then we'll have a deeper relationship afterward, a deeper bond, and a deeper understanding of one another.

I'm beginning to get used to not being single. For a while, this kind of sharing of life with my girlfriend was such a new adventure, something foreign. Now I feel like I'm getting settled. And I like it! I feel comfortable...like I am settling into my well-worn captain's chair. In my last relationship, which was my first "real" relationship, I suppose, the idea of running my life in line with someone else's was scary to me. I think there were two reasons for this: One, I was not ready for a relationship. Two, I was in a relationship with someone I was just simply not meant to be with. I had good intentions and I thought I discerned well, but I was wrong. God was not calling me to that...but He brought good out of it, in the form of some valuable lessons.

But this is different.

My girlfriend and I can talk forever. I can name a couple times where we lost track of time and were talking for hours and hours into the early morning. The only other person I can do this with is my best friend...but HE has known me since I was six. How remarkable.

The way I feel around my girlfriend, I feel like I can always be myself. It seems like I automatically show certain sides of myself around certain people, which I believe is natural for anyone to do, but with her I only feel like me. I am just me, without shame. She loves who I am.

I love her too.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was for safe passage for all our ships.

"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.