Reeling in my sappiness.

Having lived 26 years on this earth, I feel like I'm at a point where I can look back on life with a sense of nostalgia. When you're late teens/early twenties, it's hard to justify nostalgia....in most cases, it just happened to you. But now that I'm seeing the 90s generation turning 18, I feel I'm due up for some nostalgia.

Mainly because the aforementioned fact makes me feel old and like reliving my youth.

I was hanging out with my friend Emily, she was busy getting me some old music (keep in mind, she's 8 years my junior and listens to the likes of Bob Dylan and The Flying Burrito Brothers - of Gram Parsons fame). To act as a sound filler for our hangings out, she put on an old recorded TV version on VHS of (scrawled in pencil on the side, to avoid confusion) Alice in Wonderland (Real people).

What happened next lit up my brain and emotions like none other. The movie was absolutely horrid from a writing standpoint and Alice's awkward emoting; but I was captured again as a 10 year old watching this in Mr. Hageman's 5th Grade class, studying raptly the part of the March Hare, of whose part I was to perform in front of an audience of parents. It immediately brought back the nervousness and awkwardness (and along with that the reminder that this performance was my first in front of ANYONE).

I may not be doing a good job explaining how this all made me feel, as my emotions are hard to tag, but know this:

I feel a rebirthing coming.

Silly rabbit.

Do you ever feel like you're the only person in the world that feels a certain sadness about life? That everything you are working for is mundane and lifeless?

I've been feeling this dull, far-off sense of discontent of late. Don't get me wrong; I'm happy. It's something beyond my happiness. It's tied in more with my purpose, my reason for existence. I have not always been happy, truly internally happy.

People say, if you're happy and you know it......you know, that stuff. But the understanding of happiness as I observe it is tied to externals; the circumstantial and is somewhat limited. What if happiness is a conglomeration of your desires, wants, needs, your relationships with others. Our western minimalization of emotions is maddeningly frustrating. I am subject to this as well, as I've often caught myself telling people how they feel and limiting it to a simple emotion (i.e. anger, sadness, happiness).

Maybe the way we feel is a result of all the aforementioned things and our assessment of them and our desired and experienced response. By 'desired and experienced response' I mean the multiple expressions we could possibly have and the one we ultimately express. The expression is not ultimately indicative of how we feel on the inside, but it gives others an inkling to what's going on inside.

Tied along with this, I had a thought the other day, and it scared me to death. I saw myself in light of the things I've wanted to do. I experienced this underlying sense of discontent, as I mentioned before. As if some of the the choices I've made in life, were incongruent with a different version of me.

The me I'm supposed to be.

Destiny is a tricky subject. The idea that you don't get to choose your path is a very uneasy thought for many people. But what if I continually disobey/ignore/berate the voices that tell speak the words of who I'm supposed to be in favor of my own happiness or present circumstances.

I guess what this is hopefully doing is better (or at least more fully) explaining the way I feel right now.

There you go. Confusion Central.

I'm not alone in this world.

Read this - Check out Annie's Blog

In related news - Jesus was an Extrovert? 

Who knew?

A trip back in time

One of the great things about growing up in the eighties, we had awesome books as a kid. Some of my favorites (in no particular order) are as follows:

1) 

2)

 

3)

4)

 

And the great thing is; two of these have been made into big screen movies that come out this year, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs and Where The Wild Things Are. I went to the 3D version of Monsters Versus Aliens this last weekend and saw previews for both of them. 

My heart welled up with nostalgia. I was grinning like I was 6 again and replaying the stories in my mind as if I were reading them again for the first time. Schucks. I's getting tears in my eyes.

Transient

The last few weeks I've been thinking about...well...lots of things.

1)Church
2)God
3)Job change
4)The Wife Hunt *
5)Dots (of course)
6)My physical health and well-being
7)The importance of showering
8)If moving out of my parent's house was a good move.

All of these things I have been concerned about. Did I make a right move here? Could have I spent more time saving money? Is my health directly connected to my stress level? Are Dots really worthy of being on a list of things heavy on my heart?

I don't really know. All I know, is that for me, they all point at something within me. It is an intense desire to be the best person I can (Damn it Joel Osteen. Ruined the whole franchise of golden-tongued cliches. And maybe not so much the Dots).

I have been attending church all of my life. I have been encouraged to do more within the church; that there is always something to do within the church. I have sat through roughly (i even did some rough math on this one) 1400 sermons in my life. Each of them pointing towards God. Promising (or not) that God will be the answer to all my problems, I am left with a single problem.

My problems are still there.

I've been learning that my life is not a tightly wrapped, deliciously sweet piece of Dubble Bubble. The answers and the things that we want to be are wrapped up in a cacophony of my thoughts, her thoughts, his thoughts, their actions, his actions, my actions, God's thoughts, history, culture, guilt and so much more.

Cut right through it, I've heard it said. God is all you need. My pastor asked a question to me that I constantly pore over:

Is Jesus all I need?

This question will lead me to where I need to go in this life. And that's another thing.

Not making this life about the next one.

==============================

*Not a Reality TV show

Crazy tunnels.

I think I may have found an explanation for Bipolar disorder here and here.

I'm just sayin'.

Shackles and a reversal.

I'm tired of writing words about the profound and new
There's nothing I could tell you about the world that would make your brows spur
I heard a kid say the other day that he's found a way to be
Without pretense and innocence yet maintain their state.
I thought to myself this must be a dream 'an imitation please?'
Then I sat myself right down in that chair and remembered......

It was me that spoke those words to a man twice my age
I told him he was unfair to think that there's nothing new about this place.
I've seen the world in all its glory at my tender young age
But then he showed me something that was beautiful and tame.
I said what is this thing you have and why hasn't the world seen?
He said because fear makes a man grow cold and his disbelief his safety.

And is there freedom in the shackles?
Is there life if all I have to give is it?
And do I need to be alone to give it all away?


And the man he told me "Hey, it's not a simple feat"
To turn around and let it be a lifestyle one craves.
It's a habit of making the unnatural a rehearsed natural state.
This thing is not a hobby, craze or passing phase
It'll take everything away from you, leave you broken and abused
But I can promise you there's nothing more that I want than to hear it sayed

You've done something beautiful, you changed your set ways
Yet it was not of your own doing, it was parleyed for you in chains.
For in this unnatural state you found a way to be
Completely overwhelmingly, a new created state
For all the things you've suffered in the words of my name
I'll give you a crown of glory and a place next to me.

So I take the chains quite happily for without them I suppose
I'd want to take my life within my hands and make it end in haste.
You took my life from me, in a way I couldn't see.
It scared me dearly actually and brought me to my knees.
But in this loss I found a needful thing
A new lease on life and piece of happy.