Life As It Is

When I started this blog, it was a place to rant about all the things I didn't like. Since then, I've learned a few things.
1. Life isn't really that bad, you just have to open your eyes to the good things. I've been blessed with some of the best friends you could ask for, and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

2. Life is short. A lot of times we go through life saying just that, but we never really understand what we are saying.
The last day of my sophomore year of high school, I left the building not knowing if I would ever go back there. Again, I am blessed, and I did see both the building and more importantly the people again. But now I am a quarter into this year, and where do I find myself? Oklahoma at the moment. We still have hours to Amarillo, Texas and a few days of driving after that. Our final destination? Rancho Cucamonga, California. Soon I'll be calling this suburb of Los Angeles home.
If you were to have asked me this time last year where I thought I would be, I would never have said California. Things in life have a tendency to come out of nowhere it would seem.

A month ago, Katherine gave me a mix cd. With the cd she gave me a book she had made that explained why she chose each song. Knowing this move was coming, and coming quickly, there were two songs on the cd that I connected with especially well. Ironically, they are the first and last songs.

The first song is "Hanging By a Moment" by Lifehouse. The chorus of the song says "I'm falling even more in love with you, letting go of all I've held onto. I'm standing here until you make me move, I'm hanging by a moment here with you. I'm living for the only thing I know, I'm running and not quite sure where to go. And I don't know what I'm diving into, just hanging by a moment here with you."

The other song, the last one on the cd, is "100 years" by Five for Fighting. The song follows a man through his life, and shows how he changes as he gets older. It all starts at fifteen with a crush, he gets married, has a kid, and at 99, he looms back, theres still time for "just another moment." At the end of our lives, all we can do is look back.

I started this blog not because I was angry, but because I was hurting. Now, a year later I'm looking back realizing that I wasted a lot of time complaining about the way things were. I find myself here, just outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma with little to do but think. I'm at the prime of my life right now. Most of it is still ahead of me. At fifteen, seventeen, twenty-two, most of your life is still coming, but in the end, a hundred years is short, and we're all just hanging by a moment. Life is short.

Here I am, almost a month after writing this. I would like to be the first to congratulate myself on almost a year of forgetting to write on here (im trying to fix that). A lot has happened since that first post. Some things good, others not so much. I find that this year I'm still sitting through the same

Time is running out. Eventually we'll all reach the end. Let's make the most of what's left, because we're all just hanging by a moment in these hundred or so years. So let's hang with those we love.

On fear, bravery, and friendship

Everyone has their fears. Right now, I'm afraid of getting one of my wisdom teeth pulled next week. Stuff like that is pretty simple. But let's look at some other things. I'm afraid loosing sight of where I need to be, I'm afraid of saying something stupid to a friend, and so losing them. On the inside, I'm afraid of a lot of things.

Fear, while never really good, can basically be classified as a normal part of life. But, if I may quote "Devastation and Reform" by Relient K, "Fear can drive stick, and it's taking me down this road, a road down which I swore I'd never go." In the past, I let fear become a big part of my life. The big problem was that it wasn't your everyday fear of the small things, it was fear that everyone would see how messed up my life was. I had gone through a good amount up to that point, but I had never really had a friend I trusted enough to talk to about it. I was always afraid to show my fear, because I felt that everyone would just laugh at it.

So I entered the masquerade. I became what I wanted people to see, a person who had it all together. And I use the word became extremely lightly; what I really should say is I pretended. But inside, the fear slowly ate away at me. This is where the bravery and friendship parts of this post come in.

I started talking more and more to a few people from my school. At that point it felt like I just couldn't take it anymore.

If there is one thing I've learned in life, it's that bravery isn't a lack of fear, but rather, bravery is doing things in spite of your fear. From that definition comes what has become one of my favorite phrases: "life is about learning to jump off cliffs, knowing there will be hands there to catch you; you're not going to get anywhere walking to the edge and looking down." Yes, I was scared to tell them about my life. After all, what was going to stop them from laughing at me after that? But I took a chance, I jumped off a cliff, and got caught. I wouldn't be where I am today if they hadn't taken the time to listen.

Life is full of fear. Some of our fears are big others are small, but part of life is learning to overcome our fears. Sometimes a good friendship is all we need to overcome it. I know that I owe my friends a lot.

One of the worst things you can do is pretend like everything is ok. That's where the term fictional reality came from. My definition is the lie that we lead people to believe is true. It's the mask we use to cover who we are. Fear can take you to places you'll wish you'd never seen, and sometimes the best thing you can do is talk to someone about it.

Fear is a normal part of life. Every day we go through a thousand fears - fear of failing the test, fear of losing what you care about the most, fear of being rejected.
Life is about learning to jump off the cliff, to realize that fear will always be there, but in the end, it holds no power over you.

"Scream, when the pressure breaks me, when it's to hard to say, when I feel like I'm at the end of my rope one more time."
Thousand Foot Krutch

Time

I made a big mistake this week, I wanted something. A lot.
Now, that isn't a mistake, everyone wants and deserves the same thing I do.
My mistake was that I wanted it on my time.
A basic concept that I haven't grasped yet is that life isn't about things happening on my time, life is about things happening on God's time.
Everything happens exactly when God wants it to, I have trouble remembering this sometimes. The past week has been really hard for me, and so I just wanted this, thinking it would make it easier. Instead it just made it harder, and now I have to live knowing I messed up again.
I'll find this whenever God says I'm supposed to. Not a minute before, and not a minute after.

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

i am second, because i'm putting I AM first.

Another year behind us

And so comes the end of yet another year. As has somehow become tradition, everyone is probably thinking of their new years resolutions. To me, it seems that the years are to short to accomplish everything, especially when you spend the majority of the holiday season sick. And so it seems that I never can accomplish the goals that I set for myself.
It's odd to think about, we celebrate a new year that is coming, but never seem to look back at how short life has been. I remember the start of this year, I remember setting goals for myself. It's odd to look back. Life is like a hill, it seems a lot smaller looking down. Baring some unforeseen act of God, I still have most of my life ahead of me, but even to look back at what's gone by, it all seems so short.
As I am writing this, it is five minutes to the new year, so if you will excuse me, I am off to ponder the past year, set an unreachable goal to see how close I can get, and sleep, but not necessarily in the order, and most certainly not at the same time.

Now lets see, what do I want to accomplish this year?

"I'll never be the same, I'm caught inside the memories, the promises, our yesterdays, and I belong to you"
     - Red, "Never Be The Same"

One Way

It seems like everything we have, we have a one way version. One way roads, one way mirrors, and a good amount of other things. But there is one thing that it's never good to have, one way friendships. You feel like your putting so much time and effort in, but, you never see the fruits of your labor. But sometimes you have to realize, sometimes the sweetest rewards are the ones you can't see, sometimes you just have to trust that the good deeds you do will come back around in the long run.

I have a friend. She listened when I was going through rough times in my life. She was always there, she's the reason I'm here writing this. But she often felt like she was getting nowhere, like she was getting nothing back, like she was in a one way friendship. When she told me that, I hated everything about what I had done. How could I be so stupid? How could I just sit back and not care about the needs of the person responsible for pulling me out of my own personal hell? How could she eveer forgive what I had done?

Reconciliation is a hard thing to come by.

I owe her everything, I would do anything for her. My only prayer is that she will understand this, and know that whenever she needs something, I will be there for her. I know she may never forgive what I've done. I remember a similar relationship I was in, and I still have trouble moving on. After all, I gave up a lot for that person, shouldn't I get something back?

It's been my experience that God makes everything happen for a reason. Perhaps this former relationship of mine happened so that I could know what I was putting her through? I may never know exactly why. I only know that I will do anything for my friends, and she redefined what friend is.


Friend
Noun
a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations.

Friend
Noun
Someone who takes the time to listen and try to understand. A person who will pound on stone walls with their fists tbreaking you out from the prison you have built around yourself, and who rejoices at sight of your every smile.

Thank you, I will always be there when you need me, because you were there when my nights were dark.


"The night is always darkest right before the dawn" -The Dark Knight

Ah, Christmas

Well, it's currently 10 days until every small child's favorite holiday, Christmas. A time for getting all the things you've been wanting all year. But as we get older, we all come to a realization, Christmas isn't about getting things, it's about giving, and being with family. However, sometimes it seems like we take that to an extreme, which makes us ask ourselves, is it possible to give to much? Well, no, but you can still go overboard. But that's a line you draw, not me. When it comes to buying gifts, you have several types of people, the ones who go over board, the ones who have no idea what to buy for people (that category gets divided up even more), and the people that manage to find the perfect balance. Me, I'm usually the one who doesn't know what to get people.

One thing I don't really like about this season is what people turn it into. People seem to turn it into a season of buying expensive gifts for the person their dating, or at least that's what the people I choose to spend my time with do. Now, I'm not saying that anything is wrong with that, but it can get somewhat repetitive. And then you have the people who don't seem to fit in well, who buys them a gift? Last time i checked, no one did. What makes them different? Don't they deserve someone to love them too? I was talking to my friend Austin a few days ago, while we were talking, he brought up some interesting points. Christmas is supposed to be full of joy and hope and mistletoe, but for some, it can be a very depressing time of year. But is seems that all of some peoples dreams about Christmas just get crushed, and then they spend the season wishing that someone would just acknowledge their existence. Where I live, December is a big deal in High Schools, the reason, dances, every school has their Christmas dance, which tends to set the mood for the season. But what about the people who don't go? What about the people who no one asked, so they spent all week enduring the Facebook statuses, pictures, and relationship updates? Does no one care about them? For some of those people, December is not a nice month. What about the people who only get to see one parent on Christmas? Does any love them? If it truly is the season for happiness cheer and love where is it? Where is this Joy? This Love? And where is the Happiness? These thoughts go through the head of a lot of people this month. Does no one love them? Does no one care enough about them to tell them "Merry Christmas?"

I'm not trying to sound like an authority on this subject, but I've been around the block a few times. Maybe there aren't a ton of people that feel this way, but there are some.

So let me ask you this; Why don't they deserve the same treatment you give everyone else? If you were in there position, wouldn't you want someone to love you?



"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 7:12, NIV)