A Couple Quick Lists

A quick thought about what I'll miss and what I'll be able to go without once I leave Boone:

I'll miss:

1. Snow days where I can wake up, check my email, and go back to sleep
2. Calling friends and finding time to hang out just 'cause
3. Having a community of believers my age to share life with
4. Having (more or less) a schedule to live by
5. Sometimes I like the homework; it gives me something to do
6. Inspiration for art assignments and feedback on my art in classes
7. Friends
8. Beautiful weather; a nice breeze and no humidity
9. Looking around and seeing beautiful mountains/creation everywhere
10. Meeting new people (in class, on the bus, at CRU, etc.)
11. Being able to go to campus or somewhere just to be around people
12. The feeling of completing a big paper/being done with a test

I think I can go without:

1. Early classes
2. The feeling of assignments hanging over me
3. Multiple tests on the same day/big assignments due on the same day
4. Not many places to park on campus/in town
5. Apartments without air conditioning/heat
6. School + Life stress

These are just a few things I've thought about real quick. There definitely seems to be more stuff that I'll miss than not. But life moves forward for a purpose. I must not try to hold the emergency break while I'm driving. It's not effective, nor is it healthy for my engine.

Halfway

Here's my heart. Or, to put it another way, here's how I feel:

It's a time of transition, as I've mentioned before. It's a time of excitement. A time of joy. But it's also a time of uncertainty. A time of sadness. I'm becoming more conscious of the people and the places that I am going to miss. I'm thankful that I'm able to have a great time cramming some final hang out time and some final journeys and excursions. I'm thankful I've been able to have some new experiences and some mind-rewinding experiences. At the same time though, they make my heart a little heavy. I don't want to leave this place. I don't want to leave these people. My life is here. What I go home to doesn't really feel like home anymore. Going home feels more like a vacation. But I also don't really want it to feel too much like home. I don't want to get stuck there. I don't want to return and my feet get stuck. This decision does not reflect the feelings I have for the people back home in the least bit. I love my family and have some really good friends around that area as well. But I really just don't see myself there at this stage in my life. I can't get stuck there, like a fly on paper. I was made for so much more than a lukewarm life. Maybe that's why I don't want to be there. I feel like I'll sink too easily into comfort and become more lukewarm than I am. I don't want that to happen.

And then there are people here. My heart nearly cracks thinking of the fact that there are probably some people I will never see again. I know it may sound unreasonable to say that but I look back on people from just four short years ago and feel like some of them are all but forgotten. How does this happen? How does such a significant stage in life just evaporate from true existence? How do people live on separately and in my life become only memories? There are several people that I don't want to become memories. There are times that I don't want to live without. Times that have heavy influences on my life. I don't want to be alone on Thursday nights instead of worshipping the One True God with my peers at CRU.

And I know that the only way to experience new things is to move on. But is it possible for me to move on somewhere while I live on somewhere else? I cannot live in two places but it's like my heart will be in two places. I don't recall feeling this way when leaving home to go to college. I felt so much potential and still felt I would see my friends down the road. But that road has become a dusty path and only a few remain near the mile markers. How do I keep that from happening here?

To put it short, but not exactly simply, I feel halfway. I know there is so much potential that lies ahead, so much joy that is still before me. But I'm just not ready to leave this all behind me. Not yet. I'm just getting to know people I care for. I'm reaching out, but perhaps I'm reaching too far. I'm stepping into lives that I want to be a part of. I'm wishing to walk alongside some who probably don't have the same intentions. Perhaps they only see me as a passing glance. Not even two arms holding. Maybe to them I am just a butterfly on their windshield of life. It was beautiful to watch me fly while we were together, but now that I've collided with them, the time has come to wash me away. If I were to stay in view, they would not be able to see all that lies ahead. Perhaps my wings no longer have a purpose here. Perhaps the time has come for me to learn to fly somewhere else.

Talking to others, I try to make it better, but it only makes it worse. I see them and enjoy their company and cannot help but to think it will soon be over. Soon we will be hundreds of miles apart. Then perhaps thousands of miles apart. Yes, we'll see each other in pictures and maybe passing glances by coincidence, but what is that? Even in moving pictures we'll see each other and talk about our lives, but is that really the same? Maybe what I'm trying to say is that I want something that I can take from here. I want someone who will tie me back to this place. Someone who when I leave, has a tear-drenched face. I want to know that someone feels like I do. I want to know that this time has been worth it and that I'll be missed. But I want to be able to come back into arms.

My arms are empty but they don't want compromise. My heart is cracked, although it's been circumcised. I'm broken within and on the way to fullness. So I'm just trying to say, this time is difficult for me. I need more than a way to get by. I need a beginning that will not forget this time. I need a way to remember and be satisfied. Will memories ever satisfy the desire to return? Will, for the rest of my life, I look back on this time?

So, to conclude, I will say this: I'm not ready to go but I'm ready to stay. Yet I'm not equipped to stay, I'm almost halfway. I'm living somewhere between where I am and where I'll be. It's difficult to tell how I feel in a sentence. But maybe someone will understand me. Maybe I'll find contentment, or it will find me...

Don't just wear a smile, Be it!

Hello world. Can we talk? I've just been lifted today. It has been one of those days where I can feel joy shining from the inside out. I have felt the joy growing from my heart, leaving through my arteries, and standing firm in my mouth. I want to share it. I want to show this love. I've had signs of love, signs of life, that have are typical of myself. I've walked along the slippery slope called love. Here, so easily, do I fall, but perhaps many times I find myself in a well of infatuation. Some of these wells are harder to escape than others; sometimes I find myself jumping back in, forgetting that the water only flows one way. My love will be a river. My love will be renewed and renewing.

Though today is a holiday, it does not feel like one. It's not that I'm down today. In fact, I've been quite full of joy today. The climate spiritually, relationally, and meteorologically has been great. But today we celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Have I done that? I wore green, not much else. But it's a great today to be living. Graduation is near, about a month and a half away. And community is here. I feel community in this place where I live. Now that I'm leaving I feel acceptance and friendship. I feel relationship with my fellow man. Life is a fisherman pulling me toward reality. I'm not ready to leave this, I still feel new discoveries. Inevitably the hook will attach to me and I will have to leave. Perhaps not outwardly will I fight the pulling line, but inwardly my heart may leave something behind.

So I'm not ready to leave, though sometimes ready to be done. Not quite ready to be gone. I see changing winds in the future, but not before a steady calm. I can smell the salt of the sea that is far off in the horizon. My life will soon be something very different, yet I will be a man made for mission. I will live out what I feel within, is there any other way to live this life. I do not wish to live a life of regret. So in due time we will see the next stage. It's an exciting transition, it's just hard turning the page.

I will leave you with a song. It may seem general, sending it out into a constantly expanding web of information, but that is not my intention. I want you to know in a very personal and true way that you are beautiful. You are the way you are for a reason. Don't change yourself because you were made with intention. You were made with an ability to love. You were made to be loved, and indeed you are. Don't let it go to your head, unless by way of your heart. Know deep inside that no one can take away the love that God has for you. No matter what you do, you are loved by One who cannot love you less and cannot love you more. His love is perfect, there is nothing that would increase it, try as hard as you wish. There is nothing that will ever cause it to leave you; all the mess of your life is washed clean in His love. Did you "hear" that? You're clean!