Currently Listening Hvarf/Heim By Sigur Rós see related

Adulthood kind of creeps up on you like that biannual dentist visit that you think is so far away.  Then one day you get a postcard in the mail picturing some dog on the front with a digitally enhanced smiling cartoon mouth telling you that your checkup is in two weeks.  Already?  Yeah, eventually things happen whether you want them to or not.

I suppose I would choose adulthood over a trip to the dentist's office, but sometimes trying to make my way through life feels like pulling teeth anyway.  In less than half a year, the decade that was my 20s will be over.  I can't be 30 already!  Actually, I can.  And will.  But I'm convinced that I'm going to be okay with it all.  When I was younger I gave myself a pep talk and decided that I was going to get older in style.  No mid-life crisis or general wallowing in self-pity.  No, it was going to be different for me.  If I happened to lose my hair or become prematurely gray, then I would just go with it.  If I started getting wrinkles it would be because God had blessed me with long life and I would be thankful.  I was choosing my attitude and it felt good.  Then.  But now it's all starting to come true and this is where the plan really takes shape.  I am losing my hair.  I am starting to get little krinkly wrinkles around my eyes and I keep thinking that I'm not even 30 yet.  Seriously.  Is this all happening already?  If adulthood is defined as looking like an adult, then I'm becoming more of an adult every day.

If I were to be rational about it all, I would admit that adulthood is much more than appearance.  It's more about maturity, and hopefully it comes with a sort of comfort with yourself and where you're headed in life (and collectively all the adults sighed, "yeah right.").  I know that there are a lot of people that never get to that place, and maybe that's normal.  I know that I'm not completely there myself, and that's why many times I don't feel like an adult at all.  I don't have a definite plan for my life.  I live month to month and wonder what changes I need to make to get me closer to being "settled".  I would love to have one job that pays all of my bills.  Right now I have three, and it gets old sometimes.  Second only to my relationship with God, I want so much to be married and to share this time with my wife.  Despite all attempts at finding this relationship, I am still searching.  I have a sense of loss at knowing that as I get older I will never have this time again with someone.  Being single has many advantages, but my heart longs for relationship.  It's part of who I am, and ignoring that desire doesn't make it go away.  Believe me, I've tried.

I'm not naive enough to think that adulthood is a destination.  Life flows through seasons subtly and many times it's difficult to distinguish one season from the next.  If there is ever a recognition of a new season, it's probably an epiphany long overdue.  Adulthood isn't the solution to a problem, as it generally raises more problems than it solves.  I'm torn on wanting to be an adult and still wanting to be a kid.  Maybe not a kid, but at least someone who isn't so stressed about the pressures of life.  Adulthood or not, I will keep getting older and hopefully keep on learning.  Maybe it's better to never strive for adulthood.  Instead, we can just be really old kids who are wise and yet still wide-eyed with wonderment.  I hope I can find that balance as life's seasons flow around me and shape me into the man and child that I will become. 

Currently Listening Singularity By Mae see related

October it is.  I always have a hard time saying goodbye to summer.  It could have been the crappiest summer ever and I would still want it to keep going for a little while longer.  I think this is due mostly to my dislike of being ridiculously cold.  Not my favorite thing.  As great as October and Fall are, they just remind me that the earth is tilting in a direction that leaves me yearning for the warmth of summer again.  As with every year, I'll get over it.

This day marks a change in my job situation, as I transition away from some of the duties that I have been performing at my church, and continue the optimistic yet urgent need for another source of income.  The "gameplan" was to have another job in place to keep my budget firmly on the tracks for now, but nothing of consequence has presented itself.  I am left to keep doing what I always do - pray and keep working hard. 

In the midst of all of this falderal, I am still content.  I mean, everyone has their moments, but for the most part I haven't minded reciting my high school's address or discussing the job duties I performed for my employers eight years ago with every hiring business in Newark.  I think it makes it even more worth it when you find a job that really fits.  I'm not sure what that looks like right now, but hopefully someday it will make sense. 

In the meantime, life is still amazing.  I want to really love the people in my life.  No relationship grows on its own.  You have to pay attention to other's needs and give as much as you can.  Give when it's not easy.  Give when you're hurting.  Give because you can.  It's easy to stay safe, but I don't want to realize when my life is over that my comfort got in the way of God's work.  May I never waste the gift that is today.

Currently Listening Young Modern see related

My hands are covered in paint.  It actually looks more like I've been making pottery - the paint that I've been using is a light gray, which is soothing my peripheral vision as I type.  Right now this paint on my hands means that things are happening in my life.  I'm moving offices at the church where I work, and even though it's right next door, I am saying goodbye to a time in my life that has held a lot of great memories for me.  The truth is that it's really not about the office.  It's about taking a snapshot of my life and realizing that even though things may never be the same, that's okay.  Painting doesn't make me sad, but apparently it makes me think.

I wish I could see time the way God does.  I'm sure it would probably really mess me up, but if I could handle it I think it would be amazing.  Years ago I had some friends who came up with this idea that perhaps all time is happening at once.  Basically, if you looked at moments in time as panes of glass and placed them sideways next to each other, they would stretch from the beginning of time until the end.  Then, you could take all of those panes and push them together until they fused into one.  You could hold it up and look through it and literally see the entire span of history all at once.  To us, we're just getting from our first pane to our last, but to God they are all right there.  There is no single moment because when you look at time that way, everything happens together. 

More and more, I feel as if my last pane of glass has already been made.  A part of me really believes that all of history has already been created and we're just making our way through it.  I'm not advocating predestination or implying that an immutable future means we do not inherently choose the path of our lives.  Does the thought of God knowing the path of my life ruin some sort of understanding of purpose or idea of free will to me?  Not at all.  I can't be arrogant enough to think that I'm going to fool God.  That I'm going to zig when He knew that I was going to zag.  I might be willing to believe that if He so chose, He wouldn't look at the big pane of glass and see what was behind and in front of this moment of my life, therefore having no foresight into what was to come.

All of this from painting a few walls.  When things change it reminds me that I'm changing.  My life is changing.  Even though I know that I will have to live over 50 more years until I become 80, I feel like part of me is already there.  The part that wants so much to remember that all of this happens just quick enough to realize that it's already over.  The moment when you wake up and wonder where your life went.  Help me make sure I don't forget to remember.

Currently Listening The Ringing Bell By Derek Webb see related

I'm not exactly sure why I picked tonight of all nights to revisit my old friend xanga.  Sure, it's a pleasant Sunday evening and I find myself at my place of work (still no Internet at the apartment...oh, someday), but I've found myself in this very same situation many times in the last few months and yet I just couldn't get my fingers to find their way to the keyboard.  I suppose that tonight is special because there is nothing at all special about it.

I have many self-examination moments in my life.  I am what you would call over analytical, therefore I spend a lot of my time processing life and how everything works together.  In the past I have held the view that everything has a purpose and meaning.  This may very well be true, but sometimes life just seems so random.  Why did that slice of tomato fall out of my sandwich and I hit my head after retrieving it from under the table?  By the way, I did not hit my head on a table recently nor do I eat sandwiches with tomato slices in them.  I still stand by the example of randomness, however.  How much of life is God's intervention, how much is Satan's intervention, and how much is us just stumbling through it all doing the best that we can?  I suppose that my viewpoint is somewhere in the middle of all of those.

I had a recent conversation with someone close to me, and we were talking about taking risks in life.  I told her that sometimes we have to open ourselves up to life - to relationships, to opportunities, to the unknown.  If we never open our hearts then we will never feel deeply about anything.  Sometimes we get crushed in the process, and sometimes we feel life in an amazing new way.  The truth is that we will never know until we become vulnerable.  It's part of the risk, and part of the beauty.  I concluded my thought by saying that it has to be worth the risk.  Even when life is painful, it is still beautiful. 

I don't think the process ever ends.  There will always be risks.  Challenges face us every day.  For the most part, it is ourselves who shape our lives the most.  We choose what we do, we choose who we know, we choose what path we take.  Even though I will never completely understand life, I do know that it is worth the risk.  My heart is open and ready to embrace the joy or the pain, because beauty resides there.

Currently Listening Day I Forgot By Pete Yorn see related

After almost three months of silence all I can do is stare blurry-eyed at the monitor and sigh.  Hmmmm...could that indicate that nothing in my life is worth sharing?  I can hardly say that that is the case.  Just the opposite, really.  There's too much to cram into this space and that is where I am at a loss.  So many things moving, changing, evolving, leaving me to watch it all spin around and through me and change me in the process.  Am I becoming more the man that I want to be?  In joy and pain, I must say that I believe I am moving in the right direction.  How can I second guess this journey?  It is so beautiful and confusing, disorienting and meaningful.  Life is just so big sometimes.  Whether I am inspired or frustrated by its immensity, I am compelled to press toward the good that is always present, the good that provides clarity and truth.  I continue to smile even when tears fall from my shut eyes.  Life is good, even when it's not.