1hr and 8min. A Love Letter Sailed Forward

Dear Whomever You Might Be,

I miss you, but I haven't met you. Oh, but I want to...

Two weekends ago I had a pretty rough car ride home. I was driving back from a good friend's wedding. All things considered, it should have been a very straightforward and familiar drive home. Traffic was light, weather was fine, and the music was good. However, during that one hour and eight minute ride home, I had to convince myself not to take my own life. I went from deciding my fight was over, and being willing to give into the void, to convincing myself I couldn't do that and must claw my way out. I went from darkness to light over the course of that drive home.

My 31 years so far have been filled with many great things, so much to be thankful for. I've always been at my best on a team, with a pack, and with a responsibility to others. However, loneliness has always had a way of isolating out those things and making me often feel like I'm on the outside looking in. Standing in a freezing cold deluge of rain looking in on family and friends who are happy and thriving. To this point, a wedding should be a time of celebration, and that weekend was no exception. The bride and groom were perfect, a love to be envied. However, my choices and my life have always confined me into this state of mind where eventually I'm alone. Even if I'm not physically alone, I feel desolate. This emptiness weighs down on me like a ton of bricks and I must muster any strength I can to keep from being crushed beneath the weight. Two weekends ago, that void, that emptiness, it crushed me. I had to hold it together until I had dropped a friend off at the airport and as we said our farewells, I watched him walk into the airport and whispered to myself "Goodbye, I'll miss you man". Thus began the longest hour and eight minutes of my life. I was broken, I still am, but I had given up at that moment. I tapped out. I have persisted through life so long alone. The pains of my past added on to the weight and I had nothing left. I staggered into the fray of my mind unarmed, alone, and content that I had fought a good fight, but was done.

I did title this a love letter, so bare with me.

Wherever you are, hopefully you don't come across this letter before I intend to read it to you. I'm putting it here for a timestamp and to remind myself of this moment, this decision. But, Even if you do, I hope that on the day I do finally read it to you, you'll appreciate the gravity of this one hour and eight minutes, and how you intervened within it. I don't know you yet, at least I don't think so, but none the less, thank you.

I began a plan. I first thought of what I would say to my family and friends, the individual videos I would send. It's not any of their faults after all, not remotely. As Dave Grohl once said of Kurt Cobain's suicide: "Sometimes you just can't save someone from themselves." But before everything was finalized in my head, I was saved. You see I don't know you yet, but my God do I miss you right now. As I played the mental game of "give me a reason not to do this. Give me a reason life is worth it" and the Lord whispered back: "She is, and I am"

I had no immediate rebuttal. I wanted so badly in that moment to give up on the immensity of love, but I couldn't. Please don't, but if you scrolled down through each of the posts on my "blog" that spans 10 years at this point, there are 3 constants for the most part. Faith, Hope and Love. These are three things no living version of myself could ever give up on. The path of life for each of us goes all kinds of directions, and certain pivotal moments in our lives take longer or shorter to get to than they do for others. But at that moment, right then, I was reminded that somewhere out there was a novel in a sea of magazines, a needle girl in a haystack world, a rose red in a lifetime of black and white. You. The truth of the matter was, to me you deserve to be happy even more than I do, and giving up on that was something I simply could not do. At this moment, as I type this, I don't believe I deserve a yes from you, but hopefully by that time I will have. All this time, for over three decades, I believed I loved the idea of you, but during that hour and eight minutes I realized it was You. Its always been You the Lord has pointed me toward. Through trials and tribulations, through my aimless wanderings in the dark, my salvation and You were always His plan for me. A plan promised in Jeremiah 29:11. "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." Because I believe that plan in the broken core of my heart, I will press on, I will find you, and I can't wait for His plans for us.

Our love story has been a long time coming for me. But I just wanted you to wholly understand that I've dreamed of "us" my entire life, and it is by God's will that it has come to fruition. I promise you on this day to try and better myself every day when I can. To be worthy of the journey that has brought us both here. I promise to love you fiercely, with every fiber of my being, and to continue to write our love story together. A love story to rival the ages. If I have learned anything about love in my lifetime, it is that true love, the kind that endures, is a love that forges two souls into one. "I" becomes "We", and "Me" becomes "Us". A duo fused together, braced against the tempest of the world. I will do everything in my power to bring that into our reality. I will submerge myself in the ocean of God's grace, to be brought back to life through Christ, and I will do this for us. I will latch onto a verse that has carried me through the hardest days of my life, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed."

I cant wait for that day, whenever it will be. Until then, know that I miss you, that I love you, and I'm trying my best. I'm not remotely perfect now, and I won't be then, but I'm trying. I promise with all of my heart that I'm doing the best I can.

For now, I will metaphorically fold up this Love Letter into a nice paper air plane and sail it forward through time to you; for that day.

Thank You for being You, for this, and Thank God for that one hour and eight minute drive home.

“It was a comet. The boy saw the comet and he felt as though his life had meaning. And when it went away, he waited his entire life for it to come back to him. It was more than just a comet because of what it brought to his life: direction, beauty, meaning. There are many who couldn't understand, and sometimes he walked among them. But even in his darkest hours, he knew in his heart that someday it would return to him, and his world would be whole again... And his belief in God and love and art would be re-awakened in his heart. The boy saw the comet and suddenly his life had meaning.” ~Lucas Scott, One Tree Hill

This post is 100% post dated. It was drafted somewhere around Dec 2013 and Jan 2014. I never posted it probably for fear of someone I didn't want finding it. No longer have those same fears in 2017, ha. Currently starting a 2017 post that hopefully I can have up in a few days.

All I Want Is To Be Happy...

Had to post this somewhere, but not somewhere everyone would see it and ask about it.
So I figured this was the one place no one would find it, but I'd still have gotten it off my chest.
Also, I avoid incriminating titles and language so no one else gets dragged into my mood swings.

Dear blog that nobody reads,

First and foremost, in regards to the complete lack of any relationship over the last few years: you'd think after making a career out of both being made to feel and setting myself up to feel this way, that I'd both be used to this feeling right now, and pretty numb to it. Well you'd think wrong. Still sucks. It's really not anyone's fault but my own. Having both rushed and jinxed something that I promised to let play out. But what else is new... Well, the fraternity I'm pledging (and re-founding at the same time) is new I guess. Well anything that's happened in the last few years is technically new because I suck at actually documenting my thoughts like I thought I would...

Either way, the fraternity... is a fraternity. We make a lot of bold claims and hold our heads up high like we are so different from the others, but I don't see it. Not yet. I walked away from our biggest fall event not even wanting to be a re-founding pledge anymore, ready to turn in my pin. Luckily (or something like that) it was a 4 hour drive home and enough to change my mind. My text to my "big bro" was:

"I feel awful. Like that should have been fun right? For me it really wasn't. The parts I enjoyed were getting to see and sit down with you, meet my twin and your roommate, and get to know some of our sister sorority... I feel like I'm more disappointed and aggravated at my brothers than I was before we left. Completely looked down on and treated lowly by the actives who are complete strangers to me. We didn't really come close to winning a game or having teamwork, I'm hoping my ankle and knee aren't actually messed up (because I still don't have health insurance), and to top it off I'm just further behind than I should be in classes and the RA job... frustrated 

Idk, I just feel the way of Jesus is about love and grace and welcoming people in. Not exclusion, humiliation, pride and hubris. Those are stumbling blocks. I can pretend to understand how a freshman or younger person might not recognize such qualities but I personally feel like we're doing it wrong. And it makes me question if it's something I actually want to be a part of..." ~Sat, Oct 19, 2013 9:19PM

To which I received a very encouraging response (that I will not directly quote without permission) about seasons of being further or closer to Christ, and how our chapter was in fact our chapter. It is up to the 9 of us to decide what kind of brothers we want to be and how we want our chapter to run.

This kept me motivated for a few weeks, 3 to be exact, at which point I was starting to lose motivation again. At which point my "big bro" asked me what motivated me to stay in the fraternity. My response was:

"A hope for the future. To know that regardless of what I'm feeling, or my impression of some of the chapters or actives (based mostly on the fall event) that this fraternity is in fact something worth the time and effort; something worth joining. Also that our refounding of it here means good things for many generations of young men to come. And the greatest motivation is just how much I've come to care for each of my 8 brothers individually. We're so spread out in age, major and personality but Jesus brings us together and in just 2 months we have truly started to bond to a place that I'm not willing to just walk away and let them down."

Received some more uplifting words that encouraged me to keep my head up and remember that what I was starting was a small role in a much larger picture.

Less than a week later, with my final test before initiation and a very important meeting tomorrow, I was yet again feeling discouraged, this time realizing a little more specifically why. To my "big bro" again:

"Feeling so discouraged today. Honestly just kinda over the fraternity and the hardest parts of pledging for the 9 of us are what actually remain...." ~Sat. Nov 9, 8:17PM

to which I was asked "what made today so hard?"

"Nothing specific. Just to the point, and probably encouraged by this splitting headache that I have, that the drive behind it feels gone. Keep reaching for more wood to stoke the fire and realizing it's down to twigs and bark with 2 months still to go for us. Scratching my head and trying to convince myself that it's worth it."

The response, while almost certainly intended to be encouraging, missed by a long shot in terms of offering words that validated my hopes and weeded out my worries. And so here I sit, not studying for my final like would probably be beneficial, but instead writing this all out because I had to get it organized into one actual collection of thoughts. Had a good conversation today with one of my brothers, but nothing that helped convince me that my worries were not valid, and that this was in fact much more than I was seeing. A conversation that was followed by another conversation that was the most sly and graceful way of being friend-zoned I have personally received in my life, so that was fun... It'd be pretty easy to blame other people for feeling this way. Pretend like their teasing and talking about it scared her away. Or that nobody can in fact keep their mouth shut about something even when asked to by a friend. But really, the bulk of the responsibility here is on me, so I'll carry it.

Completely changing gears. I remember being a sophomore in high school (Summer 2004), sitting outside a gym in the foothills of Montana. 3 days into "Americas Toughest Wrestling Camp: Mentally, Physically, Spiritually" EternalWarrior. They weren't kidding. Here I sat after a conditioning practice, crying because I had never been so drained: physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. I was drenched in sweat from head to toe. My entire body had abrasions both from wrestling and from running, swimming and working out in the mountains of Montana. How on earth was I supposed to make it through this? How on earth was I supposed to survive 12 more days of this grind. I opened our devotional book and read a few of the pages, one of which talked about doing one thing when nothing else makes sense. PUSH. Pray Until Something Happens. Touche God, touche...

"Anything else going on with you?"

Note: *If you are unfamiliar with depression, this will be a quick glimpse into that world*

Truthfully, I'm about as miserable as I've been for as far back as I can remember. There are multiple reasons why and I'm not really looking to blame anyone or anything. I don't really want to burn bridges but it's also exhausting to maintain friendships with many people who essentially just don't give a shit (this will happen to all of us at some point, repeatedly, throughout life). This essentially stems from the fact that I have major trust issues with people. I put on a mask every morning so my world doesn't flip out that I'm slowly going mad. The world is ahead & completely open to me and I want none of it. My faith is rocky at best and that has left my heart empty. Sitting here in this void, not for the first time, I'm reminded just how much the darkness compounds and it terrifies me. I have never felt so valueless in my whole life, never so unnecessary or unwanted. The easiest way out isn't one I'll commit to, so instead I'm going to have to work this all off. It's going to take time, it's going to suck, and when I finally climb out of this damn hole again I'm going to just be sitting at the top of a pit of darkness, all by my lonesome, wondering what made me climb out in the first place. So I'll slowly start to slip back in, and the whole pattern will repeat again.


That's what's going on with me...



Jimmy Eat World - My Sundown "..I wanna be so much more than this..."

From The Storm...

Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

“Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels[a] shouted for joy?

“Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?

“Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,
that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?
The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
its features stand out like those of a garment.
The wicked are denied their light,
and their upraised arm is broken.

“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.

“What is the way to the abode of light?
And where does darkness reside?
Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
Surely you know, for you were already born!
You have lived so many years!

“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow
or seen the storehouses of the hail,
which I reserve for times of trouble,
for days of war and battle?

What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a path for the thunderstorm,
to water a land where no one lives,
an uninhabited desert,
to satisfy a desolate wasteland
and make it sprout with grass?

Does the rain have a father?
Who fathers the drops of dew?
From whose womb comes the ice?
Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
when the waters become hard as stone,
when the surface of the deep is frozen?

“Can you bind the chains[b] of the Pleiades?
Can you loosen Orion’s belt?
Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
or lead out the Bear[d] with its cubs?
Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God’s[e] dominion over the earth?

“Can you raise your voice to the clouds
and cover yourself with a flood of water?
Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
Who gives the ibis wisdom
or gives the rooster understanding?
Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
when the dust becomes hard
and the clods of earth stick together?

“Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
and satisfy the hunger of the lions
when they crouch in their dens
or lie in wait in a thicket?
Who provides food for the raven
when its young cry out to God
and wander about for lack of food?

“Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn?
Do you count the months till they bear?
Do you know the time they give birth?
They crouch down and bring forth their young;
their labor pains are ended.
Their young thrive and grow strong in the wilds;
they leave and do not return.

“Who let the wild donkey go free?
Who untied its ropes?
I gave it the wasteland as its home,
the salt flats as its habitat.
It laughs at the commotion in the town;
it does not hear a driver’s shout.
It ranges the hills for its pasture
and searches for any green thing.

“Will the wild ox consent to serve you?
Will it stay by your manger at night?
Can you hold it to the furrow with a harness?
Will it till the valleys behind you?
Will you rely on it for its great strength?
Will you leave your heavy work to it?
Can you trust it to haul in your grain
and bring it to your threshing floor?

“The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully,
though they cannot compare
with the wings and feathers of the stork.
She lays her eggs on the ground
and lets them warm in the sand,
unmindful that a foot may crush them,
that some wild animal may trample them.
She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers;
she cares not that her labor was in vain,
for God did not endow her with wisdom
or give her a share of good sense.
Yet when she spreads her feathers to run,
she laughs at horse and rider.

“Do you give the horse its strength
or clothe its neck with a flowing mane?
Do you make it leap like a locust,
striking terror with its proud snorting?
It paws fiercely, rejoicing in its strength,
and charges into the fray.
It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing;
it does not shy away from the sword.
The quiver rattles against its side,
along with the flashing spear and lance.
In frenzied excitement it eats up the ground;
it cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds.
At the blast of the trumpet it snorts, ‘Aha!’
It catches the scent of battle from afar,
the shout of commanders and the battle cry.

“Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom
and spread its wings toward the south?
Does the eagle soar at your command
and build its nest on high?
It dwells on a cliff and stays there at night;
a rocky crag is its stronghold.
From there it looks for food;
its eyes detect it from afar.
Its young ones feast on blood,
and where the slain are, there it is.”

The Lord said to Job:

“Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?
Let him who accuses God answer him!”

Then Job answered the Lord:

“I am unworthy—how can I reply to you?
I put my hand over my mouth.
I spoke once, but I have no answer—
twice, but I will say no more.”

~Job 38-40:5

The Shortest Post Ever.

The Shortest Post Ever.

I love the mountains... but I'm more afraid of being alone.

And thus I remain torn in two. Half of me constantly wandering off into the wild, and half me of searching for someone to take with me so the wandering has value. For what good is all this beauty, this perfection, if I have no one to share it with?

"Sometimes you just can’t save someone from themselves."
~Dave Grohl, In response to Kurt Cobain’s suicide

Psalm of Adoration

This is my Psalm of adoration to God.

Inspired from Psalm 73:28.

In your love there is infinite embrace.

In your arms, a comforting warmth.

Your words give hope, you are my inspiration.

For I have seen and walked among those

who choose to reject your grace, deny your voice.

We walked a barren desert, thirsty, lost and void of purpose.

Yet you, my beloved, always waited just shortly away,

Arms open wide and ready to receive me.

And the longer I ran, dehydrated and dying

the longer I yearned for your comforting passion.

I returned to you so dry that the tears could not flow.

My parched lips, cracked and bleeding, could scarcely utter

words of apology. Yet there you stood, arms outstretched, smiling

for your child had come home.

How immense this love. How glorious your flawless voice.

Your shelter is safe and secure, your loving arms a fortress to my brokenness.

For I know the barren land, and all of its destruction.

But as for me, it is good to be near God.

Tomorrows a New Day

Seriously? I haven't blogged since December? How craptastic of me. Well I have a headache and I am quite tired from a full day, but I've decided to start blogging daily (or close to) so here goes nothing, or something. We shall see.

I came to a conclusion the other day. That we keep far too much from each other. People get so surprised by others and have this lack of trust, simply because people are flat out not being open and honest with each other. I'm not saying I am going to start going around telling the world secrets that people have confided in me. After all, those thoughts were confided in me, not the world. Myself on the other hand, I'm kinda over only telling people what they want to hear. I see absolutely no reason why I shouldn't hurt, laugh, love, and talk out loud. I'd rather know that nobody accepts me for an honest person, than live my accepted for things that are not entirely true, or are simply sugarcoated.

Anyhow, my current praises are to the fact that I have 2 jobs now. One being Sport Chalet in Temecula and the other being a mixing-pot of things for an Engineer.(Anything from running errands to website design). YoungLife is incredible. Inspiring, encouraging, and a boat load of fun all at the same time. My growth group is incredible, especially the guys. Being able to hurt out loud with them and be fully open, honest and trusting has been possibly the biggest blessing in some time. Family has been super supportive of my hobbies, and especially of me while I was in the recovery phase of losing my job and looking for others. Still burn too much free time on WoW, oh well. My biggest worries right now are making sure I finish out Palomar strong, and even more so start off strong wherever I end up in the fall. Still have not heard back from CSU Montery Bay, or CSU Long Beach. Keeping my fingers and toes crossed there. Biggest weight on my heart lately has been the continued breaking and failure to break, of sinful natured bad habits that are rooted in a time where I was choosing to walk my own road. Continuing to try and power through it all, even with trip-ups, stumbles and full on wipe outs. One of my closest friends is moving away in May, not super stoked about that. Fallbrook wont be the same without him around to hang out with. I think my bed just called my name so I am going to go see what it wants from me.

P.S. I dont remember the last time I went to bed before midnight, crazy. I blame this headache and being up for like 15 hours.

Ciao for now.