detached

3-D. detached, disconnected, dry. that's how i feel that my relationship with God has been lately. i can't understand it. i want God to be there in my life. i want to feel his presence. but lately, i have felt so so so alone. i wonder if it's because i'm just experiencing a "dry season." i talked with joe today about it. and he said most people go through this series of ups and downs in their relationship with God. but i've never heard of it until lately. i also met with jasmine yesterday and she said that her connection with God became dry for about a year. i think God uses this as a filter to strain out the people with an external faith with people who have a true faith.

the worst part is that tomorrow, we leave for a retreat. i'm a counselor. a leader. and i'm not prepared to spiritually guide and lead my group. i need God.

a poor return on the most important investment

i've really been thinking about my future life. not my future career, but my family life. and i've been mentally comparing and contrasting that imagined family to my current one. this led to an in-depth analysis of how my parents raised me.

i think everything went fairly well, except for two things.

1) manners - i've always been a well-mannered child and adult. or at least that's what i've been told and what i like to think. but there's a deeper level to it. there's manners to superiors (good at it) and manners to peers and equals (not so good at it). i continuously analyze my previous conversations later in the day. i sometimes say things, i know later i shouldn't have said, and i think to myself, "why the heck did i just say that? that was mean, rude, and cruel!"

2) showing me love - my dad never directly said he loved me. he would always say it indirectly or try to show it some other way like granting me a lot of freedom growing up. i vow to always remind my children that i love them. i really really want them to grow up in a christian quality environment. i never had it growing up, and i only discovered later in my life.

anyway, the point of this is, my parents consider me an important investment to their future and old age. i suppose they figured that i would take care of them in the event that they could no longer take care of themselves. and although i love my parents, i don't like my parents. i could not be around them and i'm not sure how i would feel about being forced to contribute to them financially.

to be continued...

lonely for people

you would never be able to guess this by just hanging out with me, but i am a very lonely person. not lonely for a girlfriend or a pet or anything like that. but lonely for people in general. this semester, and actually, probably since summer, i have noticed that i am missing people in my life. sure i have acquaintances. and way more than most people. but i don't have that many close friends. i yearn for someone i could just call up and say, "hey, let's watch a movie!" and lately, the number of people i could do that with is dwindling and dwindling.

in the last six months or so, i have become sort of a hermit, retreating into my apartment and rarely coming out of my room. as a direct result of that, i do not see people as often as i used to. and when i do, it's usually awkward and difficult. because of that, i try to avoid contact with people by staying in my room. it's a vicious cycle, you see? albeit, my room is very very cozy and comfortable so even if i was more social, i would spend a lot of time in my room anyway.

mv is my best friend at this point (again) and i truly treasure his friendship. i have great conversations that both of us find very enjoyable. as he says, "it's never a dull moment when we're hanging out."

now that i think about it, a girlfriend, or better yet, a dog would alleviate my loneliness. but that is not a viable option for me. possibly in the future, but for now, i think i am going to have to learn to live with it.

doomed to remain single for the rest of my life

I recently realized that I am doomed to remain single for the rest of my life. Depressing, I know. But I can explain.

I have been in love with a girl for many many years. Probably around 6. It's slowly dawning on me, that this girl probably doesn't care for me in quite the same way I do for her. Not only that, she's a very good friend and I don't want to be that guy that hits on his friend and loses the friendship.

I don't think she would very happy with me and truthfully, I don't deserve her. I thought I was ready to ask her on a date last month. Then I realized, I will never be ready to ask a good friend on a date. I want everything about it to go perfectly. I had everything planned. And then, I chickened out.

To continue, the reason I will be doomed to remain single for the rest of my life, or at least, a very long time, is because I refuse to lower my standards. So far, no other girl has come even close to comparing to my friend. Anything else will make me feel like I'm settling. And this is not how I feel about it right now. This is how I have felt about it for over a year. I've thought about it a lot. And I know, if I ever meet anyone else, I will always wonder what my life would be like if it was my friend I was with instead of whoever I would be with.

i am a terrible person

so this weekend, daniella, my friend from CMU stopped by in atlanta because her flight was canceled or something and she needed a place to stay the night. me, being the gracious host that i am, offered to let her stay in my apartment for the night since i don't even sleep on my bed. i wanted to see her and catch up since we haven't seen each other in two and half, maybe three years. but the real reason was because i was lonely and just wanted somebody to talk to.

daniella had a boyfriend. they had been dating about a year i think. she climbed off the bed, down the ladder and asked me to pull out the futon. as we were sleeping together, we started to cuddle, and things progressed from there. i'll spare the details, but we stopped before we went too far.

the point is, she is the second girl with a boyfriend this semester, that i have hooked up with. what am i doing?! how the hell am i seducing these girls with steady boyfriends?

i had always believed in the ladder theory for girls. if you don't know it, it works like this:

girls have two separate ladders for guys. one for friends, one for potential boyfriends, husbands, etc. now once you're on a particular ladder, it is easy to move up and down the ladder but very difficult to jump from one ladder to the other. in summary, if you're just friends, you can grow closer or farther apart. and if you're a "hook-up" you can become a boyfriend or you can be dropped altogether.

however, daniella has shattered the ladder theory for me. not by herself. but since she is the third "friend" that i have hooked up with, i no longer believe in the double ladder theory. i think one big ladder is more appropriate. with friends being closer to the bottom, and husbands being near the top.

a prayer

My Lord, God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. and I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

-Thomas Merton

If we do have visitors from space obviously they’ll know much more about the universe than we do, so we’ll ask them what it’s like out there. But I think the most important question we could ask them is ‘Do you believe in God?’

Arthur C. Clarke ( 1917-2008 )

what i want to be when i grow up

i want to be an astronaut. well, not really. actually, i just want to go to space. alone. for a few days. it is going to be so beautiful. 

i want the technology to exist. well, no. that's not right. it already exists. but i want a means for regular people like me to go.  

A Terrific Decision

Announcement: I have decided to stop drinking. Altogether. Period. 

How it happened: I went to several parties tonight and somehow along the way, realized how ridiculous getting drunk truly is. I can't quite explain how I came to the conclusion to stop drinking. But I think it's sufficient to say I did. 

Why I am stopping: Best friends. I realized that, no matter what, I want to make certain friends happy. And someone told me that probably the best way to change my lifestyle and make those people happy, was to completely stop drinking and doing alcohol related activities. As I was going around to all these different parties tonight, it occurred to me what jerks most drinkers are. Plus, it will help me lose weight. 

Best place to pick up girls - with a catch!

I have slowly and gradually come to realize that possibly the best place to see your friends or pick up chicks is – wait for it – the library from the early evening to early night. Of course, if you want to bring home one of these girls, you must wait for them several extra days because most of the time, they are there to study (really!) for some test or quiz and you’re a secondary priority to them passing school. Today, I was looking at some library DVD’s and a particularly attractive, particularly fun friend of mine recognized me and walked up to chat. As we were conversing, I thought I recognized that glint in her eye that says, “Blair, please take me home and lets party and have fun…” But what she actually told me was that she was loaded with tests and quizzes this week and wouldn’t have any free time. L You can imagine my severe disappointment. I did manage to make sure that she would spend the weekend partying with me though. So at least I have something to look forward to after everyone gets slaughtered by their exams.