Juggling

I got a call from my friend Ryan tonight, who I hadn't spoken too (directly) in like two years. It was a nice surprise.

I am feeling odd about this birthday coming up. I don't know why, this is wierd for me because I almost always know how I feel, and why I feel that way.

A little blue about this one, and I can't figure out the explanation.

wierd.

I realized the other night, while driving home from my girlfriend's house, that I don't know really anything about my mom and dad before I was born, nor do I know a lot about anything else involving my family. Its not even that I don't know a lot, its that I know it all disjointed. My parents grew up poor, really poor, with not much love given to them, or with much support. They don't speak of their youth much, more lately, but not much. Its like I have put their lives together from snippets, short sound bites, caught through open windows and thin walls. My mom is specially tight lipped. She has no family besides one sister and one mother, her sister is 11 years older than her, they had two different existances.

I don't know how my parents met, how long they dated. I know my dad lived in Nashville going to school for a while, and that he came home on weekends to race and to see her. I don't know if my mom had other boyfriends. I found out last year that my dad had a girlfriend with a son, and he thought they were going to get married. I acted aloof about it and my mom got mad because she said my dad had taken it badly...how was I to know this? I also read in my dad's yearbook about a girl who he liked a lot, maybe loved, she said she loved him. Then i read in some letters my dad wrote from nam, that she had met a boy at college and was getting married. This must have been sad.

My mother's dad died when she was 15. Her mom was crazy. I found out two years ago that my mother had to have her institutionalized because she tried to kill herself. This happened twice. My mother was 16 and alone, then 18 and alone. I don't know how she feels about this. I know she stayed a lot at a friend named Georgiana. When Georgiana's mother died last year, my mother cried a lot.

And there are more pieces, but I dont know where they fall into place, or how to order them. It is awkward to ask them, because it hurts them, but I really want to know these things, to help explain a lot about how I was raised. It is hard to know what to do.

I was thinking tonight, while looking at some pictures, about how transient people are though each others lives. Up until recently, i have had a cornacopia (or however you spell it) of people come in and out of my life for brief periods of time, however, so many of these people played a vital role in my life if only for a few months. Its like tv sitcoms, the guest star, they only come in for a few seconds, but they are the ones you remember, except for the fact, that when these friends have left, I forge that I even knew them...like I don't remember that section of my life. Because for the past 4 years or so, generally speaking, I have had the same friend group, now that we are moving away from each other, the empty spaces start to gape a little more than I remember, the chill seeps in the gaps of the walls.

I don't have one friend from elementary, middle, or high school that I still keep in touch with. I don't know how I feel about this, except that, if I were being honest, I would say that hurts me somewhat, I had them up until maybe my junior year of college, but something happened. It was as if choices have to be made, about who you were and who you are, and if the two are compatible. In my case, the two don't seem to be. I want to blame fault, but keeping up friendships, that were based on certain, specific experiences is very hard...and I didn't try either. You can only build something so high, with the blocks you are given...some friendships run out of blocks for whatever reason.

I am so grateful for the important people in my life now, our relationships are deep and easy. But, I miss those ones that were important, if only for an instant.

So Kenny and Renee are done...kaputs. I read this news on the internet and found myself surprised? Yes, but why? Through the ever intruding eyes of our media, I am constantly saturated with reminders that many of my freshmen, my blessed freshmen, in all of their early pubescent glory, are surprisingly (somewhat ominously) more capable of making positive, romantic decisions than so many of today's famous--even though it seems that the famous base their decisions on many of the same reasons my little ones do as well--horimones...innate attractiveness...status. Renee Zeilwigger stated her reasoning for anullment to be fraud. Fraud of what? We all knew Kenny had no hair...we also all know, that it is rare for people who don't even know each other's favorite gum flavor to get married, or for that marriage to last.

So are the famous so different from us? Or are they just a glamorous carbon images, being podcasted on the great i-pod of life? Why would anyone...famous or not, seek out such destructinve decisions to make? It is simple, yet obviously complicated (to me). We all want to fill the void--the empty casm that causes middle aged women to wear body glitter to church, that causes sophomore boys to snap girls bra straps in crowded hallways, young English teachers to yell at their girlfriends for no apparent reason other than they moved silverware without asking.

So we must all learn from the great moving picture show of famous people's lives. One, we are lucky that our mistakes and poor judgments are displayed like high art for the top bidder to view. And two, slow and steady wins the race. When trying to fill the potholes within us, emotional quick-crete will only last a few days.

This morning I woke up and found all of my guitar strings tied together...but I don't remember ever doing that...it is strange.

My space discoveries-amos lee...he sounds like a cool fella. Annie Bethencourt was also enjoyable.

I ate dinner with my Aunt and Uncle tonight...he cusses a lot...randomnly which makes me and my girlfriend laugh--a lot.

School is fine...I lost a young'n to the alternative school today, which makes me a little blue, he was always good to me.

Sometimes the realization of knowing that I am not capable of ever being enough for everything and everyone in my life feels heavy inside of me. This is something I just need to accept. It also means at some point I need to simplify my life, but it is hard to figure out the difference between selfishness and selflessness, and it is hard to not want to be the martyr...if even for trivial reasons.

I cannot find a church to fit into...the problem is me, I realize, because I won't go out of my way to like or be a part of anywhere, because I have a hard time connecting with christians anymore it seems, at least other than my close friends whom I have had forever. It is like I have lost both faith in myself, and my faith in the "church" not the god ordained church, but the "church" of America, whic is different.

I want a church that does these things: "The gospel of grace calls us to celebrate the everyday mysteries of the intimcacies of god, instead of always searching for miracles or visions. It calls us to sing the spiritual roots of everyday things like falling in love, telling the truth, teaching a class, raising a child, forgiving each other after we have hurt one another, standing together in the bad weather of life, of spirituality and sexuality, and the readiance of existance..." Euguene Kennedy

And a church that realizes this: "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures..." James 4 vs 1-3

But i have to know these realizations everyday too and live them...which i don't, because it is easier to sit on my couch watching food tv then to think about how to better myself. I am an ugly sort. But this is the nature of living. (as i see it.)