WRESTLING!

it's 2:15 am.  I just can't deal with things during 'regular' hours can I?

How many more cherishable moments do we have?

I love the Tim McGraw song "Live Like You Were Dying", and I've even blogged about it in the past.  But here's the deal.  To hold to the ideal of being BOLD enough to live that way and ACTUALLY living it are two separate actions.  The philosophy of living in those moments is not the same as taking action to fulfill them.

So I'm wrestling.

I have some hard decisions to make.  I can't resign myself to less than what makes me whole.

There is a spiritual side of me that is yearning for something more.  A peace that just won't come until I open that last door and see what's behind Curtain Number 3.

A voice keeps screaming, but it's the cheerleader inside my head urging me to not quit on this.  And it goes into other areas as well - giving me 'rah, rah' attempts at pushing me toward MORE!

I can't pretend that things are the same.  I'm finding more of myself again, but it always seems to come with a cost.  So instead of facing the pain and realizing some great truth, I want to hide in what was comfortable and  just try and keep things as they are.  Maybe somewhat as the ostrich with their head in the sand.

The clock is ticking.  I'm turning 41 this week.  It's been such a roller coaster of a life and I don't see the last hill just yet, but maybe that's the way it's supposed to be?  I just know that I don't want to miss anything.  I don't want to look back and realize that I wasn't attentive to a decision that had to be made.

I want to cherish what I have left.  

I think there's so much left to write, to live, to experience!

True Romance

What is it?

Is it more than just the fleeting wind of emotions that blow over the first days of meeting?

Is it the whisper of soft words as we're learning each others personalities?

What if it's something else all together?

Those hands that still hold one another when days are few and wrinkled grips find solace intertwined...

The ears that distinctively know the breathe and how it is slowing, and they sit, even when there is nothing that can be done but wait...

The tender look that passes from one set of eyes to the other and can relate a lifetime of meaning without a single word...

Is it knowing that there will be a reunion with them one day after this life is over?

I don't know.

But for now, in the quest for romance seek the truth that will pass through storms and the strength that comes when two are hemmed together in a longing, even a Belonging together.  

Maybe that is true romance.  You get to decide!

UP!

If you see my posts...

If you have looked at the photographs...

Maybe you've noticed.

 In more and more of my photos...

my eyes are drawn forward...

and then upward.

I keep looking up!

I do long for something deeper.  Not just the love of friends and family, or someone close.  I know that there is a God that is out there.  I haven't really found him in much lately.  But I've questioned and torn apart so many old, false beliefs that I needed to see if I could even be accepting of a being that is out there, above me, around me.

I know.

In my pictures I see both a longing and an amazement at what brought all of this together.  I keep looking towards the horizon, and as poetic as that can sound, it's really just me longing for more to fill my soul.

No promises of reconnecting with a God that scared and bewildered me as a kid and teen. 

No hope to go back to some ritualistic practice that found be stuck in the rites and routines of service based religion.

But I know that I've prayed again.  I wept and sought out some bigger presence.

I'm going to keep looking up.

I wonder what I'll see...

Blackbird

"YOU ARE A FAILURE!"

"You can't do this."

"Nothing will make it better - you're stuck in your own mediocrity"

My mind has a way of getting this message from some deep dark recess at times.  I don't fully understand why, but I've learned to recognize it as a false message that speaks NO TRUTH, NO FACT.  Just the darkness trying to keep me down.  To have me surrender to the depression that would like to take back control...

I've found that there are things that allow me to easily stand against these onslaughts.  Simple actions or thoughts that push aside such dangerous FALSE BELIEFS and allow me to focus on ME.  

The man I am.  The person I'm becoming.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

So these are the moments.  Yesterday was especially one.

I scheduled a 14 mile hike with the hiking group.  Up and down at least three mountains and some serious rocky terrain.  I was excited and knew there was a challenge coming.  There is always that feeling at the beginning of a journey for me.  The need to move forward.  The desire to move through something.  The humbleness from moving along in God's nature.

Then we hit mile 11.

I couldn't walk.  I could barely stand without serious pains in my knee and ankle.

All I could do was sit.  I QUIT!

But that's kind of hard to do when you're 3 miles away from your car in the middle of the wilderness.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free

So I looked ahead.

One section at a time.  Finding a point in the horizon and focusing on the steps it would take to get there.

It was slow.  I sat back down several times and wanted to cry.

But the freedom comes in removing the bondage that you're in and tearing free of the pain.  The thoughts that I had to overcome were much more painful than the pain through my leg.  I can push through pain, but I sometimes CAVE when it comes to the internal emotional pain.

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly

So it's my time to continue this flight.  Injured wings, or legs.  Eyes that get so foggy with doubt sometimes still.  But I MUST PRESS ON!

I thought about the end.  When the trail comes to the opening at Woody Gap.  I continued to wince and feel the sting of pain.  I found myself the last in our group to get there, but I GOT THERE!

I came FREE!


this is the last of the Fab Four posts.

Tears Fall

Why is it that we laugh at things so easily... the silly stuff that fills our heads, but when there is deep honesty it is often accompanied by tears and hurt?

I hurt her.

All I did was look into her eyes and speak as honestly as I know how.

I don't regret the conversation.  But I can't help but be overwhelmed by the tears that fell from both sets of eyes.  The ease of conversation was replaced by the battering ram of hard honesty.

I know that it's not always honesty that hurts.

But when the sting comes from the truth, no matter how important the conversation, the end is a deep well full of tears.

Eleanor Rigby

third in the Fab Four series...

"Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been, 
Lives in a dream 
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for? 

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name 
Nobody came 

All the lonely people 
Where do they all come from? 
All the lonely people 
Where do they all belong?"


so is it that you are ALONE, or is it that you are LONELY?

It's a question that I know I've asked myself.  How is it that I can be in the midst of people one day and feel so utterly alone, and lonely - yet other times I can BE ALONE and not feel lonely at all?!

I find that question floating around again.  I'm not alone, but I tend to feel lonely.  I am not scared of being Alone, but I do fear the Loneliness that can fester if not fed by true communion with others.

I hiked with a group on Wednesday night.  The warmth of the souls that were around me was amazing!  I fed off their spirits and could sense my own being lightened by the simple act of walking, talking and breathing in the group.

Do you know the loneliness that can come even in the midst of the toil of our everyday?  Souls passing by with singular purpose of getting through each day.  Shouldn't we want more?  Strive for more?  Stop what we're doing and build meaningful relationships instead of just going through the motions.

I wonder if Eleanor Rigby felt any of this?  Could she have had more?

my kids

Amazing

Incredible

Resilient

Three words that just start to describe two young people who I love so much.  They're my kids.  12 and 13.  Red headed boy named Cade and a sweet young girl, Cambrey.

They've been through a life without a full-time dad.  They still show that they love me.  That always AMAZES me.

They've seen changes in family dynamics that I never had to deal with until I became an adult.  Yet they still smile and laugh and are just, well, INCREDIBLE!

My mom said to me years ago - "they'd go anywhere with you."

I've dragged them up Stone Mountain.  They've traveled back and forth from my various houses to their home in Evans (Augusta).  I think that I could ask them to go across country with me and they would smile and say 'yes'.

So RESILIENT.

I Love Them more than they could ever realize.  I worry about them.  I cherish them.  I see myself in them in little ways here and there.

My son still grabs onto my arm and hugs me.  Of course he's almost 6 ft tall now - WOW!  But he's still a boy who tells his dad that he loves him.  That precious excited face that my daughter made as a tot still surfaces at times and I just melt when I see it in this young lady that stands before me.

They may never fully know how dear they are to my heart.  I hope that one day they will know the depth of my love.  That I still think of them throughout my days and that I smile when I have a reminder of just how cool they are.

They're my kids.  Two of the best people I know.