Serendipity

A fortunate accident. Hm, makes you think. How often do we miss those little signals that we get sent. I think that the all-powerful maker that loves us so much also enjoys sending us signals. Those little signs to warm our day or make us feel special. Maybe they give us direction or just keep us going steady. I am glad that they are there.

Serendipity also is close to the word serenity. Mm.

Why is it hard?

Do you think that you make a difference? Do you see others making a bigger difference than you. Maybe you just perceive it that way. I don't know but it is right there for me. I wish that the difference I am making was more visible. It would provide real encouragement for me. I need encouragement, but it doesn't always come and I just have to persevere.

I also wish that I was thought of. When people were doing something, it would be wonderful if I was included, but I just got to push off on my own. I hate being on my own. Life just stinks sometimes.

30

Seems like such a big number. But it is really only a number. And birthdays are funny anyway. You don't feel any different than the day before, but it is definitely celebrated. There are many different reactions from people. You have your friends and family that genuinely want to wish you a happy birthday.

Then you have THOSE people. These are the people that just found out that you are turning 30. They come up to you and say Happy Birthday while cackling and laughing at you. They think that 30 is a funny number and indicates oldness or something. Is it fun to make fun of someone on their birthday.

My birthday started off rough because or some events that created problems. But as the day went on, it got better. My guys sang happy birthday and then grabbed me and threw me into the creek outside the house. It was awesome and refreshing. A great sign of love. Then the dorm across the street brought something over for me. A present and card. Very nice. Girls can be so original and cheesy. It is so fun.

So my birthday ended up much better than it started out. Yeah!

Disappointment

How to deal with disappointment. Recently, I was sitting an heard an annoucement. It was something that I had known nothing about but it affected me. The announcement basically said that something I had been doing over the last year, I would no longer be able to do. It was something that I greatly enjoyed and found enormous fulfillment in. And I won't have the opportunity to do it this year.

Now this profoundly affected me in an unexpected way. I actually had to walk out and be by myself to collect myself. Now I have to experience the consequences of the decision every week and go through the same disappointment again.

Don't know what to do.

Why do I do what I do

I have been thinking hard lately and really disappointed with how and who I am. I am frustrated with my inadequacies and annoyed with my stupidity. Why am I not a better person. At the same time, I should be frustrated with my thinking along with my actions. Thinking that I am bad doesn't help whether or not I am bad. I need to change my actions and think positively. I am very self critical so this is what I get many times. So I spend a couple days irked at myself. Those are days when it is hard to take criticism from others.

Lots to work on here. Sometimes I am amazed that people actually hang with me and like me.

...Maybe they don't.

Trust

How does trust work? Can it be instantaneous? How do you redevelop trust? These are some things that I have been thinking about lately. Trust is a hard thing, because many times it needs to be earned. But what about when it is damage. As someone whose trust of another person is damage, how do you yourself re-establish that trust? I am not sure that is even possible. But maybe there are ways. Maybe they aren't human ways...

Welp,
Life goes on and as it does sometimes you need some time. Tonight I have been sitting in front of a fire listening to jazz. Something so soothing and therapeutic about that. Someone said this week that there are two things that people can look at for long periods of time: fire and the ocean. I think that they are right.

Have you ever been in a time when you just need someone to talk to. But you don't want to put yourself out there. Right now I am thinking hard and would love to just think out loud to someone, but I don't want to ask. I can't explain why. Maybe I want to feel loved and cared for. I don't know and when I write it out like this, it doesn't make any sense. Either way, I am sitting here wishing that someone would sit down next to me and talk, but no dice.

Where I am emotionally hasn't changed over the last couple of days. Life is good though.

People and Love

What are people like? What make some gravitate towards certain people as opposed to others. I am not a big watcher of people but I am a reader of people. Some people like to be around people. Some people like to sleep on others. Different guys hang around different girls. The psychosis behind it fascinates me.

That being said, I feel lonely now. Many times I am very content with being single, but now is not that time. Not that I have anyone in mind, but I just long for that relationship with someone special. I pray that it will happen some day, but don't know when. Either way, sometimes it is hard and I wish for those things that I do not have.

Never quite know what to do about these times and emotions.

Airplane comradery

I think that it is interesting the relationships that you develop with people sitting next to you on the plane. There may be a long conversation with the person sharing life stories. There could simply be some laughing about some things. There could just be the body language of sitting next to each other in small seats. An unwritten conversation about who sits where and who gets the armrest. Either way, for a few hours, they become your automatic friend.

They can bring smiles into your life or uncomfortableness. It really depends on both of you.

Schindler's List

Well, I just got done watching Schindler's list. Wow, what a beautiful movie. It is shot so wonderfully, the music is incredible. How can a story that is so hard be so beautiful? Have of the time you want to cry and the other half you are in awe of the beauty.

How can people be so cruel? So heartless. What is the cure? Love.

Right now in the Sudan, a genocide is going on that is killing more people that the holocaust killed. Just something to think about.

Feelings

Still my heart and hold my tongue
I feel my time
My time has come
Let me in
Unlock the door
I never felt this way before

And the wheels just keep on turning
The drummer begins to drum
I don’t know which way I’m going
I don’t know which way I’ve come

Hold my head inside your hands
I need someone who understands
I need someone, someone who hears
For you I’ve waited all these years
For you I’d wait till kingdom come
Until my day, my day is done
And say you'll come and set me free
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me

In your tears and in your blood
In your fire and in your flood
I hear you laugh, I heard you sing
I wouldn’t change a single thing
And the wheels just keep on turning
The drummers begin to drum
I don’t know which way I’m going
I don’t know what I’ve become

For you I’d wait till kingdom come
Until my days, my days are done
And say you'll come and set me free
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me
-Coldplay

Thoughts

If you could love me as a wife
And for my wedding gift, your life
Should that be all I’d ever need?
Or is there more I’m looking for

And should I read between the lines
And look for blessings in disguise
To make me handsome, rich, and wise
Is that really what you want?

‘Cause I am a whore I do confess
But I put you on just like a wedding dress
And I run down the aisle, I run down the aisle
I’m a prodigal with no way home
But I put you on just like a ring of gold
And I run down the aisle
I run down the aisle to you

So could you love this bastard child?
Though I don’t trust you to provide
With one hand in a pot of gold
And with the other in your side
‘Cause I am so easily satisfied
By the call of lovers so less wild
That I would take a little cash
Over your very flesh and blood

Because money cannot buy
A husband’s jealous eye
When you have knowingly deceived his wife
-Derek Webb

Things that make me smile

I have found that there are things that make me go 'Ah' but not externally, internally. Things like biting into a Chic-Fil-A chicken sandwich, or listening to incredibly gifted musicians play live jazz. Talking to those people that you know care for you and watching them get excited about the things that excite you. Non-humid weather. Going to a baseball game on a beautiful evening and relaxing.

Those things are just good for me and make me more deeply happier than some things. Now that I think about it, a Chic-Fil-A sandwich is good, but I don't think that it should be on this list. It made me smile, but not that much. For some it would be on this list, but not me.

Anyway, what does this for you. Simple things, people, music, what is it for you?

Ahh

Jazz. How I love jazz. I had the privilege of watching a quartet play tonight and they were very good. I haven't seen live music in a while and it was a pleasure to see this. Tim Warfield and Papa John DeFrancesco starred this night. What an enjoyable time of chilling and hearing some fantastic musicians. Wow, I hope to hear more before I head back to Europe.

evila llits m'I

Yup, here I am after all this time. What to talk about? Changes. Everything is changing. I came back to the states and 3 families I know are moving into new houses. There are 4 weddings of good friends of mine. Babies are being born everywhere. Life goes on and wonderful things keep happening to wonderful people.

Also, bad things happen. Some people have died over the year. Others have lost jobs and had conflicts of a less that happy time.

All this to say that life goes on. It is hard and it is good. We just got to be there for each other as much as we can and realize that God is there for us. Peace all.

Thanks

I wish that I was more appreciative. It is funny that we only tell people how much we appreciate them when we are put in an environment where we are told to. That is not always true, but it definitely is true for me more than I want it to be.

So...I appreciate you all. This goes to all those people that I know...not everyone out in the big wide internet.

In Deutsch

Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch.

Ich heisse in Marzell, Deutschland.

Ich liebe alles.

Es ist ein schön tag!

Schlaft gut!

I'm irked

I am irritated today. Bad stuff started when I woke up and it keeps happening. It is frustrating. I feel like I am stuck in this cycle. I wish I good go to sleep, wake up again and start over. I need to end this, but things keep happening. And I am getting more and more irritated.

And then it starts. I get irritated at myself for being irritated. Grrr. I don't really know what to do with this. I just need to...I don't know. Maybe be totally emo and write a song about it. Dashboard Confessional part 2.

If people only knew me...

Here I am again, in this place again...

It has been a pensive day or so. Thinking about why I do the things I do, say the things I say and hide things. Scared is part of it. I don't know, I don't really have anything figured out. And I don't want people to judge me. People will or won't whether or not I want them to. But I say something and come out sounding much sure about it than I actually am.

I put on this guise to keep myself sounding sure. I don't know though and many of the things that I say are some of the things that I struggle with most. It is hard. I want to be open but to be open is to be hurt. I want people to respect me so I stay out of their way. And in the end I am no better for it.

I have my thoughts but do people really want to know them. Am I really worth their time? The answer should be yes, but it isn't. What is this all about? My incredible and utterly inept brokenness.

And I can't fix it.

Processing

It seems that many times I can deal with stuff better if I write it out. It is just a different medium for me and although I am not great at it, I do speak English so I can write it. Many times this comes out in this blog. Although not as much recently as used to.

Anyway, yesterday the 3 month old girl of two friends of mine that I work with here in Germany passed away. She had a heart condition since birth, yet this was not the most expected thing. I can't even imagine the pain that the parents are going through. I have had another couple that were friends lose their baby in the first year.

Death is such a funny thing. There is fear in some ways. There is joy in some ways. But there is always pain. Great pain that can't totally be understood except by the people that are going through it.

Mourning. Grieving. Crying. Weeping.

So how is the response supposed to go of someone close to them but not part of the loss. There is nothing that can be said. No words are appropriate for this. They never are. There is something that is deeper that I wish could be expressed. I haven't found anyway words recently. Just a hug and being there. That's all that I can figure.

In the end, I don't know.