Divesture

These past couple of days have been some of those days.

My birthday was nice. I heard from family, got some stuff, had a good time. While my sister was disappointed that she mis-timed her call and so I was already gone yesterday morning, it's cool to have a message on my answering machine with her class singing happy birthday to me. Even if they were really hyper and not exactly singing, I can dig the screaming, it's cool.

I've felt productive at work recently. I haven't had to deal with near as much silliness on tech support stuff, and I've actually gotten some projects released for use, which was feeling like it was never going to happen, mostly because I've been lazy, I guess. I also got to prove stuff to various tech support departments, who now cower where the mighty call them, for they know their prepared scripts are inadequate against the might of my deductive logic. I've also screwed up some basic stuff, which makes me laugh at the depths of avarice that my ego succumbs to. I have to figure out how to work avarice into daily conversation.

I started trying to go run, which makes me happy but semi-sore. I'm doing 100+ situps a night, which doesn't make me as buff as my narcissism would like because I have too much extra fat around the middle. I am somewhat tired, because I don't like to sleep these days. I stayed up until 3:00 AM on friday night/saturday morning, because I didn't want to go to sleep. I do better on weekdays, since I know I have to be at work, but it's really easy to just say, "I don't care" on fridays. It's not like I do anything other than play computer games, but still, I just don't like sleep.

Baseball is going. I'm not a baseball expert, so my job mostly becomes the encourager/"Work Harder" coach. Which works, but I still feel slightly inadequate. At least it's fun, and the kids can't tell that I'm really not that much better than they are.

For some reason, I've really dug this song that I heard on Relevant.TV by a band called The Forecast. If you go to Relevant.tv and listen to the song, it may puzzle you that I like it, because the song is a light, airy, sappy song of a relationship that seemingly failed. And I really don't get why I like it, but I do. Even more surprising, I heard it on the random playlist right after Norma Jean, and I don't find it odd that I went from hardcore to... semi-country, and liked both songs.

All this sounds fine, right? And I don't mean to make it otherwise. There are just some things that I let keep this from being as good as it could.

First, my birthday isn't wonderful because it makes me miss my sister. It also annoys me when people tell me, basically unsolicted, that they didn't get married until they were my age + X (where X is a random whole number between -1 and 12), and I don't have anything to worry about yet. It's like that low-level pain that comes with a bruise, or the slight headache you can't quite shake. Thanks, I know I have plenty of time, that doesn't make it any less uncomfortable when you remind me that some of that time has passed me by now.

Second, Kidmo, the wednesday night program at church, finished last week. I like helping with that. And next year, it will really be different because the group of kids that I've mostly worked with the last two years will have moved up to the Jr. High ranks. Even though there are still good kids in the program, it's just different. It was really... refreshing to go and help out with that during the middle of the week, and I'm going to miss it.

Third, the mother of one of the kids on my basketball team died on Sunday, somewhat unexpectedly. She was a real Christian lady, and even though I know that God has plans for everything, it's still a sad event for the family, her husband and four kids. They'll have lots of adjustments to make, not just with life, but with school, activities, the kind of things that you have to change when you're homeschooled and your teacher passes away. I hope the kids are doing ok.

That's been the past couple of days for me. Some good things, some things not as good.

I can't complain, all my bills are paid, all my needs met. I just have to truly learn to accept the good with the bad, and use both as opportunities for growth in Christ.